Kearney, MO

You know that you've gotten a lousy work assignment when you call up the trip planner and even she comments about how horrible your utilization is. :)

I have an assignment... not Wal-Mart, like I was told it was going to be, though. It also was an open pick up window, so I slept in a little bit, and it doesn't deliver until tomorrow night at 8PM. The problem is that I could get there at 11AM very easily, and even that's assuming I average just 50mph, take the Interstate the whole way (there's a roughly 35 mile shortcut I could take), and take an extra half-hour worth of breaks along the way. So I'm on hold right now trying to either get the load relayed or the appointment moved up. Failing that, I might at least see if I can get hotel reimbursement for having to lose most of a day.

... and, apparently, she's on lunch so I got someone else. I'm going to have to keep driving with it in the meantime, but I need to stop for fuel at one of our drop yards anyway and I should have an answer by then. I wouldn't mind if they let me drop it there and allowed me to get on break, since I could then be up and running at 3 or 4 in the morning, as I should have been today.

Spring Hill, KS

After taking a day off yesterday, just to enjoy having another day off on a weekend, I drove the 280 miles from St. Louis out here. I'm getting unloaded right now; soon as the trailer is empty, I will probably be driving about five miles up the road to a truck stop and going on an unexpectedly early break. Why? While I was driving here, I got a message telling me to be ready to go at 4AM since they'll have a load ready for me, but that load apparently isn't ready and they don't have the information for it. I'm trying to see if I can find out where exactly I'm supposed to pick up the freight at and whether or not they'll let me park there. If so, it'll save me an extra half hour in the morning; if not, at least I have one place that I can stop near here.

2:20PM: Okay, this is more than a little frustrating. I was on hold for 15 minutes waiting  to talk to operations to find out what I need to do tonight, asked what I should do, then was put back on hold while they made a few phone calls and tried to find out. While I was on hold, my cell phone dropped the call. So I had to call back, wait another 15 minutes, and got someone else who wouldn't even look it up for me after I repeatedly asked her to. She wasted more time explaining to me why I should just park at the nearest truck stop then it would have taken her to look up the information I needed. So because nobody can confirm parking for me, I have to park here, leaving me 30 miles to drive at 3:30 in the morning. I really would have liked to get an extra half hour of sleep; apparently that's just not an option now.

Monee, IL

I decided on taking a short day today since I'd worked 32 hours in the last three days. It worked out rather well, too, since my next assignment actually took me toward the truck stop I planned on stopping at anyway. So instead of taking it as out of route, I got paid for it. Whee! So I had a nice, steak and shrimp dinner at the Iron Skillet up here and now I'm just winding down before bed. I have a live load to get at 9AM tomorrow... up in Chicago. I'm going to plan my route out tonight and expect to average about 25 mph going through Chicago; morning traffic is usually horrible, especially on the routes I'm likely going to need to take. I'm only dropping this as a relay over in Gary, but at least that leaves me enough time to go somewhere else. Hopefully I'll get another really nice run once I drop this relay off.

Pharr, TX - Miscommunication and sleep deprivation

This is definitely going to be "one of those nights." I had trouble enough falling asleep, but then, just a few minutes ago, I had a security guard start banging on the side of the truck. I tried to figure out what was going on, which was not easy since the guard spoke only minimal English, but apparently he thinks that this drop yard is closed and, as such, I shouldn't be parked here. Never mind that the guard on the previous shift, the manager at the shipper, and the people at customer service all have given me information saying that I can park here. He's gone away, for now, but both the operations people and I are worried that he's called the police, a tow truck, or done something similar.

Edit (10 minutes later): He came back and handed me a cell phone with someone back at the warehouse on the line. They apparently wanted me to move back over there and park against one of their docks, which contradicts what I was told earlier (specifically, that I could if I wanted to but it was not necessary). I explained this and that I wouldn't be leaving until at least 7 o'clock since I had a tire that needed to be replaced and that the tire bank won't be open until 8. So, after they explained all that to the guard, he just told me that they wouldn't open the gate until 6 (more than an hour before I need to leave) and is now letting me go back to sleep.  I'm not going to have nearly as much time to sleep now as I'd like, but at least I can be reasonably certain that I won't be disturbed again.

Pharr, TX - How low can I go?

Today was a very long... waiting game. I made the delivery at about 9 o'clock this morning, then drove back to a truck stop less than a mile away. While I was making that delivery, I got a message asking me about directions for the next load... but then I never got the rest of my work assignment. So I waited about an hour before I sent in a message asking what was going on. I got a response nearly an hour after that explaining that they had a load ready for me but they couldn't find any empty trailers, so they would have to wait until some empties were available. So I waited. And waited. Then waited some more. I finally got tired of waiting and sent in asking them to update me with some new information; they finally told me to just bobtail down there and that customer service would work out all the details.

So, I proceeded down there. However, there's one thing that I hadn't accounted for: batshit crazy Mexican drivers. Of the people on US 83, about a third were driving reasonably, a third were doing at least 10 under the speed limit, and a third seemed intent on trying to cause accidents. I counted three separate times where someone passed over a double yellow line, two of those three nearly resulting in a head-on collision. I tried to pass one of the slowpokes, only to have him speed up, then slow down once I slowed down to try and get back into the right lane, all while another rig approached. Ultimately, I had to force the idiot onto the shoulder of the road to avoid a collision; I know that wasn't necessarily the best solution, but at least nobody was hit.

At least I made it down here. The place I picked up the load from handed me the paperwork, told me to go across the street to get the trailer, and said they had no problem with me taking my break here. So I get here, do my pre-trip... and find that one tire is just about shot. It's badly bulged out and definitely wouldn't pass a DOT inspection. I called maintenance and found out that we do have a tire bank we use down here... one that only is open 8-5. So I have to wait a couple of extra hours in the morning before I take off; I was originally planning on hitting the road by 6. On the bright side, this is directly along the way, so I won't be adding to my out of route. And this load is the second in a row that I've had of over 1,500 miles, so I have to show some love to the trip planner. Now I just have to catch up on sleep!

Laredo, TX

Another day, another several hundred miles. I had several more people decide to cut me off today, one of whom ended up on the shoulder of the road after I had to make a sudden move to get away from a mechanic working on a broken-down rig. I would rather get someone like that off the highway than take out a mechanic. Also, I had to make up a route around San Antonio since it seemed like traffic was at a standstill everywhere except going around the east side of I-410; traffic.com listed delays of several hours on I-10, I-35, and the west side of I-410.

In any case, the place I'm delivering to isn't open until 9AM tomorrow, meaning I have enough time to sleep in ('til about 7) get a shower, and still make the delivery at a reasonably early hour. I don't plan on working a full day tomorrow - I think I'll put myself as available for about nine hours - so I should be able to get back onto pattern of early morning hours if the freight allows it. Hopefully that will work out for me.

Colbert, OK - Window of Opportunity

I called maintenance to get that window fixed... and the tech pointed out that I'm less than two hours from Dallas, TX, where we have an operating center. It would be trivial for me to get it fixed there. So I ended up wasting 45 minutes for something that I should have thought of myself. Oops. At least this is more amusing than all the problems that happened yesterday.

Colbert, OK - Drivers are not OK

It seems like, after taking the day off yesterday, everything that could possibly have gotten on my nerves decided to come up. I had three separate people cut me off as they "merged" into traffic, including one dolt who insisted on doing 45 mph on the Oklahoma Turnpike, which has a speed limit of 75 and a posted minimum of 50. My truck was ready for me when I got back to the operating center, but they also managed to break at least one thing that wasn't broken before. Namely, my driver's side window switch. I was able to lower the window a couple times, but now it seems there's nothing left for it to make contact with. This, of course, after I put in a window screen, meaning I now have this screen stuck in my window unless I can somehow get the switch to work.

In any case, I'm tired, frustrated, and have to be up at 6AM to be on the road by 6:30. There's almost no chance that I'll be able to deliver this thing tomorrow, since it's still about 500 miles away, I have to get the trailer inspected at the nearby operating center, and they close at 4PM. Thankfully, I should be able to drop the load Tuesday morning, though that won't be until 7AM (when they open), meaning I'm going to lose a few hours. But to do any of that, I really need to get some sleep; this is going to be enough of a pain in the rear if I'm well rested and doubly so if I'm tired.

Edwardsville, IL - Restarted

I'm currently enjoying the tail end of a 34 hour break here, though I am going to have to sleep shortly, so this is going to be a similarly short post.

Ultimately, I did find my way around and picked up the load. Ultimately, I had to take US 12 all the way. I was in and out of the place in record time, too; I dropped, hooked, inspected, and left in 27 minutes. I stopped for fuel on the way down, since I didn't have enough to make it all the way down here, though even that went rather quickly. So in the morning, I have to get out of here as early as possible, do my pre-trip inspection and all that, then try to make as many miles as possible before it gets too late in the day. I'm hoping to make at least 550, though obviously that plan could change if anything unusual happens.

Relationships

Is it just me, or is the only thing that comes from being mated is having someone to nag you and tell you what not to do with your life? And not just telling you not to do something stupid, either, but insisting that you not do things that you'd happily do and enjoy if you didn't have "that special someone" telling you no. It seems that the overwhelming majority of people in relationships have no business being in them as they become, quite simply, worse people for it. There are a few that can make it work, I will concede that; I'm simply referring to a majority that become less enjoyable company simply because they are so busy worrying about someone else to actually enjoy themselves.

Yes, I'm ticked off about this because, despite it being so early this morning, I've already had tow people pull that card. Seriously, what the fuck?

Edwardsville, IL - Too tired to write

Today was far, far too long for its own good. I'm exhausted, though, so I'll have to write a full post in the morning after I've gotten some rest.

Mauston, WI

I-90 eastbound is closed. I need to take this route to Madison, where I'm picking up my load. There's no posted detour, either, unless I just can't find it via Google; the state's road information site simply says "travel in the area is not advised." So now what? Does anyone out there know something I don't? Please comment if you have any road information.

Durand, WI

After getting those loads, it was quite a quick drive to where I'm delivering to. I dropped the empty, picked up a second empty, took that to the new location, picked up my load, and hurried over here in record-setting time. I parked here, walked to the office... to see a sign that said "open 8-5, Monday-Friday." But, wait a second, I have a 7AM appointment! As I'm turning around, someone comes out from another exit and asks me what's going on. I explain. He then tells me to back up in front of the dock and just park; they'll have someone wake me up when it's time for my appointment. So I walked to a McDonald's a couple blocks away, got dinner, and now am just winding down for the night. Tomorrow's going to be several hundred miles of Interstate goodness; I hope I can make it to a decent park location by sundown.

Stevens Point, WI - Underappreciation week

I really, really would like to strangle the trip planner right about now. After waiting six hours for a work assignment, I finally got one that consists of a total of 140 miles and doesn't take me anywhere near an operating center. This means that I don't get to participate in any of the "appreciation week" stuff they have going on, don't get enough miles to really be anything other than happy, and have to drive through shitty back roads to get there. To add insult, the load is an appointment at 7AM tomorrow, so I have to park at this place overnight and simply wait until morning and hope that the next load I get sucks at least slightly less hard than this.

So, to summarize: dear trip planner, thanks for absolutely nothing, jackass. Insincerely, me.

Edit (3:21PM): Either the trip planner reads my blog or he just feels sorry for having kept me waiting so long. I've gotten 1500 miles to play with over the weekend at a place that I should be able to get to first thing on Monday morning. I'll also be running a bit low on hours, so there's a chance that I'll need to take a restart somewhere. Hopefully it'll be somewhere decent.

Stevens Point, WI

It's a full on waiting game today. I got a message this morning saying they had a load for me but were waiting for me. This was five hours ago. I'm still waiting...

Stevens Point, WI

They're done unloading but apparently their computer is screwed up. I have to be out of here within the next 20 minutes. I really hope they get it figured out by then.

Stevens Point, WI - Quick, to the pumpkin!

Today actually was a day worth writing about! It started off smoothly enough, though the weather got steadily worse as I drove north until it became a raging downpour near Des Moines, IA. I stopped for fuel there, quickly ran inside to the restroom, then continued north through the tempest. About half a mile before the I-35/I-80 split, though, I had a problem. Namely, my driver's side windshield wiper snapped off. I don't just mean that the blade came off, either; the arm itself broke. The wiper first started going further and further off to the side, then finally went a little too far, the wiper motor acted up, and it just snapped off against the hood. Amazingly, it's still dangling in place, but it definitely is a trouble item if the weather continues to act up. The rain stopped shortly after it broke, but it was extremely difficult (and, frankly, dangerous) driving with such poor visibility.

For the most part, the rest of the drive was uneventful. There were a few crazy drivers on the road, as always, including one who passed me around a blind curve on a two-lane highway. There's no way he could have seen an oncoming car, much less avoided one, but thankfully the road was clear. I don't see why he needed to do that, either, seeing as the road became a four-lane in just another mile and he'd been tailgating me for at least the last ten.

In any case, I'm currently waiting on a lumper service to unload the trailer. I had been told on my work assignment that it would require no work from me, but when I arrived at the receiving office, they said I either had to pull the 30 pallets off and restack them onto 38 pallets or pay $180 for the lumpers to do it. Needless to say, I was ticked, so I went out and called operations. At first they were trying to convince me to do it, though once I told them that it would require a restack (something else that wasn't listed on the work assignment), they went ahead and approved the lumper service. I'll have to call the first shift tomorrow to get an authorization number; without that, I'd have the $180 deducted from my paycheck. It's a pain in the rear, which is why I hate dealing with lumpers when they do come up. Doesn't anyone else see a problem with a company charging you to have their own freight unloaded?

I also have to worry about time here: my fourteen hour day runs out at 10PM, about an hour and a half from now. This place doesn't allow driver parking - at least according to my work assignment - and I really don't want to have to ask them to make an exception for me. There's a place roughly eight miles down the Interstate that looked to have plenty of parking (though that was about two hours ago); I'll be trying to get there if I have any time left. If I'm out of time and they won't let me stay here... well, then I'm pretty much screwed and have to just hope I don't get pulled over. I'll still have to explain it to regulatory at some point. I really hope I don't have to deal with all that crap and they get me out of here within the next hour or less.

Kearny, MO

Another 500+ mile day. I'm really starting to like these, especially since that puts me on track to need a restart over the weekend. It would be particularly great if that put me at an operating center, since I could then put the truck in for a PM and get paid for the time I'm off the road. I'm going to have a particularly long day tomorrow, though: 550 miles to where I'm delivering, with a 7PM appointment that's expected to take four hours. This means there's a fairly significant chance that I'll run out of time while they're unloading. Since they don't allow driver parking, I have to hope they get done much faster than expected. I also have to leave here somewhat later than I otherwise would for that delivery; the earlier I get there, the more time I have to wait and the less time I'll have to leave. Here's hoping it works out well!

Dallas, TX

Another day, another couple hundred miles. Really not a lot happened today, aside from yet another incident in which a work assignment didn't come through the first time they sent it to me. I called in to complain... then apparently every copy they'd sent to me arrived at once, giving me four copies of the assignment. So now I'm at the operating center, nibbling on dinner, figuring out my trip plan for tomorrow, and getting ready to go to bed. I'll be up early enough to get a shower in the morning, do a pre-trip inspection, and be out of here as early as possible. I just need to make sure it's all ready to go.

Houston, TX

I managed to use up every moment of my 11 and 14 hour days yesterday, and even that required a bit of rounding in my favor. In reality, I did 676 miles, which is impossible to do in a truck that only does 60. In any case, the drive itself went rather well, so there's really not much to type about here. When I made the delivery, I got a bit flustered as I tried to back the trailer in, mostly because I was somewhat sleep deprived and knew I didn't have a lot of time to work with. I went to bed almost immediately after parking the truck and slept for about nine hours. Even so, I still felt lousy when I woke up; I need a couple more full nights of sleep.

In any case, I picked up the trailer I needed, found one tire that was low on air, but didn't feel like waiting an hour (or more) for the shop to get around to inflating it. So I'm waiting at the customer to get unloaded. I have a work assignment... sort of. They sent me the first message of it, but I've yet to get any pick up or delivery information. I asked them to re-send it but haven't gotten anything yet.

Houston, TX

Way, way too long a day today. I'm going to pass out and update during a live unload in the morning.

Lagrange, GA

The last two days have gone so smoothly, there was nothing worth posting about. So since I'm posting, you just know something went wrong. :)

In this case, I woke up about 3AM to make sure I had the time to get a shower before I had to hit the road. I turned the key on to activate the Qualcomm (message system) and saw that I had a pair of delivery messages ... but I didn't have any pick up messages to go with them. As I was looking at that and trying to figure out what was going on, the truck started beeping. At first I figured it was just the low air warning - my truck has a strange tendency to lose about half the air in its tanks some nights while not losing any on others - but I looked under the curtain to see "WARNING: LOW COOLANT LEVEL" flashing brightly on the display.

So, I did what any rational person would do. I wigged out.

Once I finished saying "oh shit," "damn it," and "fuck" about ten times each, I climbed out and tried to see anything I could. There was (and still is) a rather large pool of fluid under the truck, which at least suggests that it was a problem that didn't exist until I got here. However, as there was so much fluid - the truck's cooling system holds fourteen gallons - I had no idea where it could have come from. So I called maintenance and was told to pour water into the tank to see where the leak was. They said it would take several gallons and I'd probably have to go back and forth; I joked about it being such a big leak that it would be empty by the time I got back there. Unfortunately, that joke turned out to be a lot closer to reality than they anticipated.

Even as I was pouring the water into the system, I heard it splashing on the ground. At first I just thought I had missed the tank, but I then noticed it was flowing freely out of a hose connected to the bottom of the coolant reservoir. So, having established what the problem was, I called back to get them to send someone out. They said it would be about an hour to 90 minutes... and that was nearly two hours ago. I'll be calling them back as soon as I post this to find out what the problem is.

It gets even more frustrating, though. While I was waiting, I sent a message to overnight operations explaining the situation and asking them to resend the pick up information. They asked me whether or not I could take the load; I told them I needed the pick up info first before I could give them an answer. They then told me it needed to be done by 9AM... in a message that didn't include any other relevant load information. So, for a third time, I asked for pick up information, only to receive a message telling me I'd been taken off the load entirely due to the break down. Now, if this place is within a hundred miles and service gets here within the next hour, I could still have made it easily; they wouldn't even give me the information I needed to make a decision. I'm going to be making a very angry phone call to operations as soon as first shift comes in asking why the overnight people completely refused to give me the rest of my work assignment. Because of this crap, I lost at least 784 miles, since that's the distance to wherever I was supposed to pick up the load to the place it was to be delivered. If I don't get a new assignment with at least that many miles, I'm going to remain pissed off; the focus of that will simply expand to first shift as well.

At least, on the bright side, I didn't make the mistake of starting the engine to run the air conditioning or to recharge the batteries. That would not have ended well.

Update (5:30AM): I just got off the phone with maintenance and found out that they sent a message out explaining the problem ... to the wrong truck. In any case, I found out that they called six different vendors but nobody would even answer the phone. As the guy in maintenance put it, he called everyone within forty miles and couldn't even get someone to tell him no. This isn't the first time they've had a problem even getting an answer, either, according to the person on the phone. So, as such, I'm slowly losing time for the day because there's absolutely nobody who can get this truck fixed. I guess I would have had to get pulled off that load anyway at this rate.

Katy, TX

You know, I seem to be writing a lot of negative things here lately. But, let's face it: good days are boring. I can't imagine many of you want to hear about me simply putting it in gear and driving 600 miles down the highway; there's just not much to put there.

