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.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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.
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.
Matthews, Missouri: Flying J
It took the entire day, but I am out of Illinois, finally. It can take forever to get anywhere in a state that has a 55 MPH speed limit on trucks. Of course breaking free of Chicago traffic was an almost two hour task in itself.
I am almost twelve hours away from where I deliver on Wednesday, but can't get any further tonight due to bumping up against my fourteen hour limit. So I will end up having a little bit of driving to get to the final delivery after driving my eleven hours tomorrow. There were a lot of ifs that could have gotten me further than here tonight, if they had loaded me right away, if traffic wasn't horrible in Chicago, if I could have gone south instead of north to check my weight, and the final if the trailer had been water tight before I grabbed it. Though the last only took about half an hour to fix with some really expensive trailer tape and a mechanic at a TA.
I am almost twelve hours away from where I deliver on Wednesday, but can't get any further tonight due to bumping up against my fourteen hour limit. So I will end up having a little bit of driving to get to the final delivery after driving my eleven hours tomorrow. There were a lot of ifs that could have gotten me further than here tonight, if they had loaded me right away, if traffic wasn't horrible in Chicago, if I could have gone south instead of north to check my weight, and the final if the trailer had been water tight before I grabbed it. Though the last only took about half an hour to fix with some really expensive trailer tape and a mechanic at a TA.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Getting Rolling
Well I am off to pick up this mornings load. When I next post it will be from Missouri or Alabama, or even Mississippi, if the traffic up here isn't to bad.
I managed to get my glasses to hold together well enough with good old Elmer's glue. The super glue just wasn't working with the small surface area I had to work with. I have basically put layer after layer of Elmer's to form a blob around the break to hold it for now.
It is going to take longer than expected to find out if I can get another of the same frame, I found out this morning that the place had a death in the family. I found this out by calling next door to find out why they weren't picking up. I am going to miss seeing JP when I next go to John P Lynch Opticians to get my frames. I just saw him a few weeks ago to get my glasses adjusted, hard to believe that now he is gone. The funeral is today, he will be missed.
I managed to get my glasses to hold together well enough with good old Elmer's glue. The super glue just wasn't working with the small surface area I had to work with. I have basically put layer after layer of Elmer's to form a blob around the break to hold it for now.
It is going to take longer than expected to find out if I can get another of the same frame, I found out this morning that the place had a death in the family. I found this out by calling next door to find out why they weren't picking up. I am going to miss seeing JP when I next go to John P Lynch Opticians to get my frames. I just saw him a few weeks ago to get my glasses adjusted, hard to believe that now he is gone. The funeral is today, he will be missed.
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