York, PA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perryville, MD

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

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

Charlotte, NC - Spring Training Complete

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charlotte, NC

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

Crafton, PA

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

Seville, OH

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

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

Knoxville, TN

It seems like I'm running faster than even the trip planners can keep up with these days! I ended up getting to the place where I was supposed to get "unloaded" at around 4:30AM, to find out that it really was just a drop. I also was supposed to bobtail to pick up my next load, but that wasn't supposed to be ready until 3PM. Oops. Well, I went down there and found out (unsurprisingly) that it wasn't ready and that they were running behind schedule. So instead of wasting most of the rest of my hours down there, I instead went back up the road to a truck stop, where I'll be taking yet another 10-hour break. I'll get eight hours sleep (hypothetically), grab some food, then pick this thing up and drive to Indianapolis for the night. I'll put my truck in the shop, most likely, since I have enough time on this load that I can afford to take the extra 24 hours or so.

Danridge TN

Yet another day where a whole lot didn't end up happening. I started driving around 3AM, stopped for fuel in Knoxville, then continued on to here. I'm about a half hour's drive from where I'm delivering and I plan on getting there as shortly after midnight as possible so I can leave there early as I can. Why? Because it's scheduled to take a whopping four hours to get the trailer unloaded, but I am hoping that if I get there at an early hour, they'll get right on it and be able to finish it more quickly. Then, since this trailer is due for maintenance, they'll probably send me toward another operating center to get it fixed. The nearest one is probably Charlotte, but Atlanta isn't that much further away and I could possibly make Indianapolis or even Memphis before my hours ran out, so there's plenty of options for the trip planners to consider. Of course, there's a very real chance that they'll have forgotten I need to take this trailer by an OC and they'll just route me somewhere random.

I-57, exit 10, MO

I'm so tired that I didn't even look at the sign off the Interstate, so I couldn't tell you what city this exit this is supposed to serve. I woke up around 6 this morning, drove to make the delivery, picked up an empty trailer, dropped the empty to get a load, and weighed the load to find it was perfectly legal. Today was one of those entirely uneventful days, really; the only thing even remotely interesting is that this trailer is about three weeks overdue for its annual inspection. They'll probably route me to an OC to get that looked at; since it'll have to be the nearest OC, that means I might end up in Charlotte or Atlanta on Sunday.

West Memphis, AR

Today was one of those days where I only wish I could have gotten myself out of bed earlier. Not that it would have helped, mind you, except for the fact I'd have been able to shut down the truck earlier and get the day over with. I woke up at around 5, but couldn't convince myself to get out of bed until nearly 6. I got breakfast, then started driving back toward Mobile to wait for a trailer again. There was a problem already, though; just a after I left the truck stop I got a message telling me to go north about 80 miles to pick one up from a company drop yard and I couldn't get the message until I stopped where I thought I needed to be. So after wasting half an hour going down there, then turning around and going back north, I went to get the trailer, then headed to the docks to pick up a load.

I arrived at the front gate without a problem, but the first guy to give me directions omitted a key piece of information (namely, where I was supposed to make another right turn), which resulted in me driving straight out the back exit of the place. I was more than a little angry, at this point, as I was several hours behind schedule and running out of time to pick up this load. The second time I asked for directions from someone else and gave me better directions, which got me to where I needed to be. The place loaded me remarkably quickly - I barely had time to confirm the route I was taking - so I simply closed the truck and drove back to the truck stop I spent the night at to scale the load. It was just fine where I left the tandems, so for once, something that could have gone wrong didn't.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful; I didn't make any other stops, nor were there any big traffic hangups. But when I got to the OC here, I found that the transient (overnight) parking was full, many of the spaces taken by bobtails even though there's several signs that say "no bobtail parking" in the area. There are also probably a hundred empty tractor parking spaces that people aren't using, for whatever reason. So instead of being able to park near the fuel island, I'm parked well back in the trailer parking area, at least a quarter-mile from the main entrance. So I'll have a bit of a walk just to go inside to take a shower; as soon as I post this, I'm doing that, then going to bed. I need to be up at 5:30 and out of the OC at 6, since I really, really need to maximize the hours I have available to drive.

Satsuma, AL

I just came back out on the road today after nearly a week off, so I was ready to go and hoping for plenty of miles. Only... I didn't get it. I have a run that's just over 600 miles, but I can't find an empty trailer anywhere! I was sent to one place, only to find they didn't have any empties. I sent in a message... only to get told to wait for an empty to become available. Fantastic. So I wait, and wait... and four hours later find out that they're not unloading any more of ours today and that the three they already did (taken by the three drivers in line before me) were the only three.

So I had just an hour and a half left to get a trailer and get to where I was picking up a load (it was just around the corner, but had to be by 3PM). Instead of sending me somewhere else, though, I was given permission to go up to a truck stop for the night and to be back at the place to try get an empty in the morning. So I'm going to sleep, wake up, shower, and hit the road, in the hopes one will be there when I arrive. It's a long shot, especially considering that there are apparently nearly twenty other drivers waiting on trailers from this place, but I'm hoping that I luck out.

Edwardsville, IL

While I originally planned on driving one more day and going on to my 34-hour break tonight, my truck developed a really bad air leak yesterday, one that was losing air at a rate nearly double the DOT allowed threshold. As such, I had to go in to the operating center here and get it repaired, since the DOT would have shut me down if I were unlucky enough to get an inspection. I'm still waiting on them to finish the repair - my truck was supposed to be ready half an hour ago - since I want to leave fairly soon to get plenty of miles knocked out tonight. I want to be as far down the road as possible before I have to stop, such that I have as much time left as possible after I make my delivery Tuesday morning.

Hours of Service

I'm sure you've noticed that I keep referring to the number of hours that I can work, but I haven't really gone into a lot of detail about what that means, aside from a short post I made while I was still in training. I'll explain that all in greater detail here.

There are rules regarding the hours of service for freight-carrying truck drivers, as part of the regulations governing the industry. The technical details are on that page, but I'll put it into a simpler set of terms here.

11 and 14 hour rules: Once I begin working after a ten-hour break, I can drive up to 11 out of the next 14 hours. After 14 hours, I could continue to work, but not drive. For example, I could continue to unload a truck, finish a DOT inspection, or do any other task required by the job that doesn't involve being behind the wheel.

70 hour rule: After working 70 hours in any eight consecutive days, I can't continue to drive. This is a rolling eight-day period; that is, it's the last eight days, regardless of what the date or day of the week is. Under DOT regulations, I may still do non-driving work; under Schneider's company policy, I can't do any work at all unless it's an emergency. I'll take a sample out of my own logbook - the recap page - for the last few days to further explain this.

Day	Hours	Previous 8	Previous 7	Next Day
4	11.25	11.25	11.25	58.75
5	3.5	14.75	14.75	55.25
6	5	19.75	19.75	50.25
7	7	26.75	26.75	43.25
8	6.5	33.25	33.25	36.75
9	7.25	40.5	40.5	29.5
10	8.5	49	49	21
11	11.25	60.25	49	21
12	9.25	58.25	54.75	15.25

This is exactly how my actual recap is formatted. In order, the columns are the date, the hours I worked that day, my hours for the previous eight days, for the previous seven, and what I have available (out of 70) for the next day. All I do is copy my hours from my logbook page onto this sheet, then do the addition. Then, after that, I subtract the "previous seven days" number from 70 to figure out how many hours I have left for the next day. So if I were to have worked 10 hours today, I would have this:

13

10

64.75

59.75

10.25

Since the number of hours available is now less than 14, I wouldn't be able to work a full day; I'd be capped at 10 hours, 15 minutes. Basically, I can think of it as picking up the hours I worked eight days ago at midnight; I'll get five hours back at midnight (since the 5th will no longer be one of the last eight days), then tomorrow I'll pick seven hours back up. If you do the math, this means that I can work a maximum of 8 hours, 45 minutes every day without running out of hours somewhere. If I consistently work more, I'll eventually either have to take a shorter day or take a 34-hour restart.

Breaks: A break must be ten hours (or more) spent not working. It doesn't matter if it's off-duty time or spent in the sleeper, but it must be a minimum of ten hours. A 34-hour break is considered a restart; after 34 hours off duty, I have a full seventy hours available again, as if I'd taken the last eight days off. Obviously, I can take more than 10 or 34 hours and still satisfy the conditions; I just have to get back to work in time to make the delivery.

Ultimately, that's about it. I'll cover logging itself another time.