So, on to today's round of bullshit! This is brought to you by the wonderful folks at a distribution center. As I pulled in, I stopped to the side, near the gate, so as not to block traffic. Some guy on a golf cart with a heavy Mexican accent told me to move to door 25. Never mind that I hadn't checked in and he had no clue what I was picking up; he just told me to move. He never got out of the way, though, weaving his golf cart back and forth like a moron, before gesturing at another door. I stopped the truck, got out, and asked what the heck he was doing; he said he wanted me in 28. That was very, very obviously not what he'd said before; I told him as much, then had to wait once again for him to get out of the way before I could put the truck in the door.

After that, I went to check in... only to get told that my pick up number was wrong. She didn't even double check it; she said it was wrong immediately and told me to call dispatch. So, I did, getting increasingly irritated by the situation. Dispatch confirmed that the number I had was correct. I went back to the office, told them this, and they continued to insist that the number I had couldn't possibly be right. So they called over a supervisor of some sort and she told them to load the truck anyway despite my number being wrong. I saw them write the "correct" number down... which started with 1509, where my number started with 1407. If it were just one digit off, I could just chalk it up to a typo, but I don't see how they could get two numbers wrong without someone deliberately providing the wrong information.

In any case, right now, I'm in the truck, waiting to get told which dock I actually need to be in. So far, I've been waiting for 35 minutes. My appointment was for 1:45, but obviously they've missed that, even though I pulled onto the property at exactly 1:15 and finished up all the crap at the office before that deadline. I don't expect them to actually get me out of here within two hours, as expected, so I don't know where I'm going to end up parking for the evening. I just know that this is really, really getting on my nerves.

Houston, TX

I arrived exactly half an hour late for the delivery, but it seems like the consignee didn't care; they just put me in line and unloaded me in order. I got a rather crummy load next, though: a relay from the operating center here that I'm taking just 50 miles. Frustratingly, the trailer I'm picking up had a bad tire - it's not round - so I am currently waiting in line at the OC's shop to get that fixed. After that, I hit the road, drive 49 miles, deliver this thing, then potentially still have a few hours left with which to start on yet another load.

Carthage, TX

Today was yet another one of those long and frustrating days that I'm glad is over. I woke up at 3AM, got a shower, and hit the road. Dropping the loaded trailer off was the easy part, but the first trailer I was told to pick up was part of a dedicated account's fleet, so I couldn't take it. Operations assigned me a different number; unsurprisingly, that one wasn't there. I needed to go back to the office to clarify a few things anyway; they assigned me another trailer and I went on my merry way.

Only after arriving at the next place did another problem arise: the trailer I picked up had a hole in the roof. This isn't something that I could likely have seen; it was still dark when I picked it up, so there wouldn't have been any light shining into the trailer to give it away. But it did mean that I had to wait on hold for 20 minutes to get someone on the line. Ultimately, after an increasingly frustrating series of phone transfers - and well after my trailer was actually loaded, despite me asking the shipper to wait - I was told to take it to a repair shop on the way and hope it doesn't rain on the way there.

Thankfully, no rain was involved, but I did have to spend an hour and a half at the shop waiting on the repair. As such, I had just over two hours left on my 14-hour day, leaving me enough time to drive roughly 130 miles. I ended up using every minute of it, too; the truck stop I'd originally planned on going to apparently doesn't exist anymore, but I did find another one just as the clock rolled over to 6PM, the fourteen-hour mark. So I parked, ate dinner, and now am relaxing before bed. The only problem is that I won't be able to leave until 4:30AM (figuring in a 30-minute pretrip, as usual) and I'm 200 miles away; there's a nearly-zero chance I can make my 8AM appointment tomorrow. I've sent in a message telling operations this; hopefully the customer will accept it if I'm 30 minutes late or customer service can get it pushed back an hour or two.

Roland, OK

I took a slightly shorter day today (8.25 hours), mostly since I got a slightly later start. I can't afford to do that again tomorrow, though; I need to be on the road at 4:30AM just to have any hope of making it toward where I want to be tomorrow night. I have about 65 miles to where I'm dropping this load, 50 miles from there to my next pickup, then just under 500 miles to the place I need to deliver the load at 8AM tomorrow. Still, it's going to be worth it; at this rate I'm very, very likely going to need to take a restart sometime next week.

Cedar Hill, TX

This weekend is off to a crappy start. Even though I received three separate confirmations that I was supposed to pick up a trailer here, I arrived to find there were NO empties, especially not the one I had been assigned. So now I - er...

Great. Got a message telling me to forget it. I still have to pick up an empty from the OC, 19 miles back up the road, but that's going to the next customer. However, they seem to have conveniently subtracted the miles to go down here from my assignment; I've asked them to fix that. If I had to drive this far and waste an hour and a half, I at least want my miles for it.

Dallas, TX

Today was remarkably frustrating, if nothing else. Things were going reasonably well until my previous post, but from there on things have just gotten steadily more irritating. I ended up having to go to Dallas to drop the load as a relay, as I figured... then got paid zero miles to drive across town to pick up an empty trailer. After that, it was 51 miles up the Interstate to drop the empty and pick up a load, then 51 miles right back to the operating center. By the time I finished fueling, my fourteen hour day was up, but this trailer is due for maintenance and they're working on it now; technically, I can't be on break until I've parked the truck for the night, so this is actually eating into my time for tomorrow (since I prefer not to be driving past about 7PM to ensure I have any chance of finding parking at a truck stop).

Once they finally finish with this, I'm still not done for the day. I have to go inside, take care of various paperwork relating to this relay, and then I can finally park the truck for the night. I'll be getting a quick dinner and shower then getting to sleep, since I want to at least have twelve hours to run tomorrow, much as I'd like to be working fourteen once again. I haven't gotten a new work assignment yet, but for some bizarre reason I have been told to pick up an empty from somewhere and drop it somewhere else. While that usually means I'll be picking up a preloaded trailer from the location I'm dropping the empty, the fact I haven't gotten a message explicitly saying this makes me wonder what kind of crap the weekend shift is up to. And if they're already up to this stuff at 5PM on Friday, I'm seriously doubting that my weekend is going to get any better.

Waxahachie, TX

I definitely should have double checked the time requirements for this load before I started driving this morning. I thought this was about 350 miles; it was just over 400. As such, I was nearly an hour late. Then I had to call to get a confirmation number; by te time I got off hold, it was just after 1PM, making me exactly one hour late. Policy for this place dictates that missing an appointment by an hour requires a reschedule and they're not open on weekends. Now I'm on hold while they figure out what they're doing with the load; hopefully I can just relay it in Dallas.

Joplin, MO

At least once I got a drop number, things went smoothly. It's going to be very tight on this delivery, though; I can't start driving before 4:45AM and it has to be delivered at noon, leaving me 350 miles to go in seven hours, not counting the fuel (and lunch) stop I need to make. Things today went well, all things considered, but now I have to worry about tomorrow. At least at the rate I'm going, I'll need a 34-hour restart somewhere; I've used up more than ten hours each of the two days I've worked so far.

Joplin, MO

You'd think that getting a pick up number for a load would be a quick, easy process. Such things are supposed to be automatically included on te work assignment. For some reason, though, I never got one for this run. I've been on the phone for 10 minutes (and counting) and placed on hold twice so far. How is this so confusing?

West Memphis, AR

I did a complete pre-trip on the truck yesterday since I had been off for a week and found one tire with a problem. Last night, when I brought a trailer in for its annual inspection, I couldn't find that tire problem so I just parked. When I did my inspection this morning, since I had a feeling I'd missed something, I found that three tires had issues: both steer tires had a small cut and one of my drive tires had a nail in it. Turns out, though, that the damage to the steer tires is too minor to worry about, so the drive tire is the only one that needs to be replaced. Amusingly, both the mechanic and I thought the nail could just be pulled out, since it didn't look like it had penetrated that deeply, but it was plugging a major air leak.

So now I'm in the shop, trying to figure out whether or not I should even hit the road after this. I'm leaning against it, in favor of departing sometime around dawn tomorrow, since I could use a day to catch up on sleep and such. If I can pull that off, I'll be able to work 14 hours and still shut down before the truck stops get full, which is always a bonus. I'm really hoping to eventually have to take a restart, since that means I've pulled a ton of miles, will get a great paycheck, and get the benefit of a mandatory day off. Not working today (nothing worth logging, anyway) won't help on that front, but I'll still be getting close to that seventy-hour limit if I have a few more good loads.

West Memphis, AR

My first day back to work was a doozy. I ended up logging more than ten hours and while I'm sure there's plenty that happened today that's worth writing about here, I'm far too tired to do anything more than make a post so everyone knows I'm still around and collapse from exhaustion for about nine hours.

Evergreen, AL

After almost a week off, I'm just getting ready to resume driving. I have a work assignment; I just need to plan it out before I hit the highway.

Evergreen, AL

What a long day! I ended up needing most of my 14 hours - and all of my 11 of driving time - to get here. But I'm here and just need to wait for the driver to pick up this relay. I called in a favor to get a ride home from the drop yard, so I won't even have to wait for my DOT break to be up; as such, I might actually be home before noon. It'll be nice to finally get out of this truck!

Ennis, TX

11:45 - Wow, this is going to be one heck of a long day, if it goes the way I think it might. It looks as if they're considering having me drive to a drop yard and relay the load face-to-face with another driver. This is a load they're kind of paranoid about and they don't want me leaving it unsecured in an open drop yard. However, the place they want me to go is a whopping 668 miles away; to get there within my eleven hours, I'd have to average 60.7 mph. Yes, my truck now only does 60 on cruise control, but I can use the accelerator to go 63. Of course, I can round a few things in my favor to add some time; making up half an hour means I only have to average 58.

