Testing the New UltraShift Plus by Eaton

While my truck is in the shop here at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, International Dealer, I got the opportunity to take a new Prostar International Tractor out for a test drive.  It was equipped with the latest transmission by Eaton, the UltraShift Plus.  Once I got past the obvious differences between the trucks I have been driving and the luxury, space and quiet in this tractor, I was able to concentrate on how much nicer this version of automatic transmission is.  The ones I have been using are at least five years older than the current generation, but the difference in smoothness and responsiveness makes the changes enormous.

The first difference is how easily and smoothly it shifted gears, it seemed like we were between gears longer than we were in some of them, as the transmission just touched them on the way up.  It wasn't until we got on the highway and I commented on how nice it was that he even mentioned that we were grossing 70,000 pounds.  With the engine noise bing so quiet and the shifting so smooth, I never felt like we were heavy, until I checked my speed and saw that we weren't quiet up to highway speed yet.

Decelerating for an off ramp was just as smooth as climbing the gears.  It wasn't until we got back to the yard that I saw how it would downshift on its own as we coasted to a stop, rather than needing a foot on the accelerator to allow the transmission to shift.

Another nice feature was the hill holder, which allowed me to use only one foot to drive.  I no longer needed to put my left foot on the brake to keep the truck from rolling forward or back while I pressed the accelerator down to move away from a stop.  I am so used to needing two feet to drive an automatic that it was extremely difficult to not put my left foot on the brake.

The last item that I loved was backing, I didn't need to rev the engine up to get the truck to back up, it was able to take just a little power and back on its own after I took my foot off the accelerator.  Gone is the need to rev up to 800 or 1000 rpms just to get the transmission to engage, a real plus when trying to back up a hill into a dock.

So if you get the chance to try out one of these transmissions, I highly recommend it.  It certainly changed my mind about automatics, up until now I have really hated them.  I have gone a complete 180 on that and now would actually consider getting a truck equipped with this transmission, if I ever became insane enough to become an owner operator that is.

GM Assembly Plant in Arlington, Texas: An illusion of efficiency

To the casual and not so casual observer, the plant in Arlington, Texas, is an efficient user of Just In Time (JIT) freight.  There are a few trucks parked in a lot on the hill, but for the most part trucks simply run up to the gate and head to their door.  A majority of these trucks are day cabs, local drivers, bringing in items from staging warehouses nearby.  It is at these staging warehouses that the illusion is shattered.  The worst of them is located on Avenue E and is run by Penske Logistics.  There you see those day cabs backing in at the front of the building, unloading, reloading and back to the plant.  The back of the building is where the ugliness is.

Starting in the driveway for receiving the first thing you notice is the back of a truck, just barely past a yellow line with a sign stating no trucks past this point, so the driveway isn't blocked.  This truck is the first of almost 15 that you will find as you drive around the building.  They will be on either side of the drive with the small spaces between each truck revealing a red line with the words fire lane in white.  When you get to the docks there will be even more trucks on either side of that fire lane line.  The drivers stopping anywhere they can to get inside and drop their paperwork, each with a carefully written cell phone number at the top so when the dock is ready for them, they can be called from where ever they find a space to park.

Dropping off your paperwork is the last time you have any control over anything at this location.  The only restroom is at the front of the building where the fast moving day cab drivers can use them easily.  Half the time it is easier to find a parking spot somewhere on a street in this industrial area, than it is trying to squeeze another truck onto the property here.  Then it is just a waiting game, knowing sooner or later they will call and you can finally feel like you are doing something by getting your truck into a dock, only to wait again.  Today it took me only fourteen hours to get into a dock.

From a conversation that I had with one of the employees last week, they have had some drivers wait over a day to get in, and that they only bring a truck to the dock when GM requests it.  So all of these trucks are just little warehouses, idling the day away, wasting fuel and man hours day in and day out, just so GM can say they use Just In Time Freight.  The look on their faces when I requested a copy of the detention form that is posted on the wall outside the office was precious.  I don't think they have had that request for some time, I was told that they didn't have any and that they needed to take that down.  If they never get filled out, they can never be billed for detention, and they will only pay detention if that form is the one filled out, good plan.

I have now been in the dock for forty minutes, and nothing has happened yet.

Day 1 in Arlington

Today started out fairly good, after driving my eleven hours to get here for my first scheduled appointment time I got unloaded fairly quickly at the GM plant in Arlington.  I ended up going to two different docks at the plant but was still done within an hour and a half of getting there.  The problems started at my next stop.  This place is operated by Penske Logistics, and I can finally say that there is something worse than Ryder to go to.  The lot is small and cramped, and there are trucks everywhere in here.  So much so that it is actually difficult to maneuver.  Half of them are parked in fire lanes.

When I got here I had been awake for almost eighteen hours, so was a little cranky when they said to give them my cell number so they can call me when they are ready.  In hindsite my reaction wasn't diplomatic, I left and went to get some sleep.  After getting caught up somewhat on sleep I can back and checked in again and have been around here ever since.  I really needed that sleep though, sleep deprivation and driving are a really bad combination.  I will likely get some more before I take off out of the area.

I did actually get in a dock as I was typing this, not to bad, about eleven hours after my appointment time, which was actually within my ten hour break time.  When ever they get their stuff off of me, it will be off to the third stop then back towards the north.  I haven't slept enough so far today to drive far tonight, but I will get out of the Dallas area before morning if I can.

Cell Phone Ban for Commercial Truck Drivers

Feds weigh cell phone ban for bus, truck drivers


I am not too excited about the possibility of banning truck drivers from using cell phones.  Requiring a hands free device is one thing, but a complete ban is a bit extreme.  Being able to stay in contact with family, friends, and relatives is one of the ways a lot of drivers keep up with their lives.  It isn't like we have a whole lot of time when not driving to talk to people.  Especially if you are trying to do something during normal business hours.  While I was buying my house I can't count the number of calls to contractors, mortgage broker, real estate agent, and setting up the utilities, that I made.


A universal ban on hand held devices should be made though.  I can't count how many times I have watched someone merging with a cell phone glued to their head, apparently making it impossible to look over their shoulder to check traffic.  For some reason most of those people are surprised when they end up next to me and are running out of road to merge on.  Sometimes I am able to get over to avoid the possibility of an accident, but a lot of times there are no options for me, so surprise.


One thing is for certain, if they write the law too vaguely they may end up banning CBs as well.  A phrase that says communications device instead of cell phone will certainly turn a truck staple to an illicit item.

On the road again

After staying pretty close to home while I purchased a house, I am back driving over the road.  It is a dedicated route right now going from Romulus, Michigan, to Arlington, Texas.  Due to the schedule most of the driving is at night, and last night being the first night was a bit brutal.  The load was late leaving the shipper in Ontario, and it got delayed again crossing the border.  So I ended up being up a lot later than I had planned for yesterday.  I finally stopped in Mount Vernon, Illinois, at 6:30 AM because I just could not physically keep driving.  I still could have driven further with my hours, but it would not have been safe at all.  Tonight's bit of driving should be better, but I will have to use every driving hour I have just to get to the GM plant in Arlington.  Then I think I have three stops to go to, but the paperwork is so confused from customs sorting through it, that I have no idea what paperwork goes with what stop.  Just to make it more fun the directions that I have for the plant have nothing to do with the direction that I am coming from.  I have been there once before, so have some idea, but will have to look more closely at the route for the final bit of driving before I leave here.

Right now just relaxing in the truck waiting for my sleep timer to put me back to sleep.  I know I need more but my body woke me up for some reason a little over an hour ago.  At least I have time, I won't be leaving out of here until around 6 or 7 tonight.

Driving in Mexico

This article gives all the reasons a US or Canadian driver will never go to Mexico. It also gives plenty of reasons to doubt any Mexican driver coming north.

Mexico cartels go from drugs to full-scale mafias

I don't think I would even want to go to Mexico as an individual, at this point the country has way to many problems to risk my life there. This risk and the risk of it spilling over into the US brings to head the possibility of the US doing more than just assisting the Mexican Government with money and equipment. I wonder whether we are looking at a possible 31 more states, starting with the ones closest to the US. An ever expanding security zone that it would be hard to believe that the residents would fight against, given how many want to come here already.

