Back to Sep

I drove six hours to the West Memphis OC.  There I fueled up, and went to have the oil leak looked at.  The mechanic couldn't find anything, so he signed off on the TX DOT ticket.  I would be able to continue today, which meant that I would have similar day tomorrow.

I drove another three hours, and stopped at a Flying J.  In the lot in front of me was flatbed trailer of humvees with mounted rocket launchers.  I worked on the blog, and completed it up to here. 

Given where I was going with the load, I realized that I would have a refueling problem if I was sent in the wrong direction for my next load.  So, I decided to stop for fuel at the last approved fuel stop along the route.  The problem is that the Pilot station at Greenville VA is a traffic jam in a lot.  This is the third time I stopped at this station, and the situation was the same again.  It takes fifteen minutes to get to a pump, only six minutes to fuel, five minutes or more extra waiting for the truck in front of you to leave, over five minutes to go to the rest room because the building is a block away, and fifteen minutes to get out because of trucks parking in the congested lot.  Today was no different.

I drove another hour, and stopped for the night.  I used all of my available time for the day, and the end of the seventy hours on this, the eighth day of the tour.

I was in Williamsburg VA.  The area is full of history.  Williamsburg is a colonial town, and there are attractions in the area.  Williamsburg is also between Yorktown, the site where Cornwallis was beaten into submission, thus ending the revolutionary war and winning this countries independence, and Jamestown, the first English settlement, that of John Smith and Pocahontas.

I drove 60 miles to get an empty trailer, and then drove back some of the way to get the load.  The drive took me farther east in VA.  I was in the Norfolk VA area.  The drive went under the month of the James River.

After I got the load, I had about five hours to drive.  The drove about four hours, and stopped at the Pilot station for a shower.  I then drove an hour and fifteen, and stopped at a rest area in WV.  I used up all available time.

It was a drive day.  After the pre-trip, I had nine and forty-five available to drive.  As is turned out, that was enough to get to the OC in Gary.  There, I had an air leak looked at.  They replaced a valve, but I at not sure if that fixed the problem.  It still takes too long to pump up the air for the brakes.

I delivered the load in mid-afternoon.  I picked up an empty, after determining that three were bad.  The new shipment was about a quarter mile away.  I picked up the load, and headed for my home lot.  Tomorrow is the start of my weekend home.

The dropped the load I had at the lot.  It was a relay going south.  The new load was a local delivery.  I picked it up, and made the delivery, a live unload.  I sent a note that I would still have four hours available.  I was sent orders for another load.  I took the now empty trailer 20 miles to get a live load.  When it was loaded, I  drove the load to my home lot, again.

I parked the truck and trailer together.  Despite my weekend home, I was still to deliver the load when I came back on duty.

Now, on this weekend, I was going camping at another van event.  I went home, and got my stuff together, hooked up the camper, cleaned up, and left.  The event was about forty-five minutes from my house.  When I got there, the place was empty.  I called a friend, and found out the the event is next week.  Darn.

I drove home.  There, I called the company to see if I could continue the current tour tomorrow, and come home next weekend.  I was talking to second shift support.  The person I talked to wasn't sure.  I was told to call back in the morning because regular TLs are there for three hours in the morning.

I spent the rest of the night preparing for the possibility of going back out tomorrow.

I got ready, and drove the lot.  There I was informed that the load I was under was now a relay, as it didn't have to be delivered until the 11th.  I dropped the trailer.

I picked up an empty in the lot, and drove to a local company to get a live load.  I was loaded in a little more than an hour.

The load had a late delivery appointment two days out.  I could have it there late tomorrow.  I drove a short day, but was close enough to still get to the delivery tomorrow.  I sent a note saying that I could deliver tomorrow, or early on the 9th.  If I don't get to deliver early, or have it relayed, I will only use two days worth of driving over the next three days.

The rest of the day was a hard drive.  I almost didn't have enough time to make the delivery.  I had stopped early yesterday because I was tired, the truck stop had Flying J Internet connectivity, and it was in a larger town with many TV channels.  The Internet didn't work, and the TV channel were showing junk.  I should have drive another two hours.

The drive went well into the night.  I was driving for quit awhile in the dark.  I arrive about 2100, that 9:00pm.  They were open for drops only, which is what I did.  Had I know this, I could have left much earlier, and not have driven in the dark as much.  I was able to spent the night on their lot.  This was another reason I delivered that night, instead of in the morning.

I called my TL to ask for directions.  I was given company directions, which are from the closest Interstate.  Now that I had an idea of where the place was, I was able to find a shorter route.  It probably saved twenty miles.  Now that I had arrived at the location of the empty, and picked up an empty.  I now needed directions to the shipper.  Again, I asked for directions via a note, but by the time I got them, I had made a wrong turn trying to find my way to the shipper using my maps.  The route I had taken looked like it would go right where I needed to go, but the map wasn't detailed enough, and I went twenty-five miles out-of-route.