Either way, it's going to be ridiculously close, probably questionably legal, but if I make it down there tonight I'm less than a two hour drive from home, which I will be more than happy to do in the morning, once I can legally move the truck again. I'm currently on hold, waiting to talk to the trip planners; hopefully they'll have some good news or a bright idea. At least I have a few pieces of information to give them. Specifically, the shipper said they are ahead of schedule and might be able to load me immediately after lunch, but they can only guarantee my 2:15PM appointment. Once they start, it should take about an hour. This means that I shouldn't be out of here any later than 3:15... eleven hours of driving with a fuel stop works out to roughly 2:30AM at the drop yard. This means I could leave there no earlier than 1PM... I'll be getting home a few hours later than I'd have liked, but at least it won't be complete chaos when I get there. And... it's ringing. More to come!

---

12:10 - It looks like there's only one driver available to pick up this relay and he'll be there around 9:30AM. That means I might not get a full eight hours of sleep before I have to hand over the paperwork, but it also means that there's already at least one possible option for getting this load handed off. I just need to get the load here, update operations with an expected arrival time, and hope that I can somehow make it there within my driving time limit. It's going to be yet another exceptionally long night, but given how much I want to get home, I'll make it work one way or another.

Ennis, TX

I actually pulled in here about five minutes after my fourteen hour day was up, but that's close enough for government work, right? Unfortunately, there's no chance of them loading me overnight; they had several trailers they were getting ready to pre-load, meaning they wouldn't get to me on this shift and my appointment is too late in the day for them to put me in a door now. So I sent a message to operations telling them this, in the hopes that someone will see it in the morning and can start making plans for me based on that information. In any case, I'm going to bed now; the sooner I sleep, the sooner I'll wake up and be ready to get started with all of this.

Bixby, OK

4:00 - I got my next work assignment while I was driving here to pick up a load. It would be great - it's nearly a thousand miles - but I have a 6:30AM flight to catch Thursday morning and there's no way I can deliver this load and catch the plane. I'm on hold now trying to see if I can either get another load or (preferably) relay this one at a drop yard near home, but it's just rolled over to 4 o'clock so I might not be able to get a hold of anyone on first shift; support shift probably won't be able to do a thing to help me if I get stuck talking to them.

4:30 - And they think they've worked something out, but it all hinges on the place I'm picking the next load up at getting me out of there several hours early. Right now, it's a 2:15PM appointment tomorrow, but if they load me when I get there tonight (around midnight), I'll be able to relay this load in Dallas, pick up another load, then relay that second load at a drop yard near home. It's a gamble, but I'm feeling lucky for once.

Duncan, OK

One exceptionally long day down and at least one more to go. I got a somewhat later start than I intended - nearly noon - but I needed to make this drop by midnight and the place allowed parking. I seemed to end up behind a lot of people that insisted on doing 50 mph or slower on the Interstate, which didn't help my time, but I still got here around 11:30PM. I dropped the trailer, then went inside... then had to wait nearly 30 minutes for someone in the receiving office to take my paperwork, stamp it, and hand it back to me. I'm not going to name the chain in question, but this is the third distribution center of theirs I've gone to and they've all had exceptionally slow people working in the receiving office. It just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me.

In any case, I picked up an empty and am now stopped on a disused road that's now used as truck parking. Tomorrow, I don't have quite as many miles to run - about 525 instead of 600 - but it's still going to be quite a long day. Since I'm supposed to be home by Wednesday, I really hope they get me to an operating center and have me pick up a relayed load; I don't see much hope for getting home in time otherwise. I'll probably call the trip planner before I head out in the morning just to see if she has anything figured out that I'm not currently aware of. Hopefully it'll be good news.

Chicago, IL

I don't think I've ever seen traffic nearly this bad in Chicago. All of I-94 - from where I got at the I-80 split to where I finally got off 30 miles later - was snarled. As such, I was a full hour behind schedule just when I got to my delivery point. I had about an hour and a half to spare, so that was okay... but I had another pick up to make by 3PM. It didn't help that I needed to get onto I-90 west and sign that said "to I-90 west" took me on city streets that clearly were not meant for trucks; I think I scraped the top of my truck on a 13'6" high overpass.

When I finally picked up the empty trailer I needed, I was five miles away from where I was to pick up the load and had less than five minutes to get there on city streets. Clearly not going to happen. I'd already told dispatch that I'd likely be late and I'd update with any further delays; I never received a message telling me that this wasn't okay. But when I got there at 3:04PM, both another driver and I were angrily told they were closed and that we'd have to come back at 6:30AM tomorrow. Needless to say, we both were pissed off, especially considering that the only reason we were late was the extraordinarily bad traffic.

About ten minutes on the phone with dispatch got me taken off that load and assigned something else. It's a much longer run - over 900 miles - though it doesn't pick up until tomorrow morning, so I have to kill a night here in Chicago. I'm going to end up all the way down in Oklahoma, so I hope I have enough money to cover all the toll roads; that state is painfully expensive to drive through.

Carlisle, PA

A short day, but at least it gave me time to catch up on things like laundry and sleep. Unfortunately, when I got back to get that headlight fix, the guy at the shop decided to turn my truck's speed down to 60. While I knew it was coming, the last several mechanics just ignored it. I understand why it needs to be done, but the fact they lied to us twice about when this change was going to take effect does not make me happy: first we were told it would be after July 1, then we were told it would be done as part of the regular preventative maintenance schedule. At least I'm driving through Ohio for most of my miles tomorrow; there, the limit is 55, where it won't matter.

I am wondering, however, just how much fuel this is going to save. I wrote down about two dozen fillups in my notebook when I was trying to figure out if my fuel gauge was acting up (it is a little off, but not hugely so), so I actually have a decent baseline to work off of. When I start my next notebook (I'm perhaps two-thirds of the way through this one), I'll probably start tracking my fuel economy again. Operations claims that, by turning our speed down from 63 to 60, it will improve fuel economy by roughly 0.3 mpg. I sincerely doubt that, though I'm not going to make any accusations without hard data to back it up. If over the course of two weeks (or more), I see a minimal improvement in fuel economy, I'm definitely calling someone up.

Carlisle, PA

Yesterday was one of those days where it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. After spending more than an hour in the shop just to get a tire replaced, I got on the road and ended up behind every slow person on the highway. Then, when I tried to pass, I'd either lose speed on a hill, the person I was passing accelerated, the person in the passing lane would slow down, or some other strange occurrence would render it a moot point. Despite all the frustration, I was able to make the delivery with about two hours to spare, then drove back here to the OC.

I'll be leaving here momentarily to pick up the first half of another load, then probably just come right back for the evening. Tomorrow, I'll be doing about 570 miles, going through Ohio to pick up the second half of this load, then probably shutting down in Indianapolis. That'll leave me just over 200 miles to the place I'm delivering, which is quite doable. Hopefully I can keep getting these decently-long runs; I like it when I have a good day of driving, but I don't have to completely burn myself out to get where I need to be.

Wytheville, VA

I noticed I had a flat trailer tire last night, so I called maintenance as soon as I stopped. I was told they'd call it in so I'd just have to walk to the shop after my break, but of course, they didn't call in anything. So after spending 16 minutes on the phone to get maintenance to actually set up the repair, I'm in the shop and have been sitting here for almost half an hour. It looks like they've finally grabbed a new tire, so I should be out of here soon. It's going to be close on this delivery now that I've lost another hour, though...

Exhaustion

Somehow, despite getting nine hours sleep, I was too tired to go even 150 miles tonight. Soon as this posts, I'm going to bed. I hope I'm not getting sick..

West Memphis, AR

Last night was rather... interesting, I suppose. I originally had planned to drive from Indianapolis down to southern Alabama, possibly as far as Satsuma. But then I started getting messages from operations asking me if I could possibly relay this load here so another driver could take it to go home. After finding out that I'd have another long load waiting for me, I accepted. So I took my break here instead and will pick up that trailer on my way out. The directions for this load couldn't be much easier: I-40 east to I-81 to where I'm delivering. I have to drop it any time on Monday, so I have enough extra time that I don't have to keep sleep-depriving myself to make the delivery.

Green Bay, WI

After yesterday, I decided to just take the extra day at the operating center up here, as I needed to recover a bit of time on my 70. I got a bit later start than I intended - about an hour ago - and needed to stop for fuel before I left the OC. However, they had a mechanic out there checking on trucks and he found that one of my trailer tires just slightly too flat to be inflated. Specifically, if a tire drops below 60 psi, the steel-belt can come apart from the tread; my tire was at about 57. So now I'm stuck here until they replace the tire, since they're not going to let me swap out for another empty (assuming one's available). This is going to eat into my 14 hours for the day, which means I may or may not make Indianapolis tonight, as I'd currently planned on doing. If not, I'm going to have to scrap my entire trip plan and hope I can somehow find parking somewhere else.

Green Bay, WI

A relatively short day today, but I'm not complaining too much with as hard as I've been running lately. I arrived at my pick up location slightly early, even after going 10 miles the wrong way. As it was only 6,500 pounds, I didn't have to scale it, but I did stop for a couple hours to let Chicago's morning rush hour clear up so I wouldn't get completely held up in traffic. It probably saved me half an hour on my drive, though traffic still was rather unpleasant. Now I'm at the Green Bay OC, just relaxing for the rest of the evening. I have a 7AM delivery (live unload tomorrow) that's expected to take six hours, so I'll probably just come back here and park; I don't see much point in having only five hours left to drive. Besides, I need to pick up some time on my 70 hours; I've used more than 50 hours in the last seven days and have been running around that level for a while, so a day off would help alleviate that. I probably won't be able to take a full 34-hour restart, though; operations isn't going to let me take one of those unless I truly am out of hours. Even so, I'll take what I can get.

Elkhart, IN

Good is a 1450 mile run. Bad is not being ae to pick it up on time due to a DOT break. As a result, they took me off the load, leaving me no assignment and too little time to do anything productive. So, instead, once they finish unloading me here (should take an hour or so) I'll be driving to a truck stop about five miles back down the road and taking my 10-hour break. At least there's plenty of food within walking distance, so I should be able to get something yummy before bed. I'd rather have gotten two good days worth of work, though.

Wytheville, VA

Despite trying to sleep all day, it's just too hot in here to actually get any useful rest. As such, I have to be on the highway in a little over two hours and I still am exhausted. I'm going to catch a nap with the time I have left, but I worry that it won't be enough to actually keep me awake overnight. Perhaps I'll have to refill my oversized soda mug with Mountain Dew, just for the sugar and caffeine...

Charlotte, NC

I made the trip by driving straight through, which left me only half an hour late; I made up a full hour on the highway. I dropped the trailer and received a work assignment while I was uncoupling from it, so I'm now here at the OC to pick up a relay. It's going up to Indiana, about 670 miles away, for a 10AM unload tomorrow. However, the trailer I'm picking up has a recap that's coming apart and the shop is closed until 5AM eastern time, so I'm not going to make it nearly as far as I wanted. As such, while I could have taken an Interstate route if I had left earlier, I instead am going to have to try and make a shortcut on secondary routes. It's going to be close, mostly because I'll only be able to drive about 13 hours (counting the two I'll have left tonight), requiring that I average over 50 mph on those back highways. Hopefully I can do it; I really don't want to have to do something creative with the load.

Carlisle, PA

Yeah, I stopped here. Why? Because there were at least two separate instances where it seemed like the truck suddenly shifted over about ten feet to the right and I caught it just before I went off the shoulder and into the grass. Unfortunately, I only have enough time for eight hours of sleep, if I intend on getting a shower and a meal before I leave here, but that's a lot better than I've been doing. Hopefully it'll be good enough.

Kearny, NJ

Wow, only 3AM and tonight has already had enough suckage for one day. I woke up and felt sick to my stomach from the Burger King meal I had for lunch, which seems to have set the tone for the day. I decided against eating there again, so I hit the road. I hopped on the Turnpike and looked for exit 16E, as my directions said. There's a problem, though! There is no exit 16E when you're going south. It turns out I needed exit 17, not that I had any way of knowing that. So I passed it, but the next exit was 15X. It said it went to the roads I needed, so I took it anyway... but there were no signs at the exit showing me which way to go and, after fifteen minutes looking for somewhere to turn around, I just went back to the turnpike. Once I found exit 16E while going north, I just hopped off and started looking for the other roads. I still struggled to find things, though. I took the route the directions said I needed; I instead needed to take a fork that led directly to the next route I had to follow. So, again, I was left driving around and searching desperately for somewhere to turn around or for the route I should have been on. Once I finally ended up on the right road, road construction forced me to make some very... interesting maneuvers, including a button hook turn that I probably would have needed four lanes to make; I instead bumped a construction barrel. Long story short: what should have been a three mile, five minute drive instead took 23 miles and an hour and a quarter. Definitely not a good start to the night.

Things only improved marginally after I picked up the load. Dropping the trailer and picking up the new one went smoothly, but once I left, I once again got turned around repeatedly. As such, the seven mile trip to this drop yard cost me 12 miles. For anyone keeping track, I've driven 35 miles and gotten paid for 10; I don't think operations would be terribly happy seeing 250% out of route miles. I dropped the relay load, then hooked up to the relay I'm picking up, heading back into North Carolina. I just need to finish updating my logbook and drive out of here; I've done all the inspection work on the trailer and typed this while I was waiting for the air tanks to pressurize. Given all the crap that's happened so far tonight, I really don't feel like doing any more work; I'd rather just get back to sleep. But I have 550 miles on this run and I have to deliver it by 2AM tomorrow (less than 22 hours from now), so I have to make at least a few miles tonight. I might just stop in Carlisle, PA but I'll make that choice once I get there.

Kearny, NJ

Just was awakened to the sound of my next work assignment coming in and I wish I could just sleep in now. The pick up is just three miles away, then I have to relay it at the drop yard seven miles from that. So I'm getting up at midnight to drive 10 miles. They better have something good for me after that, but seeing as it's weekend support shift, I'll be lucky to even get assigned another load before I drop the relay.

Kearny, NJ

Since Kilroy commented that it took an exceptionally long time to get through customs, allow me to explain what happened. Apparently the computer that handles all the electronic customs goodness went down yesterday, meaning my paperwork had to get cleared manually. At no point was I given a message telling me as much; I found out by calling in myself, after sitting at the OC for about six hours. As such, I only got about a three hour nap before I hit the road around 1AM. Driving to the border was rather easy; I was able to drive the speed limit the entire way.

When I got to the border, things went relatively smoothly, considering how much time I had to wait to get word from operations. I pulled up to the booth, handed over my load's paperwork, my passport, and got directed to an X-ray machine so they could scan the truck. They promptly waved me through after the scan; they didn't even bother charging me the $10.75 "customs fee" that everyone (that is: operations, other drivers, and the driver's handbook) said I needed to have exact change for. A bit strange, but I'm not complaining; I don't want to need cash again before I go home over Memorial Day weekend

In any case, the trip went smoothly until I made it into New Jersey. I stopped for fuel at a truck stop just across the state line, got breakfast, then hopped back in to finish the run. Unfortunately, the route I needed (NJ state route 11) was closed due to road work and the detour wasn't marked clearly; I only caught a glimpse of the sign after the second time I made a wrong turn trying to get on the road. Once I found the detour, it was easy enough to follow, though it did involve a series of about nine right turns in a row. The delivery was easy as well; it took me a couple minutes to break the bolt seal using the cutters they gave me, then a couple more to get backed into the dock, but I was in and out of the place in just under an hour. I got a message telling me to go to a drop yard we have, but I found a service plaza at the very north end of the NJ turnpike (perhaps two miles south of where I-80 ends at I-95) and stopped there to get lunch. I also got told I could just take my break here, which means I'll be able to eat before I hit the road, saving me a stop tomorrow.

So now I just need to finish eating, send in a message telling them when I'll be available, and then try to catch up on sleep while I have the chance. Hopefully I'll have a decent assignment waiting for me when I wake up.

Back in the USA

I crossed the border about four hours ago but only now stopped for a stretch break. I'll write a full post later.

Pain at the Pump

Just to illustrate how expensive it is in this industry right now, allow me to add a photo for you. This is from one of the pumps at the T/A in Wytheville, WV. Thankfully, that wasn't my truck nor do I have to pay for my own fuel, but I have had one that was pretty close. It's worth noting, as well, that just about everything you buy is moved by truck three times: first as raw materials to a manufacturer, then as a finished product to a distribution center, and finally from that distribution center to your local store (or to your house, if you buy online). And our trucks average seven miles per gallon on a good day; with a heavy load in mountainous terrain, it's a stretch to get even 6 mpg.

While it would be a gross oversimplification to say that slashing fuel prices would solve the economic problems in the US, it would certainly help out in a much more profound way than most people seem to realize.

Aberfoyle, ON

Just a few more quick things, while I'm thinking about them.

1. I saw a Canadian trucking newspaper lying around in here. Front page news? A proposal to limit all trucks that operate in the province to be mechanically governed to 105 km/h (65 mph). This has me rather confused, as the highest maximum speed anywhere in Ontario is 100 km/h (62 mph). Wouldn't it make a bit more sense to require them to stay at the speed limit?
2. Perhaps unrelated to trucking, but it still is on my mind: is it normal for temperatures to get this cold in May? Last night's low was -5°C; tonight should be roughly the same. At least, unlike West Virginia, it isn't snowing here.
3. I just had to fax yet another copy of my license to the office because apparently they couldn't read the last copy of it that I sent. The guy at the fuel desk suggested that, if they can't read this copy (enlarged to 200%) that I simply mail it in or ask to be routed to the appropriate OC and hand it to the appropriate people in person. I might instead ask if I can e-mail a copy of it to someone and save all that trouble. Of course, I'd be even happier if I didn't have to keep sending this thing in; I find it quite strange they'd only start pestering me about this now, several months after I've started driving.

Possible updates to this post later, if I think of anything else I want to blog about before bed.

Aberfoyle, ON

A short day today, but still a fair bit of driving to do. One comment I should make is that Canadian drivers are just as bad as people in the US. Given a sign that says "right lane ends" in 300 m or 1000 ft (depending on country), an obnoxiously large number of drivers will wait at least 300 m or 1000 ft before making any attempt to merge left. Similarly, most drivers will do 10 mph or 15 km/h over the speed limit. The only difference is that the major highways (the 400-series in Ontario, at least) don't have billboards all over the place due to provincial laws prohibiting such distractions.

In any case, the driving itself went decently, outside of those annoyances in traffic. I arrived at my delivery at exactly 4 o'clock, dropped the load, then went somewhere else to pick up the empty. The "somewhere else" was a place that seemed quite annoyed that I even came in to the office, but the empty I needed was there, available, and I was out of there in 20 minutes. Another hour of driving brought me back to the OC. I have an 8AM appointment at somewhere about 25 miles away, so I'm still driving during the day, even after I stayed up late as I could last night to try and adjust to being nocturnal again.

As for the repairs I need on my truck, they're just not going to happen. Yesterday, they found that one of the lights was grounding out, which caused the whole circuit to go haywire. The shop here replaced the light, the fuse, and everything seemed to be working fine. But on my way back here, all my signals went out again, leaving both the shop and me very confused. There's nothing obviously wrong with the system, which suggests there's some sort of funky wiring problem or that the fuse simply wiggled its way loose. If it's a wiring issue, it could take days to fix unless the problem manifests itself yet again.

However, I did find out one thing that makes me say repairs just aren't going to happen: the mechanic told me that my truck is scheduled for disposal on May 3. Yes, three days from now. That would explain why I haven't gotten any messages about upcoming PMs, even though it's been about six weeks since I last had one done and they're usually scheduled for every two months (roughly 20,000 miles). Now, granted, my truck is five years old and has roughly 635,000 miles, so I figured they would upgrade it sooner or later, but it would have been nice to get some kind of warning about it. I have no idea how they're going to handle it, frankly, but I presume that they'll simply give me a new(er) truck at the first OC I come to that has one available. I'll write more about that when I find things out, though.

In the meantime, however, I'm going inside to get dinner.

Aberfoyle, ON

4:55AM: Before I left the travel center here, I needed to get a copy of my customs forms for border crossing. Guess where I had to get it done.

The diesel desk? Nah, too easy.
The gas station nearby? Still wrong.
Inside at the souvenir store? Nice try.
At the Burger King? Yes! We have a winner!

If this kind of comedic absurdity sets the tone for the day, it's going to be a long and yet strangely amusing day.


4:10PM: Holy cow, I made it. Crossing the border was so easy that it's almost scary, in hindsight; they stamped my paperwork and didn't even look at my passport beyond the moment I waved it at the guy in the customs booth. So I'm actually at the OC near Toronto, waiting to get into the shop to have my lighting systems looked at. I keep going through those 20 amp fuses for the signals; when I put a new one in today, it was hot to the touch before I'd even turned any of the lights on. If it's something they can fix right away, then great; if it's something that I have to put the truck in the shop over, I'll have to relay this load and be up here in Canada for a few days longer than I thought I might. Ultimately, I don't really mind either way right now; I'm just excited to be up here.

Beckley, WV

I knew I didn't want to get up this morning, but I didn't know the reason until I finally walked outside. Snow. At the end of April, I'm still finding snow flurries. It wasn't sticking to the ground, but it's still enough to make driving conditions interesting.

I was expecting something weird to happen, given that I'm going in to Canada, but I thought I'd be north of the border before encountering something like this.

Beckley, WV

I managed to use up my entire fourteen hours today, down to the minute; I shut down just as the clock rolled over to 4:15PM after starting at 2:15AM this morning. I got in to and out of my delivery faster than expected, which left me several hours to kill at the Charlotte OC while I waited for my appointment at the next place. During that time, I ate, called in to find out what I needed to do at the border, and got all the supplies I needed for the truck. All day today, it seemed things went well. I'd have liked to get my load faster than I did, but I only lost about a half hour down there and still made it about 75 miles further than I planned on.

For tomorrow, I have about 540 miles to go to get to the Toronto OC, where I plan on stopping for the evening. If everything goes well, I should be there with a bit of time to spare on my 11 and 14, but I'm still not entirely sure what to expect at the border. If that goes quickly, then I'll be able to just fly on through and get to the OC in the early afternoon hours. If I really get lucky, I'll have to spend 24 hours up there killing time, which might entitle me to layover pay and allow me to just spend a day enjoying myself north of the border. Either way, though, I'll have plenty of time to spare as long as I make the OC tomorrow.

One quick note about a possible concern, though: the 20 amp fuse for my turn signal lights looks like it's about ready to burn up. Quite literally burn, too; there are scorch marks on the thing and I burnt myself when I touched it. I definitely have to put my truck in the shop when I get to Toronto, if only to have that looked at. So I might well be in a hotel room tomorrow, whether or not I get a layover.

Charlotte, NC

Today was a day where I wonder where all the miles went! It started slowly enough, but as the day went on, the truck just felt like it moving faster. I made the 460 mile trip from Carlisle to Charlotte in just over 7 1/2 hours, half an hour faster than I'd hoped. I'll now have plenty of time to shower, eat, do laundry, and take care of any other errands before I go to bed. I'm still not looking forward to waking up at 2AM to deliver this load, but at least that means I'll get to shut down early tomorrow.

Carlisle, PA

Aside from that minor hiccup with trying to pick up a trailer that wasn't there, today went quite well. When I picked up the relay, the previous driver had left a scale ticket that showed the weight was well under the legal limit (more than 3,000 pounds to spare on both the drives and trailer) so I didn't even need to stop to double-check it. While I've gotten here a bit later than I would have liked, I should have enough time to comfortably make it to the Charlotte OC tomorrow. For now, though, I need to eat and sleep; I want to leave as soon as my ten hour break is up.

Berwick, PA

Though I was given the number of an empty trailer at this drop yard, there aren't any empty Schneider trailers here. Oops. So now I have to go an extra 15 miles to another facility to get a different empty. Hopefully this one will be there, though I have a hunch that they'll just have me bobtail to the place I'm picking the relay up at if I can't get an empty on the second try.

Milesburg, PA

Another day, another dollar. Or something like that. I was pleasantly surprised to get in 600 miles today in 10 hours without stopping for anything other than fuel in Akron, OH. I'm only 87 miles from where I'm delivering so I can afford to get started a little later than I did this morning. An odd quirk comes with this load, though: I'm picking up a relay, but the work assignment just says "53' preloaded trailer" instead of actually giving me the trailer number. Also, the assignment says that I'll be getting there at noon when I know I can get there somewhat earlier, so it's quite possible that the trailer I'm getting isn't even being dropped until about that time. So I have even more time to kill since I'd rather not get there and have to kill time; this place is so far out of the way that I probably won't even have a cell phone signal. I'll probably just shut down at the Carlisle OC tomorrow, then continue down to the Charlotte OC the day after that, with the delivery elsewhere in town at 4AM Monday morning. It's nice to have a plan this far in advance for a change!

Glendale, KY

I really hope that I don't have to go back to the place I dropped my last load at. There's not enough room for trucks to turn around anywhere inside the facility, so I had to drive up the driveway as if I were exiting, then back up half-blindly down the way I came in. Once I got turned around, it was fine, but trying to maneuver around the construction equipment and the hole in the parking lot was not fun at all. I swear, this job is going to make me go bald quickly just because of all the times I end up pulling my hair in frustration.

Once I left that place, though, things went rather smoothly. Even though I had a 4PM appointment to pick up my current load, I got there around 1:30, got in a dock door by 2, and was out of there by 3. Whee! I decided to stop a bit earlier tonight, though, mostly because I found a Petro truck stop and really, really wanted to get steak for dinner. In any case, I'll be able to leave here as early as 4AM and I plan on getting a move on as quickly as possible; the earlier I leave in the morning, the further I can get before truck stops start getting crowded. If all goes exceptionally well, I'll be just under 100 miles away from the delivery, at a Pilot truck stop where I can get a shower and a nice meal, and with enough time to get another full night's sleep. Speaking of a full night's sleep, it's about time to get to bed.

New Albany, IN

Well, this is rather obnoxious. I got to the shipper at about 7:15 eastern (a bit later than I intended) and found that there were four other trucks in front of me waiting to be unloaded. While this wouldn't be so bad, normally, they have only one dock that they use to unload trucks and we're all waiting on that one dock. Worse, they have only one person actually working on the trailers, which means each trailer takes at least an hour to unload. So this means that, at best, I'll be here until noon unless they really pick up the pace. While I'll be getting a nice bit of detention pay for this, I was pulled off another work assignment that had to be picked up by 11:30 since there's virtually no chance I'll be out of here in time for that.

So, in short, I have a wait of unknown duration here and no work assignment yet. Hopefully at least one of these will be remedied soon.

Shepardsville, KY

Since this load had a lot of extra time on it, I took a couple days off in Huntsville, AL to make up for the fact I'm not going home at all this month. In the process, I apparently managed to annoy both the trip planner and the operations leaders, both of whom wanted to know why I took so much extra time. I called in to explain the situation and they seemed to understand, though I'll have to just deal with the fact I'm going to have to work my butt off for the next few weeks, right up until I go home for Memorial Day weekend.

In any case, I'm only about 30 miles away from where I need to deliver and, while they're open from 7AM to 4PM, I want to get there as early as possible so I have a full day to drive once I'm done. I'm hoping to get in a decent day's drive, since I do have to make up for those two days I was off the road.

Charlotte, NC

Today I had to call cargo claims after finding that some freight had fallen over inside the trailer. Specifically, I had to open it to make one more pick up, but the stuff that had previously been loaded in there had fallen over, leaving the last shipper too little room to put their stuff inside. However, I could tell when I picked the load up that it hadn't been loaded properly and took a few pictures, which I forwarded on to the claims department. So now, if there's any claim for damaged goods, it's not our fault; it'll go back to the shipper that failed to load the trailer properly.

Aside from that cargo incident, everything else went fairly well today. Morning traffic around DC was unpleasant but I still made my pick up on time. I probably could have driven another hundred miles or so today, if I really wanted, but the trailer I have is due for maintenance and needed a couple repairs so I brought it in here. Now I just have to decide whether I want to leave from here early in the morning tomorrow or if I want to hold out and put myself back on driving nights. Not an easy call, really; both have plenty of perks...

Breezewood, PA

After leaving that first shipper, the rest of the day went rather smoothly. I found the second place without a problem, arrived about 45 minutes early, and got assigned a dock just about exactly at my appointment time. As such, I was in and out of there in less than two hours; the company told me to plan on three. The only problem I ran in to, really, is that I checked the traffic report and saw that Washington DC was a mess with rush hour. So instead of pushing through there, as I'd originally planned on, I decided to shut down at the first truck stop I found after the PA turnpike. This kept me out of traffic, but does have a distinctive downside: I'll have to be out of here before 5AM, since I have a little more than 300 miles left to drive and there's a risk I'll hit DC's morning rush hour (as opposed to the evening rush). On the bright side, I'm going to bed as soon as I post this, so I'll finally be able to get eight hours of sleep in a night for a change. Hopefully that'll be enough for me to feel comfortable working most of my 14 hours tomorrow.

Newell, WV

Wow, it's only 9AM and today's already off to a miserable start. Though this place was only 50 miles away, it took me almost an hour and a half to get here, mostly because Pennsylvania seems to think that 45 is the highest reasonable speed limit on any road other than the Interstates. Then I had to make a series of ridiculously tight turns to get into the place I'm picking up my load at, then was told where I had to back in to the dock. Their dock is at the end of a street; backing into it requires backing up on a street. Now, their business is the only thing on that block, but to line up for it, you still have to back up past another street, with no way of telling where any cross-traffic might be. They have four dock doors back there, but only one is straight back from the road. one is off to the side, behind some parked cars that would be impossible to see while backing in. The other two are down an alley that is also on the blind side, requiring a 90-degree turn from a one-lane road into these two docks; it would be nearly impossible to get in there even with help. And, of course, nobody at this facility is willing to help at all; the woman down here (saying 'lady' implies she has manners) got angry when I pointed out that most places are willing to help drivers out when there's a dangerous situation like that.

I'm going to call operations and explain the whole mess to them and see what they want me to do. It looks like this place will let me wait, if I absolutely have to (and I do), but I know they're going to call and complain later no matter what I end up doing at this point. I'm not going to do something just because a customer demands it if I can't do it safely; I've already had enough incidents out here.

Bentleyville, PA

Another day, another crazy load assignment. This time, though, I have plenty of time to get around. And I'm certainly going to get around: I have a total of nearly 1,000 miles to drive just to get everywhere I need to be! There are three separate places I'm picking up from - two tomorrow, one on Friday - then I deliver down in Georgia either Friday evening or Saturday. I still have to figure out the directions, since most of what Google is coming up with aren't truck routes, leaving me to manually confirm everything using my atlas. At least I can catch up on sleep; the first appointment is at 9AM, though I can get there an hour early, allowing me to catch up on sleep.

There is one thing going on of note, though: the company is going to lower our trucks' speed from 63 to 60, effective July 1. They're estimating that it could save them up to $15 million a year. Also, they're alleging that customers are so focused on being green that they'd rather work with an ecologically-friendly carrier. Personally, I don't like it at all, and not just because I like to drive a little bit faster. For one thing, that 3 mph is often the difference between holding 10th gear and having to drop to 9th while going up a hill; I already notice this in Ohio and Illinois, where the speed limit is lower. Every time I have to rev the engine to downshift, I'm wasting fuel; this would make those shifts more frequent. Also, there are better ways of reducing fuel costs; biodiesel could be very quickly implemented, at least at the operating centers, and would save more money than they claim they'll save by slowing the trucks down. So while I understand the need to save money (and hopefully get better equipment or pay us more), I don't feel this is a very good way of going about it. I plan on stating all this in one of the conference calls they're holding this week; hopefully someone up in operations will think about it.

One more item of interest: a search for news about Schneider turned up this story about a driver who ended up in jail for having pot. The article says "a search of [his] truck," which is slightly ambiguous; it could have been in the cab or in the trailer, since the authorities can search either (or both) at will. This version of the story makes it sound more like he picked it up as a relay and didn't know what was going on. At least, that's what the driver is claiming. Either way, this is not terribly good publicity.

Indianapolis, IN

Despite driving a relatively short 250 miles today, it's been rather eventful. The drive to the delivery was fairly easy, at least until I had to turn into the place; it was a sharp left turn that I just barely made. If I followed the original set of directions I was given, I would have been left with a practically impossible right turn. On the way out, though, I had exactly that: a right turn that was impossible. As I swung out to try and make it, I came within a hair's breadth of hitting a parked car. Realizing that it wasn't going to happen, I had to back up about a block and take another way out. Even then, I just barely made it onto the street; I came within perhaps three inches of hitting a fire hydrant despite swinging so widely that cars in the left turn lane had to back up.

Also, regarding that run I dropped, I had to call and explain why it was late. I've written about all the details here, but I then had to explain it to operations: that I couldn't have picked it up or delivered it on time to begin with, then a repair pushed it back another half a day. So the service failure wasn't my fault; the weekend support shift was entirely to blame for that.

Aside from that bit of drama, the day went fairly well. I'm just waiting in line at the express bay right now since the fan for the climate control went out. This means no heat, no a/c, and no defrost. Given how erratic the weather has been, this is not a good thing, so I want it taken care of as quickly as possible. It's going to be a bit tight on this delivery, but I should make it there with a couple of hours to spare if I don't oversleep or otherwise screw up.

Gary, IN

Whew! I'm rather pleasantly surprised that I made it all the way here tonight. For a while it was looking awfully close, but I seem to have just squeaked in here as my 11 hours ran out. From here, my delivery is about 26 miles away and I'll be contending with Chicago's morning rush hour to get there, hopefully as close to 8AM as possible. It's a first-come-first-served place, so the sooner I get there, the faster I'll get out. I still haven't gotten a new work assignment yet and probably won't until I actually arrive at this place; I'm hoping that it proves to be less chaotic than what I've had the last few days.

Waterloo, NY

After that repair issue, dropping my trailer, and picking up this new load, I only had 45 minutes left on my 14 hours. Instead of being able to drive 100 miles or more and stop somewhere near Buffalo, I barely made it here before my time was up for the night. This leaves me more than 650 miles away from where I'm delivering. I'll probably have to stop at the Gary, IN operating center tomorrow night, which is still 627 miles away; it'll require a bit of good fortune to make it that far, especially considering that much of my drive will be through Ohio, complete with its obnoxious 55 mph truck speed limit.


One perk, though: tonight's low here is forecast to be 29 degrees and I have a load that requires freeze protection. In other words, I have to leave the truck running so it causes enough vibration to keep the cargo from freezing. Meaning, in turn, I don't freeze inside the cab since I'll just leave the heater running through the night. I just hope they give me credit back for this idle time; this will be the first time in Q2 that I've deliberately left the truck running for any significant period of time.

Baldwinsville, NY

Today has been a great day... up until I got to this place. I decided to sleep in a little and get moving around 7:30AM, then drove to the place I needed to drop the load at, making only one quick break along the way. I was originally told to drop my trailer in a space that had a trailer in it; when I pointed this out, they just told me to drop it anywhere in the row. Gotta love it when other drivers just throw trailers wherever they want. Things went fine on my way out of there, too.

The problem occurred when I arrived at the shipper for this load (23 hours late) and the tandems wouldn't slide. Both pins on the driver's side were stuck. Using the hammer, I freed up the front one, but the rear pin was extremely difficult to even hammer in. I couldn't find any way of holding it in place with my crowbar and duct tape, as I have in the past, since I couldn't even get it to move using the bar. So I was forced to call the maintenance people. I was just about convinced I'd be stuck here all night, since they rarely can find places to do service in a timely manner on the weekend, but apparently I lucked out and a place will be here within the hour. If so, there's a chance I could make it as far as Buffalo, NY tonight. If not, I may have to park here overnight. At least they allow overnight parking, if it comes to that; most places don't.

Carlisle, PA

Another day, another bit of zaniness. Though the driving today went quite well, I got a work assignment while I was hooking up to my trailer... one that was for an appointment tonight at 8PM. I don't see how they expected me to make that, since the load I'm already on has to be delivered tomorrow. Apparently, though, I'm the only driver who can even get close, so I guess they're just going to take whatever flak the shipper gives them. I just hope that I can make a little time up along the way, since the delivery appointment is going to be extremely difficult to keep; it's 660 miles away from where I'm picking up and I have to be there by 1PM on Monday. I'll have to figure out just how close I can get and give operations an update; I seriously doubt I'll be able to make that.

Charlotte, NC

Woo. I thought today was going to be a nice, short day, given that I had a work assignment instructing me to pick up a relay from here. Instead, though, the drop I had turned into a small adventure. Basically, I made a wrong turn off the Interstate and couldn't find anywhere to turn around until I came to a car wash about 10 miles down. Yes, a car wash. This one, if anyone's wondering. That grassy square is roughly as long as my trailer, meaning it took a lot of creativity to get in and out of there without even clipping a curb. After that, I found the place and took care of business, then came back to the OC here. I'll leave here sometime in the morning and head to Carlisle, then on to where I'm delivering. Hopefully I'll get a decent load after that, since the area I'm delivering to has very little in the way of parking available.

Charlotte, NC

After the way Wednesday went, I was looking forward to a better day yesterday. I got it, too. Aside from a bit of morning fog and a tendency to get stuck behind every person who felt the Interstate speed limit should be 55, it was a smooth drive all the way down here. Today is going to be a very short day; I just need to drive 20 miles or so to the other side of Charlotte, drop this load and pick up an empty, then drive back to the Charlotte OC to drop the empty. There's a relay here that I'm picking up; however, the load is supposed to be delivered on Sunday at a place just over 800 miles away, which is roughly a one-and-a-half day drive. As such, I'll leave here Saturday, drive as close to 11 hours as I can stand. Alternatively, I might just shut down in Carlisle, PA at the operating center, which is just over half way there and would leave a 350 mile trek to finish the run. This will also be the first time I'm driving right by New York City, which makes me glad that I'm doing all this on a weekend; I shudder to think what a weekday morning rush hour would be like over there.

York, PA

Today has been one of those days where nearly every little thing that could go wrong has. About the only things to my credit are that I didn't cause an accident or receive a citation. Frankly, given the number of things that went wrong, I'm rather surprised I didn't.

The day started off reasonably well. I didn't hit much in the way of traffic on the way to where I dropped the load I had in the morning. The problem? They sent me across the street to get an empty, but they didn't have any; there was only one of our trailers and it was still fully loaded. So I went back across to ask if they had any empties on that side and the receiving clerk just went off on me. She started yelling about this and that, essentially telling me that she wasn't going to do the slightest thing to help me; she even refused to search in the computer to see if there were any empties on the yard.

So I called up support shift (one minute before they closed) and she told me to send in a message saying that the customer wouldn't release the trailer. I sent this in. And waited. And waited. An hour later, I tried calling operations, but the routing system was acting up and I couldn't actually get routed to anyone useful. So I sent in another message asking what was going on, then got a message back saying that there were at least three empties there; they gave me the numbers for two of them. So I walked around to look for them, found one of the three and found it to be empty, then immediately hooked up to it and took off. As such, mostly due to the bitch at the receiving counter, I lost two hours there. While I told her "I'm sorry you're having a bad day" as I walked out of the office (and she was still yelling as I closed the door behind me) I had plenty of other choice things I wanted to say.

