Houston, TX - An exercise in futility

I'm a bit short on time today, so let me just make a brief bullet-point summary of what happened yesterday between my last post and when I arrived here:

• Assigned a preloaded trailer heading to Houston.
• Got to the shipper, found out that my preloaded trailer wasn't loaded.
• Spent three hours waiting on them to finish, scaling the load, etc.
• Attempted to get a snack at a Love's but found the line was nearly backed up to the off ramp.
• Stopped at a Pilot for food and fuel, got in an out in under half an hour with no line.
• Found the consignee: a store, not a warehouse. Ended up driving through the automobile parking to get around to the unloading docks.
• After spending twenty minutes just trying to find the driver's entrance, got the paperwork signed, dropped my load, picked up the freshly-unloaded empty, and went to try drop the empty at a railyard.
• Had to wait nearly ten minutes for a train to pass.
• Arrived at the railyard entrance at 8:58, two minutes before closing. The trailer wasn't "billed" so they couldn't accept it and turned me away.
• Went to the Houston OC to find it was a total mess; there was barely enough room to even drive around in there and at least a dozen of our trucks had parked in the street. Called operations, explained that I couldn't park at the OC, and got told to try the Pilot on I-45.
• Drove ~10 miles to the Pilot, found parking right up front, and took about 15 minutes trying to work into the space.
• Parked, went to sleep, woke up, got food, got a shower, typed this.
  

Arlington, TX - Lights are on, but the freight isn't home

I ended up getting a late start (notice a trend?) but, for once, I didn't end up screwing myself over. I started at about 9:10, found an empty at 9:15, left the gate at 9:35, and drove the 18 miles to the shipper to arrive here at 9:57 for a 10 o'clock appointment. Whee!

That's about when things started getting wonky, though. I went in, gave the clerk my information, and got told that someone else picked that load up two hours ago. So I call in to operations, get put on hold for about five minutes, explain the situation, then get put on hold for another fifteen before getting told that customer service is trying to find the other pick up number(s) so I can get the load and that, if I haven't heard something within half an hour, I should call back to find out why.

I hang up, then about five minutes later, get a message telling me that the load was canceled. So I call in again, get told "I'm working on it" when I ask about another load, and I tell him that I'll call back in half an hour if nothing has been worked out. That was nearly twenty minutes ago. Another driver, who got here after I did and also complained that his load had been canceled, left just a couple moments ago. Whether or not he has a load or decided to just return to the OC, I don't know, but it makes me wonder what my situation is. I guess I'll have an answer soon enough, though.

Dallas, TX - Timing problems

Today was decidedly unproductive. I woke up and delivered the load, but not without issue. Specifically, the directions said "use second driveway" but didn't point out that the two driveways were only a few feet apart, and not on opposite sides of a warehouse. I ended up having to go around the block and arrived at 7AM, exactly one hour late for my delivery. They didn't care, though; despite mentioning that my appointment was for 6 o'clock, I was immediately assigned a dock, then they started unloading the trailer as soon as I was in there. Total time? Half an hour.

Since there was no work assignment, I went back here to the Dallas OC, dropped the empty trailer I had, then parked the truck. An assignment came down a couple of hours ago, though it's for a live load at 10 AM tomorrow, then I'll have to drive straight from there down to San Antonio - about 280 miles - for a 5:30 PM unload. The problem? The unload is listed as taking 4 1/2 hours. By the time I get out of there, it'll be 10 PM, I'll be nearly out of hours on my 14, and I can't think of anywhere that even might have parking at that time of night. I could try to make a reservation with IdleAire and hope that they'll hold it for me, but that's not likely. After having so much trouble at finding parking at 6 PM near Dallas, I really don't want to run into that problem again so soon. I'll call operations in the morning and see what they say about it; hopefully they'll be able to come up with a solution.

Dallas, TX - Screwed

I'm too tired and don't have the time to type up a particularly long post, but I ended up sleeping in a little this morning, got a nice breakfast, then spent a bit more time than I should have with another driver/friend; as such, I didn't leave until about an hour after I originally planned to hit the road. Truck stops were filling up remarkably early and, as such, there was no parking at all even at 5:30 PM on a Sunday. I checked three truck stops and there was barely enough room to get around. I ended up having to detour 15 or so miles to the Dallas OC.

Between the time I wasted looking for parking and the detour to get down here, there's now a 0% chance I'll make on-time delivery tomorrow. Since I arrived here at 7:15, I can't leave before 5:45 and I'm at least 25 miles from where I deliver this load. At best, I'll be 15 minutes late. At worst, there will be an accident and I-635 will be completely jammed, resulting in a several hour delay.

I'm more than a little unhappy about the situation, too, for a whole slew of reasons. I know I'm going to get chewed out by first shift for this. I'm not going to sleep very well tonight because I'm going to be worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow. I'm struggling just to sit upright as it is. I suppose I'll have some idea of what's going on in about ten hours.

West Memphis, AR - A little rest for the weary

I ended up starting a bit later this morning than I'd originally planned on; I didn't hit the road until nearly 6:30, instead of booking at around 4 o'clock. Just as well, too; even with that extra sleep, I feel like I'm going to doze off as I type this.

The day was ... not entirely uneventful, to say the least. Things were smooth - though painfully boring - as I went through most of Tennessee. As I got to Memphis, though, things turned decidedly chaotic. I ended up calling 911 to report a mattress in the passing lane, but the dispatcher seemed... just a bit clueless. You'd think that someone could comprehend "I-40 westbound, mile marker 17.4" instead of asking me what the nearest exit is. I was paying almost no attention to the exit signs, since I was trying to focus on not hitting the other cars on the road (who were all driving quite frantically). The only ones I noticed were the ones for I-40, since it does weird things around Memphis.

Anyway, once through there, I hopped on US 64 to get to Searcy, AR, where my delivery was. Not much to say there, though I found I was a little short on time once I left the distribution center. I did my math wrong - I ended up with 15 minutes to spare instead of being at least 30 minutes short - but I was wasting no time to get here to the OC. I got fuel, submitted the empty trailer for repair, found my loaded trailer, did my pre-trip, and then came inside to type all this up. I'm ready to go in the morning now, so I can afford to take a little extra time getting up.

Today I drove over 600 miles and, well, I don't know if I'll ever get used to doing that. I'm getting dinner now, then getting to bed. I'm just glad that tomorrow should be a shorter day.

White Pine, TN - Slowness

Today should have turned out to be much more productive than it did. The biggest problem, though, was the shipper. A live load that was supposed to take only two hours ended up taking more than six. It didn't help that the female in the shipping office had a serious attitude; she got particularly aggravated when I asked for a second copy of the bill of lading for this load, since I have to have one for our billing department and one for the consignee to keep. I'll have to make copies somewhere now, either at the truck stop here or by making a short detour to an operating center.

Aside from that, not a whole lot happened today. Tomorrow, I'll be getting up early as possible (perhaps 3:30 or 4 AM), delivering this thing to the distribution center, then heading back to the OC. All told, it should be around 625 miles, so I'll need a bit of good fortune with the weather. Sunday, I head toward Dallas for a delivery that needs to be made early Monday morning. It's only about 425 miles, but it'll keep me from being stuck somewhere. Hopefully we'll have more freight in that area when I get out there.

For now, though, I finish a few things up and get to bed. Going to need the rest for a long day like tomorrow.

Charlotte, NC - Over the mountains or through the woods

... no, I'm not going to grandmother's house as my post subject suggests. Good try though!

I hadn't gotten something by mid-afternoon, so I called in to operations, as I'd been told to do. There's pretty much nothing for today, save for three loads going into New England, where freight is even worse. So, instead, we looked at things for tomorrow. The load I was given was originally scheduled for a 4 PM pick up at a place just 17 miles north of here, expected to take two hours. Customer service called, though, and got that moved up to 8 AM. I was hoping to sleep in a little, but to get some decent miles, I'll deal with having to get up at 6 o'clock once more.

The run itself is just over 700 miles, heading toward Memphis, and I have two choices to get there: I can either take I-40 straight across or go down I-85 to Atlanta, I-20 to Birmingham, and US 78 up. The difference between the two options is only four miles, but I'm probably going to stick to 40 just because I'd really, really rather not deal with Atlanta, especially if there's a risk I'd be there anywhere near rush hour.

Operations does have a pretty good reason to get me out near Memphis, though: since that's my home operating center, my manager has a pretty good idea of what's in the area and can set things up. Specifically, since there are going to be drivers relaying things there on the way home, he'll know well in advance which loads will be coming available and be able to set me up with good miles for Saturday afternoon and Sunday. I'm supposed to call in after they finish loading the trailer to see what can be arranged, since I should have a pretty good idea when I'll arrive at my destination. Hopefully I won't get stuck like this again soon.

Charlotte, NC - Lumpers with attitude

This place is a pretty classic example of why I hate the unloading "service" offered at a lot of places. They started unloading the trailer, only to send someone out fifteen minutes later to hand me a business card and say that it would be $425 and take at least six hours. Apparently they're going to make me sit here and wait while they break it down, sort it out, and do all the other crap they need to do, rather than simply count the cases against the bill of lading and let me leave while they take care of the warehousing stuff. I find it particularly distasteful that they waited to give me a price until after they started unloading the trailer. I have to wonder what kind of scam they're running here.

After perhaps two hours, they came out again to tell me to move so they could, presumably, get another trailer into that dock. I was also told it would probably be 1 or 2 o'clock before they finished, pushing the time estimate up to seven or eight hours. While I hadn't planned on taking another load today, since my truck is still in the shop, I had planned on being able to get back to the operating center in time for an early lunch, since the cafeteria wasn't open before I had to leave. I also don't have any small bills for the vending machine here, so I couldn't get a snack even if I wanted to.

I'm just stuck waiting for now, I guess. Thank goodness for detention pay.

Charlotte, NC - Ping pong

After a rather lengthy and mostly uneventful night, I arrived in Charlotte around 1 o'clock this afternoon. I went to the shop and found out that it would be tomorrow before they could get my tractor in for maintenance, which is fine by me; I could use a day off to try and sort my sleep pattern out. However, there's one problem: I have a delivery to make at 6 AM tomorrow. So my options were roughly as follows:

• Put the truck in the shop now and relay the load.
• Put the truck in the shop now and get a loaner to deliver it myself.
• Put the truck in the shop tomorrow, after delivering the load, at risk of having an extra day's wait.
• Forget about it and worry about getting it done at another OC sometime next month.

Given those options in mind, I tried calling operations to get something worked out. I was hoping for #1 or #3, since they would most likely result in me getting to rest and recover a bit from being up most of the last 36 hours. However, the first call was completely inconclusive: I got a hold of someone other than my normal contact in operations, then got told to call back in half an hour in the hopes that I'd get the usual guy in the office. I got lunch, which took about an hour, before trying to call back.

Once again, I got someone else, though this time I explicitly asked to be transfered to my usual guy. I was placed on hold, waited several minutes... only to get yet another someone else. Exasperated, I asked why I couldn't talk to the guy I wanted to talk with, only to be told that he still wasn't at his desk. Seriously, what the heck is he doing up there? I never had this many problems getting a hold of someone on my old board! After a short discussion, summarizing the above, I was told to put my truck in the shop immediately and that I'd be assigned a loaner. He gave me the loaner truck's number, but told me it might be a few minutes while he sorted a few things out in the computer.

As I walked to the shop to write my truck's inspection up, I found the truck that I was supposed to take. The driver who dropped it off left the headlights on. As such, the battery was significantly drained; there was no chance of this thing starting under its own power. I tried to open the door to turn the lights off, but found it locked tight. Figuring it was probably too late to matter anyway, I talked to the estimator and finished submitting my truck's work order, then went back inside to call operations back. I got the same person as before, and he'd finished setting everything up; I was told to just pick up a key from the fuel desk.

Of course, not even that worked out; they had keys for perhaps fifteen trucks, but not the one I needed. However, the loaner was written up for repairs, so I had to walk back to the shop once again and find out what was going on. Turns out that it was written up for a jump start. Why they didn't just turn the lights off or jump it right away is beyond me, since it takes a few minutes to actually put a work order in the computer. But the shop didn't have the key either. They sent me back to the fuel desk once again so I could have a new key made from scratch.

A few more minutes of walking, and I had the key to get into the truck. I opened it, found that the other keys were simply left in the ignition, and that the voltmeter read a mere 11.7; the truck needs at least 12 to even have a chance of starting under its own power. I went to the shop once more and they sent someone out to give it a jump start. It took just a few minutes, though they suggested I let it idle for at least two hours so the batteries could recharge. That's running now.

Before I go to bed tonight, I have to still park my truck in the maintenance row, take the loaner and hook it up to my load, and ensure that I have a copy of the work assignment sent to the loaner truck so I can tell operations when I've arrived and departed the consignee for the load. Though the shop claims they'll have the work on my tractor done by 10 AM, I saw that they have at least ten other trucks in front of mine. I'll be surprised if it's even in the shop by that time and completely shocked if the repairs are completed before I get back to the OC. It's all a matter of time, though, and above all, I just hope I have enough time to get a decent night's sleep.

Drums, PA - A long night ahead

Well, they couldn't get the pick up moved forward, so I'll be leaving here to grab that trailer in a little over two hours. And that on next-to-no sleep, though I was able to sleep in until about 8 AM this morning, after getting nearly 16 hours sleep. It was so cold that I really, really did not want to get out of bed at all; the low was just 15 degrees and I didn't leave the truck idling.

In any case, I have a full, 660 mile night in front of me. Pick up the load, then head straight down to Charlotte. Hopefully it'll be light enough that I don't need to scale, since the load information was completely broken. I'm also hoping that this thing is ready on time, since I really don't want to encounter any further delays on this load; I'm sick enough of waiting as it is!

Drums, PA - Nowhereland

My current assignment is more than a bit annoying. The truck stop here is 51 miles from the facility I was at this morning, but it was the first one I came to going west that had document scanning and I needed to get a few things in before the payroll cut off. My next assignment, though? Go to the place I was at earlier, give them back the empty trailer I took, then take a load down to Charlotte. The load won't be ready until 11 PM tomorrow, though, which means I'm stuck here for quite some time, with nothing but Subway and showers to use. If it's ready earlier, I'll head to the operating center and take care of things there. If not, I might still have time to wait at the OC, though it will be a lot less time than I would have liked.

Either way, I've sent several messages to customer service asking them to let me know when the trailer is ready, so I can get there soon as possible. I'd like to be somewhere that it's not freezing!

Center Square, NY - Canada round-trip

In the span of just a few hours, I went into Canada, picked up a load, and came back down to the US. Not bad for 11 hours work, huh? :)

Started off a bit later than I intended this morning, but I did get to enjoy a rather nice sunrise on my way into Quebec. I got stopped at the border for an inspection, mostly so they could train a few new guys; they didn't bother looking at anything other than my driver's license and passport since I was empty. Amusingly, another Schneider driver was at the border, going to the same place I was; he said he was going to follow me so we could get lost together.

After a stop for fuel along the way (550 L of diesel), we arrived at the shipper, dropped empties, and picked up loads. Mine is a particularly amusing one: 33 pallets, weighing nearly seven tons, of nothing but Maxi Pads™. It took a little while to get everything sorted out, with all the extra paperwork that border crossing requires, as well as a few minor mechanical mishaps. Specifically, the power plug on my trailer is coming loose, such that it required duct tape to get it in place. Having sorted all that out, we went west from Montreal on 20, taking that to Ontario's 401. The most confusing part? When 20 suddenly changed from a freeway, to a construction zone, to a surface street. Then, with the same lack of warning, back into a freeway. I was worried I'd somehow taken an exit without realizing it, but all was well once I crossed the provincial line.

About 20 km into Ontario, I got a message telling me that I was clear to cross the border. Aside from a quick stop for a bite to eat, I kept straight on to get stateside. I didn't want to have to try find parking up in Canada; parking in the northeastern US is sparse enough. Crossing back into the US went smoothly enough; I had all my paperwork at hand, passed it to the officer, paid the toll with a debit card, and got told to "go through that X-ray thingy." I chuckled, then the customs official just told me to go around and have a good day. Not like it makes much difference, really, but at least it saved me another minute or two.

The only real problem all day proved to be the roads in New York. Specifically, for about ten miles along I-81, the road hadn't even been plowed. It was nothing but packed snow and ice, ensuring one heck of a wild ride. I lost enough time there that I didn't want to chance trying to park at the truck stop down in Syracuse, so I stopped at this rest area, roughly 15 miles north of the city. I'll probably stop at the truck stop in the morning to scan various paperwork and get some real food, Hopefully they'll get me somewhere that isn't completely covered in snow soon, since the extreme cold is really starting to bother me. I'd settle for a temperature anywhere above 30 right now.

Amsterdam, NY - Oh, Canada? Oh snap!

Finally have my next assignment, and it's going to be a bit... interesting, to say the least. Next stop? Montreal, Quebec. Yes, the French-speaking part of Canada. I've talked with a friend who visits there regularly and, though the signs are all in French, he says it's not really that hard to get around as long as you have some clue where you're trying to go. At least my destination is just off one of the major routes, though I might have to take city roads for several kilometers just to get back onto the highway, as there's no direct, efficient route to get where I want to go. I have plenty of time to spare in case something happens, though, so I should be okay. I just hope that I can make it back into the USA before my hours run out; I don't want to have to try and find truck parking up there.

Amsterdam, NY - Cold, but not Jack-Frost-just-violated-me cold.

It's... cold, as one might expect this time of year. Specifically, the overnight low was -12, the high is just 8, and the low tonight is going to be well below zero once again. The weather getting up here was fine, except for a small stint between the NY State Line and Buffalo; for a while, visibility was less than 100 feet. And yet, due to the light traffic, I barreled on at 35 mph. I could barely see the road, but at least I knew I was between the metal posts on the sides of the highway and, on at least one occasion, resorted to just riding the rumble strip to ensure I knew where I was on the road.

Since I had anticipated that conditions were going to be worse than they proved to be, I arrived at the shipper more than three hours early. I was assigned a dock immediately, got unloaded shortly thereafter, and sent on my way in less than half the time I was told to expect. Since the parking they normally had for trucks was completely covered in several inches of snow, I went 10 miles back to the previous exit, and spent 45 minutes trying to park at a TA. There were two spots that would have been easy to straight-line back into... and two trucks in front of me who took those spaces. I ended up nearly taking out an above-ground fuel storage tank, got caught in a snowdrift, and experienced total frustration at trying to simply get the truck parked.

But here I am, waiting for my next load, and hoping that I get assigned something before the weekend shift comes in. If they're the ones assigning loads, I'll very likely be stuck in the northeast for the weekend, getting lots of short runs with obnoxious delivery appointments. If I can somehow luck out and get a load while first shift is in, I may be able to head somewhere with temperatures in the double digits. I'd particularly like to head to Indianapolis - I haven't been through there in a while - but I'll settle for anything that's south or west of New York.

Seville, OH - How low can we go?

It's currently -2 here. They're forecasting -8 tonight. And where I'm going in New York? It'll be 12 below with winds of five to ten, making it feel like -20 to -30. Tomorrow's high up there is supposed to get into the double digits, but the wind will pick up as well, leaving the wind chill well into the negative numbers.

To add to my weather concerns, there's going to be plenty of snow along I-90, near the Great Lakes. One graphic on the Weather Channel said 6-12 inches between Erie, PA and Buffalo, NY, which is sure to make driving a pleasure. Once I get away from the lake, conditions should improve, but I still have to get at least that far first. On the bright side, once I post this, I'm going to get going and have 13 hours to arrive at my destination. Thus, even if it takes my full 11 hours of driving and I make two hours worth of stops (for food, etc.) I'm still going to be on time. If I arrive early, I can just park there and wait. I just hope that they send me somewhere warmer after this load; it's so cold up here that the truck heat can't keep up!

How to break a text editor with your dick

Shamelessly borrowed and paraphrased from reddit, here's how you do it.

1. Type the classic ASCII penis in: 8===D
2. Replace = with === (or any series of multiple = signs).
5. (Three, sir!)
3. Repeat and watch the program crap all over itself.

Gary, IN - Can we please just close the road?

So, in the process of trying to get back to the operating center, the snow picked up a bit. It seems like every mile, someone would get into my lane and slow down considerably, forcing me to slow down, which led to another vehicle getting in front... and all that because nobody would let me over to pass the car in front of me that was doing 40 in a 70, even though the posted minimum speed is 55. If nobody can actually drive in winter without acting like a complete moron, why don't they just put everyone out of their misery and close the Interstate entirely? It would at least save me from screaming myself hoarse at all the other drivers that make it nearly impossible to get where I want to go.

One thing that didn't help matters, though, was my defroster. The driver's side defrost has been getting steadily worse for a while now and, in the light snow, half my windshield iced up. I'm in line for express repairs right now to see if the ducts simply need to be blown clean or there is some other simple fix for the problem. If not, it'll be at least tomorrow afternoon before the main shop can work on it. I just hope that the 'express' repairs really are as quick as they're intended to be; I don't want to spend the next several hours simply waiting in line here.

Battle Creek, MI - All hurried up and nowhere to go

After sleeping in far later than intended, I left Gary around 1 PM. I shouldn't have bothered, though: the empty trailer I came here for has since been loaded. I'm parked off to the side in the driveway waiting for support shift to figure something out.

And as I type this, they've responded by having me backtrack 25 miles to try a Target DC. Just waiting on directions now.

Gary, IN - Round trip, number two

I didn't get an assignment until about 5 PM ... and the assignment is to simply go 134 miles into Michigan to pick up an empty trailer, then take it back to the operating center here. I'm going to wait until morning (obviously), especially given that the snow here seems to be lingering a bit longer than forecast. It's finally stopped, so hopefully they'll get the roads cleared overnight. Not sure where I'm going next, as usual, but I'm also hoping they at least send me somewhere.

Gary, IN - Free

And, sure enough, that was the yard guy. Out of the snow, into the bobtail parking, and now into the OC for dinner!

Gary, IN - Round trip

Today was an exercise in frustration for much of the trip. I woke up this morning to a message from operations, telling me that the load to Utah wasn't going to be ready until the 13th, so they were going to find something else for me. Given that I no longer had much of an incentive to move in a hurry; I went inside and got breakfast from the cafeteria.

I left a bit later this morning than I intended (nearly 9 AM), though I'd hoped that was late enough that rush hour traffic would have let up. While that might have been true, traffic was still horrible due to the snow and ice on the road. Things improved slightly once I made it into Wisconsin, but didn't significantly improve until I made it around Milwaukee; once I started up US 41, traffic had thinned out enough that the few cars that insisted on doing less than half the speed limit were no longer an issue. I received another work assignment while driving, though I didn't have a chance to check it out until I dropped the load. Once I saw what I had, I was rather underwhelmed.

Instead of getting to drive 1,400 miles out to Utah, I got a 600 mile load to Erie, PA that was scheduled for a delivery at 9 AM on Monday. In other words, I'd probably have been parked for two days. I went to the shipper to pick the load up, but called and set up a relay here at Gary, since neither I nor operations thought that sitting for two days was a good idea. The load was satisfyingly quick - 19 pallets of canned veggies - and I was on my way in less than an hour. Once again, traffic was decent going down 41, but got steadily worse as I approached Milwaukee and it started snowing again. Even so, I was able to make it down to the OC with about half an hour to spare; I was able to breeze through Chicagoland without issue.

However, when I arrived at the operating center, another issue became apparent: the customer hadn't paid for freeze protection on this load. And, because they hadn't done so, operations wasn't even going to take the trouble to research the issue; they told me to simply drop the trailer and forget about it. Meaning that, unless it's an incredibly warm night tonight, there will be more than 20 tons of frozen (and thus rotten) canned food. I asked them to send a message out to the truck explicitly saying that I'm not responsible for what happens to the trailer or its contents; I had such a message within five minutes. The situation still makes me extremely uncomfortable, since I know that much food could do a lot of good, but because everyone involved is too cheap to ensure that it's edible, it's likely to simply be wasted.

Having sorted out all that crap, I went out into the lot to drop the trailer. The problem? There's so much ice and packed snow - made worse by a brief shower of freezing rain - that I'm stuck. I can't get enough traction to get out from under the trailer. I was told someone would be coming to pull me out in "five to ten minutes" but that was almost half an hour ago now. I see lights coming this way; if it's not the yard guy coming to pull me out, I'm going to walk back to the shop and find out what the hold up is. Soon as I can get the tractor parked, I'm going to get a nice, hot meal, then going to head straight to bed. I'll worry about pretty much everything else in the morning. After all the frustration of today, though, I'm nearly tempted to just take a day off...

Gary, IN - Whoa, partner

Turns out I'm not going west after all. The load won't be ready for another four days. There goes 1,400 miles.

Gary, IN - Westward exposure

Here's a familiar destination: Ogden, UT. Yay, miles!

Gary, IN - Through the Ice Storm and the Snow

Somehow, I managed to drive nearly 600 miles in ten and a half hours, despite having to go through a white-out snowstorm in Virginia and driving on icy roads much of the night. Either I misread the clock by an hour or just made incredibly good time once the conditions improved.

To recap what happened yesterday but that I was too tired to write about, I arrived at the shipper for my current load at about 4:30 AM. The only person who was there was a yard guy moving trailers around. I asked him when the office opened; he said 6 AM. I go in the office a little after 6 (I was taking a nap) and they tell me to come back after eight since nobody is in that can load a trailer. I go in a third time at about 9 (dodging rain) and get told that I'm quite early but that I can back into a dock after the driver currently in it leaves. So I go out to the truck and wait, take the dock soon as it comes open, and lie back to relax. They didn't even start loading me for another hour, then took about another hour to finish the job. All told, I was at the shipper for just over six hours, good for $45 in detention pay. I left quickly as I could, drove until my hours ran out, and parked in Wytheville yesterday afternoon, as my last post said.

Overnight and into this morning, conditions were fine, except for a brief stint going through Virginia. Conditions were overcast but otherwise fine at Wytheville, but only fifteen miles north, there was a heavy snowstorm. Visibility briefly dropped to near-zero; the only way I could tell that I was still on the road was the rumble strip, which I deliberately was riding down at 25 mph. At least those conditions didn't persist long, though the snow didn't stop for about an hour and I ran into a few more patches of flurries throughout the night. At least the West Virginia Turnpike was relatively clear; I shudder to think what driving through such mountainous, winding roads would be like in poor conditions.

Aside from one short stop in Ohio to use the restroom, I just drove straight through to get up here. I'm not sure when I'm going to leave just yet - I'm tempted to sleep in a little, perhaps to about midnight instead of 10 PM - but it's a relatively short trip from here to my delivery location. I could, hypothetically, get there in less than four hours. Of course, I don't have another assignment yet, but I've been repeatedly reassured that there's plenty of loads in that part of Wisconsin, so I suppose I'll just have to wait and see. At worst, I might just have to kill time at the Green Bay OC. Given that I'm one of the few drivers willing to work at odd hours of the morning and night, though, I suspect they'll be rather eager to keep me going.

Wytheville, VA - Long night ahead

After a lengthy live load - which I'll write about in detail later - I had just enough time to get here. It's a little under 600 miles from here to Gary, IN, which I hope to do overnight; I'll be hitting the road around midnight. Weather is going to be a concern though, as rain will turn to ice and snow. Here's hoping, at least.

Greensboro, NC - Up to the frozen north

I'm currently waiting to get unloaded by yet another lumper service. My work assignment said five and a half hours; I'm hoping that's a gross overestimation and that it comes out to a lot less than that. However, my next assignment has a rather curious pickup: the load says "by" 1300 but gives a window of "1300 - 1300". The notes for the facility say that all loads are live loads. I'll see if operations can tell me anything on the phone, but I doubt it. At worst, the place allows driver parking so I can get a break there if I have to.

After picking it up, I get to go through Indianapolis. Yay! I doubt I'll get there today - and if I end up taking a break at the customer, I might have to stop there tomorrow - but it'll be good to see the city again. The rest of my directions are rather odd, though: a mix of secondary routes to get from I-64 (the WV turnpike) to I-70, and taking US 41 instead of I-94 just to avoid the Chicago tollway. I know that the New York and Pennsylvania toll roads had a toll hike go into effect a couple days ago, but did everyone else raise their rates too? Is operations just trying to make up for the load a couple days ago where I incurred an extra toll after getting lost? Am I trying in vain to build suspense by asking a long series of rhetorical questions?

In any event, I'm just glad I'm finally going somewhere other than New England with a load.

Breiningsville, PA - A short night and a long drive

Rather than getting things done in a timely manner, I wasn't even assigned a dock until nearly 15 minutes after my scheduled appointment, then they didn't start loading the trailer until almost an hour after I backed in. As such, I can't even fake something that will let me drive away from here. The "bright" side is that my DOT break is up in about four hours and I have a couple options for places to stop, though none of them are really that good. I either can stop at the Carlisle OC and have a very long, overnight drive and probably run out of hours while I'm being unloaded, pick a place about 150 miles from the consignee and still have to wake up before midnight, or a place in the middle of nowhere about 60 miles out and probably have nothing to do but sleep due to a lack of cell phone and TV reception.

The only bright side is that I'm finally heading out of the northeast; this load goes into North Carolina. I just wish that it would let me stop somewhere I want to go.

Breinigsville, PA - Seven means seven

Today has just been one of those days where things started off horrible, got much better, then proceeded to go downhill just as fast again. I started off by getting a shower, then losing track of time and leaving the truck stop right around the time my live load appointment was for. Oops. On top of that, I took I-78 the wrong way. Then I got lost trying to get to the facility and took the toll bridge into Pennsylvania. Then aliens abducted the truck it took me about four miles to find a place to exit, surface streets to get back toward the state line, and a detour around a bridge with a three ton weight limit. As such, I was just over an hour late.

It really didn't make much difference, though: they weren't even ready for me when I arrived. I had time to sweep out the trailer, double-check my hazmat information (corrosive, if you want to know), and get directions for everywhere even before they started loading the trailer. It was only nine totes, each holding over 300 gallons and weighing over 3,000 pounds. Total weight? 31,500 pounds, and all of it in the front 25 feet of the trailer. I slid the tandems all the way forward, knowing that was the only way I had a chance of getting the weight legal, but since there are no DOT scales along I-476, I didn't bother checking it on a CAT scale.

The good news came when I called the consignee and asked to get the delivery appointment moved up. Turns out that my 4 PM "appointment" didn't exist and I was just to get there soon as I could. I delivered it just after 1:30 and was out of there by 2, well ahead of schedule. I also got my next assignment during the unload: come up here to pick up another load, then deliver near Greensboro at 3 AM Wednesday.

I was originally hoping to pick this load up early, make it to the Carlisle OC and have the shop check out a few things on the truck, get a good meal, and all that happy stuff. This facility always lets drivers in early and works quickly. Or, at least, they used to. I pulled up to the gate around 3:30 and got told to pull into the facility's parking lot and come back to the guard shack at 7, since they were too busy to take anyone early today. As such, there's a rather slim chance that I'll have enough time to make it to the OC; I might just have to take my break right here, since I may not have the hours to go anywhere at all!

In any case, I'll probably head to the gate about half an hour early, just to see if I get lucky. I really would like to save time somewhere if possible.

Bridgewater, MA - A service plaza? Where?

For reasons that nobody can quite figure out, there's a service plaza on Massachusetts route 24, just north of I-495, even though neither route is a toll road. It works out very well for me, though, since I needed to find somewhere to park for the night and there happened to be parking here. It does mean that I'm quite a bit further from the shipper for my next load than I'd like, but at least I am safely and legally parked here and should still be able to go where I want to tomorrow, even if it takes a bit longer to get there.

The only big problem with this load is that, once again, I have to take I-95 through New York City. I'll be keeping a close watch on the traffic report and making alternate plans if necessary. If I can go through, though, I'll probably just park at the service plaza on the New Jersey Turnpike, since the lot there is huge and it's easily the closest place to the consignee. Failing that, I might have to park all the way up in Connecticut, perhaps as far north as Milford, since there are so few options along the way. Hopefully I'll luck out with that once more.

Assonet, MA - Lumper Scams and Me

Assonet. Ass-o-net. I'll wait if you want to giggle at that name for a while.

No, really, I'll wait.

All done? Let's move on, then.

Getting over here was a pain in the tail, mostly due to a confusing sign warning of a truck detour. Turns out, though, that the detour was only between exits 25 and 27; I needed exit 20. So I ended up going nearly 25 miles out of the way on I-295 around Providence, cutting through the city on a state route, then sneaking around to I-195 that way. At least it worked and, thankfully, I'd given myself enough extra time that it didn't make me late.

What is irritating, however, is the lumper service here. Things are normally shady enough when dealing with such clowns, but these guys refused to even give me a firm price. They repeatedly insisted that they only give estimates, not firm prices, until the trailer is unloaded and the work is complete. In any other line of work, they'd get sued out of existence for that; just picture a mechanic refusing to provide a firm estimate for auto work then charging above the top end of his provided range without justification for it. Somehow, after operations checked with the guy in customer service who set up this load, they okayed them to unload the trailer, though they told me to pass along word that, if the price comes back as something unreasonable, they're going to refuse to pay for it. I can't say that I blame them for taking that attitude, but I'd rather not get caught in the cross-fire if something like that happens.

My next load is going to be a bit of an adventure as well: I get to go about 175 miles north, into Maine, to pick it up. The problem is that there's almost no truck parking on the way. So far as I know, there's the welcome center for New Hampshire and Maine (and it's likely than neither allows overnight parking), a TA truck stop in New Hampshire, and any service plazas along the Maine Turnpike. I know there's one such plaza near Kennebunk (which I remember just because the name is so unusual) at mile marker 25; a quick look at the Internet reveals that there's also a plaza at 58. There's also a very small truck stop at the same exit I'm getting off at, but that's definitely a last resort, not least of which because of its proximity to my final destination tomorrow morning and the simple fact that, if it's full, I have nowhere else to go without backtracking.

Of course, it would help if the lumpers would start working on my trailer at all. My appointment was for 3 PM; it's nearly 4:30 and the light for my dock hasn't even turned red yet, though I'd swear I feel something back there. The longer I have to wait here, the more problematic finding parking will become. At 6 PM, my chances are okay; at 9 PM, my chances are pretty much nil. It's at least an hour drive to any of these aforementioned stops, too, so I have to figure transit time into account. Though it really just boils down to this: I have to get lucky or I'm screwed in an entirely unpleasant fashion. :p

Milford, CT - Bedtime

As a quick follow up to my last post, apparently whoever I was getting messages from hasgone home for the night and third shift has no record of the conversation. I got a message saying, "I have no idea what you're talking about. ... Sorrry." Close enough to an apology for me. Good night and good riddance.

Milford, CT - Where else is it going to go?

When I had to drop a relay in New Jersey, the drop yard they sent me to was full. By full, I mean that the only places I could have dropped the trailer would have either blocked in a bobtail, at least five trailers, or a driveway to another facility in the same complex. In short, there was absolutely nowhere I could possibly have put my trailer. So, upon advice from the guard and another driver who was waiting for road repair, I went to an intermodal drop yard - also owned by us - that was just around the corner and dropped my trailer there. Turns out that the load I was picking up was also in that drop yard; in other words, even if I had dropped my trailer in the space I picked up the relay, it still would have been in the "wrong" yard.

So, trying to be helpful, I sent in a freeform message telling operations that I had to drop the trailer somewhere else. They respond demanding to know why I did so. I tell them that the place I was sent to was full and that the guard had advised me to take it down the street. Rather than responding in a rational fashion and simply updating the trailer information, operations (presumably support shift) sends back a message trying to guilt trip me, claiming that they had to pull a driver off his time at home just to put the trailer where it was supposed to be and that I shouldn't have done that.

At this point, I'm pretty much fed up. I did the only thing I reasonably could have done with the damn thing. So I responded by telling them, flatly, that it doesn't matter who they have go down to that place; there's no space for a trailer. None. If they sent someone else there to move trailers, he's wasting his time and won't find any space either. They then insist that I should have called in for instructions, as if blocking the driveway and wasting time on hold would have miraculously caused an opening to appear in the lot. What the hell are they expecting? A crane to lift my trailer up and drop it atop another? So I replied yet again, this time pointing out that my relay trailer was also in that other yard and asking a question of my own: did they waste this much effort harassing the other driver for where he put the trailer?

I just find it infuriating that I do the only thing that I could reasonably expect to do, try to be helpful by updating operations so they can make a note of it in the computer, and then instead have to spend most of the day playing Qualcomm tag as they berate me over something simple. If they send me anything else on the subject, I'm going to just call in, tell them that I'm dropping the trailer I have right now in the truck stop, and that I'll drive over there to move the damn thing myself so they'll shut up. I'll also tell them, however, that in doing so I'll be both violating my 14 and ensuring that there is no chance at all my next load will be delivered on time. Since, clearly, they feel that it's more important to have a trailer dropped somewhere it can't go, I'll be down there doing circles around the yard until someone else comes in to take a trailer out. So if I don't make a blog post for a few days, it's probably because our night shift really is that dense and I really am down there attempting to shove a trailer where it can't physically go.

Milford, CT - Another night to kill

When I got my current assignment, I shuddered at the route: I-95, directly through New York City. That would normally be scary enough, but to have to do that on New Year's? I thought it would be tantamount to suicide. At least I wasn't on that tight a time schedule, since my delivery is only 200 miles away and I have to be up there mid-afternoon tomorrow. I wish they could move the appointment up a little, but if I'm willing to stay up late and luck out with parking, I might be okay.

The traffic, however, turned out to be a complete non-issue. I could have been driving through any other major city on any other day and seen about the same. It was flowing at (or, rather 10 above) the speed limit all the way from Connecticut to New Jersey. There was a brief delay coming back, due to congestion around one exit, but otherwise there was nothing at all problematic about the trip. The only reason I didn't go further today is that there is only one more truck stop between here and where I'm going in Massachusetts that doesn't charge for parking. As such, I've about 125 miles to go; I'll leave myself four hours to get there, in case there's a jam along the way, as Connecticut is so infamous for.

Now, though, I just have to stay up late enough that I don't feel like crap when I'm up 'til 2 AM tomorrow. :)