I was late once I got to the shipper, so I had to wait awhile to get loaded.  It didn't take too long.

The rest of the day was another hard drive.  I drove well over 400 more miles over the next seven and a half hours taking only a stop for dinner, and one for fuel .  It was 2145 when I stopped, having used up my available hours.

I bypassed the OC, and delivered the load.  I dropped the load, picked up an empty, and drove to the OC.  There I dropped the empty, and looked to the load.  I couldn't find it.  I figured that it was there yet, so I went and took a shower.  After the shower, I ate lunch.

I asked the person at the fuel desk if the trailer I was looking for was on the lot.  It was not.  Tracking on the truck said that it was an hour away.  I went out to my truck, and positioned it so I could watch incoming rigs.  No sooner had I done this when the load arrived.  I had to chase him all the way to the back of the lot.  He dropped the trailer, and I hooked it up.

I drove five hours, and stopped at 1930.  I could have driven another hour, but I only had eight hours available tomorrow, and now I had nine.  Stopping early meant starting early, and now I wouldn't be driving into the night.

At the home lot I could use an electric hookup to run my CPAP machine, and thus not idle the truck.  Last night I was near Charleston WV with a temp of about 70.  Now I was in WI with a temp of 40, or lower.  But, I had a problem.  The lot was being worked on, and the electrical hookups I could get to were not working.  I decided to go home.

Just as I neared home, me car started to run rough.  It would even idle well.

When I went to start the car, it wouldn't start.  I went into the house, and watched TiVo shows for two hours.  I went and tried the car again.  It started, but I didn't trust it to go anywhere but to a garage.  I called one I had been to before, and was told to bring it in.  I over to my neighbor's, and he agreed to drive me from the garage to the lot.  I drove to the garage, left the car there, and was driven to the lot by my neighbor.

I drove to the delivery, but was too late for the early unload.  I had to wait three hours until the appointment time.  Two hours after that, I was unloaded.

While I was waiting, I received orders for a load that was going to FL.  That was nice, except I was supposed to be home this weekend.  I sent a note to that effect.  I was taken off the FL load, and given one that went to the home lot for relay.

After I was empty, I drove to my OC, where I fueled up, and talked face to face with my TL.  I then drove to the shipper, where I was fifth in line to get loaded.  It took two hours to get into a dock.  While I waited, I updated this page to this point.

When the loading was done, my day was done.  Luckily I could park on the shippers property for the night.  Because of this, I could count the start of my ten hour break from when I arrived.

End of tour

I arrived at the lot at 0845, and was ready to go by 0915.  I drove fifteen minutes to get an empty trailer, and then another fifteen to the shipper.  I was loaded quickly, and was on my way for a short five hour drive.

I only stopped once for lunch.  I expected to arrived yet that day.  I sent a note asking if I could deliver early, but received no reply.  I drove until I was within an hour of the delivery point.  The appointment was at 0900 eastern time, tomorrow.  I parked in the lot of a large multi-product store.  They sold everything, food, hardware, furniture, everything. 

I drove to a Flying J that was along the route.  There I did my winter training on-line.

I drove to the shipper.  There, it took two hours to get loaded.  After I was loaded, I drove an hour, and scaled the load.  Then I drove an hour and a half, and fueled up.  Then I drove 45 minutes, and stopped for the night.

Next I drove to the shipper of the next load.  The shipper was in the north central area of NY.  It took two hours to get there.  It was raining, so I couldn't see much.  At the shipper, I was told in the orders that it would take three hours to load, so I planned on staying there for the night.  But, I was load in less than an hour, so I drove an hour to a town I had driven through on the way up.  I knew that there was a place to park there, which is what I did.

I drove four hours to the delivery with one short stop along the way.  The route I took included some Interstate I had not been on.  One was I 87 south of Albany NY, and a piece of I84.  On I87, there was a place where the road went uphill and surved to the right.  A truck had gone straight at the curve, and into the median between the south and north bound lanes.  The problem here was that the north bound lane was twenty feet lower.  The truck and trailer flipped over into the trees.

The delivery was in Mount Vernon NY, but a check of the map showed that the place was right on the line with the Bronx.  The place had no dock.  I had to back into an alley from a narrow two way street.

Despite having no dock, I was unloaded quickly.  They used a two man team to unload the trailer.  One man used a hand jack to move the pallet to the back of the trailer, and another used a forklift to take the pallet of the trailer, and store it away.

After I was unloaded, I had to wait quite awhile to get new orders.  I parked at the end of the alley while I waited.  This old church, dating back to the 1600s, was across the street.  After awhile, I had to move because someone needed to get into the alley.  I drove a couple of block, and found a place on the street to park.  I was now in the Bronx.