As such, I was behind schedule the rest of the day. The first place I was going to was just across the NJ/PA state line, not far from downtown Philadelphia. However, the place was on an extremely narrow street requiring a hard right turn. I pulled into the center lane of three to turn right, giving me one extra lane to get over onto this side road... but even that wasn't far enough out. And as such, if I continued forward, I'd have either hit an Acura parked (illegally) on the corner or have taken out a traffic light. A couple other people noticed what was going on, including the security officer from a nearby facility, and collectively helped me back up onto the street I'd tried turning from so I could take up the entire road (including the oncoming side) just to turn into this darn place. Thankfully, I didn't have to back in anywhere; I just parked on the street and they loaded the truck there.

While the loading only took half an hour, I still was behind schedule from dealing with the receiving bitch earlier in the morning. So I was about thirty minutes late for pick up #2. The guy at the gate actually said that it wasn't bad at all that was late by half an hour. Sure enough, they immediately put me into a dock and started loading. The problem here? It took nearly three hours; I was told to plan for two. Also, I made a wrong turn trying to exit the place and nearly drove out the entrance. Minor things, certainly, but it made an already irritating day feel that much worse.

The big problem was pick up #3, where I am right now. The directions I received (written by other drivers) said to take exit 19B. The problem? I needed exit 19A, not B. So instead of going right to this place, as I should have, I ended up going through downtown York, PA. Getting turned around was nearly impossible, as there were no parking lots big enough for me to use and only two truck routes; thankfully, they looped around and let me get back toward the Interstate. But the detour was extremely frustrating; getting lost is one of those things that always scares the heck out of me. This wasn't an entirely unfounded fear, either; there was one intersection where there were no truck signs straight ahead and to the right and a sign that said "trucks: no left turn." Another trucker made the left turn anyway and I followed, for lack of any other route. I got back on the Interstate, turned around at the next exit, then followed the directions for northbound I-83, where exit 19 isn't split into A and B.

Thankfully, this place didn't seem to mind that I missed the appointment either, especially after I explained what happened. I did have to wait for another driver to leave before I could get into a door (which took about an hour), then they immediately loaded me and gave me a place to park. So now I just have to wait out a 10 hour break, do a pre-trip, then hit the road again. The total weight for these three pick ups is about 31,000 pounds, so I'll stop by a CAT scale on my way out of the area. Though this does mean I have an extra 40 miles to drive tomorrow, I should still be able to make Charlotte, NC; I'll just be there a few hours later than I originally had intended. Since I don't have any places at all that I have to stop tomorrow (except the scale), I should just be able to fly straight down the Interstate. I really hope that's the case.

Perryville, MD

Today was one of those days that probably could have gone much worse, but could also have gone better had I planned it all out more carefully. It turns out that I can't deliver the load I have any time on Wednesday; I have to have it there by 7AM. Oops. No big deal, though; that just meant I couldn't sleep in as I originally planned. So I left Charlotte around 6AM, with a plan to stop south of Washington, DC. Instead, though, I busted my tail and did an extra 100 miles, leaving me just 75 miles away from where I'm delivering; hopefully within an hour and a half drive. Since I have to have it there by 7AM, that means I have to leave here by 5:30AM.

I got my next work assignment while sitting in Washington, DC traffic. I had just long enough to glance at it, to find that I had three different places to pick up from. Joy. They're all appointments, too. It turns out that it's a very good thing I drove the extra 100 miles today; had I stopped where I originally planned, I wouldn't have had enough hours to do all the driving they're requiring of me. As it is, I'll have a mere 15 minutes to spare at the end of the day if everything goes according to plan and I park at the Carlisle, PA operating center. If things don't, I can park at the third place I'm picking up from; things would have to go disastrously bad for me to not make it that far. Thursday will be much less hectic; I'll just drive from wherever I stop tomorrow night to the Charlotte OC, then make the delivery from there on Friday morning. I just hope that the next load is less zany than this!

Charlotte, NC - Spring Training Complete

Despite the fact I haven't done any load-related work today, it's still been a bit of an adventure. When I woke up this morning, I saw a couple of messages from operations telling me that my load had been switched to a relay. Apparently I had my dates all mixed up; the load I has was supposed to be dropped last night by midnight, not tonight. Rather a big oops; that's a pretty blatant service failure. So rather than just sit around and worry, I went inside and called operations to explain what happened: I somehow got the dates crossed up. They didn't seem to be that upset about it, since this is only the second service failure I've had in the seven months I've been working, but I really need to make sure I know what day it is in the future.

Once I got off the phone, I went out to put the paperwork on the trailer, since I dropped it as soon as I got here, taking another driver's suggestion for parking. Turns out that they'd already sent it off with another driver, as it wasn't there by the time I walked across. I hope he (or she) got the bills of lading and such from operations directly. I just have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the original paperwork now; normally it gets signed and I send it in, but I didn't make the delivery, it doesn't have all the information from the consignee. I'll have to call operations tomorrow to find that out, since I've never encountered this situation before. At least now I know why I sometimes I have loads that are delivered 30 miles from an operating center and lack all the paperwork.

After sorting all that mess out, I had lunch, then proceeded to clean out the tractor. It's amazing how much trash can pile up in places that you never think about. I also apparently miss the trash can behind my seat more often than I thought, given the number of old scale tickets and receipts I found next to the bin. I also swept up, something that I haven't done since I got the truck. It was rather embarrassing having a dust pan completely full of.. well, dust, mostly. The boots they issue tend to attract a lot of things. I took a shower once the truck was clean, ensuring now that everything I have is all clean; I did laundry, cleaned up the cab, and had a nice shower.

I finished the shower just in time to head into the evening spring training session. I've been slightly worried about this, since it's the first real training session I've been involved with and I wasn't sure what to expect. The class started with a classroom portion of perhaps an hour and a half, with about a third of that time dedicated to a video explaining how to do all the trivially basic things in as many steps as possible. For example, it took the presenter two minutes just to explain the process of getting in to and out of the truck. While all that was going on, someone looked over our permit and log books to ensure everything was as it should be; mine checked out just fine. After that, we went outside and were asked to demonstrate some of the things we saw on the video, such as opening and closing the hood, getting into and out of the truck and trailer, and climbing on and off the truck's catwalk. Again, all the basic stuff that I don't even consciously think about any more; it's just an automatic behavior.

Then came the part that I'd been most concerned about: the road test. By this time, though, the instructors all just wanted to go home. Rather than it being a long, involved drive, we went around the block. The trainer spent more time reading the newspaper than watching me drive and said I was doing everything well. I was worried he might say something about my tendency to hug the right side of the road or that I don't shift smoothly, but no, he just checked off "acceptable" all the way down the sheet.

So now that I have that out of the way, I got a $7 meal ticket (free dinner!) and a $50 gift card to the company store. Of course, this being my day, even that didn't go smoothly; my "$50 gift card" apparently was somehow issued to someone else on March 25 and has $1.71 left on it. I'll have to contact someone tomorrow about that so it can get corrected; I actually found $50 worth of stuff that I want to buy in the store. Specifically, I want some window screens before the summer sets in, as well as a couple of new shirts. Hopefully they'll be able to correct it or give me a new card or otherwise get it sorted out. I just hope they don't want me to fix this in person since I'd like to leave earlier than that.

Speaking of leaving, I did get a work assignment early this afternoon. I'll be going up toward Greensboro, NC, then delivering that in New Jersey on Wednesday. Since I am not feeling particularly well (exhausted, for some reason) I'm not up to driving overnight, so I'll instead leave sometime in the morning, pick the load up, and drive perhaps a total of 400 miles. That'll leave me 175 miles or fewer for Wednesday, which in turn means I should have a reasonable amount of time left to work after I drop my load off. Hopefully everything will go according to plan on that front.

Charlotte, NC

Whee! Finally got a decent set of miles today. I started a little later than I wanted and arrived at the shipper at just after 8AM and spent nearly three hours there (as opposed to the two I was told it would take), scaled the load at the nearest truck stop, then drove non-stop to get down here to Charlotte with just 15 minutes left on my 14-hour day. From here, it's just 50 miles to where I'm delivering, but I might take a day off just because I can, do the obligatory spring training Monday evening just to get it out of the way, then deliver this thing Monday night. I just hope that I can continue getting things that work out as well as this load has.

Crafton, PA

So far, at least, today hasn't been anything terribly special. It's not been a bad day, by any means, but nothing notably good either. I woke up at midnight after getting to bed at 10 AM (no typo there; I slept fourteen hours), took care of a few personal errands, then hit the road around 5 o'clock. On the road, traffic was pretty decent, even as I approached Pittsburgh; I expected to have to deal with some rush hour madness somewhere along the way. As such, even though I took a longer-than-normal stop for breakfast, I got here about 45 minutes early. I'm currently just waiting for them to start unloading my truck; after that, who knows what?

Seville, OH

Hoo boy. The last two days have been something special in that ever-so-unpleasant kind of way. I can't even remember all the things that went wrong, but among other issues, I had to "save" a load that was going to take me three hours to deliver and was due to be dropped in 2 1/2 hours; I got stuck in Chicago traffic due to a fire near the Interstate which, in turn, cost me about an hour; and I picked up a trailer with an electrical short so bad that it blew 30 amp fuses in the tractor and scorched a 20 amp fuse next to those directly affected.

Because of that electrical short, I'm here in Seville to allow them to repair it. Since this load was supposed to be delivered about an hour ago, it's going to have to be rescheduled, since I'm on a ten-hour break. I don't know when they're going to get it set up again, but I have a hunch it'll be at 4AM tomorrow since I missed the appointment at 4AM today. Failing that, I have no idea. I just hope that I'm not stuck here for a prolonged period of time.