Ontario, CA - Thirty-seven hours a day

When I left off, I had just broken down and was left waiting on a tow truck. The guy who arrived was a bit... clueless, to put it nicely. Senile might be a more apt term. It took four attempts to actually get a hold of someone on the phone, then ten minutes to fix the screwed up directions he'd been given, then another thirty for him to show up at the truck. He spent nearly an hour hooking up to it, only to find that he was missing a fitting for the rig. He left, came back an hour later with the right part, took yet another hour to hook up to it properly this time, and then we went on the way. By this point, it was nearly 2 AM local time; I was dozing off in the passenger seat.

I came to my senses rather quickly, though, as the tow truck driver started hollering "I don't have any brakes!" Sure enough, he was pushing the pedal to the floor to no avail, despite having adequate air in the tanks. The Jake brake wasn't enough to hold the truck back, either; 110,000 pounds (70k for me, 40k for the tow) is extremely challenging even with fully-operable equipment, but without brakes, there's no chance. Then, with no immediately obvious warning, the engine died. He started asking me what to do; I told him to try restart the engine, throw it into the lowest gear he could catch, and fire the jake brake up. That didn't work, though; he turned the key but the engine wouldn't turn over. Thus, in the span of less than half a minute, we lost every means of controlling the vehicle's speed, while still descending a considerable grade. The speed limit on the slope was 40; we were up to 45 with no braking mechanism at all. I'm shuddering just writing about it.

The tow truck driver, however, did about the only thing he could do. He ran well up an upslope on the side of the road, taking it way up the embankment, then bringing it back down. 45 mph fell to 40. Another excursion off-road and we were down to 35. However, the truck was gaining speed ever-faster as the downgrade steepened, we were up to 40 again in the time it took him to catch his break. Then, he simply announced "I've gotta go" and took the thing even further up the side, knocking out several road signs. I clutched my seat belt to my chest, holding on for dear life, while the entire combination bounced violently. I didn't even see the flatbed truck on the shoulder until a split-second before the collision, in which the tow truck's driver's side collided with the passenger side of the flatbed trailer. Then, as suddenly as the vehicle had gone out of control, we were at a stop.

As I felt myself to ensure that no, I hadn't left this mortal coil, I looked over at the driver. He was in... bad shape. I thought he'd strangled himself on the seat belt; he was dangling limply from it, making a gurgling noise. In panic, I jumped out of the truck, ran toward the road, and started waving for anyone to call 911. My cell phone had died while I was waiting on the tow, so I couldn't. The flatbed driver was still hunting around for his phone when another trucker pulled over and called for an ambulence. By the time I walked back up to the tow truck, the driver had, miraculously, regained consciousness. He was bleeding from his right temple and had no recollection of what happened even after we repeatedly explained it, all classic signs of a concussion. Miraculously, that was the worst of anyone's injuries; both I and the flatbed driver were completely unhurt. The ambulence showed up perhaps 15 minutes later and the tow truck driver was taken to the hospital.

The police came as well, taking statements, information, and all those things that cops do when an accident happens. We were near Castaic, I think; it was on I-5, ear the bottom of a mountain, at a place starting with a C. Additional tow trucks were arranged - I still find it darkly ironic that a tow truck needed a tow truck - because the damage to all the vehicles was severe.

• The tow truck was totaled. The entire steer axle was ripped off, lying underneath his drive tandems, likely aiding as a block. The engine was toast; the windshield, cracked, the frame, warped. It's hard to imagine any components even being salvaged from what's left of that, save for perhaps his passenger side mirror.
• My truck came out the best of any equipment involved. Sadly, that's not saying much. I'm holding out hope that they can repair it, because I didn't see any obvious damage to any major components, though the body needs a lot of work; there are at least two holds that go through to the sleeper. I turned the key to run the diagnostics, though, and "low coolant" was the only alarm tripped, just as it was before the accident.
• My trailer is toast. The driver's side was split open by the flatbed's fender mirror, with a gash going from the front corner to the third-to-last vertical support, roughly 45 feet long. It caused the bottom rail and floor to sag considerably. The freight appeared to be undamaged, aside from the pallets shifted, which was confirmed later in the day.
• The flatbed's tractor is ruined. Massive body damage, multiple flat tires, and what appeared to be a complete loss of engine oil. Amazingly, though, they were able to start it up and move it around on the scene so the tow trucks could work more easily.
• The flatbed trailer is also gone. He was hauling scrap, so it's not like any cargo damage would even be noticeable, but his passenger-side rear tires were gone; we didn't even find them anywhere on the hill.. The front axle was likely cracked as well, but all the pieces were still attached to the trailer, so that might not be a complete loss.

I spent some time talking to the flatbed driver, who was a Mexican immigrant doing cross-border work. He owned his truck, so this has to be a huge blow to him for a whole lot of reasons. His family came up to help him move things out of the rig before they towed it away. Most of the other officers and workers on the scene seemed impressed by the sheer volume of damage involved; several of them said that this was unlike anything they'd ever seen before despite being out there for a decade or more.

It was dawn before any progress was made on disentangling the mess. They had to get a rotator out to just hold my trailer up, ensuring it wouldn't collapse. It took nearly three hours for them to just extract the tow truck from my rig, and another hour for them to pick up the remaining pieces and haul it away. The flatbed took somewhat longer to settle, as they had to move the trailer and truck seperately; they left perhaps another two hours after that. Meanwhile I was left waiting for them to transload my freight onto another trailer, since mine was in danger of collapse the moment that rotator let go. There's still a quarrel going on between customer service and the towing company over that mess, as the towing company insisted on doing it their way, even going to far as to insist they deliver the load themselves. This is the same company who towed my truck in the first place and who is at fault in the accident. I heard them saying they figured they'd lost us as an account even before they started being dicks about the freight situation. Perhaps they just assumed that, since we weren't going to be doing business with them again, they may as well make us regret calling them in the first place. Yeah, that's a great business model...