Cash for Clunkers Boondoggle

Boondoggle is all I can call the $3 Billion spent on removing around 700,000 so called clunkers from the roads. With three stated purposes of reducing pollution, saving fuel, and stimulating the economy; this program fails in every respect. Actually I shouldn't say fails, it does accomplish all of those things, but at such a high cost it is mind blowing. More than a few articles can be found that back this up, and this isn't coming from crazy news outlets people have never heard of either.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/cash-for-clunkers-too-much-cash-for-cutting-emissions/

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/11/cash-for-clunkers-autos-economy-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/business/08clunker.html?hpw

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gBK8ygR_GgJVJ_9QEjvOcx4J8MxQD99SA4101

Now take that same $3 Billion and spend it on something that actually does have a true cost benefit to the environment, auxiliary power units for trucks, and all the sudden we are talking about some real savings. That amount of money could purchase 352,941 APUs at $8,500 a piece, which is the high end of APU pricing. Just purchasing those would have the possibility of cutting idling by at least 10 hours a day, 300 days a year (we do get home sometimes), for 3,000 hours of idling saved per truck. That is 1,058,823,000 hours of idling saved in a year for the same amount of money that is getting the common man a new car that may save him 3-5 miles per gallon.

Lets be generous and call it 15,000 miles driven in a year (I would call that high) divided by 5 miles per gallon saved times 700,000 new cars. That gives us 2.1 Billion gallons of fuel saved in a year. Which only is saved if everyone actually drives 15,000 miles a year, most people don't even come close to that.

An idling truck consumes an average of a gallon of fuel an hour. An APU typically uses around 2 tenths of a gallon an hour (again a bit high). Now if calculate the fuel used on those trucks idling all that time; 1,058,823,000 gallons of fuel are burned while idling in a year. Now those same 352,941 trucks using an APU would only burn 211,764,600 gallons, a savings of 847,058,400 gallons of fuel.

Now you are looking at that and saying what are you talking about, cash for clunkers is saving more in fuel than buying APUs for trucks. So rather than buying them outright, lets make it more like CARS and have a rebate of $4500 which would allow the purchase of 666,665 APUs. That generates a fuel savings of 1,599,996,000 or about 1.6 billion gallons of fuel in a year. Again a difference in fuel savings, but remember we used an average of 10 hours of idling a day for the trucks. This doesn't include the time idling at a shipper or receiver, or just waiting for a load (in this economy that could be over 24 hours).

Again there are no guarantees that the cars swapped will actually be driven as much as I calculated, but it is a real guarantee that the trucks will be idling to maintain driver comfort while in the sleeper.

Back to dedicated

It has been a while since I posted in here, mostly because I haven't been doing anything that interesting. Besides trying to close on a house, I have also been doing a regular loop between Parma, Ohio, and Lake Orion, Michigan. Basically running stamped parts from GM's Metal fabrication plant to their assembly plant. It isn't the best paying run, and only goes three times a week, but with my savings of eating at home and the extra time to deal with the house stuff it is perfect. It should also last just long enough to get everything done and us moved before I need to find another run. The assembly plan in Lake Orion currently is making the Pontiac G6, and since Pontiac is going away as a brand, so will the car. So at the end of September the plant will be shutting down for a year or so for retooling. Eventually it will reopen and assemble whatever small car GM ends up putting there. Apparently Michigan gave them a huge tax incentive to keep a plant there, beating out Spring Hill, Tennessee, and Janesville, Wisconsin. The odd part about that is the Spring Hill Plant was just redone to do the Chevrolet Traverse (which is moving up to be assembled in Michigan as well), so is a very up to date and versatile assembly line.

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Romulus, Michigan: Terminal

After a very poor week I find myself with a half way decent load, that seems to be so trouble prone that I am wondering why I even bothered. It sounded simple, pick up a relay in Romulus, Michigan and take it to Terra Haute, Indiana, of course for some reason they never are that simple. My plan was to drive up here from Toledo, Ohio, at around midnight, grab the trailer and head on to the delivery. Apparently the first truck had mechanical difficulties, so they had to have a second truck recover the load, which got moving out of Toronto, Ontario, at around when it should have been getting here to Romulus. Yes, this load is out of Canada, so that means it also has to clear customs, which can sometimes take a while.

After getting the load from dispatch, my next call from them was about how it might be a bit late, and to call in first to see if it is in Romulus, before I leave Toledo. My first call to dispatch was at 10:30PM last night, the load had just gotten moving and should make it to Romulus somewhere between 1 and 2AM. So I crawled back into bed and tried to get some more sleep. My next call to them was at around 1AM to check on if the truck had made it through Customs yet, it was about thirty minutes away from the border. So I get dressed and load up my car, head to the truck, pack it, and give them another call. This was at about 1:45AM, the truck wasn't through customs, so I tell them to call me once it is through, and fall asleep.

I woke up just before 4AM, first a bit bleary eyed, since I fell asleep with my contacts in, then I made another call to dispatch, the truck had cleared customs at around 3:30AM, thanks for calling me guys. I get to Romulus at 5AM, find the trailer fairly quickly, hook up and am ready to go, right? Wrong, during my pretrip I find a light out, no big deal, and a missing mud flap, around a $100 fine in Michigan. So I check the shop, the one mechanic that is on duty, just got in, and he can't do anything on trucks until he does a yard check. So I call breakdown, after they do some checking, they tell me to wait until the mechanic here can fix me. So now this load that was supposed to deliver at 8AM this morning will now get there sometime this afternoon.

Off to the shop..

Back at GM in Mansfield, now to get unloaded, and then who knows.

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Waterloo, New York: Petro

Yes, I am still here, still no loads, however I do get to finally move. They are letting me head over to our yard near West Middlesex, Pennsylvania. There I can grab a lighter trailer hopefully. Then I might actually get a load. I am fairly certain they are thinking I am happily heading to that hole in a wall they call a terminal to spend the night. Instead I will leave out of here early tomorrow morning to get there around 8ish. So I will use some of my driving hours and start my clock, at this point I could care less about having a full book for a load. At least there I will be 4 hours closer to home.

Waterloo, New York: Petro

It is now day three of sitting here at this truck stop. I am basically going stir crazy sitting here, I have wandered through the various sites I belong to just looking for interesting threads in forums to post to. Other than that, it has been playing games on Facebook, watching movies on Netflix, and staring at the walls. I did have a good conversation with the Roehl driver next to me, and I decided to fill out an application for them yesterday afternoon.

My Sprint connection is starting to drive me a bit nuts, it keeps disconnecting for no apparent reason. my guess is the most recent update added an activity timer, so if I am not actively browsing it cuts out. It just did in the middle of this post.

I sent another fun email to dispatch last night, and talked to my dispatcher this morning. He swears they will find me something today, but I will believe it when I see it. I am guessing it will be another load tonight and deliver tomorrow type load. After all I am on break and can instantly drive my eleven hours no mater when they dispatch me, and I have this nice property in Florida I can sell you for a deal.

Been on and off the phone all morning to both my mortgage broker and my fiance as we try to get the rest of the paperwork off to the underwriter. I just found out from my fiance that the appraiser hasn't gotten his report in yet, which is ridiculous since I paid for it at the beginning of the month and had the contract for repairs and changes in last week. There really is no reason that someone who gets $400 to look at a house and determine its worth can't do it in a timely manner.

Waterloo, New York: Petro

Yes, I am still here. So far today, I have slept in, showered, eaten a leisurely breakfast, and am now slowly getting caught up on entering my receipts into Quicken. Exciting I know, but it does need to get done. I also called dispatch twice and it doesn't sound like they have even found a load for me on Monday. So who knows when I will actually get out of here. The good news is that they have a shop here, so I plan on getting a bunch of things fixed. What the heck else do I have to do this weekend, so might as well try to cost the company as much money as possible. The trailer could use at least two hub oil seals, and there are a couple of minor things on the tractor that could be looked at as well. There is a small exhaust leak that I have been putting off getting looked at, I don't seem to be getting any in the cab from it at least, but since I seem to have the time, I might as well get the clamps replaced or tightened.

One thing I cannot believe is how little they seem to care about getting me moving, it isn't like either of us is making any money. I cannot wait until I close on this house, there has got to be a company out there doing better than this.

Waterloo, New York: Petro

Once again, the load planners failed to surprise me, I have no load right now, and doubt I will for the rest of the weekend. Which means I will be spending my weekend here in Waterloo. I saw an outlet mall a little way away that I could browse through, but definitely can not afford to shop there. At least the internet is coming in well, so I will be able to be entertained.