London, OH

Today was one of those incredibly long days that just didn't feel that long. For various reasons, I got just two hours of sleep last night, but I actually was wide awake when I started driving. I made it to my delivery point with about fifteen minutes to spare, but since they didn't open until 7AM, it was a moot point. Even so, they finished unloading me much more quickly than expected and I got a work assignment just as they returned my paperwork, so I got directions and took off again, heading 19 miles back down the Interstate.

The next load also went ahead of schedule, so I was back on the road in about two hours (instead of 3.5), which left me just under three hours to find a place to park. I found a Pilot about 160 miles away and decided to go for it... I ended up parking the truck just as my fourteen hours ran out for the day. I plan on catching up on sleep, so I won't be leaving immediately when my 10 hour break is up; I can afford to take a few extra hours on this run. I could probably just take a full 34 hour restart, but I'd rather keep moving so I have a nice, fat paycheck come in when I get home.

Willoughby Hills, OH

Another long drive without a break; I had to do about 350 miles without even stopping to get breakfast, which was certainly unpleasant. Otherwise, though, the drive was nothing special. The snow that I thought might hit near Cleveland never actually materialized, so the weather was a complete non-issue. I haven't received a new work assignment yet, which always concerns me; they're working fast on this trailer and there's a risk that they'll be done before operations actually gives me something else to do. And since they made me hand over the truck key for safety (as if I'd actually be dumb enough to move the truck while they're working in it!), I can't just leave the truck on to ensure I get the messages right away. I just hope they come in quickly when I fire it back up.

Indianapolis, IN

Today was one of those days where I just drove and never looked back. I left as soon as my ten-hour-break was up, then never stopped the truck until I arrived in Indianapolis, 9 1/2 hours later. No lunch break, no bathroom break, just a straight drive for 580 miles. This leaves me about 330 miles from where I'm delivering, with a 7AM appointment; I plan on leaving around midnight to make it there on time. I can't get there early, due to various noise restrictions on the load, so basically I have to get there as close to 7 o'clock as possible. I'll do a trip plan while they unload the trailer, then nap with whatever time I have left. Hopefully I'll be well-rested enough to have a nice, full day again; I like being able to drive 600 miles.

Vinita, OK

I'd say today was "one of those days," but they come up so often anymore that it's hard to simply call them "those days" now. I started off near Oklahoma City, leaving the truck stop around 1AM after getting fuel and food. The trip down to the consignee was uneventful, but when I arrived there, I found that one of the tandem pins on the trailer was broken. I could force it in with a hammer, but there was nothing to keep it pulled and it would immediately pop back out. The guy there just said to forget sliding them and back into the dock, but I knew the next place I was going (to drop the trailer off) would require me to slide them, so I sent in a message to maintenance asking if there were any places along the way that I could go to get it fixed. They suggested one - a TA about five miles out of the way - and I went there on my way through Oklahoma City.

The TA, however... well, to say they were having a bad day would be putting it nicely. The manager was screaming at himself over various things, the guy at the counter seemed clueless, other customers in line in front of me had such obscure requests that even I wanted to beat my head against the desk, and to top it all off: they couldn't even fix my trailer. It took them two hours to determine that it was something they didn't have the part for, since it was something in the pin-pulling mechanism itsemf, and they simply said "We're not a trailer shop" when I asked why they couldn't do it. So I called maintenance from the pay phone and got directions to another shop, two exits up the road. This one also had a problem: it was out of business. It wasn't even there. So I spent half an hour trying to find somewhere to turn around, ultimately going about 15 miles out of the way, just to make my way back to the TA I was at.

The third time, I finally got directions to a place that still was in business. I went there, explained the problem... but the pin actually retracted when the shop guy pulled the handle. I actually slid the tandems all the way back, then all the way forward again. I still don't know what he did that I didn't do, but apparently it just suddenly decided to start working. Confused, but happy that I wasn't going to have to waste any more time on it, I took off for Jenks, OK.

Of course, you know what happens next: more trouble. When I arrived at the facility, the tandems wouldn't slide because that darn pin was stuck once again. They wouldn't let me drop the thing until I moved the tandems, either, so I had to figure something out. After perhaps ten minutes of banging on the thing with a hammer and a crobar, I actually had a useful idea: I used the crobar to hold the pin in, then used duct tape to hold the crobar in place while I moved the trailer. I couldn't help but laugh at the sheer silliness of having to resort to duct tape to make this work, but I got the tandems moved, dropped the trailer, and picked up the load. For once, I picked up a trailer with no glaring problems, but this one has a tire that's probably in need of replacement and a tandem-puller that won't stay pulled without using pliers; those are just minor annoyances, though.

Since I'd lost four hours trying to get the trailer fixed (and still, ultimately, not getting it fixed), I was down to just an hour left on my legal workday by the time I left the shipper. The nearest rest area on the turnpike was about 80 miles away, so I decided to go for it and just round off the extra few minutes. I got here without incident and immediately shut the rig down. Now I just have to wait until about 12:45AM before I can start a pre-trip inspection (that level 2 inspection the other day has me paranoid now) and about 1:15 until I can start driving. My plan for tomorrow? Make it all the way over to Indianapolis, about 575 miles away. That would leave me about 323 miles to where I'm delivering. Assuming all goes well, I can just make this on time, but it's going to be exceptionally close. Hopefully I'll be able to pick some time up somewhere along the way.

Oklahoma City, OK

Note to self: never plan on having a ten-hour day after getting five hours sleep. That's not a good recipie for driving. My day started off reasonably well, but about an hour into the day, I got pulled over. So I pulled onto an exit ramp (since there was one right there) and found out I was getting a level 2 DOT inspection. Why? My truck's right headlight is out; I was told by maintenance that nobody cares if one headlight is out, but apparently that's not true. For those who don't know what that means, a level 2 inspection is just a basic walk around; the officer looks at all the things I'm supposed to check every time I leave the truck. A level 1 inspection is a full inspection, covering everything I'm supposed to do on my pre-trip, all 104 items. There apparently are also other kinds of inspections, but those are the only two I'm familiar with so far.

As this is the first time I've been pulled over, given an inspection, or otherwise had to deal with the DOT aside from having to drive through a weigh station, I really wasn't sure what to do. The officer was a little unsure as well, since the Kansas police force just started using a new computer system. I was dinged for three items: the bad headlight, a bad tail light on the tractor, and one trailer tire that is below 2/32 tread depth. I knew about the headlight and tail light, and planned on getting those fixed at the next OC I come to, but even after taking a second look at all my trailer tires I can't see any of them that are below 2/32. There are little rubber nubs instead all the major grooves of the tire, which correspond to that minimum tread; if they were sticking out or ripped out, then the tire would be below that mark. Even so, if I still have the trailer with me when I go through another OC, I'll tell maintenance about it.

Thankfully, the rest of the day was entirely uneventful. Since I didn't sleep so well (or so much), I decided to call it a day about 100 miles earlier than I originally planned on, since there was a Pilot truck stop, I wanted a shower, and would feel a lot more confident if I had full fuel tanks. Given that I'm going to be heading west of I-35, I'd rather not screw up something trivial like my fuel supply. Since I'm supposed to be home in 11 days, I can't imagine they're going to keep me out here for too long, but I certainly wouldn't mind a quick jaunt out to the west coast, perhaps followed by a trip back across on I-10. Of course, I think I have a better chance of winning on the Powerball ticket I bought while I was in Iowa.

Kearny, MO

I decided to sleep in today, since I have extra time on this delivery... but I didn't anticipate sleeping in until 11AM. Oops. Well, it doesn't matter that much, since I still made about 350 miles today, leaving me about 490 for tomorrow. I'll plan on taking ten hours to do that, leaving me about an hour to pick up another load or to make my way to the nearest truck stop and take my DOT break.

One thing I just realized about this load earlier today: I'm going well west of I-35. Sure, it was pretty obvious from my directions (take I-35, then go west on I-44), but it just kinda sank in that I'm going past that arbitary border by about a hundred miles. I'd be ecstatic if I were able to continue west, but they'll probably instead send me south into Texas or start routing me east again. Either way, I'll need to be up before 5AM, so I plan on getting a shower shortly and sleeping after I'm clean. I'll just clear out the truck a bit first.

Ugh. I absolutely hate driving in major cities. Minneapolis has to be one of the worst, though, in that it seemed like the drivers were actively trying to make it harder for me; I had my turn signal on for a mile before an exit and just merged over before the ramp. Of course, it didn't help that the directions I had were incomplete; I incorrectly went south on a road instead of north because the instructions simply said to take the road! As such, I had to navigate downtown Minneapolis with a 53' trailer; it's a small wonder I didn't have an accident with the way people were driving.

Once I finally found the place, things went smoothly; I actually dropped my old trailer and picked up the new one in about 35 minutes, which is quite a bit faster than I normally can get it done. I planned on going all the way down to the Iowa welcome center, but I realized that I was down to 45 minutes left on my 14 hours by the time I left that customer! So, instead, I've stopped at this truck stop where I weighed the rig, and have pleasantly discovered that they offer free wi-fi, so I might stay here a bit longer than my normal 10 hours. The delivery I have is about 850 miles from here - obviously more than I can do in one day - but I'll try to leave fairly early tomorrow (perhaps 6AM, not as early as I've been going) and drive straight though to maximize my mileage. Hopefully it will be a much better day than today!

St. Paul, MN

Shortly after I wrote the last part of that previous post, a state trooper pulled up and asked me what the trouble was. I explained it to him, more or less as I've written it here. Seeing that I was shivering fairly significantly and the temperature was -5F, he let me sit in his squad car for about an hour while I waited for maintenance to get some kind of service out. It was about 8:15 before I got a message saying that someone would be there in half an hour, but since the officer needed to leave, he took me back to a truck stop six miles down the road. He even called the company to tell them this, but for some reason maintenance never bothered calling to tell the service guy; he spent an hour trying to figure out where I was. Apparently all he did was replace the fuel filter, then sprayed about half a can of ether into the air intake to get the truck to fire up. Once it started, it ran just fine.

Driving up here went well; I actually arrived more quickly than I expected to. And while I was told they would "fit me in" somewhere, they actually were ready, waiting for me, and immediately began unloading the trailer. It sounds like they're just about done, actually, which is a bad thing since I don't have a new work assignment yet! I really hope that operations can find something for me in the next couple of minutes, since I really do not want to have to try and find a truck stop around here; I hate driving around without knowing where I need to be next.

2:05PM: Speak of the devil... soon as I type that last part, I get an assignment. Looks like a good one!

Clear Water, IA

Now this just sucks... I stopped for fuel, filled up, then pulled the truck forward. Everything seemed just fine; it started without a problem and ran smoothly as I eased it out of the fuel island and parked it in front so I could run inside and grab a drink. But when I came back out, it had a hard time starting. I let it idle for a couple minutes, thinking that perhaps some air got into the lines, then drove off. I didn't notice anything obviously wrong until after I got out onto the road, when I couldn't get the thing above 1500 RPM and it struggled to even get that high; normally it'll go to 1750 without a problem. With a bit of creativity and a few downhill stretches, I barely got the thing up to 40, but when I came a long, slight hill, the thing practically died. I had to take 8th gear, then 7th, then 6th... then I just gave up and pulled over, figuring I'd never even make it to the top.

I double-checked the oil (it's fine), then looked at every other thing under the hood that I could think of... nothing is obviously wrong. I'm thinking that I might have somehow pulled too much fluid out of the fuel-water separator again, but I didn't let any more out than usual and it started just fine the first time, so I'm a little unsure as to what the problem might be. Whatever it is, I hope that the emergency maintenance team can figure it out and send the appropriate stuff here, since I still don't have a cell phone and am three miles from the nearest exit. I'm also hoping that I don't get chewed out for missing the delivery appointment again; after the road conditions prevented me from making it yesterday morning, they rescheduled it for this morning and now I can't even make that. It's not like I could have foreseen the truck dying, but that isn't necessarily going to make me look any better for failing to make a delivery appointment twice on the same load. I know I'm going to have to call management and I'm sure I'm going to get an earfull...

6:20AM: Got a message back from customer service before I even heard from maintenance. The people I'm delivering to are going to "work me in when I get there," so hopefully that means I'll still be able to get this load delivered today, instead of having to wait yet another day on it. The longer I'm stuck here, though, the greater the risk that I won't be able to restart the truck even with help; it's -2 right now, and if the engine temperature drops below +10F, there's a very real risk that it won't start again. And since it wasn't running right, it was only at 150F when I turned it off instead of the usual 180...

6:40AM: Well, road repair messaged a couple minutes ago asking me where I was. I put in the original message that I was at mile marker 200; I'm literally parked next to the sign! Hopefully they won't get confused this time. Speaking of time, I'm still very much worried about running out of it, since the engine temp is down to 120 after being here about an hour. Even scarier is that my voltmeter is down to just below 12, since I have to leave my hazard flashers on and they draw a lot of power; I really hope I don't need to get the rig jump-started, since I've heard that can take an hour or more.

6:45AM: Just a note about the situation... my hands are rather quickly going numb. I've lit a candle for warmth and keep trying to heat them up, but it's a steadily losing battle. It's also so cold in here that I can see my breath, and I know it's going to only get worse as time progresses. I really wish I owned a pair of mittens or something to keep my hands warm.

7:00AM: It's getting steadily colder in here and there seems to be precious little I can do to keep my hands warm. My feet are also starting to go numb, especially my left foot. I'm seriously considering lying down in my sleeping bag, with the Qualcomm within easy reach, just for survival's sake. I really am starting to worry about hypothermia setting in, as well as frostbite for the exposed areas. For anyone reading this later and wondering why I'm so worried about this, keep in mind that I'm from Florida, where it rarely gets below freezing; I'm now trying to deal with zero-degree weather and don't really have any idea how I'm supposed to handle it.

I-35, mile marker 159, IA

So, here's an interesting point: Iowa's rest areas have free wi-fi. So the state actually has something going for it other than corn fields. Anyway, yesterday was not the most effective day, to say the least. I left the OC a little later than I intended (nearly 9PM, instead of around 8PM), then got held up slightly due to icy road conditions, then simply became too tired to even keep the truck on the road. So I pulled into the rest area here and asked them to reschedule, blaming the road conditions for the delay (because, even if I weren't falling asleep, I wouldn't have had enough hours to leave the customer). So they've rescheduled my delivery for tomorrow morning at 8AM. I can't really complain too much, as this gives me a bit of time to relax and catch up on sleep, since I'm not feeling so well at the moment...

Edwardsville, IL

I made it back here, three and a half hours over the limit on my day. But there was no other legal place to park aside from the operating center. I'm sure I'll have to call operations in the morning to explain just why the heck I went so far over the limit (being stuck in snow for three hours did a lot for that) and just hope they don't rip me too badly for it. At least I had a legitimate reason for it: the customer refused to allow me to park on their property for a break and there was no closer legal place to park since the state welcome center closes at 5PM and the only other truck stop nearby was completely full.

I'm just about exhausted right now, but at least I have a lot of time I can use to sleep, since I don't have to leave here until about 8PM. I'll work out the details a little later; I'm just in the mood to sleep now.

Hazleton, MO

Today was supposed to be a good day, but it seems like that just isn't going to be the case. I was just supposed to drop and hook at this place, but when I went back into their yard, the whole place was covered in at least six inches of snow. Naturally, since I'm writing this here instead of at an OC, you can imagine what happened: I got stuck in said six inches of snow. Worse, my legal workday will be up at 6:30, long before the tow truck gets here (probably no earlier than 9PM) and this customer won't allow drivers to park here, so I'll have to drive back to the OC in violation of the hours rules. I know I'll have to make a call in the morning to justify it and I have a bad feeling that operations will be pissed about it, even though I can't stay here and the operating center is the nearest legal place to park.

When this tow truck gets here, I'm going to ask him to stick around while I try to get this backed in, since I have a feeling I'll get stuck at least one more time. Alternatively, I might just ask if I can drop the trailer somewhere that isn't completely covered in snow, so there's no risk of me being stuck a second time, then just hoping I can get out of here with the empty that I'm supposed to take with me. Of course, while I was stuck here, another driver ALSO got stuck in the snow, so I think they might be a little more sympathetic since there are two of us stuck in this mess. At least I hope they are. I don't expect them to let me park here for ten hours (or more), but hopefully they'll be able to give me an alternate place to put this damn trailer so I don't get stuck again.

And... there it goes. It's now 6:30. My fourteen hour workday is up. Any driving I do after this time is a big no no, but what else can I do? I'll just have to find some creative way of putting this in the logbook so it isn't blatantly obvious that I had to cheat; I might just log it as if I left here at 5:30 or so, when I originally intended to head out. I can't imagine any other way that I can make it look even close to accurate. I just hate having to do that since I know it's going to come back and bite me in the ass later. Given my luck over the last few days, probably sooner rather than later.

Indianapolis, IN

I'm just stopped for lunch, but figured I'd give an update on the day so far. Despite all the "winter storm watches" and hype about overnight snow, it seems the system is moving more slowly. It's going to suck when it actually hits, but I just might be south of the snow by the time it rolls in. So while I still have about 250 miles to go to where I'm delivering, I'm optimistic that I can do that in less than five hours, which leaves me roughly two hours of driving time to get started on another run. Obviously, the sooner I get there, the better: I've been making a habit of getting up earlier each morning and it's working out pretty well so far. I just need a bit of caffeine to kick start the day.

Anyway, they've finally made my burger, so I'm going to eat and hit the road!

Edit (10:20AM): So much for missing the snow; the national weather service is already listing heavy snow in the city I'm delivering to, with snowfall rates of two inches per hour and a forecast total of six to eight inches. I just hope that it isn't as bad as they're saying, but they don't usually throw out warnings lightly.

Monroe, IN

Well, today was another somewhat frustrating day, but at least it ended on some rather optimistic notes. I left Indianapolis at around 6:30 this morning to make a 10 o'clock appointment in Ypsilanti, and JUST made it in time. It was 9:59 when I got there, which is right on time for that appointment. Unfortunately, the people inside couldn't seem to comprehend that a driver might actually show up right on time for their appointment and weren't ready for me, so I had to wait about half an hour for them just to get ready. Then, while they were unloading, someone banged on the door and said I had to re-stack a pallet because it fell over inside the truck. I still don't see how that's my problem - they're the ones getting paid to unload it, not me - but I did it just to get the guy to leave me alone. Unfortunately, three of the cases in that pallet were damaged as a result and it took nearly an hour and a half for cargo claims to tell me to throw it away.

Anyway, while I was waiting for claims to figure things out, I got another assignment for a 575 mile run down toward St. Louis. Not bad, but the pickup time is in two hours, it's 90 miles away, and I have to drive directly through Detroit to get there! Since I was talking to operations at the time, I just warned them on the phone that it would be razor-close for the pickup. They knew that already, though; my work assignment even said I'd be five minutes late for the 3PM appointment. But once again, I hit it on the nose; the clock radio rolls over to 3:00 while I was waiting in line at the gate. The guard was a complete asshole who seemed to delight in giving me a hard time for being unable to read the signs that were covered in dirty rain water, but once I got inside, it took me only 15 minutes to drop the trailer.

The next problem came when I tried to find the trailer that they said the load was in: 208-thousand-something. The problem? Even the oldest trailers we have left on the road have numbers of at least 400,000; newer trailers have higher numbers. I took a few moments to look around, on the off chance that that trailer really did exist, but of course I didn't find it. I went back inside and it turns out that they somehow put a different company's trailer number on my paperwork. Twenty minutes later, someone figures out which trailer I'm actually supposed to have, corrects the paperwork, and sends me on my way. By this point, I've been at the plant for nearly two hours when I'd hoped to be in and out in thirty minutes.

So what does that mean? It meant I got to experience the joy (/extreme sarcasm) of Detroit's rush hour. Of course, I was held up for at least an hour compared to the time I'd hoped to make going through the city. So instead of making it down to Indianapolis, as I'd originally hoped, I didn't even make it out of Michigan. I was rather lucky to find an easy parking space here at a Pilot, so I grabbed some food from Arby's, spent about ten minutes typing this while watching the BBC World Service, and will eat, sleep, and hit the road around 4:30AM. I just hope that I can make this delivery with enough driving time left to get started on another load!

Seville, OH

Ever feel like your entire weekend consists entirely of going through the required motions but not actually accomplishing anything? That's about what's going on for me. My day yesterday was probably the most embarrassingly short load I've had yet: I had to drive 80 miles to get a trailer loaded, then a lousy 24 miles up the Interstate to drop it off as a relay! And since it was a relay, I don't get any of the bonuses that might accompany such a short run: no short haul pay, no live load bonus, nothing. I even sent in a message asking them if they could give me anything better, but of course they couldn't. The only upside is that the load took less than an hour, instead of the four-and-a-half hour wait they had planned!

At least today has been somewhat better. I just wasn't in the mood to do anything yesterday evening, so I took a very early night, shutting down around 2PM and getting ready to go shortly after midnight. It turns out I was picking up another relay from that same drop yard, though this time I finally got to move a respectable distance (about 550 miles). Since it's a live unload tomorrow morning, I just shut down here in Seville, since there's really not much advantage to going further up the highway. I'll figure out when I need to leave here a little later this afternoon, before I go to sleep, but I imagine I'll be able to sleep 'til at least 5AM, probably later. I just hope that my next run is also a worthwhile trip; I've really been hurting for miles the last week or two.

Tobyhanna, PA

Well, today was one of those days where it seemed like absolutely nothing got done. I slept terribly last night, so when I woke up around 9AM, I put in a message to push my availability back to 8PM, only to get a work assignment with a 4:30PM delivery. I believe I wrote about this already. In any case, I hurried to get up here, even foregoing lunch, and arrived nearly half an hour early. I tried to find a truck stop with some food along the way, but there weren't ANY along the last 80 miles of my trip, and before that point I wasn't sure just how much time I actually had to spare.

So, upon arriving, I was told it would take just two hours, not the four that my work assignment originally had down. This wasn't a surprise; the work assignments frequently overestimate the unloading time. So, knowing I had at least two hours, I decided to catch a two-hour nap to make up for the fact I couldn't get more sleep before I started driving. I went back in after that two hours, but found out that they were only halfway down and had just gone on break. At this point, I probably should have figured it would be another two hours, but I nearly believed the guy when he said it'd be only another hour. Of course, it took two more (nearly two-and-a-half) and I was finished at the originally planned time of 8:30PM.

There's only one problem left: I still haven't received I new work assignment! Since there's really not much I can do without a work assignment and Wal-Mart doesn't allow drivers to park for the night inside their facilities, I'm parked just out front in a designated parking area. At least, I certainly hope it is, since they told me that inside when I asked about parking! I'll be taking my ten-hour break here, then leaving immediately after that, at about 7AM local time. I just hope that the snow and weather clear up by then, since it's absolutely nasty out here right now.

Carlisle, PA

Well, dispatch seems to be having one of those days where they just don't give a damn what the drivers want. I had originally put down available at 9AM this morning, but when I slept like crap last night, I changed that to 8PM so I could sleep all day and actually drive safely instead of driving tired. But an hour and a half later, I got a work assignment for a relay from the OC here that is for a 4:30PM live unload at a facility 143 miles away. In other words, I have to start working by 1PM, at the latest, even after I sent in a message saying that I couldn't until 8 o'clock.

Needless to say (but, of course, I'm saying it anyway), I'm furious right now, since even a simple request for some sleep seems to be something too difficult for them to handle. As soon as I post this, I'll have to go fuel the truck, get the paperwork for this load, find the trailer, and hit the highway. I might be able to catch a nap while they're unloading the rig, but I don't know just how helpful that's going to be. Even more aggravating is that this unload won't be finished until 8:30PM, at which point every truck stop in the goddamned state will be full, ensuring that I don't have anywhere to park the truck.

If this happens again any time soon, I'll just be asking them why they even bother asking when we're available, since this is NOT the first time they've completely disregarded the information I've given to them to force me into taking a load that I couldn't possibly accept under the information I've given them.

Blog on Hold - Technical Difficulties

Due to my phone deciding it doesn't want to work properly any more, I'll be without Internet access for the foreseeable future. I plan on going by a Sprint store to replace my phone (or at least its battery) at the next operating center I come to that has such a store nearby, but there's no way of knowing when that will be; it could be tomorrow or it could be a rather long time. If I do somehow get the chance to update, I will, but it's very unlikely I'll be able to do so until my phone is fixed.

Pendleton, KY

Well, I'm apparently not at 100% yet as I'd hoped, but more like 70%. I'm already pretty tired just after being awake for nine hours, but hopefully one more good night of sleep, some food, and a hot shower will help clear up what's still bothering me. Hopefully. Tomorrow's going to be a long day, no matter how I look at it, since I need to drive about 550 miles to make this delivery, then drive back about 15 minutes to the Carlisle, PA operating center so my truck can go into the shop. I just hope that I remember everything that I need to tell them to look at!

Owensboro, KY

I'd apologize for the lack of updates, but the truth is, there really hasn't been much to update about. I took several days off shortly after my last post, got sick during my time off, and have been sitting here in Owensboro (per operations' order) while I recover. I'm getting steadily better - drinking a few hot cups of tea has helped immensely - so I should be hitting the road again either tomorrow or Tuesday. Probably tomorrow, since I'm getting rather tired of sitting here with nothing to do. :)

West Memphis, AR

Back at my home operating center now after another 600+ mile day. I can't say that I'm complaining about the mileage, though, since that's where I really make money. I started out in Gary, IN this morning and found about half an inch of snow on the truck. I was too tired to even find the trailer I needed last night, but I found it in about two minutes of looking this morning. I've no idea how I kept missing it last night, aside from the fact I was rather exceptionally tired. It was a relay and I had no idea what to expect, and thus was rather unpleasantly surprised to see 43,800 pounds on the bill of lading. So instead of being able to start heading south immediately, I had to make a brief detour to a Pilot one exit east on I-80. At least it was legal the first time; I didn't want to have to deal with the trailer tandems in the cold!

Once I hit the road, things went remarkably well. I still loathe Illinois' 55 mile-per-hour truck speed limit, but I was able to maintain 55 through the entire state, aside from a few clusters of traffic scattered every 20 miles or so. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I-57 is a very, very boring stretch of highway. Once I picked up I-24, things were at least slightly less boring on the road, though it was getting dark, so I couldn't see much of anything. Even once I got off the Interstate, traffic was flowing smoothly, though I did have one close call; I saw a corner coming up and started to brake early for it, which caused my truck to start skidding for a moment. I'm just glad I caught on before getting into the curve!

The unload was estimated at 3.5 hours on my work assignment. In reality, I got there at around 9:00 and left around 10:45, which was a rather nice and much-needed time savings. Basically, this left me two hours with which to work. Since I have an open pick up window (that is, I can pick it up anytime after it was ready at noon Tuesday), I figured that I'd just pick it up tomorrow and head out from the operating center here. So, using the entire remaining time I had, I just made it to the entrance here. In the process of making it over here, I realized just how much that extra-heavy load was helping keep me on the pavement; I started fishtailing just trying to pull onto the Interstate! It was definitely a rather hair-raising 100 miles, since I couldn't really afford to slow down. But, in the end, I made it here safely and that's what counts.

As for my plans coming up, my DOT break will allow me to start working again at 11:15 and start driving at 11:45. I plan on getting out of here soon as possible, since I want to pick this load up and go home! If all goes well, I will be able to make it to a truck stop near where I live tomorrow night, allowing me to actually go home and sleep there one night early. It's actually going to be a shorter day tomorrow than I had today; I only need to drive around 460 miles to make it home. I'm hoping to get there by 10PM, though I'm certainly not going to complain if I somehow manage to make it earlier. Then I'll be taking a nice, long weekend off, doing my taxes, and hitting the road again on the 20th. It'll be nice to go home since I haven't been there since Christmas.

Gary, IN

Well, as I'm too tired to keep going, I've had to call it a night here in Gary, IN. I was originally planning on continuing as far as I could before my 14 hours ran out, but as I couldn't find the trailer I'm supposed to be picking up, I figured that was a pretty good sign that I need to get off the road.

Speaking of things off the road, the conditions on the highway tonight were rather good, but you wouldn't know from the way people were driving. I could safely have done about 55 the whole way, but everyone else was doing more like 40. So I passed plenty of folks. :)

In any case, I'm on my 10, which will be up around 9:45AM. I'll have to figure out a trip plan before I go to bed, then enjoy the eight hours I have to sleep. Hopefully things will go smoothly tomorrow; I really want to make Memphis before my hours run out!

Indianapolis, IN

Phew, what a long day! Getting this load was nothing but trouble, but once I hit the road, everything went well. After catching yet another nap, I went back inside to find out that the product they were short for my load wasn't even scheduled for another production run until first shift! So, figuring I had several hours to sleep, I just went to bed for the night, this time without even setting the alarm. Of course, two hours later (at very roughly 6AM; I couldn't even see the clock clearly), I get a bang on the door from the shipping clerk, since the load was finally ready, fourteen hours behind schedule. At least I'm going to collect $75 in detention pay for this, I figured.

But despite spending half an hour looking for the trailer, I couldn't find it in the lot that it was supposed to be in. On a hunch, I looked in another lot and found it rather quickly. I also found that it had a flat tire, which kept me from going anywhere! Yet another delay, though this time it was with a call to emergency maintenance, who in turn called a tire bank, who in turn called me to say it would be about an hour and a half. So I went back to sleep again, for lack of anything else to do and for a rather desperate need to sleep. I woke up to the sound of a new tire being put on, quite a bit more than an hour and a half later. Ultimately, I didn't even leave the shipper until 9AM, a full seventeen hours behind schedule. At least this run had enough extra time where I could afford the delay!

Once I hit the road, things went rather smoothly. Somehow I managed to squeeze in almost 650 miles today before my eleven hours ran out, which has me all the way up here in Indy again. The low tonight is going to be around zero with a wind chill of -20°F, so I'm just leaving the truck idle while I go to bed. I'll catch a shower and (possibly) do laundry in the morning; right now I'm too tired to even see clearly!

Beech Island, SC

Wow, I... truly am at a loss for words here. I went in to check on my load after about a two hour nap and find that it's still only 86% loaded. Why? Because they're short on one product for the order. So, to recap: I'm at the manufacturer and they're short on their own product. So I have to wait here for them to actually make 131 cases of whatever it is they're short of. I think that I'm going to just go back to sleep for another two hours since, at the rate this is going, it'll be about that long.

At least I'm going to rack up a rather hefty amount of detention pay for this; since this load was supposed to be ready at 4:30PM and I was already here at that time, I can claim any delay past that moment for detention pay. I've already chalked up $45 for it being more than six hours; if it reaches nine hours (1:30AM Eastern), I'll get $60 for doing absolutely nothing. And my 11 and 14 hour days don't start until I actually begin to work, so I'll still be able to put in the 600+ miles I plan on driving today, barring any major traffic problems. Here's hoping!

Beech Island, SC

This is turning into quite the annoying waiting game! I've been here since 3AM, woke up at 11AM, and my load was supposed to be ready at 4:30PM. However, it's now 8 o'clock local time and the trailer is only 70% loaded! I'm probably just going to take a nap while I wait for them to finish loading this thing, since I have to be able to stay awake all night; I won't be able to park until at least 6AM since all the truck stops will be full.

Beech Island, SC

Ugh,. Being out on the road for six weeks is really, really starting to wear on me; I'm looking forward to being home a week from now. I left Indianapolis much later than I wanted (almost 3AM instead of 12:30), in part because it took me an hour and a half to find my wallet. It's amazing how hard it can be to find things even in a space small as the sleeper berth of a truck. Then, since I'd had trouble getting to sleep, I ended up having to stop and take a break instead of driving all the way through. Thankfully, since I'd made up a bit of time on the road, I could take a DOT break and still make delivery on time

... or so I thought. As I was getting ready to leave, another driver told me that I-75 southbound was closed. Apparently there was a major accident and both lanes were blocked. For some incredibly stupid reason, even though I saw that US 25W was a viable alternate route (only 5 extra miles), when I saw a sign that said one lane was open on I-75, I stayed on. And, as such, lost a full hour in traffic. As it later turned out, I was just under an hour late, and I'd probably have saved that hour had I gone on the back road. At least, for once, I had a legitimate reason for being behind schedule, but I should have been able to make that delivery yesterday!

Aside from that traffic jam, there's really not much else out of the ordinary going on. I'm here at this distribution center for the third time (The first customer I've been to thrice), and my load won't be ready for at least another nine hours. As such, I'm going to post this, get a quick bowl of cereal, and sleep for as long as my body will allow me to.

Indianapolis, IN

Well, last night was rather a bust. Due to the rather nasty weather, I decided to take a short nap to wait it out. That was at 6:30PM and I thought I'd set my alarm for 7:30, but even though I checked the thing four times I apparently never flipped the 'alarm' switch to on. As such, I woke up shortly after 2AM with a load that was supposed to be delivered by midnight. Oops!

At least once I hit the road things went reasonably well. All the big storms have already passed through here and it was just above freezing, so there were no real problems along the way. I arrived about as quickly as I thought I would, dropped the load, but then found out the place has a policy of not letting us take out our empty trailers! It took the box planners almost half an hour to find another place with an empty box, and in turn I had to go nearly 75 miles out of the way to get it, since the only direct route between where I was and where I needed to go wasn't a truck route.

The detour aside, though, even picking the empty up, taking it to the next customer, dropping it for them, and picking up the load all went well. I then was down to about six hours left to drive, so I figured I'd just drive about four of that, safely shutting down before it was too late in the afternoon to find a good parking space. So, as such, I'm back here at the Indianapolis OC after driving about 400 miles, most of that up and down I-65. From here, it's about 550 miles to where I'm delivering, which is day of driving, but I should be able to get it there with an hour or two left on my logbook. It won't be late until the 8th, so I better not screw this one up.

Atlanta, GA

After a couple of extremely long days, I decided to just take a restart while I'm here in Atlanta. Part of it has to do with the fact I've been sleeping badly for the last three nights in a row and still fighting off what I can only assume is a particularly stubborn cold. Besides, I want to watch the Super Bowl, and the Atlanta OC has a nice big-screen TV, so why not? The last couple of days have been pretty stressful and busy; I had to use my entire 14 hours up two days in a row and came down to the last few minutes last night. I'm still pretty much out of it, so I really don't feel like trying to write a longer post now, but if anyone is in or near Atlanta and is willing to pick me up and go somewhere to watch the game, I'd love that.

Miami, FL

I'm getting unloaded right now, so I'll just type as much as I can while I'm sitting here. I was slightly late getting here due to construction and traffic, but it doesn't seem to have mattered. What does matter, however, are the implications on my next load. The place I'm picking up from closes for the weekend at 4:30PM Eastern today and there's just about no chance that I can make it there in time right now. Even if I were to be freed immediately to go, I'd have to contend with traffic in the city and lower speed limits, rendering it virtually impossible. Worse, there's nowhere for me to park my truck for the weekend if I do miss this pick up, nor is there another load for me to take, apparently. If I do make it or they just stay open later, I'll at least be able to get it delivered on time; I have until 9PM Eastern tomorrow night to make it up to Atlanta.

In any case, I just have to look at my directions for now and cross my fingers. This is going to be a really close one.

Sarasota, FL

After a couple of days of high-stress work, getting down here to Florida is a refreshing change. I'll just run down the last couple of days here.

Tuesday: After getting my previous load rescheduled for a 9AM delivery today (as opposed to 6AM Sunday), I actually earned layover pay for the delay. So, for doing absolutely nothing on Monday, I earned $80. Needless to say, this put me in an exceptionally good mood for having to hit the road at 5AM. I got there at about 8:50AM and it took me just over ten minutes to back into the dock, so I was essentially right on time. Unfortunately, the unload took longer than I expected and I was about two hours late to pick up the next load. At least they were nice about it, as they understood that the delay wasn't really my fault. It still took them the expected three hours to load it, meaning I had just enough time to make it down to Nashville, TN that night. It's a good thing that I stopped, too, as the weather got really nasty about an hour after I went on break.

Wednesday: An even earlier morning today; I had to be up at 4AM. I wanted to make Ocala originally, but hesitated to plan on driving 630 miles in my 11 hour driving time. So, instead, I decided to aim for a truck stop about 600 miles away; still more than they'd suggest I plan on, but I knew I could do it. I made just one stop all day, and that to grab a bite to eat to help wake me up. I was also rather lucky with traffic, as the only delays I hit were near Atlanta and that simply due to the volume of traffic trying to take the I-285 exit. I actually could have pushed on to the Pilot at exit 341, but instead stopped at a Petro at exit 368 for one reason and one reason only: steak. And it was well worth the stop, too; their food never disappoints. I went to bed even earlier - about 6:30PM - but struggled to get to sleep until at least 8 o'clock.

Thursday: Even earlier? Well, yes; I had to be on the road by 3AM (4AM Eastern), so I set the alarm for 2. I only hit the snooze button twice, much to my surprise, before actually getting up and taking care of a few things before I had to start driving. I planned on leaving so early to ensure that I'd have no problems making it here on time, since I wasn't sure how early traffic near Tampa would start getting backed up. It was slightly congested, but traffic still flowed smoothly as I sailed on through. As such, I was one full hour early for my appointment, though they already had a door open and let me in. Good thing, too, as it took me half an hour just to get into this blasted place since there was NO room to maneuver the trailer around. It was basically a matter of getting it set up perfectly or having to try again. Right now, I'm just sitting here waiting for them to finish unloading the trailer. I don't have another work assignment yet, but it's unlikely this will be a short run, since I'm already pretty darn far south on the peninsula. I just hope that I have another one before they finish this so I know where I'm going after I leave here. Having to sit and wait at a truck stop is not a good thing.

Edwardsville, IL

After having to sleep at a customer last night, I woke up and immediately picked up the load. Thanks to a bit of good luck (for a change), I was able to drive all the way down to deliver it in one go, without having to take a break, which allowed me to deliver it on time despite all the potential problems with the load. I still got lost trying to find the place, which resulted in even more frustration; why can't the directions I get from the company be more useful?

That gripe aside, I still got off the load and put my truck in the shop for a minor repair. Specifically, they're looking at the utility lights that are supposed to operate when the truck is either parked or in reverse; they're not working when the truck's in reverse, which makes backing even more difficult because I can't see a blasted thing. I told them that I need the truck by 8PM, though really, if it's done by even 10 o'clock I'll be fine. My next load is exactly 300 miles and gets live-unloaded tomorrow at 6AM, so I'll just drive through the night to deliver it, then hope they have something good waiting for me.

Detroit, MI

Today was one of those days where almost anything that could have gone badly did. I really wish I didn't have to wake up at all. Basically, I found out that I had a really, really tight schedule for this next load. I also overslept a bit, making my drop even tighter. I had no problems on the highway, but once I tried to find my exit, things quickly fell apart. I somehow missed the street I was supposed to turn on immediately after getting off the Interstate. I then found it, but couldn't find the side street I needed to turn on, which resulted in screaming, hair pulling, crying, and extreme frustration. After about twenty minutes, I found what looked like the right place... only it was the wrong entrance to the place, forcing me to go back out on the street and try again.

Upon arriving at the correct entrance, I was just told to drop the trailer anywhere. That wouldn't be so bad, except that there were only two empty spaces in the entire facility, both of which were in rather awkward positions. It took me thirty minutes just to get the trailer dropped, as well as even more frustration. If I weren't already so worked up, I might have had a slightly easier time of it, but it's kinda hard to back a trailer in when you're unable to even see straight.

By the time I got out of there, it was about 11:30PM. I then had to bobtail over to a place about 15 miles away to pick up an empty trailer. The directions I had were lousy, though; they directed me to an industrial park without telling me which entrance to use or where within the park I needed to go to find someone who could tell me where I was supposed to go. I ultimately drove by it, forcing me to turn around AGAIN, though this time it was easier as I didn't have a 53' trailer to worry about.

I then found the empty trailer and it was in good condition. The problem? The lot that I was in was completely unlit and my backup lights don't work unless the parking brake is set, rendering them completely useless for backing. Also, when I tried to leave, because it was completely dark, I nearly drove straight into a concrete barrier; I stopped dead just six inches short of hitting it at about 10mph. A little careful, creative backing got me out of there, but not without making me even more shaken up.

Driving to the next place - where I dropped the trailer and am waiting to pick up my load - was also an adventure. I couldn't go back out the way I came in; I needed to make a left turn to get to the Interstate and it was a right turn only back onto the road. There was a U-turn lane, though, which allowed me to get back toward the Interstate. Once on the highway, things were fine until I got to the exit I needed and found it was closed. The ONLY exit they had closed was the one I needed. I took the next ramp, then saw that other cars were turning around and going back to the "closed" exit by using the eastbound exit, since only the westbound ramp was closed. I took the same approach.

Thankfully, I found this place without incident, as I actually had useful directions this time (something like: turn here, then at the first light, then it's the first building on the left). I then was told to drop my trailer in a dock and to come back to find out about my load. I was able to drop it without any significant problems, though I did run over a 2-by-4 they were using as a wheel chock, which scared me for a moment. When I came back up, though, I found out that I needed a trailer number to get the load. I then called support shift to find out that this load isn't ready yet, despite being told it was pre-loaded and available to pick it up by 11:30AM. Frustratingly, I can't even start working until 12:15PM, since my break won't be up until then, which puts me 45 minutes behind schedule on a run that has NO spare time to begin with.

It's 557 miles from here to where I'm delivering. I have to be there by 9AM Central time Saturday. I won't be able to leave here until, at best, 11:45AM central time, and that's assuming that I wake up, get the paperwork, complete my pre-trip inspection, and be on the road within 30 minutes. Even under that "best" case scenario, I have 21 hours to make a 12-hour drive (at 50mph, rounding up, which is how the company supposedly calculates things) and take a 10 hour break. Now, last time I checked, 12+10=22, and I only have 21 to work with. This means that I can't afford any stops whatsoever, have to take the bare minimum break, and still have to make up at least one hour on the highway. Granted, this is a fairly pessimistic estimate, but considering how things have gone the last couple of days, I'm wondering if it's all too accurate.

In any event, before any of this can happen, I need to get at least eight hours of sleep. Despite sleeping in until 3PM today, I'm already exhausted and just want to pass out in the sleeper. Hopefully nine hours of rest will be enough for me to feel reasonably well in the morning.

Eden, NY

It's been a very long, very stressful few days. I've had to drive almost non-stop outside of my breaks, which in turn has left me really feeling out of sorts. It doesn't help that the weather has been the worst I've had to deal with so far; last night the visibility was down to maybe 500 feet, the roads were icy, and my driver's side defroster went out which allowed the windshield to ice over as well. Thankfully, conditions were better today, but I still struggled to maintain a speed of above 55mph, so I ended up 15 minutes late on a rather critical delivery time. I don't plan on telling them I can even work a full day tomorrow; soon as I finish writing this, I'll send in a message saying I only want to work six hours (or less) tomorrow and try to recover from the rather bad couple of days.

Grand Rapids, MI

Up here in the frozen north and, well, freezing. Last night the low was a mere 4 degrees, which in turn meant I had to leave the tractor on all night, not that I minded leaving the heater running at full-blast. I had to get taken off my previous work assignment since I couldn't make the pick up on time (I needed to take my break first), but in turn got a much better assignment, so I can't complain too much. The only problem with it is that I have to get going as soon as possible and I really, really cannot afford to lose any time due to inclement weather. As it is, if I don't have a trailer to pick up in the next half hour or so, I'm at a very high risk of being late for the deliver since it's a 480 mile drive and I'll have a mere 10 hours available to actually drive if I get out of here at midnight it's much later than that, there's just about no chance at all of me making this, which is bound to piss off customer service since I had to convince them that I could do this. Granted, a delay at the shipper is not my fault, but that isn't going to make service any happier about it. I just have to hope the weather cooperates.

Bucksville, AL

I'd have updated this thing sooner, but the last few days have been exceptionally busy. It's honestly a rather refreshing change from the slow pace things have been on lately. I had to work 13 hours on Tuesday to get everything done, though now that I'm here, I'll be taking about 24 hours off before I have to deliver this load at 6AM tomorrow. I'm too tired to come up with a more lengthy/detailed update, though, so I'll just go to bed now...

West Memphis, AR

Today was a rather good day, surprisingly. I woke up just before my alarm went off and got lunch before I started driving. I found my empty trailer without problem, coupled to it, and arrived at the customer to pick up the load. Since I was almost two hours early, they didn't have the trailer pre-loaded, but it took them less than an hour to load the one I brought in. As an added bonus, they were giving away free bottled water, so I received two free cases of it just for picking up a load.

The only real problem of the evening was my weight. Specifically, being overweight by 60 pounds on the drive tandems and being only 140 pounds under on the trailer, forcing me to put that weight onto my steer tires by sliding the fifth wheel. I've never had to do that before; the trainers all kinda skipped over that. So, by getting out the textbook, I found the procedure and managed to slide it one notch forward. I was trying for two, such that I'd never have to worry about sliding it again, but I think I've jammed it in place. It should be fine, but when I'm due for the next round of maintenance, I'll probably ask them to look at it.

When I arrived here in West Memphis, I found out that my trailer was due for maintenance. Specifically, the annual inspection sticker expires next month and they like to avoid those things expiring when at all possible. I had to go to the shop anyway: one of the splash guards (mud flaps) on the tractor was damaged from the blowout I had a week or so ago, one of my tires was just about flat, and three others were a little low on air. It took much longer than I'd like for the work to get done - nearly two and a half hours - but at least I'm cleared to go as soon as I want to leave in the morning.

So, my current plan is something like this. Soon as I post this, I'm going to bed and setting my alarm for 3PM. I don't plan on sleeping 11 or 12 hours, but I'm completely exhausted right now and I think I'm getting sick, so I just might. When I wake up, I'll just go inside to talk to my manager; since West Memphis is my "home" OC, I may as well save a phone call. I'll also take care of my laundry, get a shower, and eat before I hit the road, probably around 7PM or so. I have just under 500 miles to drive before I drop this off, so it'll be a long (profitable) night of driving. I like those long drives. :)

Knoxville, TN

Toady was a rather uneventful day, but compared to all the incidents the last couple of days, I'll take 'uneventful'. I dropped the trailer off somewhere that I had enough room to simply whip around and back it straight in, so that wasn't an issue. And since I don't have a trailer right now, parking at the truck stop was trivially easy. My current trip plan has me driving about 500 miles tomorrow (well, technically, today since it's almost 1:30AM), which in turn leaves me about 500 more miles to go the next day. I'll be stopping in the West Memphis operating center - my home OC - on the way, though I might also stop in Dallas since that would be a rather short detour. To any other drivers that are reading this, which do you think the company would prefer? That I took a break just before making a delivery and left myself a full day's hours to go or that I delivered it and then had to immediately go on break since I had almost no time left to work?

Anyway, as an added bonus, this run lets me start driving mostly at night again, since I can take the extra several hours that I'd need to burn to get back on a night schedule. I just have to make this pick up at exactly 6PM, or at least as close to it as I can manage; the rest of this run will be easy to do since I have about an extra day to do it.

Greenville, VA

Today was another rather rough day. I had to wake up around 5:30AM and drive through Washington DC. Amazingly, traffic wasn't too bad, but that's about the only thing that went well today. I took a wrong turn getting off the Interstate, which left me in the middle of downtown of some random city. After losing nearly half an hour trying to get back to where I was supposed to be, I got to the customer only to find that their dock was remarkably small and I had no room to get turned around. I ended up backed in there at a horrible angle, but at least I was in there.

Things just got worse at the next place, though. The area I had to back into was so small that I had to get it perfectly right, since there was no room to correct it. After about twenty minutes of trying, another driver came over to help me out and it still took another half hour for me to get in there. At this point, I was whimpering and shaking just trying to keep things under control. When I was trying to close the doors after the trailer was loaded, I had to slam them shut; in the process, one of the handles hit my face hard hard; I'm still bleeding from my lip where it struck me, despite that incident being four hours ago.

I just pulled into a truck stop here and, once again, was presented with a situation where I had to back in. Between the angle of the sun and my complete lack of confidence (or perhaps just a complete lack of ability), I couldn't back the truck into an area with four open parking spaces in a row. To put it another way, I couldn't even hit a 35-foot-wide target with my truck. I feel absolutely horrible right now, both physically and mentally. I'm hoping that getting a solid 10 hours of sleep will help with that. At least I can afford to catch up on sleep; I can deliver this load any time tomorrow, and while I'd like to get there early, getting sleep takes priority tonight.

Baltimore, MD

What is it with Maryland and every facility having an absurdly small area to back into the dock? Both of the places I've had to go today (one to get unloaded, one to get a new load) have had exceptionally small areas to back into. They finished loading me really quick though, so I need to get driving again.

Hendersonville, SC

Today was definitely one of those days. I started it off by oversleeping by two hours, then I got lost trying to find a customer, resulting in me nearly causing at least three accidents and having to turn around on a dead-end street with barely enough room to do so. I also had to detour around a major accident that had Interstate 4 closed for about 15 miles, which cost me nearly an hour. Then, near Jacksonville, construction had traffic so screwed up I had to drive down the left shoulder; the right two lanes were closed and there were only two lanes to begin with!

When it came time to shut down, about an hour before my 14-hour-day ran out, I started to look around. But NOTHING had any parking spaces. I checked two truck stops, two rest areas, and a weigh station, all to no avail. Ultimately, right now, I'm parked quasi-legally in a rest area; this isn't a parking space, but I'm not blocking traffic in any way, so I hope that I'll be okay. I've already had a panic attack worrying about getting harrassed by the DOT over this. I really, really hope that nothing else goes wrong. I don't think I can take any more right now.

I need a hug. :(

Boca Raton, FL

After being unable to sleep last night, the last thing that I wanted to do was unload a 29,000 pound load from my trailer. Turns out, though, that this place requires drivers to hire a lumper (unloading) service, so I couldn't do the work even if I wanted to. And, believe me, I don't. I'm going to try and catch a nap while they're unloading me, since it probably is going to take a couple of hours; the whole load is on the floor, not on pallets. Of course, as usual, the people with the lumper service are jerks. It seems like that's a pretty common theme, at least for the two times I've had to deal with such a service at all. I hope it doesn't become a regular occurrence.