At least they tried to be civil toward me, offering me space in the sleeper of the semi they'd brought down. I didn't take that up until rather late, since I just wasn't tired at that point; I was more worried about getting the situation resolved before I fell asleep. Ultimately, they put as much freight as possible into their trailer (not ours, another point of contention with customer service), then let me ride along to their facility while we waited for them to sort out towing my tractor. Someone was supposed to come from the OC and give me a ride in the company car to a hotel, but after an hour and a half of waiting, the tow company just had me ride along with someone who had a call going that direction and dropped me off there.

And so, here I am, writing up what is probably my longest post in this blog to date. I've been up since about 7 AM yesterday, more than 37 hours ago. Operations has encouraged me to take my time and get some rest, since even they acknowledged that it's been a long day. On the bright side, they did commend me repeatedly for keeping my wits about me and remaining professional about everything, even as they insisted that I think more about my well-being and less about what was going to happen with the truck, the freight, or anything else that's happened today. One bit of good news: the tow truck driver was released from the hospital with nothing more than a few stitches on his head and on one leg. What could have been a disaster with multiple fatalities ended up as simply a half-million dollars in damage to equipment without any serious injuries.

I'm probably going to sleep at least tweleve hours now, possibly more, then call ops around 11 AM tomorrow morning to find out what's going on. If my truck is indeed totaled, I'll be here until they assign me another unit. If they decide they're going to do the repairs after all, then I'm here until those repairs are finished. Either way, I'll certainly be here tomorrow (I need a 34 hour break anyway.) and there's a chance I'll be here quite a bit longer than that.

California Catastrophe

Grapevine, CA - In which my truck takes a leak all over the road

I was hoping I'd have something nice and exciting to post for my four hundredth entry in this blog. I was right, mostly, but it's not the kind of excitement that I would have hoped for. Specifically, as I was coming down I-5, approaching a rather large hill, I felt the truck starting to lose power. Thinking that it was my turbo, as I'd previously suspected it acting up, I turned down the radio but didn't hear anything out of the ordrinary. As I started up the hill, though, the truck barely had power at all. I was shifting gears nearly as fast as I could take them, losing nearly five mph just in the time it took to get from 10 to 9, which forced me to shift to 8th nearly immediately, and in turn to 7... at which point the engine protect light came on, accompanied by a low coolant warning.

So I pulled off the road immediately, thinking that I might have lost a hose, since I'd already had to gone one replaced on this truck. But, no, nothing nearly that benign...

From Truckin' Around

Yep, that's my radiator. Leaking vast quantities of coolant all over the five freeway. It's stopped now, but that's because there's nothing left to leak out. So I called maintenance and explained the situation to them. They want to repair this at an operating center, so I found out another little gem: we have an OC in downtown Los Angeles, about 80 miles away. They're sending a tow truck up from there, then taking me down, so we're looking at four to six hours according to maintenance. I fear it might be closer to eight, given that traffic in LA - especially downtown - is lengendarily bad. I'm going to have to relay this load as well, since I won't have the hours to deliver it even if they wanted to give me a loaner truck. As such, I'll be in the general area for the foreseeable future, likely at least two days.

I've been told to simply call in when the truck is repaired and I'm ready to return to work, because there's really no way anyone can tell when I'll be able to hit the road again. It just depends on how backed up things are in the shop. I should at least get a 34-hour break in (simply because I may as well get that taken care of if I'm out of service), but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm down for two to three days. The only good thing is that this still counts as a layover, so I'll get paid for the downtime. I'll also get to see a few people down there, if all goes well. This is just hardly the circumstances in which I'd want to meet folks. :)

French Camp, CA - Cluelessness

Since I picked up my load, things had been going fairly well. I managed to drive more than 670 miles each of the last two days, allowing me to stop in far western New Mexico on Thursday and in Bakersfield, CA yesterday afternoon. There are some really nice photos I took along the way; I'll try to upload those sometime later this weekend. I woke up early this morning (technically, late last night), got food, and got on the road the moment my break was up. Five hours later, I found myself at the consignee's locked gate.

Yep, that's right. They have me do 1,720 miles of driving over more than three days, yet don't even bother checking to see whether or not the place I'm delivering to is open. There was a guard on site, at least, who was able to provide me with my appointment number (the one customer service insisted that I didn't need) and who informed me that they aren't open at all on Saturday (despite operations insisting they were open 24/7 and my work assignment telling me to arrive today). I drove about ten miles down here to the operating center, where I'm going to be stuck for the weekend. Relaying isn't an option, though support shift was lying when they told me that there wasn't any freight in the area so I wouldn't have anywhere to go; we have 19 loads here and only three drivers, but since there aren't enough drivers, there wouldn't be anyone to cover the relay if I dropped this off. Even operations admitted that this situation was inexcusably bad, but there's really nothing we can do about it. Customer service pretty much ignores any complaints about their inability to provide accurate information and there's absolutely no accountability even when they screw up like this.