When I got here, I once again violated my fuel solution, well I didn't have one, but I did fuel without permission. This was so I could get my showers for the next two nights, and get a cash advance. I don't think the five dollars I had in my wallet would have covered me for the weekend. Especially since, if I am here until Monday, I will have to buy at least one shower. When you fuel and put at least fifty gallons in the tank, you get a shower. At a Petro, if you tell them you have a co-driver, they will give you a slip for a second driver. So I have two showers off of one fuel up. Now a shower typically costs $10.00 to purchase, which is just annoying for me, because Falcon currently reimburses for showers.

Dinner tonight will be the steak buffet, it just looks good, and they have plenty of other items to round out my planned lengthy meal. It isn't like I have anything else to do, other than sit here in my booth, eat and use my laptop. Adding to my blog, like I am now, or chatting with friends. I don't think I will go as far as watching some netflix, but who knows, I might.

Well off to start grazing, I mean try out the salad bar.

Douglas, Georgia: Walmart Distribution Center

This is the second Walmart DC that I have been to today, and the first was much more pleasant to deal with. While I am a bit early for my appointment time, They simply expect everyone to know what they are supposed to do, having been here before or not. It doesn't help that the rules seem to be either totally different than the last one, or are just enforced differently.

Either way after I empty out here, it seems likely I will be hunting for a spot to crash for the night in the area, rather than heading back to a real truck stop closer to the main highway. They just don't seem likely to get this empty quickly, even if it is seven pallets.

Horse Cave, Kentucky: Loves

It has been a while since I added to this, mostly I have been doing shorter updates on Facebook. Right now I am on a load that picked up in Jackson, Alabama, and is heading towards West Carrollton, Ohio. I think it is the messiest load I have carried to date, at least it should be fairly easy to clean out the trailer afterwards. My trailer is loaded with bales of scrap paper, so there are pieces of paper that have fallen out of the bales all over the place as they loaded it. I know there will be even more when they unload it. Hopefully they will have a leaf blower available to just blow out all the paper, but more likely it will be me and a push broom.

This week has been slightly better than than the last several weeks, I actually might clear two thousand miles for the first time in a while. I just don't know what it takes to get loads out of this company, it seems that after I have been sitting for a while, (this week it was about 35 hours after unloading, closer to 43 if you count when I actually got down there) if I send an email with just the right tone of insulting and questioning their intelligence, I get a load. This last one I asked if I should put in an application at the Loves in Loxley, Alabama, and put as my address the blue truck in the back row.

Currently I am going slightly crazy while trying to get to the closing of a house using a 203k FHA loan. We have made it past the first bunch of hurdles and are basically now at the contractors mercy as to getting estimates in. Once we know about how much everything will cost, we can move forward to signing some contracts and getting everything off to underwriting. The part that is driving me nuts is that I am having to do this all by cell phone and laptop. I would rather be there for each contractor to make certain we are on the same page. We also have to get a quote for appliances, and I haven't done any research at all about those yet. I have just been too busy working, looking up home improvement tax credits, how to claim my first time home buyers credit and half a dozen other things including trying to relax a bit here and there.

Now to find out if I can get rid of this load early or if I really need to get it there at midnight tonight.

Rolumus, Michigan: Terminal

While I have been sitting around here today, I have visited the mechanics twice. The first time was earlier this morning when I got three mirrors adjusted and fixed due to broken and missing nuts, and just being hard to adjust on my own. I also got a new pigtail, it handles the electricity for any trailer I haul. Now after sitting for a while, I noticed a puddle of coolant under my truck. I was lucky in that all it needed was a couple of clamps tightened, but it is still irritating to have to go back and get something else done in the same day. It does explain why my coolant was so low this morning though. I also got a new license plate light. It isn't essential, and they rarely replace them, but at night in the rain if I am bobtailing, it is one more light on the back of my cab. It also comes in handy while dropping or hooking a trailer, keeps me from stepping in puddles while pulling the fifth wheel pin or cranking down the trailer's landing gear.

Back to waiting for them to get me out of here. My break will be over in a little less than an hour, but it seems doubtful that they will let me move before four this afternoon.

Romulus, Michigan: Terminal

I got here shortly after three this morning, and am now waiting for my ten hour break to be done shortly after one this afternoon. It was an easy run, deadheading from Austintown, Ohio, to my pick-up in Mansfield, Ohio, three hours later I dropped the trailer here in the Romulus Yard. I managed to get a few minor things fixed on the truck, hopefully I will not be in this truck long enough for the larger issues that are just starting out, to become a problem. My hope is that sometime in the next two weeks I will be able to get back into my truck and leave this one with a page of write-ups for repairs.

Right now it is just a matter of killing time until I can get the heck out of here

Austintown, Ohio: TA

All I can say is typical, at least I should be home this weekend. After sitting for most of the day, the only load they come up with is one that picks up tonight at 11 PM in Mansfield, Ohio, at the GM Stamping plant there. Then I get to run it up to Romulus, Michigan, for someone else to take it into Canada. Which means that my fourteen hours will be up at around ten thirty tomorrow morning. Since I doubt they will have anything else for me at that time, I am hoping that they will just let me deadhead home. Otherwise I won't get out of there until that evening.

Now for the hard part, convincing my body to sleep enough to be able to do this tonight. Coke will be my friend, with its lovely seasoning of caffeine to go with it.

Youngstown, Ohio: TA

Due to the holiday I ended up with Monday off, which means I had to wait until Tuesday to get the needed permits and paperwork faxed to me. It took a few minutes to come up with a fax number, but eventually my brain kicked into gear and I called up my cousin at his business and asked to borrow his. After picking up the paperwork that afternoon it was all a matter of waiting for a load. So I was more than a bit surprised to get a phone call from my dispatcher's supervisor to give me the third degree on why I wasn't on a load. First she started with last week when my truck got shut down in Romulus, Michigan to go to Cummins and the International dealer for repairs. Then she went onto this week wanting to know why I wasn't on a load right then. She used the phrase wasn't available for a load, as if all this was somehow my fault. Almost every question she asked, after I answered she would put me on hold to verify my response. Once she found out about my waiting for permits she tried to switch me to someone else to get them, I managed to stop her before she did to let her know that I had them. Then again she was on about why wasn't I on a load. She seemed puzzled by my answer that no one had given me one. She then wanted to know who hadn't given me one, I just said who ever plans the loads, then I said Jason was my dispatcher ask him. After that she switched me to the night dispatcher and got me set up on a Beer Run out of Columbus. Which I delivered yesterday and here I sit. Yippie, 300 some miles to sit at a truck stop, a great reason to get moving this week.

The plant I picked up at in Columbus was Anheuser-Busch and it was huge. The smell made me more than a little thirsty, and I hate Budweiser. I ended up getting a load of Bud Light to take over to a distributor in Boardman, Ohio. The loading docks were about what you expected, except they have a lot of automation in place there. Robot lifts bring the beer from the line to each dock and stage it on rails for the loaders to grab from with their forklifts. Even the loading is computerized with the inbound weight distribution telling the loader how many plastic bulkheads to put in the front of the trailer to keep the weight off the drive axles. I got right in and out, but apparently there are times when the system can't keep up with the flow of trucks causing loading delays.

New Truck

Well new to me. Friday I looked at the third truck that was available, and even though it was last used by a smoker, it was a lot better than the previous two. It only took about three hours of cleaning to get it to be something I would be willing to sleep in, the last truck I had to clean up took six hours. I only went through two buckets of clean water versus the six the other one took.

It still has a few things wrong with it mechanically, but only one thing that is potentially serious, a major wobble in a steer tire. It feels like it is unbalanced. I also need to do some serious adjusting to the nose mirrors, one is way to low, and the other only shows me the truck. The worst things have been taken care of already, it just had a service done on it. The engine is also spotless after having a head gasket replaced as Cummins, which is where I picked it up from.

They are still saying that I will be able to get my other truck back once it is fixed, but I will believe that when I see it. Now if this truck goes faster I might keep it, other wise I will probably still want my truck back.

Romulus, Michigan: Falcon Terminal

It turns out that I was right all along about the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) going bad in my truck. Unfortunately that means it needs to go to Cummins to be repaired. For what ever reason they won't let me take it to the one in Maumee, Ohio, it has to go up here to get fixed. After that it needs to go to an International dealer to get the transmission repaired, it apparently has an electronic fault of some sort. Between the two I won't be driving this truck for a while. They offered me a truck up here, which is geared for a Flatbed (no high air cone on roof). That truck was even filthier than the truck I am currently in was when I got it. I managed to talk them into letting me check out two trucks down in Toledo, hopefully they are cleaner. Now I am just waiting for my fiance, Tisha, to come up and pick up my stuff and I. I did make it clear that I want this truck back when it is fixed. Hopefully with everything repaired on it, it will be a while before I have another problem with it.

This whole thing is just frustrating because this is the fourth truck I have driven at this company, and I haven't even been here for a year yet. That does not even count all of the other trucks I drove for a day or so while one of my trucks was getting repaired. I just can't get over how disgusting these trucks are after some of these drivers.

Bellville, Michigan: Red Roof Inn

It is fairly amazing that I am actually in a hotel right now, I wasn't sure that they would actually give me one considering the new policies in effect right now. The only reason I did get one was that my truck is currently being worked on at the Romulus Terminal. At long last I will have a fuel gauge that works, they are even replacing the step that was crushed when I picked up the truck. I tried to get that replaced in Toledo, but it was deemed nonessential and not safety related. Hopefully they manage to get my Geologic's software updated as well, I am so tired of having to call in for everything. The main reason that my truck is in the shop is for a service, only over due by a couple thousand miles, but that is a lot better than many of the trucks from the Toledo area right now. They are still short staffed up here, so even though they started the truck last night, they are still working on it this morning, and are not certain when it will be fixed. The only thing I had was call back at noon and see how things are going. One thing may require it going to Cummins to get it taken care of, but the first guy to check for it wasn't able to find the problem, the day shift was going to try to find it now.

Buffalo, New York: Loaded and Broken Down

Just when things start to see like they are going well, something happens. In this case a brake chamber on my trailer decided to blow. In a parking lot, not a bad thing, but if this had happened on the road, the two tires that just got replaced would likely need replacing again. As fast as the air went out of the system, I likely would have needed another six as well. I would have been leaving a trail of black rubber and smoke as I tried to get over to the side of the road.

What makes this really bad, is that if it takes too long to fix me I will end up missing out on a thousand mile run tomorrow to Spring Hill, Tennessee. One of the runs I used to do as a dedicated driver. That would have made a horrible week into something decent at least. So this break down is really frustrating right now. Hopefully this won't take too long to repair, but they have to get here first, with 42,000 pounds on, I am not dragging this trailer anywhere.

Cheektowaga, New York

Yup, still here, though I do have a load to get me out of here finally. The good news is that it will get me home, the bad is that once again it will be a poor week for miles. I will not actually be delivery on this since it need to be delivered on Saturday near Chicago, but if it gets me where I need to go, it works for me.

The showers here were about par with the rest of the truck stops. The towels were a bit worn, but they were clean and the floor wasn't scary either. Right now I am just killing time watching Jeff Dunham on Netflix, I used to love watching him on Comedy Central. The weird part is that yesterday I watched some of him on YouTube, while Tisha was watching these videos on Netflix. A very strange connection there.

Cheektowaga, New York: Jim's Truck Plaza

I am at a real dive of a truck stop, next to a Kmart that doesn't like trucks in their lot. Looking at the number of cars in their lot, if it wasn't for truck drivers buying things from them they would have closed long ago, so their dislike of trucks is puzzling. Talking to another driver the food in the diner, too seedy to call it a restaurant, is pretty good, and the bathrooms are clean. They also have showers that supposedly are pretty good.

Yes, once again I do not have a load, not even one for tomorrow. So far this week, the only money I have made was the trip here, barely four hundred miles, pitiful. Looking at my average pay for the year, it just keeps dropping lower by the week. I am not sure how much longer I can stay with a sinking ship, they may have new customers, but I am not getting much benefit from them. I think next week, once the truck is out of the shop, I will see how they do with just a week out. It isn't like they can keep me moving when I give them two weeks of running. At least that way I will be home more rather than sitting somewhere. It will also give me more time to look into the other local companies in the area. Browsing online is fine, but nothing compares to talking to someone in person. At this point I wouldn't recommend anyone work for Falcon Transport as a driver or as anything else. A driver won't get the miles they need, and everyone else would never know when they might end up getting fired.

Across an extremely busy street with six lanes of traffic is a nice looking mall, The Walden Galleria. If I had a death wise I might attempt to cross the street to window shop for a few hours. Especially since it looks like I am here for the night. It is a two story mall, with a movie theater and quite a few restaurants in it, seems to be a very easy way to blow some money I can't afford to spend. Definitely much safer to stay here and eat at the cheesy diner tomorrow morning. Even if they have seven different showings of the new Star Trek movie between now and midnight to choose from, at the bargain price of $9.50. Yes, I think resisting will be easy, even if resistance is futile.

Depew, New York: Unloading

Right now I am getting my trailer unloaded at my destination. The way I had to drive to get to here from Virginia wasn't bad for the most part, except for US 219 from Du Bois, Pennsylvania, to near Springville, New York, where it turned into a four lane highway. The rest was a lot of driving through towns, slowing down for curves and going up and down hills. In the dark or in bad weather this would have truly been a nightmare of a run.

Once I am unloaded it will once again be the waiting game for my next load. They are already looking, but my uncertainty in my arrival time here didn't help matters. Yesterday I was having serious doubts as to if I would even get here today due to the thin red line that is US 219. Even though it turned out better than expected, I definitely don't want to drive it again any time soon.

Breezewood, Pennsylvania: TA

I am in the truck stop capital of America, at least that is what all the t-shirts say at the souvenir shop. I finally got a load at almost one o'clock this afternoon, loading out of Barryville, Pennsylvania, and going to Depew, New York (near Buffalo). It isn't a lot of miles, but it got me out of Virginia finally. I doubt I will get many more miles before the end of the week, since I plan on being home this weekend. The only real challenge will be to make it to the place I deliver tomorrow before 3 PM, after that I may have to wait until Thursday morning to get rid of this load.

Elkwood, Virginia: Shell Station

I got done with my delivery at 10:30 this morning, and true to form I am still waiting on a load out of here. Hopefully this won't be longer than one day to get a load, but it is more than a bit ridiculous that almost every Monday that I empty out here, I end up sitting for a day or more.

Ashland, Virginia: TA

This is my second night at this TA, yesterday I had to get a few lights fixed on the truck and tires for the trailer. Today it has been just laundry, watching Netflix, and wandering the area. Within walking distance there are quite a few restaurants and shops, so I had some fun this afternoon going through a few. I had an early supper at a Mexican restaurant that was pretty good, but a bit more expensive than the ones in the Toledo area. Tomorrow morning I will again be up early to get to my delivery, but I can't get there before seven-thirty AM, apparently the security there will not like it. Looking on Google maps, there isn't much in the area, but the street view car wasn't allowed to drive down the country road that I am driving down to get there, so who knows what is actually there.

Prescott, Arkansas: TA

The load I ended up getting is heading towards Norfolk, Virginia, a decent number of miles. Unfortunately it doesn't deliver until Monday morning. I will be getting to the area in decent time in order to take my 34 hour break, but it will be a long weekend stuck in a truck stop. The weight of the load will make it difficult to go anywhere other than a truck stop. I might look into finding a drop lot, but that will be decided when I get there.

The only interesting thing I saw today was something I took action on. While driving back East on I-30 I started smelling something burning. I kept looking around the cab and at my wheels to see if I could spot where the smell was coming from. It wasn't until I passed a military convoy that I found the cause. One of their trailers had smoke coming from one of the wheels. When I got up the the truck pulling the trailer, I rolled down my window, pulled the horn, and yelled your trailer is smoking while pointing back and down. The convoy slowed down immediately and then pulled off to the side. I have no idea what caused the smoke, but it smelled like brakes to me. Hopefully they caught it in time, while they were traveling with a tow truck, the trailer would have to be put on another trailer if it had serious problems.

Rockwall, Texas: TA

I got to this TA yesterday around five PM and have been hanging out here while I wait for them to find me my next load. Yesterday I started out in Stanton, Tennessee, and it was raining almost the entire way here. One part of I-30 near Little Rock, Arkansas, was partially closed due to water flooding onto the road way. Fortunately that was on the East bound side so it didn't effect me at all. I think the back-up was at least five miles long, with no really good way around it.

Last night I once again walked around to the shopping in the area. I found a place called Ladybug Scrubs, where I picked Tisha (my fiance) up a pair for Mothers Day. It won't be a surprise since I had to call her for size and preference. I also had to make certain that they would take a delayed return if it came to that. Since she has worn this brand before I think we are safe. Then I found a Chipotle to eat dinner at, it was a lot better than Burger King, and a lot cheaper than the TGI Fridays that I ate at last time I was down here. Then it was off to waste some time in the local Best Buy, where I only bought one DVD. Though the digital TV receiver for a laptop was tempting, somehow I resisted, I think it was the $90.00 price tag. The DVD was a lot cheaper for areas that I have a poor broadband connection and can't view video. All four Nightmare on Elm Street movies for ten dollars. It seems like a good way to kill four hours of time.

The air was so humid out last night that the truck was covered in moisture from having the air conditioning on last night. It is is a lot cooler today, but even more humid, you can almost swim in this air.

Now it is just a waiting game.

Finally in a dock, though not complaining to much. There are at least 5 trucks that I just jumped ahead of in line.

Arrived at shipper in Brewton, Alabama. This is going to take a while.

Finally have an empty trailor. Now just waiting for a load.

Loxley, Alabama: Love's Travel Center

I dropped off my trailer yesterday morning, and am now waiting for an empty trailer to become availible. Unfortunitly three other trucks were down here before me and two of them are waiting as well. Yesterday night two more trucks showed up and so we have turned one section of this Love's into a Falcon Terminal. We have five bobtails grouped together in three spots and have hung around talking about things. I found out one thing that is probably the reason for a lot of the changes that have been going on. Part of the company has been sold to another party by a few of the family members that own it. Apparently it was sold and part of the deal was that these new owners would run the day to day operations. I don't know how much that they own, but right now it seems like they are interested in getting as much money out of the company as possible while running it into the ground. Truck repairs and services have been delayed for more than just the people who were at the closing terminals. A lot of other things have been cut as well, so at this point it is just a matter of getting a decent paycheck while riding this down in flames. At least I will be building time at one company, so will have unemployment to fall back on if I need to for a while.

the waiting for a trailer isn't to bad, especially since I don't have a whole lot of hours to work with today and tomorrow. If I stay here till at least midnight I will be able to restart myself and start tomorrow with a full 70 hours to work.

Benton, Arkansas: Pilot Travel Center

Right now I am just waiting until it is time to leave for my delivery in Arlington, Texas, at 9:30 tonight. The reason for the wait is to make sure I have enough time to start driving back with the empty racks that I will be getting. Hopefully on Saturday I will be able to drop the racks in a drop yard and then head somewhere else with another load.

Ever since I crossed into Illinois yesterday morning, I have been in shorts and loving it. Last night I needed to run the truck to keep cool, it was a little humid and the trucks on either side of me were both idling so it was just too noisy. It sounds strange, but it is easier to sleep with my truck idling than with the windows open and the sounds of other trucks drifting in, quieter too.

I had some fun with a new cashier at the Love's travel center in Marion, Indiana, on Tuesday. I had to go inside to pay because he key pad was not working on the pump, and when I was giving her the information to process the transaction she got a little confused. When she asked for my truck's license plate number I started off Paul, Victor, Frank, and she started typing Paul. The other cashier got a good laugh from it as well, since I was using the names to stand for the letters on the plate, PVF. This is common on phone calls and when using the radio to make certain that the correct letter is heard. A single letter spoken can be misunderstood easily, but a word is harder to mistake.

I just set up my phone to be able to post directly here, so I will be able to do short posts, and I think send pictures as I feel the need.

Colonial Heights, Virginia: Pilot Travel Center

This week has been fairly busy and this is the first chance I have had to say anything. Monday started early, I left Perrysburg at 2 AM to pick up a load in Marion, Ohio. That load was going to Canada so I dropped it in our Romulus, Michigan, yard. From there I picked up a load that was going to Laredo, Texas. Since I am no way near Texas right now, something obviously changed. That was a phone call just before I crossed the Mississippi River. Apparently there was a load in St Louis, Missouri, that needed to be picked up that day, and I was the closest driver. So once I got across the the river I headed North to our drop yard to get a trailer for the load going to Prince George, Virginia. All of this makes Monday through today look a lot like this.

To make my day really pleasant, I found out that they are going to be closing the Falcon Terminal in Toledo, as well as the ones in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland. I still have a job, but everyone that works in those terminals do not after they shut them down. They will be locating somewhere for the local drivers to park the trucks at. I am just hoping that it is some where that I feel as comfortable about leaving my car at as I am now. The real problem will be getting services done, it used to be that I could leave my truck on Friday and it would be ready to go on Monday. Now I will have to take time out of my work week at a terminal to get them done, as well as any other work that needs to be done.

The amount of freight does seem to be picking up, but it still bothers me about the amount of cost cutting going on right now. There are at least five trucks in the Toledo yard that are awaiting complicated repairs, at least two of which will need to be towed to where ever they decide to fix them at. There is also a wrecked trailer that will have to be taken somewhere. With around fifty drivers working out of the Toledo area, it really doesn't make sense to me to take away a support base for local repairs. The likely result is that drivers will not report things until they are serious to avoid getting stuck at another terminal. After all if they are serious, they might be able to get them fixed on the road, which is faster than the black hole that West Middlesex has become for trucks.

Hodgkins, Illinois: Loading

Yesterday started early, I did a quick local load from Monroe, Michigan, to Avon, Ohio. It was a round trip for the Ford assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, of interior body panels. Four racks of these panels filled the truck up. Then I sat in Perrysburg for several hours, at first at the yard, then I just went home to wait for them to figure out my next move. The next move turned out to be a couple of beer runs today. My first run will be going out to Rockford, Illinois, then back here to load again for Jackson, Michigan. The result was a decent number of miles yesterday, but today may end up a bit short.

The biggest problem with these beer runs from my view point is the fact that it takes so much time to get loaded and unloaded at each end. This time limits the number of runs one can do on already short miles. It would be best if they got a some drivers and gave them a guaranteed amount to cover all these short runs. Then no matter how many short runs they do, they are assured of a decent pay check. We all know that the company is making money on these runs, so the drivers need to make some as well.

This type of load really makes a good argument for being paid hourly. For that matter the fact that we can work a 14 hour day without getting any overtime is another argument for being paid hourly. I don't think any other industry can work as long a day and not get any overtime. This is why the Teamsters seems to do so well at the short haul places, like Yellow, UPS, and a few others. The drivers know they are not getting paid enough for the time spent with the freight, so they brought in the union and got a contract that pays them by the hour.

Past weeks' driving

Where I have been the past week.

Buckhorn, Pennsylvania: TA

Today I got to see something I never expected to see while driving down the road. For no apparent reason a JB Hunt truck decided to do a u-turn on the highway. He went from being along the side of the road to making a left into the median. So I got to see a truck broadside to me as I am coming down the highway at highway speed. The median at that point was a lot wider than the length of a truck, but you just don't do that. It is dangerous enough when a car does it, but when a slow moving truck tries, it is even worse. It isn't like the next exit was far away, it was only three miles down the road.

Anyway, delivered my load this morning at Papa Johns, and by some miracle (my driver manager), I had another load right away. It didn't take me far, but it kept me moving and local. So I went from Freedom, Pennsylvania, to Austintown, Ohio, and then 232 miles back into Pennsylvania for a pick-up tomorrow morning a few miles away from here. Then I will head back to Austintown to deliver the load, and after that I have no idea. I might just do this loop again, which wouldn't be to bad.

Everywhere I look right now it is getting foggier and foggier. It started to get grayer and a bit foggy the further East I drove from the highest point on I-80, East of the Mississippi (they have a sign and everything). So tonight will be fog and drizzle, which means finding my way tomorrow morning will be a really fun time.

Brookville, Pennsylvania: Flying J

Yesterday pretty much turned into a waste of time. Around four in the afternoon I found out about my replacement load, which I picked up this morning. I had just enough time left on my fourteen hour clock to get to a Flying J in Carney's Point, New Jersey, to spend the night. Then up bright and early to slip into Aston, Pennsylvania to get loaded. The bad part of this is that I deliver in Freedom, Pennsylvania tomorrow at noon. So this week I will have driven a grand total of three hundred ,or so, miles in three days. The initial delivery doesn't count since those miles will be paid on last weeks check. I did try to get them to relay the load to someone else for the delivery to keep me moving, but they weren't able to find anyone.

My next load might as well be towards home, since this week has pretty much turned into a waste of time. Well next week I will be available to work over the weekend, so we will see what happens.

One good thing about the load I delivered Monday, was that it finally got me into Delaware. It was one of the few states in the lower 48 that I have not been to yet. That just leaves me with a list of 8 states that I haven't been to: Maine, Vermont (I think), Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. I might get to knock off the first two driving for Falcon, but the rest are highly unlikely. We really don't go that far West, ever.

Well now I will just kill time here until I take off tomorrow for Freedom, Pennsylvania, with a load of pizza boxes for Papa Johns Pizza.

