Rockwall, Texas: TA

It was check out time at the hotel so I moved to the closest truck stop along my possible line of travel home. Driving through Dallas at several different times of the day has made me even more certain, I will never live in a major metro area. There are just too many people and cars trying to get places to make it worth wasting so much of my life fighting traffic. At least as a truck driver I am paid to wade through these areas. I also can usually avoid the worst of it with a little planning. It seems Dallas doesn't have a good time to drive through, just bad and worse.

Driving through Kentucky: February 4, 2009

These Pictures were taken while driving through Kentucky on February fourth. Most of the pictures of the damage were taken along I-65. What I saw along I-71 was not as bad, but there were still a lot of damaged trees along the way. I can't image what it looked like right after the storm went through, but a lot of roads were definitely impassible.

Driving through Cincinnati February 4th 2009

This series of pictures is from driving through Cincinnati on February fourth. These pictures were taken along the last thirty miles of I-71 in Ohio. You can see how rapidly the road degraded, and how slow it was going through most of Cincinnati. That last bit of Ohio took an hour and a half to drive through, an hour longer than usual. This hour delay kept me from making it as far as I wanted to get in Tennessee that day.

Grand Prairie, Texas: Super 8

It took almost all my driving hours to get to the delivery today, but I got there. I didn't take into account two factors when I looked at the google map distance and time calculation. The first thing I neglected was the fact that they use the legal speed limit for cars to calculate time, which most of the way is either faster than my truck can go or faster than I am allowed to go. The other thing I forgot was the traffic through the Dallas area, it is simply horrible. So what I figured as a ten hour drive turned into a ten and three quarter hour drive. Since I can only drive eleven hours in one shot it was a good thing that the hotel I am now at was just a few minutes away.

The hotel is also just across the street from Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium and Louis Tussuad's House of Wax. I am tempted to go, but will likely leave tomorrow before it opens, hopefully that is.

This hotel was advertised as having truck parking, but they are doing some renovations or new construction and that parking is gone. So I am now taking up a good portion of the parking spaces, fortunately not many people were here when I had to maneuver myself into the spot, which also got me turned around to be able leave in the morning.

The weather down here is fantastic compared what is in the Toledo area right now, well most of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee for that matter. It was in the sixties this afternoon, not only did I have the windows down a bit in the truck, I had the air on as well to keep the heat down from the sun beating into the cab. The truck really stands out down here, there just aren't that many vehicles floating around that are salt encrusted. Considering the layers of salt on the truck, that might be an understatement.

I got some pictures while driving through Kentucky yesterday. It simply boggled the mind at how much damage that ice storm did down there. Entire stands of trees have been topped and toppled from the ice splitting them in half or just dragging them over. Almost the entire stretch of both both I-71 and I-65 had trees down along the road side that have been trimmed just enough for traffic to get past them. Seeing this it is easy to see how so many power lines got taken down. I will get them put up soon.

Kingston Springs, Tennessee: Petro2

Well this is a lot different than yesterdays plans. A while after I posted I got a call with a simple question, do I want to go to Texas? Of course I said yes, so after finishing my ten hour break last night at 1:30 AM, I headed to Cambridge, Ohio to pick up this load going to Grand Prairie, Texas. I have done this run once before and then it was a drop and hook, so hopefully this time it is as well. This was where I got the great picture of the rolled FedEx truck.

I am not due there until 18:00 tomorrow, but I will likely get it there early, just how early will depend on how tired I am when I wake up tonight. My ten hour break will be over at 12:45 AM this time around, but since I have time I may sleep a bit longer just because I can.

Youngstown, Ohio: TA

I am back again, not never left. I delivered my load this morning and then had to get some repairs done on the trailer. The repairs were my fault, I got to close to another trailer and didn't correct in time, so I bent two and broke a third hinge. My only defense is that it is a lot different backing an automatic than a manual, and it is taking some getting used to.

After I got fixed I found out that I would be doing a quick shuttle run tomorrow from Austintown to Lordstown. A bit later I found out that was off and I now have a load picking up in Cambridge, Ohio going to Prairie Hill, Texas. It will put me a little late on my first run to Spring Hill, Tennessee next week, because they are starting that plant up and using Canadian engines for now. Both is good news for me, good miles down to Texas and my regular run is back.

I had noticed the ramped up advertising for the Traverse, and that must have help with sales, because if they weren't selling the plant would just be sitting.

Youngstown, Ohio: TA

I am still about two hours away from where I deliver tomorrow morning, but had to stop for the day due to the limit of fourteen hours. This limit is how long a drivers day can last from start to finish. Once a driver logs either an on duty or a driving event (though on duty is always first for a pretrip) that fourteen hour clock starts ticking, and your day is legally over when it is done. So starting at sic this morning makes me need a ten hour break starting at eight tonight. I just squeaked into here with about 7 minutes to spare.

Tomorrow I will be able to start my day at 6 AM, will need to actually, to hopefully deliver by 8 AM. Then we will see how long it takes to get the next load, hopefully quickly, and crossing fingers on west and far.