I won't even get to finish a 34-hour restart - I'll be less than an hour short - since I have to deliver it at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. As such, I'll have only about 20 hours for the next three days, before the 10+ hour days I drove to get out west start rolling off my recap. That might end up working out as days of eleven hours Monday and nine on Tuesday or something similar, meaning I'd never even get to take a full restart. The alternative is that, if freight doesn't stay busy, I end up stuck here for yet another day and a half. I still wish I could get sent to the southern part of the state for various reasons; had I known that this was a delivery for tomorrow, I could have just stayed south and driven up here tomorrow. If it were entirely up to me (even though, in reality, what I ask for doesn't mean a thing) I'd get a load that either delivered to a suburb of Los Angeles or something that I could relay in Fontana and take a 34 hour restart at the operating center down there. In reality, they'll probably have me deliver this, leave me stranded here until Monday, and have me do some crappy run to northern California or Utah.

Oklahoma City, OK - Far West

This morning was rather uneventful. I woke up a bit later than I wanted, delivered my load, then had to sit and wait for nearly five hours for a work assignment. However, my cynicism about the lack of freight was ill-founded. I'm picking up a relay here in town first thing in the morning, then going clear out to northern California with it. Total mileage? 1,720 miles, good for more than $550. I'm going to have two very long days to get out there, though; at least 625 miles tomorrow and Friday, leaving me 350 or so for Saturday morning since this has to be delivered by noon. If I do all that according to plan, I'll only have five hours left on my seventy, so that's going to come into play as well.

The one wildcard in all this is a loud whining noise my truck makes when accelerating. Kilroy (the other Schneider driver who comments here) had an identical problem with his rig just last week and it turned out to be the turbocharger. I sent a message out to road repair and they said to check all the fluids for now and to come by an OC as soon as possible. Fontana, CA has an operating center, but it would be about sixty miles out of the way. I could just make it there, if the next two days go perfectly and operations allows me to relay the load. Alternatively, I could hope to get routed back there after getting unloaded; I'd have just enough hours on my seventy to make it. I'll have to call first shift in the morning to try and work out some sort of plan about all this. :)

Schneider Screws Drivers

All pay increases suspended. Layover reduced to 65/incident from 90/day. 401k matching "deferred" to year end. Pay cuts for new hires effective 3/1.

I don't even know where to begin so I'll edit this post or make a new one later.

West Memphis, AR - Long morning ahead

After delivering my load in Michigan, I was given a load going down to Mississippi. Given the length of the trip, I took a detour through Indianapolis to get maintenance done. I wanted to spend the weekend up there and relay the load off, but the shop was working remarkably fast; despite a rather long list of write-ups, they had it done by dinner time on Saturday. Since that was too late in the day to do anything useful, I left from there first thing this morning and came down here to the Memphis area. From here, I still have about 225 miles to go to my delivery and I'll have a little over four hours to do it in the morning. That's cutting it closer than I'd like, to say the least, but it should be doable barring any sort of calamity. The downside, though, is that Mississippi is a black hole for freight. If I'm not stuck down there for at least a day, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

La Crosse, WI - Further insanity

So here's how the rest of the afternoon went. The shop said that fixing the tandem slider on the trailer would be a very time-consuming process (4 to 6 hours), so Schneider Maintenance came up with a "solution" that took less time: cutting off the pin that wouldn't work. As another driver put it, that's roughly akin to healing a broken finger by cutting it off. But it did at least allow me to move the tandems when I returned to the shipper, more than an hour after my original appointment.

And once again, Schneider's estimated time proved to be wildly inaccurate. The computer said one hour. It took more than three. As such, I'm stuck taking my DOT Break here. Further, there's no way at all I can make on time delivery in Michigan by 4:30 tomorrow afternoon. Even more, if they insist that I try deliver it Friday, I'll be overdue for my tractor PM. The trailer needs to be repaired as well; even though running it with only three pins is legal, that doesn't mean it's safe to simply leave it in that condition. But all this has to wait until morning; I'm not going anywhere for another nine hours or so.

La Crosse, WI - %*($(

So, things were going at least reasonably well. I should know better than to expect that to hold out. I drove across town to the shipper and... well, first, I had to check in. Then I had to wait for some ass that decided he was going to block the driveway rather than park across the street where he was supposed to. Then I spent fifteen minutes getting lined up with the dock only to find that the trailer tandems - which were working just fine when I had to move them for an unload - now had one broken pin. I spent perhaps fifteen minutes beating on it with a hammer and crowbar, hoping to force it to move, but no go. Somehow one of the springs isn't moving at all.

So I call it in, get the usual mumble mumble, and get told to take it to a place... four miles away, down the Interstate, where they don't have useful directions. I call them myself, find out where I'm going, and now I'm waiting in their lot. Apparently the "night" crew doesn't show up until 2:30 and they're not even going to look at the trailer until then. Thus, unless they manage to fix it in ten minutes flat, there's no chance of me picking the load up on time. In turn, that means I'll almost certainly have to get the load appointment rescheduled, which throws the delivery into question, and pretty much screws over everything else.

When I have some idea of when they're going to have the repair finished - and while it's a simple fix, they don't seem to be in any hurry to get on it - I'm going to have to call operations and find out what we're doing about the load. If the shipper's open later in the evening and doesn't mind taking me, I can at least get the load picked up, but then I'll find it extremely difficult to find parking on the road. The only thing I had going for me was that I could probably have made the Gary OC tonight, or at worst have to park at a cluster of large truck stops near the Illinois border, but now I doubt I can even make it that far.

They're just starting work on this now. They asked me to get out of the truck so they could move it themselves, which struck me as rather odd, but I'm just too irritated at this situation to argue.

La Crosse, WI - Someone didn't get the memo...

I'm going to keep this post rather short, just so I can bring things up to date in a hurry. The last load I had was prety much a joke. Though we "confirmed" that we could deliver Monday, the consignee was closed for President's Day. So I dropped the trailer as a relay, grabbed an empty, and quickly got a load of aluminum cans. Despite administrative problems at the shipper, I was out of there within an hour and a half. I shut down in Denver, just because I could.

Yesterday was about as basic a drive as things get: I-76 to I-80. Managed to do 661 miles without even getting clever with my logbook; we have to round everything to the nearest 15 minutes and it worked out such that things rounded to 10:45, fifteen minutes below the limit. Regulatory doesn't even have anything to whine about this time.

I ended up leaving Des Moines a bit earlier than I would have liked, since the weather was supposed to be pretty nasty: two to six inches of snow and 20+ mph winds most of the day. That only started as I approached the consignee, though, and I arrived more than an hour earlier. Granted, it took them 15 minutes for them to acknowledge I was here and another 15 for me to get into one of the docks, but that still puts me half an hour ahead of schedule. I don't think they've started unloading me yet, but I'm on their time now. Once they finish, I drive across town to pick up a load from another warehouse.

The problem, though, is not that I'm getting another load, but that it's a live unload in Michigan. I can't imagine they'll find freight up there at all, so there's a significant risk that I'll be stuck up there for an untold amount of time. Further, my truck's due for maintenance by tomorrow. Last time, despite not even going through an operating center during the maintenance window, I had someone in ops literally yelling and cursing at me for not getting it done on time; the shop didn't seem particuarly happy to see me either. I don't want a repeat of that, but my DBL apparently doesn't care or doesn't see it as a problem if I'm a day or two late, even after I conveyed the reaction I got last time. If anyone chews me out, I'm going to tell them to ask ops why I wasn't allowed time to get the work done.

In any event, this evening is going to be a pain. Given that my next load is going to be extremely heavy (at least 45,000 pounds) I'll have to scale it out, which is going to eat into my already limited time. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to make it to our Gary, IN operating center, take care of some regulatory crap that I'd been neglecting, and get a decent dinner and shower. If not, I'll probably have to stop at one of the places in southern Wisconsin, as there's absolutely nothing worth stopping at in the Chicago, IL area. If I stop there, though, that leaves me more than 300 miles left tomorrow and almost ensures that I won't have enough hours to make it to an OC. If I make it to Gary tonight and they somehow find freight tomorrow, I might at least be able to make it back to Gary or, even better, down to Indianapolis. Knowing my luck, though, they'll leave me stranded up there for days. :p

Sarita, TX - Going in circles

I had to get up awfully early this morning, so this is going to be a
short post. Ended up leaving San Antonio around 5:30 AM, then headed
down to Laredo. Things went well, aside from one incident about
halfway there. I was in the right lane, another truck was passing me
in the left lane, and a third truck was trying to merge onto I-35. I
had nowhere to go and both the merging truck and I stomped on the
brakes until we both were doing about 25. He got on, I got back in
place, and no damage was done.

I did get a pleasant surprise while in Laredo: A 1,350 mile run to
Colorado Springs. That wasn't entirely without incident either,
though; I managed to break the Qualcomm and lost nearly an hour while
that was repaired, then found that the trailer I'd been assigned was
wedged in between other trailers in such a way that I'd never be able
to get it out; I couldn't even reach the landing gear to raise it up
and, even if I could, there wasn't enough room for me to swing out and
actually leave the yard with it. I hastily found another trailer, sent
that number in, got a message back saying to take it, and went on my
way. The problem? I left Laredo at 12:15, had to travel 220 miles, and
the shipper allegedly closed at 4 PM. I called the shipper myself to
apologize and try to arrange something else, but ended up getting
voice mail... the greeting, however, said their office hours were
until 5 PM. Turns out that was true; they were still there when I
arrived at 4:45.

It's a small miracle I arrived at all, though! The route I was on was
... well, barely legal for an empty trailer. One segment of road had a
weight limit of about 58,000 pounds, while another wound through a
residential area to end up on a dirt road. Yep, that's right: a big
ol' semi going down a lane-and-a-half-wide dirt road. The facility had
just one dock, and a driveway barely large enough to let one one truck
through at at time. I needed nearly 15 minutes just to back in, but
figured it out eventually; I finished it right at 5 o'clock. They
loaded me and sent me on my way.

The accumulation of delays left me rather short on my 14, though. I
originally planned to make it to Corpus Christi, but that was clearly
impossible: I was 150 miles from the city with just 45 minutes left.
As it is, I went about half an hour overjust getting this far, but I
doubt anyone's going to notice thirty minutes. Tomorrow's going to be
more problematic, though: Amarillo, Texas is 694 miles from here, whch
is more than I can do in 11 hours of driving, but not impossible for
me to do within 14. I have no idea how I'll make it work on paper, but
I should be able to swing something, one way or another.For now,
though, I need to get to sleep; tonight's the first night in a rather
long time I'll be getting nine hours of sleep. :)

Theodore, AL - One of those afternoons

I didn't even get started today until nearly noon, and I parked here at 4:15. Only two and a half hours of actual work. Sounds like a good day, right? Well, not exactly. Things started off well enough, but the directions I had to the shipper were horrible; I ended up following them to their old address, on property they still own but at a warehouse rented out by someone else. Turns out I had to go across the street. They loaded the trailer and sent me on my way in about an hour.

Getting out of there, things got steadily worse. Traffic on I-65 in Mobile was much heavier than I'm used to seeing. On top of that, someone had spilled a few empty pallets on the road, blocking two of the three lanes, which forced everyone to the far left lane or the right shoulder. Once out of that mess, I had to try move back left to make it out of lanes that were ending or exiting. Then I arrived at the Pilot here to scale the load, only to find that all 50 parking spaces here were already full. I looked around a bit, just to make sure; during that time, three trucks pulled out and I quickly snapped up one of the spaces. I'll still have to scale the load, but I'll worry about that in the morning.

I plan on getting out of here around 2:15 AM and heading toward Texas. Not sure just where I'll stop yet, but there's a place near San Antonio that seems promising. After a break there, I'll head to Laredo, take care of business there, and hope they route me north. I also have to hope that I dodge the worst of the severe weather, since I can't exactly outrun a tornado in this thing...

Houston, TX - An exercise in futility

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dallas, TX - Timing problems

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

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

Dallas, TX - Screwed

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

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

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

West Memphis, AR - A little rest for the weary

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

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

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

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

White Pine, TN - Slowness

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

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

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

Charlotte, NC - Over the mountains or through the woods

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

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

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

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

Charlotte, NC - Lumpers with attitude

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

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

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

Charlotte, NC - Ping pong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drums, PA - A long night ahead

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

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

Drums, PA - Nowhereland

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

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

Center Square, NY - Canada round-trip

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

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

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

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

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

Amsterdam, NY - Oh, Canada? Oh snap!

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

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

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

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

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

Seville, OH - How low can we go?

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

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

How to break a text editor with your dick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gary, IN - Round trip, number two

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

Gary, IN - Free

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

Gary, IN - Round trip

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

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

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

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

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

Gary, IN - Whoa, partner

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

Gary, IN - Westward exposure

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

Gary, IN - Through the Ice Storm and the Snow

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

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

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

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

Wytheville, VA - Long night ahead

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

Greensboro, NC - Up to the frozen north

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

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

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

Breiningsville, PA - A short night and a long drive

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

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

Breinigsville, PA - Seven means seven

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

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

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

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

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

Bridgewater, MA - A service plaza? Where?

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

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

Assonet, MA - Lumper Scams and Me

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

No, really, I'll wait.

All done? Let's move on, then.

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

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

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

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

Milford, CT - Bedtime

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

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

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

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

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

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

Milford, CT - Another night to kill

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

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

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

Darien, CT - U-turn on the highway

I was supposed to originally make delivery up in Milford, CT at 8 AM this morning. I knew I was going to be late for that, but had hoped to get up there by noon, which I had been told would be okay. Turns out that the place I'm delivering to closes at 11 AM, though. Which is just as well, as I forgot how bad traffic on I-95 in Connecticut is. I figured I'd lose some time, yes, but I didn't expect to find that traffic was moving at 15 to 20 mph along the entire highway, from New York to Massachusetts.

I pulled into a service plaza for both a quick rest break and to find out what I should do about this load: I don't have enough hours on my 11 to even make it to where I'm supposed to be going now. About 20 minutes later, I'd found out that the next available appointment was for the same time next Wednesday and that the nearest drop yard was, unfortunately, the one back in New Jersey. I'll either have to go straight through NYC on I-95 (and, given that it's New Year's, that's not likely) or go around 287 and have to drive twice as far. Neither option is very good, but hopefully they'll get me out of the northeast soon enough.

Seville, OH - Overnight express

I was supposed to leave from Green Bay around 6 PM yesterday, but I just didn't have the energy to do anything. As such, I didn't leave from there until nearly 1 AM this morning. I picked up the trailer, started driving, but found myself so tired that I could only just keep the rig on the road by 8 AM. I've already told operations that this is not going to get delivered on time and that the weather forecast for overnight snow (2 to 8 inches along nearly my entire route) could further delay delivery. I dropped the trailer in case they want to have another driver pick up the relay, but regardless, I'm going to get about nine hours of sleep now. *thud*

Jackson, MS - (Not Quite) Home for the Holidays

The last time I was here in this part of the state, it took me almost three days to get a load going where I needed to go. This time, I'm up to seven hours already and there's no sign at all of freight. At least ops had the decency to send me a message telling me they were going to wait until morning to see if anything develops. So I'm getting food now and going to cal it a "night" rather early and catch up on sleep. If something comes in overnight that would allow me to get home, awesome. Otherwise, if I'm still here at 9:15 tomorrow morning, I'll collect a day of layover.

Winona, MS - Rest

For the first time in well over a week, I'm not compelled to get moving the moment I legally can! It's still in my best interest to not sleep too late (I have the alarm set for 5 AM), but at least I can afford to get a full nine hours of sleep to make up for the rest I didn't get while I was on my restart.

Since I have a bit of time, allow me to type in my recap. I thought that the zero was a restart, which still put me at 55.25 hours for the five days since then, but it wasn't. I only parked in Denver for about 31 hours, which wasn't enough to reset the clock. I haven't heard from regulatory yet, but I just sent my logs in tonight and I'll be surprised if I don't get a message later in the week about it.

Date	Hours	Last8
12	9.75	9.75
13	9.5	19.25
14	0	19.25
15	9.25	28.5
16	12	40.5
17	10.5	51
18	11.75	62.75
19	11.75	73.5

Salina, KS - Logbook screwup

I've pulled a big oops on my logs and just have to hoppe regulatory doesn't notice until I shut down tomorrow. I'll post the details then. Hee...

Salina, KS - Halfway point

I'm a little less than halfway between Denver and Indianapolis, but this was as far as I could get today. And, in reality, I went slightly over my 14 (and well over my 11) just getting this far. This leaves me 666 miles to drive tomorrow. It's a tall order, for sure, but I think I can make something work.