Cancelled Load

They just called and told me that the load has been cancelled, great. So now I am stuck at a turnpike rest area while I get to wait for them to figure out where to send me next. I can't drive after 6:45 PM tonight due to the fourteen hour restriction. While I have had a nap, I haven't had enough sleep to call myself rested, at this point I have had just enough sleep to make it impossible to go back to sleep. Technically I will have had a ten hour break by nine tonight, just because I haven't been driving or working, hopefully it won't be something that has me driving tired.

I just grabbed some food from inside, while the fries and drink were fine, the burger is just sitting there like a lump in my stomach. I definitely should have gone with my instincts and not eaten anything here, but I felt like something hot.

New Jersey Turnpike: Woodrow Wilson Rest Area

I got rid of my load on time this morning, and was surprised by the fact that I had another load right away. Unfortunately it picks up tonight at midnight about a half hour drive from here. So now I am trying to wind myself down enough to get some sleep this afternoon to be able to drive all night. This is going to relay at a Petro truck stop in Glade Spring, Virginia tomorrow. Ultimately this will be delivering in Houston, Texas, on April 1st. They have apparently set up three drivers including me to get it there by then.

It is a good thing I stayed in Harrisburg last night, otherwise I would end up two days without a shower rather than just one. I might grab a shower at the TA in Baltimore, Maryland, when I fuel tomorrow, it will depend on how crowded they are when I get there.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Hess Travel Center

Actually I am writing this from the Perkins restaurant inside the travel center, plaza, whatever. This is my first time staying here and so far it looks like a good choice. I was going to try and stay at the Pilot down the street, I have a free shower there, but the lot only holds ten or so trucks, so I had my choice of here or the TA that I usually stay at. I am not at the TA because Saturday morning I was informed that Falcon was no longer reimbursing for using IdleAire anywhere that there aren't anti-idling laws. I did manage to get reimbursed for the receipt I was calling about, but this changing of the rules without telling anyone has got to stop. My terminal manager was surprised about this as well and planned to check on it, and several other reimbursable items, on Monday. I wonder if my driver manager even is aware of this.

I am about a two hour drive from where I deliver tomorrow morning, and since I have no idea how long I will be stuck out there tomorrow, I wanted to start the day with a shower. Which is why I didn't try and get any closer tonight. I am sure I could have found some place to park at, but I doubt that it would have had facilities more advanced than possibly a toilet and sink, if that. So I chose the safe place to stop and will find out tomorrow if there are decent places closer.

Saturday we took our Motorola phones into the Verizon store to see why they had such horrible battery life. It turned out that they needed a software update, which took about an hour to do. As we left the store to kill the hour we both realized that we would have no idea when to come back since we both use our phones as clocks. So far the battery life has been better, but part of that was because the bluetooth was turned off. Now that I know how to turn the bluetooth on and off without opening the phone, I might be able to make the battery last a bit longer. We will just have to see how it goes this week.

Walcott, Iowa: Iowa 80 Truckstop

It has been a while since I have been in this truck stop, and it is as big as ever. The number of different lights, chrome pieces, and other dodads that one can buy for a truck will never cease to amaze me, and I think they have at least one of every one of them here. The parking lot is enormous and it is at least a quarter mile from the restaurant to the service department, with fuel pumps and a truck wash in between the two.

I dropped my trailer for the night at a shop in Rock Island, Illinois. I will be picking up a food load tomorrow heading for Newark, Delaware, and I can't have any leaks in the trailer. I found out at my first stop this morning that the door seals were leaking a bit, and those can be a chore to replace. Unfortunately the shop here declined to do them due to a lack of parts and a fear that there might be more damage they aren't equipped to deal with underneath. So a half hour drive and I drop the trailer for it to magically become fixed for me tomorrow. It is actually fairly close to the route I was going to take to my pick-up tomorrow in Fort Madison, Iowa.

The only bad thing is that I ended up sitting most of today and will be picking up at noon tomorrow, so will have wasted a full day of driving by the time I get the load. Then the load doesn't deliver until Monday morning, so I have plenty of time to get it there. Swinging by the house would be possible, but would take me out of route. I might spend a night in Columbus again. It will just depend on how far I can drive Friday after I get the load.

Dinner tonight was the buffet, a bit more than I needed but I didn't feel like anything else on the menu.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Waiting

I am now empty and waiting for my next load, the skies are gray and it is drizzling.

Bettondorf, Iowa

I am now tucked into an alley and backed to a dock at an auto glass replacement place. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to get this unloaded. I am definitely glad to be here early, because this is a down town area and looks like it could get quite busy during the day. Once I am done here the rest of this load goes to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Bloomington, Illinois: TA

I am about two and a half hours away from my delivery tomorrow morning in Bettondorf, Iowa. It is a bit farther than I would like, but I would have had to stop before I got to another decent selection of truck stops. Some of the small independent truck stops can be quite nice, but there is no guarantee that it even exists. I have found at least three that were listed in my truck stop guide that are gone. Some are just closed up, and some have been bought out and converted to retail space. Then there is the second stop with this load tomorrow, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After that I get to find out where I am going to next. I am going to try and keep running over the weekend, but that seems to be catch as catch can.

I did manage to cut my eating expense down today. They had a spaghetti special with salad for $4.99, and I didn't get my usual iced tea either, just water. I think the salad was almost as big as the meal, but that just means I am definitely full.

So far the new Verizon phone has been working out pretty good, and the blue tooth ear piece is able to handle the truck noise. So I can hear just fine, though apparently a lot of truck noise gets sent along as well. I might have to check out other head sets in the future, but for now this works. My sister mentioned that she has had difficulties with the battery life on Motorola phones in the past, and it seems like this one will be no different. The battery is half gone after taking it off the charger at around one this morning. My call volume hasn't been to excessive, but I had talked a bit. My old phone would not be this far down at this point in the day.

We should save a lot with my switching to my fiances' Verizon plan. Eliminating charged minutes just for the calls between the two of us will be good, but eliminating my calls to dispatch as well will really be great. I included them in my friends and family section. To get the friends and family for two phones we had to go with the 1400 minute plan, and we figure that the calls not included in the plan will use maybe a hundred minutes of that.

I will be hooking up to the Idle-Aire tonight, so should be extremely comfortable as all my electronics charge up.

Spending on The Road

I was able to take some time today to look at what I have been buying while out on the road. Besides a once daily meal at a truck stop, most of my other major purchases have been drinks and food for in the truck. Most of the food has been bought in grocery stores, but the drinks have been from truck stops. Anything at a truck stop store is at least fifty percent more expensive than the same item from a grocery store. This is because they know they have a captive audience. So I am going to have to try and get more of my drinks in bulk from Sam's or Costco to limit my purchases. I would just buy a liter of apple juice, but that is inconvenient to use while driving. This will means I will have to purchase individual bottles and store the extra in the truck, until it is time to toss them in the cooler.

Milk is another big purchase for me, but hauling individual bottles would be impossible to keep them all cold, and a gallon just is inconvenient to drink while driving. So for the foreseeable future, I will have to keep buying milk from truck stops.

I would love to cut back on the number of meals that I buy will out on the road, but the size of the cab makes it extremely difficult to carry enough food to make this less of an expense. Lunch and Breakfast are easy to work out, but dinner takes some space.

Highland Park, Michigan: Unloading

I am at the beer distributor with my load of Molson, and am getting it unloaded now. After this I can head straight South for home. Then the first thing on my list of things to do will be to get my glasses fixed. Then plow through all my mail, or was it crawl into bed and sleep?

Driving in the early morning hours is always a play on colors and today was no different, except for the complete lack of clouds as far as I could see. Leaving the truck stop at five in the morning it was completely dark, but the glare of headlights drowned out what ever stars there were. As I drove East the sky was constantly getting a lighter shade of blue, but if you looked up you could almost see it shaded in layers, light at the horizon to midnight black in my mirrors.

For the longest time there was a stripe of orangish red going across the sky along the horizon, then a stripe of yellow, then the blue. I am not certain when it showed up, but that stripe lasted a long time, slowly getting wider as time went on. Like little white accent marks the contrails of planes in the distance were the things that were white in the sky.

This time there was no gradual emergence to the sun, instead as I crested a hill it was suddenly there. It seemed like it was resting on the road, perfectly centered between the trees that line the highway at the top of the next hill. It was a giant ball of orange fire just resting there, blinding me as I scrambled for my sun glasses.

The rest of the trip here was done squinting through my sun glasses, hoping for the moment the sun would finally be high enough in the sky for my visor to do some good. Now it is just warming the inside of the cab as I sit here, tapping away at my computer.

