Mudflap? I don't need a stinkin' mudflap!

Where did I leave off? Oh, yes. I was waiting to get loaded at the shipper. It took about 2 hours and I was loaded and on my way to the drop yard in Oak Creek, WI. I got to the drop yard in about 40 minutes. It is just south of Milwaukee. I dropped the load and grabbed an empty.

About five minutes after I sent my empty call my FM sent me a message that he wanted me to go to a shipper in Milwaukee and get an empty from there. I dropped the perfectly good empty I had and drove 30 miles north to get the empty that was extra special. At least that must be the case, I don't know. I do know that it rained all day and I was wet, cold, and tired!

My next load picked up in the morning about 30 miles south of the drop yard I was at earlier so I made it back there and parked for the night.

This morning I got to the shipper around 0500 and hooked my load and was ready to start west towards Colorado and home when I noticed that I was missing a mudflap on my tractor. The drivers side mudflap was gone. Not ripped off or mangled,, just plain gone. Bracket and all. The best I can figure is that while I was sleeping last night at the Pilot at the 122 exit on I94 in WI, someone needed a mudflap and took mine.

I called maintenance and they sent me to Gary, IN to get a new mudflap and bracket. Going the wrong direction! Damnit!

After driving south through Chicago to Gary I got a new, well used, mud flap and got on I80 west by around 0845.

I drove all day stopping once for lunch and got to the rest area at mile marker 431 on I80 in NE.

I'm parked here for the night and I have 9 hours to the Walmart Dist. Center in Loveland, CO tomorrow. I also only have 10:23 left on my 70 for the week. I have 1:15 drive to my house after I deliver. That leaves about five minutes for my pretrip and delivering. Gonna have to make it work! Electronic logs,,,, a new experience for me and they allow for no fudging. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I hope nothing goes sideways tomorrow.

Waiting to get loaded...

I got to my customer in Pleasant Prairie, WI at around 0830 and was unloaded by 1030. Then I was sent up here to Burlington, WI to get a load to relay at Oak Creek, WI. It kind of a waste of my day, but at least it's something. A real waste is not moving at all. This load is only about 60 miles total and will take me a total of about 5 hours. I do get short haul pay and the load planners told me they are working on my back to Denver load.

When I got to this shipper, Verallia, I turned into the wrong driveway. That sucked. I thought In was following the signs, but I guess not. The sign pointed left between two driveways. I guessed wrong. I got jammed up in their employee parking lot. Nice. I ended up backing up all the way out of the lot. That was a 10 minute waste of time.

I got around the building the correct way and got myself checked in and backed into a door. An interesting note. The tandems on Roehl's trailers seem to be in better condition than I remember them. A lot of shippers and consignees make you slide them before you get loaded or unloaded and I have only had one problem in the past month or so. I do use vise-grips often to keep the pull handle pulled out in the correct position, but other than that, not many issues with the tandems. Vise-Grips are a "must have" in your truck tool box! A decent sledge hammer is also very handy. I keep both under my drivers seat.

Now I'm just sitting waiting to get loaded. I can feel them loading me. I hope they get done within an hour or so.

Slow can be dangerous!

Just a quick note. When I left the Gary terminal this morning I was behind a Roehl flatbed driver who was going 18 miles per hour past the Schneider terminal. I know the railroad tracks there are really bad, but after he crossed them, he still went 18 MPH all the way to 912. Then when he got on 912 he was going 32 MPH on the highway! I got around him as soon as I could. Going that slow is crazy unsafe! I wonder if he was so new he was driving scared? Wow!

Back in Gary

I started yesterday at a rest area near Snow Shoe, PA and drove to the Roehl drop yard near Philadelphia and dropped there around 0930. The drive there was fine after the wall of fog lifted when the sun came up.

After dropping my load I couldn't find an empty trailer so my FM had to get with the planners to figure something out. They sent a message asking me to look for a certain trailer which is fine, but I already told them there were no trailers there. It's no like after they send me a trailer number that trailer is going to magically appear. No trailers means no trailers. Oh well.

I was told to pick up an empty at a customer near Trenton, NJ on my way to the shipper. No problem. Got that trailer and went to the shipper by around 1330. They said the load would be ready by 1500. I got out of there at 1645. That's how it works.

I drove about 1 hour to Bloombury, NJ to get fuel at the Pilot there. That must be the smallest Pilot around. I thing every truck leaving NJ wanted to get fuel there. It took over an hour to get in there and fuel and get out. Trucks were backed up both ways on the road and the Pilot parking lot was a disaster! It must be a few cents cheaper than other places because seriously, every truck on the Interstate was stopping to fuel there.

I spent last night as a little truck stop in the Poconos and started driving this morning around 0500. I stopped for a nap and lunch and rolled into Gary around 1730. I had 6 minutes of drive time left and 1 hour left on my 14. Tight.

Here in Gary all trucks coming into the yard have to go through the fuel island for a trailer inspectioon, even if they don't need fuel. When I got here in the late afternoon there were trucks 3 deep at all 4 fuel lanes. It took an hour and a half to get fuel and get parked. I did run the truck and trailer through the truck wash and then I got a shower. I feel semi-human again.

Tomorrow I deliver in Pleasant Prairie, WI at 0900. I think I'll get up at 0600. I think that's more than enough time, even in morning traffic.

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!

Moving again....

I started the day with my drop + hook in Williamsport, MD. That went smoothly and I headed up into PA and across the PA turnpike. Easy going today and I got lunch with some family I have near New Stanton, PA. I got to a rest area near Jackson, MI and parked for the night. I deliver here tomorrow morning at 0600.

Now the interesting part. I got a preplan for a load tomorroa that picks up about 65 miles away in Wixom, MI and goes to Burlington, NJ for a Thursday morning delivery. That would be fine, but I told my fleet manager when I left the house last week that I wanted to be home on Friday the 23rd. I accepted the load plan because that's the right thing to do, then I called night dispatch and asked them when the computer had me scheduled to be home. They said the 30th. WHAT? I told them that I had requested to be home on the 23rd. They checked the Qualcomm messages and found the one where I requested my home time. They said they would send an email to my FM telling him the situation and I'm to call in the morning to talk to him about it. I told them I would be happy to stay out until Monday the 26th, but I really do want to be home next week.

Lesson here: Put everything in a Qualcomm message. It covers your butt because it's permanently in writing in the company's computers. If I had not put my hometime request in writing, it would be my word against the company's. I'm not saying that the company will try to screw you, just that mistakes happen and it's always good to have a written record.

Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly. Deliver at 0600 and pickup at 0930. Then hit the road east for the Thursday delivery in NJ.

34 Hr Reset

Going to get my 34 hr reset tomorrow morning at 0730. Then I'll head to the shipper for a 0900 pickup. The load goes 471 miles to Jackson, MI, so I should make it there easily by tomorrow evening.

I spent today sleeping in and relaxing at the rest area where I stopped last night. I got a lot of good internet surfing and Hulu watching in. I cleaned the truck out a bit also.

I also spent a hour or so walking around the rest stop. It's nice to get some exercise once and a while. Most rest areas are well kept and can be pretty relaxing to walk around. The weather was pretty nice today as well. Cool, in the 60's I would guess.

Time flew by today and hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly.