The load to Virginia

Well I did eventually get out of that insane asylum, but it was just before they turned off the lights at the place. So five hours after I arrived I was on my way, which I think is a record for that place, especially since I didn't get sent home empty like the person I found in our Toledo yard that night. Lucky her, she got to go back again today to try for that load again.

After loading I gave dispatch a call and let them know my expected ETA for Strasburg, and had them find out if anyone would even be there today in the afternoon, the answer was no, so I deliver first thing Friday morning. I looks like it will be a nice enough drive down, and hopefully they will be true to word and be there at 7 AM like they said they would be.

Then it will either be a broker load to some other location, or head for home with an empty trailer and check Monday for my next load. Either way, it will be some decent miles, a lot more this week than I expected, so it will really help since the last three weeks were so light on miles.

It will be interesting to see what the new year will bring, hopefully some other customers than the GM. Though we did get some good runs after getting the loads out of this failed supplier, the hard part was getting the loads.

Chesterfield, MI

I have now been here for almost three hours to get loaded, since arriving at 1 PM. Apparently this is not to be considered a long time, since there are more than a few people that have been here since the early morning. We are all here to help unload a component manufacturer that has gone bankrupt. Every place that this place supplied has reps here to make sure they get their stuff out of here. This includes molds, dies, machinery, tools, and any other thing needed to make what ever part was made here. The name of the place is Cadence Innovation and it is insane.

When I got here there were trucks parked everywhere, and apparently on Saturday there were even more, a lot more. The line went out the gate and onto 23 Mile road, where apparently a lot of people got tickets.

This load is supposed to be in Strasburg, VA, tomorrow morning. As of right now there are four pallets assembled for this load. How many more they are waiting on, I have no idea. They guy next to me has been here since around 6 AM, and is just now getting loaded. Despite the fact that his load has been staged behind his trailer since before I got here.

I am thinking that this might end up getting delivered on Friday, since I don't particularly feel like being stuck in VA over the new year waiting for this place to open.

Franklin, OH

Last week I got out out of the Buffalo area with less trouble than I thought I would. Though the drive through Pennsylvania's whiteouts along I-90 was something I will not forget anytime soon.

This week I started out on Sunday with a nice load down to Alpharetta, GA. The miles from this one load are better than any one of my last three weeks. It was a quick run down to warm weather, it was in the sixties in the Atlanta area, and now I am back in the cold of Ohio. It will take about three hours or so to get to the Toledo yard, and then I will find out if there is more to do this week or just head for home.

On the way up I did have the misfortune to witness a very serious accident occur behind me. Not as it happened, but the results of what ever contact there was. All I know is that after some sort of contact a semi truck was pulling off the road to the right shoulder, and a car was rotating in several directions as it flipped off the highway. I think the air this car got was enough to come close to being able to clear a truck which is over thirteen feet high. Even worse it would have been landing in the median, which is filled with trees and rocks. Hopefully nothing to bad happened, but I am not too optimistic. I did try to call it in to 911, as did every other person with a cell phone since it took almost a minute for them to pick up the phone, mutter something and hang up. Apparently the state patrol emergency number is something else, easy to remember to, *847, who could forget that?

Back to the pilot in Franklin, as I was doing paperwork in the truck I heard over the CB that two girls were trying to get gas money to go somewhere, and shortly after that I saw them wandering the lot. To bad for me, I had my light on doing paperwork so they made a quick beeline to the truck. I just shook my head and waved them off to one girls dismayed cry of, "were not lot lizards." All I can say, female wandering a truck stop for money, and the difference to me is where? Who knows how young they really were, but I am betting under eighteen, looked to young for college.

Trapped in Buffalo

This morning I awoke to a less blowy and snowy day, unfortunately enough snow has fallen that the main route out, I-90, is shut down from Rochester, NY to the Pennsylvania line. So at this point I am just going to clear the truck off and wait for a go signal from dispatch on picking up the load, which still could end up being cancelled anyway.

One thing is for sure I have gotten a lot of fun pictures of my truck in the snow the past few days, and will be posting some soon.

Buffalo, NY

Well I am actually in Hamburg, NY, near Buffalo. I got up here Friday night in some snow that slowed traffic and driving a bit but not too seriously. We only had to slow to around 45-50 MPH for most of it. The intent was that I would run a trailer to our Buffalo yard, actually it is in Blasdell, NY, and then grab a trailer for a pick-up at a GM plant in New Hampshire. Unfortunitly when I got to the yard Friday night, I found the load was no longer planned on me. Saturday morning my guess was confirmed, the run was cancelled. After a few calls back and forth to dispatch, I found out that I was basically stuck for the weekend. They did manage to find me a quick run to move a trailer back to Blasdell, but that only took a little bit before I was back heading for a hotel.

Beofre I went I decided to do some quick shopping and get some food for the stay, it took almost 45 minutes to drive the five miles to Walmart, the shopping traffic was absolutely insane. Once that was done, with a quick lunch at a Perkins, it was off to another Red Roof Inn. Check in was quick and painless, and once again it was a nice room, but more snow was on its way.

This morning I awoke to find the truck covered and at least 12 inches on the ground, it is still snowing and the wind is making it white out conditions on a regular basis. I am really glad I am not driving today, but need to drive tomorrow to get home. Hopefully the load doesn't cancel, but even worse I hope the weather cooperates. Fortunitly the pick-up isn't far from the yard, but it will be along and slow drive home in this lake effect snow. It is usually in a narrow band so once I get far enough South I should be clear of it for good.

Lunch and dinner tonight will be at a restaurant that is in front of the Red Roof Inn. Lunch is a gyro and dinner will be a to go chicken ceaser salad. Not the healthiest, but good food. Well time to eat and read some more news.

Bear Attack

Well not a real bear but it looked like one. The other day I was traveling along the Ohio turnpike when I saw something that shocked me a bit. There was a state trooper clocking form the center, like usual I knew several miles away due to the CB bear reports. Of course the four wheelers, cars, had no clue, which is why one got nailed by the laser he was using. All fairly normal right? What wasn't normal was how this trooper stopped the car, which immediately earned him the nick name of grizzly bear. He got out of his patrol car, ran out into the left lane with his hands above his head to basically grab the van in the center lane and make him pull over a few feet down from him. The van braked and swerved, must have thought what I was thinking, bear road kill, but they did stop where indicated with no trauma, well until they saw the ticket that is.

Now another time on I-75 in Ohio, those Ohio troopers just have all the fun, I watched as a trooper earned himself the CB nick name of super trooper for pulling over two cars, at once. The first car was the one he had pulled out to chase down after catching them with his laser. The second was a girl that was chatting away on her cell phone in the hammer lane (left lane, passing lane, etc). More than a few of us watched in amazement as for more than a mile or two she just kept tooling along with this trooper right behind her with all his lights on. Not the first time I have seen someone who failed to yield right away, but definitely the longest.

Austintown, OH

Tonight I will be hanging out at the TA at exit 223 off of I-80. It is fairly standard as TA's go, the buffett has plenty of decent options, and some not so good, stay away from the ground beef for tacos, dry is an understatment. Other than that I am plugged into the IdleAire for the night and plan to be up early tomorrow for a shower then a drive to Warren, OH to pick up another load of tannin. At least this time I will have a a lighter trailer and know where I am going, so this time I should make it down in plenty of time to be unloaded tomorrow. I won't have to worry about another visit from the local drug dealer as I spend the night down there.

Hopefully I will have another load fairly quickly so I can keep moving over the weekend. I guess it will just be wait and see, but if I need to I can always plant myself in a hotel for the weekend.

Slow Day

It appears today is going to be one that gets very little driving done in it. I have a new load, that loads tomorrow morning at 7AM in Warren, OH. The only driving I will do today will be to get myself up to our terminal in Hermitage, PA, and grab a lighter trailer, then position myself in Warren for the load tomorrow. Hopefully they will find me something that will get me going over the weekend, but at this time I am expecting very little.

At least this week is better than last week miles wise, but it still hasn't equaled a two run week to Spring Hill, TN. It might not even equal a one run week. Yes, GM's problems affect me.

Ice Road Trucking

Now I am sure a lot of peple have seen the television show about the ice road up in Canada. Showing the dangers and all the other fun things they get to deal with driving on frozen lakes. The one thing I have never seen them deal with are idiots in automobiles. Driving Tuesday night along I-75 South in Ohio, It might as well have been an ice road, since it was solid ice low traction, and idiots in cars driving faster than they should. The number of times I had to slow down due to accidents was unbelivible. Fortunitly none were big trucks, though there was a Werner stuck on an ice covered hill, just couldn't get any traction to get moving. About the same spot there was a box truck in the median, way down in the median, it must have been a real treat pulling him out. Once I got down to Kentucky the driving was a lot better with the roads being only patchy ice, not solid.

Today I am in Washington, PA, unloading at Washington Penn Plastics. Unfortunitly I had a late start due to a flat tire, it had a broken off screw in it so a slow leak over night killed it. So I was only an hour late to deliver after getting that fixed. Now after waiting almost an hour for the dock they wanted me in, eventually I will get this unloaded.

On the Road

After a schedule change before Thanksgiving, I now deliver my loads at 11:30 AM in Spring Hill, I find myself traveling around Ohio as my loads have been cancelled by GM. Part of this is due to their problems, and the rest is that they also get engines out of Mexico. So I get to do random things until they have another load for me to go south with. I still have a load scheduled for this weekend, so this week will not be a total loss.

Monday I started out doing a relay out in Indiana and then some local truck movements, not much but better than nothing. Tuesday I headed north making three stops to pick up a load heading to GM's Wilmington Assembly Plant in Delaware. Having not been there before, I was looking forward to seeing Delaware, but this was not to be as I realized that I would end up being late with it. So it was relayed in Hermitage, PA at the Falcon Terminal there.

From Hermitage I went to Warren, OH, to pick up a load of tannin from a government stockpile, and haul it down to Point Pleasant, WV. There they repackage it in large pallet sized bags to ship it over seas. Arriving in Point Pleasant I rapidly discovered how bad my directions were. Following them lead me to a dead end and a beauty shop where I asked for some better directions. While attempting to turn around by making several left turns, I was at a one way street, I found myself stuck again, in a place trucks really should not be. Managing to get myself turned around yet again I see a local police officer and flag him down for some better local information. It was then that I found that I had just gotten myself turned around the wrong way for the easiest way to get out of where I was. Fortunately he was amiable to me backing up to make a right hand turn at the street he felt I should go down. After the second time trying the turn I was able to get myself out of there and back on the road I know knew I should be on.

The easiest description of this town is narrow streets with either a telephone pole or a street sign on every corner. To make it even easier to find things all the street signs are made of painted iron, that does not reflect an iota of light at night.

Back to finding my way to this place, after many false dodges to make a left as I tried to read signs, I finally got exasperated and turned at the next street, put on my hazards for the third time that night and while talking to dispatch started walking around reading signs. To my surprise I was on 22nd street, the one I was looking for all that time. With dispatch reading me street names as I drove back in to this subdivision I soon found myself at the gate to where I was going. Unfortunately I also found myself unable to leave without going through that gate. So I got to spend the night parked there.

Even more unfortunately at around 11:30 that night the local dealer swung by to check if I was good. He did this by honking his horn outside the truck until I showed my head, and then he asked if I was good, I was like I am stuck here, can't leave till morning, then he asked if I wanted to buy some dope, I said nope, I am good, rolled up my window and decided I wasn't answering any more horns till morning.

When morning rolled around I found that I was the second truck to be unloaded, the first had spent the night locked in this place. It then took a while to get my next load, apparently due to the fact that I was hauling what we call a bullet proof trailer. This is a steel reinforced trailer that is a lot heavier than regular ones. Eventually I had a load, initially to be picked up prior to two, but then changed to 7AM on Friday morning. It is likely to be another heavy one, but it will at least get me back towards home.

Tonight I am spending the night in a Knights Inn in Parkersburg, WV. Hopefully it will not be the sheet of ice I am expecting in the morning, but I am not to optimistic. At least I am close to Hannibal where I pick up my next load, so hopefully the driving will not be to bad.