Gary, Indiana: TA

I finally have the load that I will be able to go home after. Running the quick beer run over to Rockford, Illinois, only took up about five hours of my day. Unfortunately making certain that I had a load after that one that got me home took an hour or two in the morning that I can't replace now. My fourteen hour clock was up at 7:15 PM, and I parked myself here at the TA at 7 PM. So pretty much all of my driving to deliver this load will be happening tomorrow. I have a decent sized window open for the delivery, so should have no problems getting unloaded. Then it will be time to head for home. I might stop and get the truck washed on the way, but I doubt it.

One More Day

I am going to do the load to Rockford, but only because they have another one to Highland Park, Michigan, then home after that.

Off to Gary to do a BEER RUN!!!!! or two..

Three Rivers, Michigan: Meijer

Unloading this morning was easy, even though I needed to back to two different docks to off load my three pick-ups. I got there a bit early, 6:30 AM, for my delivery and was the second truck there. This turned out to be a good thing since the driveway rapidly filled with trucks, the last one in line was stuck sitting on the street. Unloading went very quickly, and I was out of there by eight. I am now sitting in a Meijer parking lot with a couple of restaurants nearby if I feel the need to eat something other than what I have in the truck.

Last night they tried to get me to agree to do a load to Rockford, Illinois. A beer run like I did two weeks ago, unfortunately at this point if it isn't a load home I am not taking it. My dispatcher is understanding, but she has to push against the load planners and the people above her to get things moving. If they had let me get home for a bit this past weekend, I would be fine to keep running, but I still haven't gotten my glasses fixed, and I have a lot of other things piling up that need done.

Fremont, Indiana: Petro2

Once again I am positioned about an hour away from my delivery, this time in Three Rivers, Michigan. I could have gotten closer, but not had the facilities that are available here. For some reason I have gotten used to showering in the morning, and don't plan on giving that up unless I have to.

The delivery tomorrow should be fairly easy, the problem after that is what will get me back home tomorrow. There was a mention of a possible beer run tomorrow, which wouldn't be to bad if it went to Perrysburg to deliver. The fun part here is the fact that the dead head to get the beer run is about the same as if I went to Toledo. So either way I am driving about two hours to get where I am going.

My glasses are still broken, and I think they will be unfixable tomorrow to make getting home even more important. After all, if I lose a contact, there is no way I can drive anywhere with one eye. I think I would die laughing if that did happen, since they would have to get another driver out to where ever I am to get me and the truck home, and I would insist on home and not the closest yard.

Barberton, Ohio: Still Waiting

Through the word is that the payment should go through soon, so hopefully I will be able to get out of here and on to the next stop fairly soon. I did get to watch a decent movie on Netflix during this break, Black Ops. Interesting premise, so so execution, and of course they leave a possibility of a sequel.

Barberton, Ohio: Loading

They added a pick-up to my day and pushed back the delivery until tomorrow morning at 7 AM. They also do not have someone that can deliver this for me. So it looks like I will be taking this all the way to Three Rivers, Michigan. Then my prediction is that I will sit until I am almost out of hours on my fourteen tomorrow then they will let me go home. I am hoping that this will not be the case, but I wouldn't bet against it happening.

The load is ready to go here, but they are waiting for payment before being able to load it. I don't blame them, the automotive industry is teetering right now like a house of cards. If one place doesn't get money for their parts, then it all may fall. Of course the reverse is true, if all of the parts places demand payment up front they all may fall the other way as well.

Either way I am sitting here eating lunch while watching a movie on Netflix.

Reno, Pennsylvania: Loading

Well eventually I will be loading. The dock is waiting on the paperwork for the load. Hopefully this doesn't take to long, but you never know.

For some reason both Barkeyville, and Reno have anti-idling ordinences. Which is really funny since they have a truck stop in Barkeyville, with no IdleAire. The weather was mild enough that it didn't really matter if I had the truck on, but in the summer or the dead of winter, huge issue.

Barkeyville, Pennsylvania: TA

I got to go somewhere, only about an hour away from where I have been sitting all day, but it isn't another Walmart parking lot. I have a load that picks up tomorrow morning in Reno, Pennsylvania, then has two deliveries. The first in Perrysburg at 3 PM and the second in Three Rivers, Michigan at 5 PM. My first question was, so after I deliver in Three Rivers will I be able to dead head home and that answer was I don't know. Then the second question was can one of the local guys deliver this and I just get it to the Perrysburg yard, and she will have to check on it. So I might be home tomorrow, or I might be stuck somewhere in Michigan waiting for them to figure out how to get me back home. Either way, annoying.

Gibsonia, Pennsylvania: Walmart

Yes, I am still here, one episode of Private Practice and three episodes of Life on Mars later. I am about a four hour drive to home from here, and my fourteen hour clock is up at seven-thirty tonight. So unless I leave at three-thirty I will definitely not be home tonight. Of course I still don't have a load so that is fairly definite anyway.

In a little while I will be moving to a truck stop in Youngstown, Ohio. Closer to home, but still will be stuck waiting for a load. At least I will be able to get that far, since I have about an hour drive to any truck stop at this point. The area around Pittsburgh has very few places for a driver to stay at, and a Walmart parking lot doesn't count.

I just realized something, if I stayed here till eight tonight I will have had an ten hour break, with little to no sleep, but a legal break none the less. Not that I will stay that long, I am heading to a truck stop as soon as they let me go.

Gibsonia, Pennsylvania: Walmart

The drive up to my delivery this morning wasn't to bad, until I got onto I-279 through Pittsburgh. It is a two lane road that moved at basically a crawl for most of the time, until you got to the tunnel. Then the speed picked up a lot, until I got out the other side and found out that I needed to be three lanes to the left to not get off the interstate and continue going north. The signs to tell you this were basically right over the exits, so tossing on my blinker, and slowing way down was my only option. I am still not sure how I managed not to exit at that point. After negotiating through several more poorly marked exits and on ramps I got to the place in Indianola at 7:15 AM.

Parking there was a treat in its own right. I took the pictures after I was parked, the cars to the left of the RAV4 were not there, good thing too since I needed that space to get to the dock.

After getting unloaded I discovered how truck unfriendly the town was, and all I wanted o do was go to Denny's and eat some breakfast. I hid myself next to Target's loading dock for a while, before needing to move. I had to drive fifteen minutes West on the turnpike to find a place I could park at, a Walmart. I thought there was a truck stop here, but it is either south on SR-8 or has since been torn down for more profitable retail establishments.

Now I am just playing the waiting game, hoping for that final load towards home. Someone mentioned that I was starting to sound a bit like the beginning of a Quantum Leap episode when I say it that way. I have no idea what they mean...

Valley Grove, West Virginia: TA

I am about an hour and a half away from my 8 AM delivery tomorrow morning in Indianola, Pennsylvania. There was one more truck stop about fifteen minutes further down the road, but I was felt like stopping here instead. There was really no advantage in going that extra bit today. Apparently it was a good choice, the buffet has a lot of good stuff on it today.

When I hooked back up to my trailer in our drop lot today I was a little surprised to find out that the seal had been broken and that someone had been in the trailer. Fortunately they only opened one box to see what the load was, otherwise I could have had some real troubles delivering tomorrow. I could still have some difficulties tomorrow, but a lot of times they don't even check the seals on loads. Of course with my luck it will be a place that will freak out that the seal was broken.

On the way inside, I stopped by the IdleAire shack to see what their hours are. They are lightly manned like the rest of them, but an option has been added to the sign out screen to have a copy of the bill sent to your email. So I will no longer have to worry about getting a copy in person to get my reimbursement. It will be nice to be able to use it again easily.

Columbus, Ohio: The Old Bag of Nails Pub

I just got back from meeting some friends for dinner at The Old Bag of Nails Pub. The food was reasonably priced and really good. In fact if there was a way to get this chain up in the Toledo area, I think it would do fairly well. It isn't a franchise, but they do have a lot of locations in the Columbus area. It was a lot of fun getting to see some old friends and make a few new ones. It also got me out of the hotel for a while, which was more than greatly appreciated. Now I just need to make some friends in the other random spots I get trapped in hotels at and I will be all set.

Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Red Roof Inn

It is another exciting day in a hotel for me. Fortunately I got rid of my trailer so I was able to easily run to Andersons right down the road. It is hard to describe what the Andersons is to a non-Toledoen, but it just seems to be the best of the local hardware store, with a great deli and a fantastic meat market thrown in. It has a little of everything and is a lot friendlier than a Walmart to shop in. The deli makes these fantastic sub sandwiches, which I got for lunch. As well as some other food for in the truck the next couple of days.

