A Hot Mess at the Pilot - (Post from 3-20-12)

I started the day in Jackson, MI delivering fiberglass siding to Certainteed. That was a tight delivery. I was parked about 20 minutes away and had to wait until only 25 minutes before my delivery time to start my day because on the 10 hour off duty / sleeper rule. It was 0530 in the morning for a 0600 delivery, so the traffic wasn't bad and I found the customer at about 0555. No service failure here!

The delivery went smoothly. Plenty of room to back into the dock and the receiver started unloading me immediately.

While I was waiting to get unloaded I got some exercise walking around the customers yard. The company next door must have been some kind of metal working company. It was a huge building with the glow of furnaces coming from the open doors and windows. Loud banging and the sound of sirens came from then building. It was interesting to look at as the sun came up.

By 0700 my trailer was unloaded and I headed 64 miles away to Wixom, MI for my next load. In the process I sent my FM a message asking if I could deliver my next load early. It's not scheduled until Thursday at 1100 in Burlington, NJ. That's 24 hours later than I will be there.

My next load was laundry detergent in 10lb buckets going to a wholesale club distribution center. I got there at 0900 and the warehouse crew was just going on break. Before they left, they told me what dock to back into. I swept out the trailer and backed into my assigned dock.

While I was being loaded I enjoyed the nice weather. It's in the 70's in Michigan, and it's only March 20^th. Wow! The smell at this shipper was very comforting. The pleasant scent of laundry detergent. Wafting over the entire area. The shipper was pretty big. Their buildings must have covered at least 2 football fields in area.

After I was loaded I headed south past the Detroit metro and stopped at the first Pilot truckstop I found so I could weigh and get my axles right. I rolled the scale and parked, went in and got my scale ticket and needed to adjust my tandems a bit. After sliding the tandems I went back across the scale and got stuck in a truck jam. This was a small Pilot and the fuel island didn't have room for traffic to pass if there was any trucks in line behind a truck fueling. So I sat there half on the scale with trucks lined up out onto the street and two trucks waiting for the scale as well. After about 10 minutes of not moving I got impatient and got out of my truck and walked to the front of the mess. I found a MVT truck parked in a no parking area blocking everyone. It was a no parking area because that space was needed for incoming traffic when it gets crowded, like it was now. The curtains were closed in the truck and it was clear that this driver got to the Pilot late last night and had no other place to park. I knocked on the door and the driver, an eastern european guy who didn't speak much English, poked his head out and I told him he needed to move because traffic was backing onto the highway. He apologized and said he would move. I headed back to my truck and by the time I was there the line of truck had started to move and I got parked again and got my scale ticket that said I was good to go. By the way, to all the drivers stuck in that truck jam, “You're Welcome!”. Someone had to fix the mess. That someone was me.

I drove about halfway across Ohio and stopped for a 1 hour nap and then was on my way again. Once I was into PA I got a message from my FM saying the customer that I was delivering to wouldn't take the load easly and that he was working on something. The about 30 min later he sent me a message telling me to drop the load in the Philadelphia drop yard. That is a good thing! I won't be sitting for a day waiting to deliver.

I stopped for the day at a rest area on I80 near Snow Shoe, PA. I stopped with only 20 minutes left on my drive time, so that was about as far as I could go. I have no phone or internet service here. Sucko! I called my wife from a pay phone to be sure she knew everything was ok and now it's time for some rest.

Looking forward to keeping moving tomorrow!