So why did i end up shutting down here, some 30 miles earlier than I intended? The weather. This morning, I had to drive through the Rockies. This would have been bad enough on a clear day, but I was going through at night, in intermittent snow showers, on an ice-covered road, with a 45,000 pound load. I was smoking the brakes on at least two occasions (plus probably one more, in which I smelled burning but it was too dark to see smoke), including as I came into Denver in the morning. I was seriously worried about throwing myself off the mountain; in both cases where the brakes faded to nearly nothing, I was lucky enough to be at the bottom of a downgrade. When I stopped for fuel, I parked for about an extra hour just to let the brakes cool off. Even now, eight hours later, I still smell something funny back there, so I'll have to get the shop at Indy to check it out.

When I resumed, the weather in eastern Colorado was just fine. As I got into Kansas, though, clouds started rolling in. At first I wasn't very worried - it was 45 degrees and driving in the rain is nothing to me - but as it started to precipitate the temperature plunged back to 30 degrees. And, on top of that, it started getting foggy. Freezing fog. It sounds innocuous enough, but as everything started icing up, the road became incredibly slick. So, to recap, it's raining on and off, visibility is a quarter mile (or less), and there's ice everywhere, including on my mirrors. Fantastic, hm? It got even worse after dark, since high beams just reflect all that back; visibility was just enough that I could see the road and, if I squinted, the tail lights of cars a thousand feet ahead. Thankfully, that all started to clear up before I shut down here. Apparently this kind of crap is going to continue most of the night, though, and I'll be catching up to the storm when I get moving first thing in the morning.

At least, once I get to Indianapolis, I'll have enough reasons to put the truck and trailer in the shop that, hopefully, I'll get a day (or at least a few extra hours) off. I still need to do all the math on my logbook but I believe I'll be running out of hours anyway.

Blown Fuses

This is what's left of the 20 amp turn-signal fuse that I mentioned in my last post. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to fail long before they reach this level of damage...

Ogden, UT - 575 miles to get to nowhere!

Today was one of those days that I'd really, really like to get to do over, if anyone happens to have a remote that can actually rewind time by 24 hours. I got started on time this morning and, despite a little bit of snow, made great time getting over to the consignee and dropped my trailer. My work assignment told me to pick up a trailer from that place; they only had one of our trailers and it was unsealed. I couldn't find my flashlight to take a more careful look inside, but the trailer sounded hollow and, if anything were in it, the thing would be sealed, right?

So, after finishing the rest of my pre-trip inspection, I drove down to the shipper for my next load. For the record, US 40 in Utah would be scary enough on a clear night with a full moon; I had to drive down it in heavy snow, with the road so heavily covered that I couldn't tell where the lanes were, with my driver's side windshield completely covered in ice since the defroster on that side went out again. As such, I had visibility of roughly a hundred feet, even after it stopped snowing, resulting in an average speed of roughly 25 mph for about four hours.

Once the sun rose, conditions improved significantly and I finished the roughly 250 mile trip to the shipper. The first warning I had that something was wrong was when my truck scaled out as "empty" at 40,000 pounds even; even figuring in the tire chains, full load of fuel, and winter supplies I've picked up, it shouldn't have been much over 33,000. I went into the shipping office anyway, checked in, got assigned a dock, drove over there, opened the doors... and saw the trailer was roughly 1/4 full of auto parts. Added bonus problem: air bag systems are class 9 hazmat and I didn't have placards. Needless to say, I didn't tell operations that when I called in.

After nearly 45 minutes on the phone (30 of that on hold), even ops acknowledged this was going to be a Chinese fire drill. I had to go back and return the trailer, meaning my trip through the blizzard was meaningless. Then I have to go and pick up an empty from the Salt Lake OC and pick up the load. Obviously, both pickup and delivery are getting bumped back now, especially since I'll have to put my truck in the shop somewhere to get a few things fixed.

Even though I ended up blowing my 11 and 14 by roughly two hours, I ended up taking the trailer back and parking at a truck stop right up the road. I didn't get a message from regulatory telling me that I was over on time, one of the few good things that's happened today, but I imagine that message will be waiting for me when I finish eating. While I was pulling into the truck stop, I had all my turn signal lights go out again, which meant that traffic didn't even have blinkers to ignore; getting around on the highway when you can't signal is a pain in the butt. It's just a fuse that keeps blowing, but I'll need to get some more spares when I go through the OC in the morning, just to make sure I have enough in case the problem comes up again.

So, in a nutshell, I have roughly nine hours left to get some rest, hope I can make it to Denver tomorrow, and somehow try to make Cincinnati by Friday. The last isn't going to happen, so unless the place has weekend hours, I might be relaying this off near St. Louis or (preferably) Indianapolis. But, of course, I won't know any of that for sure until I call operations tomorrow and verify what's going on. And I don't even know what's going on yet since I have to figure out where I can stop for the next two days.

Ogden, UT - Eastbound

I'm not getting out o the west coast. That's the bad news. The good news is that I have another 1500 mile run, this time to Ohio. I'll be passing through a few nice places, too: Denver, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. Not sure if I'll be stopping at any of those (though Denver will likely be where I shut down tonight if I get lucky), but at least I know that I'll be following I-70 for roughly a thousand miles.

I should probably get moving to pick this load up, though I'm on track to be more than an hour early. At least that gives me spare time if road conditions get dicey. If I get to the shipper too early, I'll take a nap.

Evanston, WY - Racing the weather

It seems like I can't get a break with the weather up here. Early this morning, part of I-80 was completely covered in ice and snow; I could just barely make out the yellow stripe on the left edge of the road and ended up finding the rumble strip a few times. Of course, this was on a five-mile long 5% downgrade. I took it in sixth gear, bouncing between 15 and 20 mph. A few drivers passed me, but I was pulling away from someone behind me, so at least I wasn't the only one worried about conditions.

That drained me a lot, though, so I used the weather as an excuse to pull into a parking area and get a couple hours of sleep. They knew that my delivery was contingent on the weather being decent, and while the weather is okay right now, the road conditions near Laramie were really dicey. I only averaged 41 mph this morning; to make my delivery on time, I'd have to average at least 49. So I sent in messages telling operations that I was going to be late; they've updated the customer and, far as we know, there's no issue with the fact I'm going to be 16 hours late.

Of course, even that assumes that conditions tonight are good. I-80 is fine right now, but it's just started snowing here and there's a winter storm warning in effect for the area I'm going into. If the highway is impassible, there's obviously nothing I can do, but I need to at try make progress on this load, even if it means I'm doing 15 miles per hour through a blizzard. I still have no idea where I'm going after this load, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wait until I deliver this one before assigning me something else, just because the weather out here is so unstable right now.

Laredo, TX - Go west, young man, go west!

Of all the places I thought I'd get routed, Utah wasn't somewhere I'd expected at all. But, as the 1,418 mile work assignment in front of me indicates, I'm heading out that way. I need to get tire chains somewhere - I'm on hold trying to figure that out now - but otherwise this looks awesome. Whee!

Laredo, TX - Zero mile run!

Today was a day in which absolutely nothing was accomplished. I arrived here in Laredo around 4:30 PM yesterday, parked the truck, and went to bed exceptionally early. It's nice catching up on sleep! I woke up... still nothing. I waited until about 12:30 this afternoon to call in and see what freight's like. Unsurprisingly, it's not that good down here; I found out, though, that they have drivers doing load saves down here to keep us from just sitting around. Meaning, in other words, they're trying to give us loads that would break up a layover.

Not ten minutes after I get off the phone, I have a work assignment come in. It was supposed to pick up here at the OC and deliver to somewhere else in Laredo. Because we're paid on book miles, which are calculated city to city, a run that stays within a single town is zero miles. Unhappy about this, for several reasons, I call in and find out that runs like that are paid at a flat $25, plus any applicable detention pay. Since this was expected to be a two hour unload, I would likely have received an additional $15 for that, bringing the total to $40. Layover pay is $90. Meaning, in other words, I would have received $50 less by working than I would have earned for sitting still another three hours.

However, note that I'm referring to this load in the past tense, not as one that I actually took. I can't refuse a load (not without risking my job, anyway), but when I got over to the trailer, there was no paperwork on it; it just had a slip saying to see the fuel desk. I went inside, talked to the people there, and found out that they didn't have the paperwork either; they sent me into the office to see who had it in there. So I went in there and not even they knew where the paperwork was at first. When I told them, rather tersely, that I needed the paperwork to move the load since it was due for delivery in the next 90 minutes (I'd lost nearly an hour trying just to find the trailer and doing my pre-trip), they looked in one last place. Sure enough, the paperwork was there... along with a note saying that customs had rejected the load and that nobody could legally touch that trailer or its contents until we had the okay.

So, all that done, I had to go out, call operations to get taken off the load (and spend 25 minutes on hold), unhook from the trailer, and find another parking space. The lot here is in such bad shape that I got stuck in gravel. I eventually got out, by playing with the power divider, dumping the clutch, spinning the tires, and generally doing all sorts of things that the mechanics would probably really prefer I not have done to the truck. However, since I did ask for help and the shop basically told me to figure it out on my own, I really don't feel guilty about anything I did there. I parked in a space that I wasn't going to get stuck in (another 75 feet from the building) and have been sitting here since.

Though operations said they'd give me another load as soon as they could, it's been about six hours and I still haven't had anything come in. I'll probably set the Qualcomm right next to my pillow, so any incoming message beeps will wake me up, but I'll be very surprised if I get something before about 8 o'clock in the morning. In any case, if I'm still here at 4:30 tomorrow, I'll get credit for another day of layover, but I'm going to call in tomorrow just to make sure that everything is in the computer. I don't want to get short-changed on pay again.

Laredo, TX - There's how many of us here?

Three long days of driving have led me to Laredo, TX. However, when I called to ask about freight, I was told there are "about seventy" drivers here waiting on a load. Operations encouraged me to update to show that I was available sooner than 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, if I wanted; I told them that I'm not going to bother because, if there are this many of us waiting here, I'll be surprised to get an assignment by 9 AM Friday. *grumble*

LaGrange, GA - (Un)professional drivers

Things were going great today right up until I got to the truck stop here. There's a McDonald's with truck parking just in front of the Pilot here; getting into both requires a left turn. I was waiting to turn and, in the driveway, a cop had pulled another trucker over. I had room to turn until a damn four-wheeler pulled right into the center of the open space, ensuring that I couldn't get around him. When he started forward, he continued to block me by pulling so close to the front of my truck that I couldn't move without hitting him. Just as the idiot finally got out of my way, the cop left and the trucker pulled into the one open space at the McDonald's.

Given that I had to wait nearly ten minutes to turn due to traffic, that put me in a bad enough mood. Going into the truck stop and finding that there's no parking at all this early at night didn't help my mood either; a truck stop should not be completely full at 5:30 in the afternoon. As I came back out, I looped around the McDonald's parking to see if a space had opened; as I drove by the space the ticketed driver had taken, he left. I didn't have enough room to get into it from the other direction, so I tried to go out and back around. Of course, another "professional" driver was blocking the driveway, blocking me in. And, of course, just as the other driver got out of my way, another trucker speeding out of the truck stop took the open space. I have a sore throat now from the string of obscenities I was screaming at my windshield.