I was hoping to find a cord to charge my razor today, instead I ended up picking up a package of razors and some shaving cream. I have to admit, I get a much closer shave when I do it this way, it just seems to take forever though. I was just feeling too scruffy to let it keep growing.

Netflix is once again my friend, as well as getting caught up on the network shows that are available online. I already let them know that once I unload this I am expecting a load home on Monday. If I wanted to be out on the road for long periods of time, I wouldn't have gone with this company. I know at this point I should just feel lucky to have a job, but it is still aggravating not getting home this weekend.

Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Red Roof Inn

I am checked into the hotel, even though it says truck parking in the guide, it really doesn't have any. I dropped my trailer in the local yard about fifteen minutes away from here as a precaution, and it turned out to be a good one. Even bobtail my truck takes up four spots in a parking lot. I also wanted to be able to get around if I wanted to, and that is a lot easier without a trailer. There is an Andersons just down the road, so I will be able to pick up some lunch stuff for tomorrow, and fresh food for in the truck, as well as some batteries for my mouse. They might even have a spare cord for my razor.

I prefer to bring what I can to save money on food while on the road, but there is not a whole lot of room in the truck I am driving when compared to some of the other ones out there. So I can't fit in everything that I did in the past, while driving for Werner. Otherwise I would have frozen meals that I could heat up in my lunch box oven. I would also be carrying a gallon jug of milk with me. Both of these things would save me a huge amount of money. If I keep going over the road I think I will find a way to squeeze it all in there, just to save the money.

Tonight I am staying in, but tomorrow I will be reconnecting with an old friend, at what looks to be a really good restaurant at an affordable price. I can't wait to see what the food is like since the menu already has me drooling.

Jeffersonville, Ohio: Flying J

I stopped here because I was hoping for a relay in Columbus to get me home this weekend, instead it looks like I will be spending it at another hotel. Rather than drive over towards the Pittsburgh area and spending the weekend there, I will grab a Red Roof some where near Columbus. Probably the one in Reynoldsburg, since it seems to have truck parking. I will make a reservation after I eat lunch.

Coming up through Kentucky was extremely pleasant this morning. The rain that I went through yesterday turned to snow along I-65. Fortunately it didn't leave any on the roads so it was just a nice white layer hiding all the ice storm damaged trees that still line the road. That early in the morning the traffic was extremely light and the early dawn twilight gave it a bit of a glow.

Two weekends away from home does not make me happy, and my next load will be to home. I have things that need to be done and am getting a bit too furry. I am really regretting not bringing the charging cord for my razor this time. Since I was only planning on a week out, I figured it would have a good enough charge.

At least I will be getting caught up on sleep, I have been running a bit sleep deprived since doing laundry in New Caney, Texas. Even though I stopped early that night and slept in a bit, I just have been dragging a bit on my get up and go.

Leighton, Tennessee: TA

I am about 718 miles away from my delivery in Indianola, Pennsylvania. Which means I will not be making it there before Saturday morning. Between a truck that only goes 65 MPH and Ohio's truck speed limit of 55 MPH, it would take some creative driving and logging to get it there tomorrow before they close.

Most of my drive today was in rain, and it is still sprinkling outside right now. The only interesting thing I saw was a convertible that tried to merge onto I-40 while not paying attention to a wide load that was in the lane they wanted. The wide load won, and the convertible had the left side of its top taken off. The funny thing is that they had to have come on in front of the load and then put on the brakes for this accident to happen. All of the damage was back to front. It was probably another case where if they had been paying attention and either accelerated faster or slowed to come on after the truck they would have been fine.

I wasn't really impressed with this TA's selection for dinner, but its breakfast menu looks half way decent. They seem to love the fried food here, so I had a Reuben. It is really difficult to mess up a Reuben, so it is usually a fairly safe choice when you can't decide. It will be an early start tomorrow so off for some sleep.

New Caney, Texas: Flying J

I am back where my day started. It took forever this afternoon for dispatch to get me a load, then it was hurry up and get there. I am half convinced that the load was available all day, and they finally found it after lunch. Then once they booked it they just handed it over to my over worked dispatcher, who then forgot about it for a while. I can understand how that could happen, mainly because I have been a dispatcher, and when the phone keeps ringing, it is easy for things to get forgotten or buried. It is a big problem though, since today was basically a waste as far as driving goes, it seems unlikely that I will be able to get rid of my current load before Monday. Which makes getting home more difficult, though not impossible. I will start applying pressure tomorrow morning with an email. I will be done with my ten hour break at 5:15 tomorrow morning, but since I am currently doing my laundry, it seems likely that I will be sleeping a bit past that.

Planning ahead for tomorrow, it looks like I will make it to somewhere between Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, before I will have to stop. I will have to fuel somewhere along the way as well, since my tanks are definitely low, though I am unsure how low since my fuel gauge doesn't go below a half, ever. I figure I probably have between an eighth and three eighths of a tank left. It doesn't sound like much, but when you are starting out with around 226 gallons as full, it isn't that bad.

The place I picked up at today was a bit funny, the dock workers barely spoke English because they were all Hispanic, and the office people barely spoke English because they were all Asian. It make one wonder how anything gets done there. Other than that I did get loaded fairly quickly, and it was a lot easier dock to get into than this morning's fiasco. I also got to enjoy the evening rush hour getting out of Houston tonight. Dealing with traffic and the long wait, just made me not care about the possible extra two and a half hours I could have driven tonight. Of course then I would be down to my last set of clean clothes, (well I do have some spares, but no jeans). So stopping here is really the best option.

Houston, Texas: Loading

I finally got a load, and it wasn't far away from where I unloaded at. I do wonder what took so long to get it out to me though. It is a load of plastic garbage bags going to Indianola, Pennsylvania. Not very exciting, but it gets me back in the right direction. Running over to there is about twenty-three hours of driving, so the soonest I can get there at this point is Saturday. Which means one of several things, I will be able to unload this on Saturday, it won't deliver until Monday, or I will be able to split this somewhere. If it delivers on Monday, I am going to try to get home for the weekend. If it delivers on Saturday it seems likely that I will be stuck in another hotel until they figure a way to get me home. I am not going to go out for another week without going home for a while.

I am not even going to try and make it far tonight, at this point my goal is the Flying J I spent last night at. I know I can do laundry there and get a decent meal and shower. Then I will be able to drive Thursday and Friday. I found out yesterday that I forgot to pack my razor's recharging cord, and that died this morning. So I will definitely have a bit of fuzz on my face when ever I finally do get home.

Houston, Texas: Consignee

I managed to battle through the Houston rush hour traffic a bit faster than I thought I would, getting to my delivery at 9:45 this morning. Unfortunately that was the only easy part about this morning.

Once I got to the place I found out that the docks only were accessible from one direction, and it wasn't the direction I entered the place from. Getting turned around was fairly easy, but the next part was anything but. On the left is a picture of the dock I was supposed to get in to, and the ones below show how tight the place truly was for my truck. The very last picture was taken over an hour after arriving at this location. I talked them into letting me use the shipping dock which is a lot better placed for a truck my size. This is the first dock I have not been able to get myself backed into, ever. I still don't believe that it can be done with a 53' trailer and a sleeper cab.

New Caney, Texas: Flying J

Milage wise I am very well positioned to make my delivery tomorrow. Unfortunitly most of those miles are straight through the Houston area. I will be moving early enough to miss the worst of the morning rush hour, by like five minutes if I am lucky.

It is in the seventies here and really humid, so I won't be able to shut the truck off like I did last night. I know from experience that I don't sleep well in humid conditions. I was looking forward to sleeping with the windows cracked open again tonight though, so a bit disappointing. One thing I was not expecting, though I really should have, was the number of bugs that were going to be out and about. The front of the truck looks liked someone took a bug gun and just started blazing away at it. I think I will have to swap my windshield wipers out, since the winter blades see to be having real trouble with the bug guts.

If you were ever wondering how Neosorb (sorbitol) is transported to get to where they put the sweetener into things, well it is carried on trucks in blue steel drums. Since that is what this is a load of, pallets of blue steel drums.

My frames aer still being made, apparently I first got them four and a half years ago. Even the person I was talking to was amazed that they were still being made. Usually the life of a frame is only a few years on the production line. So a new frame has been ordered and they will give me a call when they come in. My contacts are from a slightly more recent prescription, but it looks like it is time to make an appointment with the eye doctor, just to get myself updated and perhaps order some new lenses for this new frame.