When I did get orders, they were for a pick up tomorrow morning.  According to the orders, I could not park at the shipper, so I needed to go somewhere else.  I called my TL, and explained the problem.  I was given the okay to drive north into CT to park at a rest area there.

I had been told that the load was a drop and hook, but it turned out to be a live load.  It took an hour an forty-five minutes to load, so when I left, I was only about fifteen minutes later than if I had arrived on time, and the load had been a drop and hook.  Yet, as I was leaving, I received a message that I was tracking late for the delivery at the relay point.  This was the second time I had received a note accusing me of being late.

The route out of NYC took me over the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, and into Staten Island.  I have now been into or passed through the five boroughs of NYC, Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.

It was a little more than a four hour drive to the relay point.  There, I fueled up, dropped the load, picked up an empty trailer, took a shower, and ate lunch.  I did all that in one hour and fifteen minutes.

I drove the empty trailer to a shipper south of Philadelphia.  It took two hours and fifteen minutes.  There I dropped the empty and picked up the load. That took forty-five minutes.  I was heading back to the OC where I had dropped the relay load, and picked up the empty.  I was trying to get back to the OC, but realized that I was fifteen minutes short on the fourteen hour rule.  I had to stop in a service area on the PA turnpike.  If only I hadn't lost fifteen minutes at the first load or drop.

It took just under four hours to get to Gary IN, the half way point.  It was 1100, so I had two hours to fuel, shower, and eat.  It took me one hour.  It took me the same amount of time to get from Gary to the delivery as it had taken me to get to Gary, even through it was a longer distance.  The second leg didn't any stop lights like the first leg on US 30 across IN.

As I was driving this leg, I received orders for my next load.  I would pick it up in the morning, back toward a Flying J I could park at. 

I arrived an hour early, but that didn't get me unloaded any sooner.  It was almost 1700 when I got into a dock.  Once they start unloading me, it took only two hours to do.  However, it was another hour before I got my paperwork, and then only after I inquired if they had forgotten about me.  I think they did.

When I left, I only had forty-five minutes to get to the Flying J I was headed for.  I got there just as my fourteen ran out.  A real lucky thing was that as I was driving through the lot looking for a place to park, I found a spot on the outside of a row that allowed me to drive straight into.

Most of the route was Interstate, but there was a section in IL that was back roads.  Other than a couple of towns, the road wasn't bad.  There was a lot of action going on with a lot of harvesting going on.

I arrived at the delivery at 1830, where I dropped the load, and picked up an empty.  I hadn't received any orders, so when I was still thirty miles away, I sent a note asking about a load, or should I pick up an empty.  I received an order to pick up an empty.  I drove the empty three miles to a Pilot truck stop.

It took an hour and forty-five to get to the shipper, where it was suppose to take an hour to load.  The load wasn't ready.  I watched some TiVo, then worked on updating this page.  It is now 1145.

It took six and a half hours to get loaded, and leave.  I drove five and a half hours, and arrived at the West Memphis OC as my fourteen hours ran out. There I put the tractor in for a PM, and went to a motel for the night.

I then drove back to the OC, where I showered, and picked up my next load.  I drove another two plus hours back to San Antonio.  This put me in the right position to drive easy days for the next two days.

While being unloaded, I received order for the next load.  When I was unload, I drove about 120 miles to get the load.  The load was scarp paper at a printing company.  They keep one trailer in a dock to put the bales of paper into.  Because it is always the same dock, I had to drop the empty, hoop up the loaded trailer, pull it out of the dock, drop the loaded trailer, pick up the empty, drop it into the dock, and pick up the loaded trailer.

I drove the load to a scale.  It was heavy in the back, so I had to move the tandems back, quite a ways.  I was okay for traveling in IN, but I wasn't sure about WI.  I went with it because there was only one scale I would go through in WI.  The load weighed okay, but the tandems were too far back for WI.  The scale I would go through is usually closed, and it will be dark when I would get there.  I figured that if the scale were open, they might not see where the tandems were.  The scale was closed.

I stopped just south of Milwaukee.  I had hoped to get to a truck stop north of Milwaukee, but I only had 45 minute left of my fourteen.  I stopped at a Flying J, but could get on line.  The connection speed was too slow.  Someone was downloading a big file.

The orders for the load said that the average unload time would be six hours.  I was able to get into a dock right away and I was unloaded in less than two hours.  While being unloaded I sent a note stating when I would be available.  I was unloaded long before I got my next orders.

I got my orders.  I drove a few miles, where the same trailer a had hauled the previous load, was loaded.  After a couple of hours, I was on my way.

I drove a couple of hours, and stopped at a Flying J to get on line.  I used the connection to update Windows, and take a nap.  I left an hour later, and drove another two and a half hours, where I stopped at a TA for the night.  There, I took a shower, and updated this page.