While I was still waiting to get into the McDonald's, since I still had to use that lot to turn around now, yet another driver left. This time, I made a few decidedly unprofessional moves myself, but I'm parked in that spot right now. I'm getting out of here as soon as my ten hour break is up. I never want to see this truck stop again.

Wando, SC - Dude, where's my load?

I'm just fifteen minutes early for my appointment here, but the container worth of stuff that's supposed to get loaded on my trailer hasn't arrived yet and they don't have any idea when it'll get here. I'm just waiting in the drop yard right now until they come and get me, at which point I'll go to the truck dock, back in, get loaded, and hopefully get plenty of miles in today. My work assignment lists an average duration of two hours; I'm hoping that I can get out of here in less than three, since that ensures I'll be able to use my full eleven hours of driving time.

Still, I think that this is the first time I've ever gotten to a customer and my load hadn't actually arrived yet...

Lugoff, SC - Running on full

Looks like I'm going to have a lot of miles for the next couple of days at least. From here I'll be heading over toward Charleston to pick something up, then all the way down to Laredo to drop it off. Just under 1,500 miles. I'm going to be tired as heck the next three days but my paycheck is most definitely going to thank me. To get this done, though, I have to get up at 4:30 AM, pick up an empty from a facility just a mile up the road, then go nearly 130 miles by 8 o'clock to get the trailer loaded. It's going to be a much tighter schedule than I think they realize, but I'm optimistic about it. I just have to make sure I fill up here before I take off, since I definitely need the fuel and I can't afford to stop on my way over to pick this up.

But, rather than ramble on for a couple more paragraphs, I'm posting this and getting to bed. I might even get seven and a half hours of rest for once!

Indianapolis, IN - Snow, snow, more snow.

For various reasons - some work related, some not - I ended up sleeping rather late today. And by the time I woke up, there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and reports were coming in from all over the place warning that the road conditions were treacherous, at best.

The result? I'm 641 miles from the place I'm delivering and I have until 9 PM EST tomorrow to get there. I'll probably leave from here rather early tomorrow - hopefully by 6 AM, but maybe as early as 4 - and driving with as few stops as possible to ensure that I get there in time. The good news is that there's a truck stop at the same exit as my delivery point in South Carolina, so at least there's a pretty good chance that I'll have somewhere to park when I'm done. As for freight, there's no telling what will happen, but it'll definitely be Monday morning since I won't have any hours to go anywhere.

Monee, IL - It's a new record!

I pulled a whopping 644 miles today. I may have had to round a couple things on my logbook in my favor, but I actually didn't have to resort to outright cheating to make things happen the way they needed to. The trip up to Illinois was remarkably boring; absolutely nothing happened along the way that was even remotely memorable. I did, however, get my "appointment" moved up to 4PM today, from 4PM tomorrow. Notice, though, that I have appointment in quotes.

It turns out that the place I was going to doesn't even allow the kind of load I have to be live unloaded. Why? Because they had hundreds of boxes from thirty different vendors, all loaded haphazardly in the trailer. As a result, they'd have to unload the entire trailer, scan in every single box, sort them out since each box was likely going to a different store, then put the freight they didn't need back on the truck. The listed seven-hour unload time on my work assignment is actually unrealistically optimistic for that kind of thing. So, rather than have me put up with all that, they simply had me drop the trailer. That freed me to go to the Petro up here, where I had a nice dinner.

Tomorrow, I'm going to head to Gary to get my truck in for a PM. It turns out that I really am due for both an A (check up only) and a B (oil change) right now. Why they scheduled them so closely is beyond my comprehension - not even the mechanics were able to explain why - but it does mean that there's a pretty good chance that I'll be tied up for a while. At the absolute best, I'll lose half a day tomorrow, but given that Green Bay had a five-day wait for maintenance, I wouldn't be surprised to lose a day or two. But, in any case, I'll have to actually get over there before I can confirm exactly what is - or isn't - going to happen. Hopefully I can do so before Chicago's rush hour kicks in to high gear.

East Point, GA - Appointments? What are those?

I received several messages over the weekend telling me that this is a critically important, cannot be even one minute late delivery. So I end up busting my tail over the weekend and get moving as early as possible this morning to try and ensure that I'm not late. I've never seen traffic on 285 moving this smoothly during rush hour, but perhaps I just got through before the backups reached that part of the loop; traffic on 75 south was more trouble than I'm used to.

When I arrived here about 8 AM (eastern), I walked in and handed over my paperwork... only to be told that they don't even do appointments at 9 AM, which is what I'd been told my time was for. They say they'll get to me after the truck that is currently being unloaded. He leaves, I back into the dock, then go in to hand over my paperwork. While I'm waiting, two other Schneider drivers come up, one of whom also was told to get here at nine. They don't even have enough floor space to unload one trailer full of rolls now, much less to accommodate three of us, so I'm currently waiting for them to make room just so they can start unloading me.

Freight in the area is a bit of a question mark right now. I was told that it probably will be a longer wait today, but that I should call and ask about things when they do finish unloading the trailer. If I get some work, that'd be nice, since I could at least earn some good mileage. If not, then I might be stuck going to the Atlanta OC (eww) and probably be forced to get maintenance done on the truck since something is due to be done today. Whatever ends up happening, I just hope that I get to know about it at least slightly in advance.