Gainesville, FL

After a rather long day I've made it a rather short distance. I dropped off the load I've been sitting on for the last two days, only to get another work assignment that also stinks. This one is longer - about 480 miles - but is a hand unload at 5:30AM Tuesday morning. As such, I have to get up around 3AM, drive 75 miles (there are no closer truck stops), unload it, and hope that I get a decent run on the way back out of south Florida. I usually do - I haven't had one under 1,000 miles yet - but I still am rather frustrated at how unproductive this weekend has been.

I had a drive tire blow out on me earlier today, which certainly put a damper on things; I should have been able to get a lot further tonight than I did. As it was, both truck stops down here were full, forcing me to go back to an Interstate rest area for the evening. Tomorrow needs to be a better day than today; I'll be too frustrated if it isn't. @_@

Atlanta, GA

The last couple have days have been rather kind to me. Though I've had incidents with backing (again), nothing serious has happened. And aside from that, it's been smooth sailing. No problems with traffic or weather. It's been cold (about 18°F right now), but I have a new sleeping bag I've been using that keeps me nice and toasty. I've also been getting really good runs; this run is the second in a row that I've had of 1000+ miles, which is bound to increase my next paycheck. Also, I put in today for time off in mid-February, thus ensuring that I'll have a mini-vacation then. Just gotta keep the wheels running until then!

Houston, TX

After a couple of very long days, I'm over in the lone star state. Three days ago, I was in Miami, dealing with record-shattering 80°F degree heat. Then, in a single day, I drove from there to Marianna, FL (~560 miles). Yesterday, I then went all the way from there to Houston, pulling 630 miles in ten and a half hours. Thankfully, aside from an accident just down the highway from where I started, everything went well yesterday and has been going just fine for the last several days. Tomorrow, I have a roughly four-hour drive to where I'm delivering; as usual, I have no idea where I'll be going next, but I hope I keep getting good miles. At some point I'm just going to have to buckle down and run as hard as I can one week; I'd love to get a $1000 paycheck at some point.

Pensacola, FL

Amazingly, I made it home a full hour ahead of schedule. Even my most optimistic estimates put me home at 7AM, but I pulled into the truck stop here about ten minutes ago. As an added bonus, I even found a space I could pull straight into, saving me the trouble of trying to back into a space while tired. I'm going to catch a nap now; I have a lot of things I want to do today. :)

Atlanta, GA

Well, I found out just how they're going to route me home and I'm quite amazed. I'm under a load that is a live unload... in Pensacola on Christmas Eve. So, basically, I'm going to head home, then just have to wake up to drive the truck over to get it unloaded, drop the trailer off at another place in town, then still get another 48 hours off. This means that I'll be home for almost four days. If all goes well, I might be in Pensacola as early as 7AM, but it's more likely I'll get to town closer to 8 or even 9. I'll make another update when I get there; I'm quite happy at the moment though. :)

Green Bay, WI

Yesterday was a rather frustrating day, but at least it ended well. I got to the shipper, got into the dock in relatively few attempts (probably within 15 minutes, maybe even 10), then waited. And waited. What should have taken two hours took nearly four. Then, due to the weight of the load (39,900), I had to find a scale. Well, there were none along my route until I crossed the state line, so I had to backtrack fifteen miles... only to find out that the place refused to accept anything but cash. I called support shift to find out what I should do - or at least to get authorization to go another 40 miles out of route - then had to go to another scale... only to find out the company credit card wouldn't work there, forcing me to pay for it myself, though at least that will be reimbursed. To add insult to injury, the only DOT scale I passed on the whole trip was closed, thus meaning I'd never have been in trouble even if I was overweight. So, essentially, I drove 75 miles and wasted nearly four hours for absolutely no reason.

At least, once I got to the delivery point, everything went well. I found it in one try, then had to drop the trailer at the very end of a row, such that I had the entire length of the parking lot to back into there. Straight line backing is something I have down just about pat; I can drive in reverse without too much trouble, it's just the fancy cornering required to get into a dock that I have a hard time with.

After dropping the trailer, I went to the Green Bay OC and put my truck in for maintenance. I spent nearly an hour just chatting with the mechanic, since neither of us really had anything better to do. I told him the few things that were wrong with the truck, such as the windshield wipers and a blown power outlet; apparently both things are fairly simple to fix. The mechanic even said he'd look into getting my truck outfitted with a heater so I don't freeze during the winter, which would resolve the only major complaint I have about the job. Though I could have gotten the work it needed done within an hour, I found out that the hotel would let me have an early check in for Saturday, so I went to the hotel anyway. So I'll be checking out tomorrow, despite checking in at 5:30AM. So once my 34-hour restart is done around 2PM tomorrow, I'll be hitting the road and heading south, hopefully to find that it's somewhat warmer.

Monee, IL

Well, with all the news about bad weather in the northeast, I was prepared for the worst. I figured that I'd be late making this delivery and piss off both dispatch and the customer in the process. I already had warned management that I might be late due to weather, which they understood, but I still wanted to try. For all my worrying and planning, though, there was one possibility that I failed to account for: that the weather would cooperate. Aside from about 20 or 30 miles of fairly heavy snow in Pennsylvania and one rather close call with the truck, I had nothing to deal with but rain and even that stopped shortly after I made it into Ohio. The only problem I had left was Chicago traffic, since I cross into the state right around 6PM, but even that proved to be a non-issue. Thus, I went from worrying about being half a day late to arriving half an hour early.

Just about everything else went well, too. I was able to stop for food pretty much as I wanted. Traffic was never a problem all day. I never drove through a construction zone that had a reduced speed limit. I even found a parking space on my first try at the truck stop; someone was just pulling out of a space when I arrived. Overall, a very good day indeed.

That's not to say there aren't a few things I still have to worry about. For one thing, I had to take toll roads to make up time and the roads I took are ones they don't normally reimburse drivers for. If they decide they're not going to pay me back, I'm out $49.50 for the Ohio and Indiana turnpikes. I also still had a hard time backing in at the customer, which led to some rather unnerving looks from other drivers.

I still don't know where I'm going next, but I really hope that it's somewhere warmer. It's currently 26 degrees here and only forecast to get to 32. Worse, there's a huge storm coming in over the weekend and I'd love to get out of the way before that hits. So if they could route me down to Charlotte (which is currently experiencing record highs), I'd be very, very happy. :)

Sturbridge, MA

Well, today has definitely been one of those days. I'm currently stuck in the fuel island of the Pilot here because my truck just won't start. There's a service guy on the way already, but it still means I'm going to lose even more time on a day where I didn't have much time to lose. I hope I can make it to the place I originally planned on stopping, as there just aren't any other good stopping points along my route. Of course, this isn't the first delay I've had today; I lost almost an hour because some jerk decided to stop and take a nap in the driveway of a customer, then another half hour in traffic. I'll be stopping almost 100 miles short of where I wanted to get tonight and I'll need to have everything go perfectly tomorrow in order for me to get to the customer in time and without running out of hours.

In any case, my truck just got fixed, so now I just need to weigh my load and get driving.

Cherry Hill, NJ

Yes, New Jersey. There's really not much here, but I'm right in the middle of it, I suppose. I'm waiting at a customer to get loaded, so I really have nothing to do but kill time. The last few days have been fairly uneventful, really, though the weather has finally turned to snow. I haven't had to drive in active snow yet, but there is snow on the side of the road and I worry that ice is going to form on the highways. I will be coming back south with this load, though I'm not sure just how far I'll make it tonight. I hope to at least get to North Carolina.

Also, for anyone considering driving for Schneider, one driver made a very good point the other day. This is the time of year you want to start driving. Why? Well, you'll be learning how to drive in winter conditions, such that when spring rolls around and the weather improves, it'll just get easier. That's a lot better than I've done by going to the academy in the summer and learning under easy conditions, then having to adapt that to increasingly wintry conditions. Just some food for thought.

La Vergne, TN

So after a relatively short day, I've dropped the trailer and called it a night. My next load is supposed to be a live load at 3:30 tomorrow, but the place I dropped at had no empty trailers, so I couldn't pick one up tonight. I'm not sure if dispatch will send me back there tomorrow to see if they've emptied one out or if I'll have to go trailer-hunting, but either way I need to be up and ready to go in the morning. Unfortunately, I'll be delivering this load to a place I've already been and had a heck of a time finding, so it's going to be a rather long and frustrating evening tomorrow as well. I may just take another relatively short day and just deliver it in the morning, such that I'll be driving during the daylight hours instead.