Well that was a long enough visit to the east coast for me!!! I made it out to Mass and delivered my first stop and then called my second which was supposed to be for the following day. I only had 1 pallet of product for my second stop so they were nice enough to unload me a day early. I called in to get my next load but it didn't pick up till the following morning up in New Hampshire. My final stop on that last load left me about 50 miles south of Boston so I figured since it was only the middle of the day, I could ease up thru Boston instead of going all the way around and shouldn't have too much issue with traffic. BOY WAS I WRONG!!! I spent the better part of the afternoon just trying to reach 10mph! I'm glad it wasn't rush hour!!! Eventually I got to the other side and things started moving again.
Once a year, the DOT (Department of Transportation) conducts a 3 day safety sweep across the entire country in an effort to insure truck drivers and equipment are following the rules and are up to safety standards (I was proof reading this before posting and realized I had forgotten to put the word truck before drivers so I corrected that knowing that the DOT would never actually check the drivers of cars were following the rules and their vehicles were up to safety standards!). Last year I was fortunate to not get pulled into one of these and inspected (I got pulled in but they just waved me through). My luck did not hold this year. Thursday was the third and final day of their sweep and I only had one more weigh station to pass. I was not to be as lucky this year as last year. I thought I had made it through because the gave me the arrow for the bypass lane so I was on my way out and when I looked in the mirror......blue lights. I was fortunate in the fact that they didn't do a full inspection on me, they just wanted to see all of my paperwork and UNfortunatly, I was a little behind on my log. The nice officer only gave me a warning though.
Anyway back on the road and heading to New Hampshire for pickup in the morning. I have not been to NH since starting with this company so I got to cross that state off the list. Only 3 more to go! Got to Bristol, NH in the morning and picked up my load. Strange load...I picked up there and am going to Indiana and delivering part of what I picked up and they are adding more to my load at that stop and from there I go to Houston to 2 different stops there which at this point I have nothing on my truck for any stops in Houston. Then after Houston, I go to Laredo, TX and deliver everything to a forwarding company that takes it to Mexico!
Right now I am in Ohio waiting to roll to the Indiana stop in the morning. A cold front has passed by and the high today is 70. Nice to have these temps after the blistering heat of the last couple weeks. I spoke to John about continuing to write in the blog but he whined about having to type on his phone cuz he doesn't have is laptop on the truck right now. We may have to wait a little longer to enjoy the few tidbits of wisdom that John will have for us so he doesn't wear out his thumbs typing!!
I almost forgot about yesterday being 'strange roadkill day'! Normally I see an abundance of deer that have fallen victim to 'collision with high speed vehicle syndrome' and my trip across Pennsylvania yesterday was littered with that 'normal' phenomena. As is the case with most trips across the great state of PA, there was enough venison to feed a small army laying on the roadside. I was privvy to the rare glimpse of roadkill porcupine twice yesterday and ever so rare viewing of roadkill black bear!!! (It is always great to see that we are taking such great care of our natural wildlife. Maybe our government can come up with yet another useless program that they can add more taxes to us for, which will eliminate this senseless slaughter along our nations highways.) The last part, (in parenthesis) is sarcasm, in case you were wondering!! I know as well as you do that our government would never impliment a program that would create more of a tax burden on the american citizen.
Happy Trails,
Mike
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Back on night shift
I didn't write yesterday because I spent most of the day just sitting around waiting for my next load to be ready. Doesn't make for real interesting reading. I finally got out of there in the late afternoon so I ended up driving into the night last night. I am trying to work it so I can get back to days primarily because of the heat that makes it difficult to sleep during the days even with the A/C on. I am heading to Massachussets. I'll be delivering both Thursday and Friday out there and since I won't be able to go any further east after that, I imagine that my next load will bring me back west somewhere. Hows that for a profound statement!
John is finally back on the road after being home for graduation and all of the family that came to town for that. Truth be told. I think he missed being out here. I could hear the exictement in his voice!! He is in Arkansas today delivering and maybe if we all ask him real nicely we can get him to start posting on here again too!
I forgot to mention the other day after I had travelled thru Alabama to write about what I saw from the tornado damage there. Back when all of those tornadoes tore thru Alabama, I was on a load coming from Arkansas going home to Florida. My route took me right thru the heart of Alabama and right thru the area that was having all of the severe storms. One thing I take very seriously while out here is the weather and spend a great deal of time watching and planning around it so I knew what had been happening with these storms and was watching them to see if it would be safe to go that way. Well we all know the result of those storms and I made the executive decision to go south to Jackson, MS and then east to avoid the storms. This turned out to be a very wise decision on my part because I got to see the result of what those tornadoes did on the north side of Birmingham. As I drove west on US78 the other day coming out of Birmingham, I noticed that cars were slowing down up ahead and turning off to the side of the road. I didn't realize where I was at the time and then I started to see why alot of people were stopping. On the right side of the road there was a parking lot for what used to be a gas station and that is where everyone was pulling into. What was left of the gas station looked like just a couple of pieces of twisted, burnt metal and by pulling into that parking lot it was giving people a birdseye view of the area that the tornado had gone thru because the ground sloped away giving a clear view. As you have heard everyong on the news say...'words cannot describe' the total destruction that I saw. The part that bothered me the most was that the destruction was on both sides of the road....the road I was supposed to be driving down that night! God Bless those people!!
Happy Trials
Mike
John is finally back on the road after being home for graduation and all of the family that came to town for that. Truth be told. I think he missed being out here. I could hear the exictement in his voice!! He is in Arkansas today delivering and maybe if we all ask him real nicely we can get him to start posting on here again too!
I forgot to mention the other day after I had travelled thru Alabama to write about what I saw from the tornado damage there. Back when all of those tornadoes tore thru Alabama, I was on a load coming from Arkansas going home to Florida. My route took me right thru the heart of Alabama and right thru the area that was having all of the severe storms. One thing I take very seriously while out here is the weather and spend a great deal of time watching and planning around it so I knew what had been happening with these storms and was watching them to see if it would be safe to go that way. Well we all know the result of those storms and I made the executive decision to go south to Jackson, MS and then east to avoid the storms. This turned out to be a very wise decision on my part because I got to see the result of what those tornadoes did on the north side of Birmingham. As I drove west on US78 the other day coming out of Birmingham, I noticed that cars were slowing down up ahead and turning off to the side of the road. I didn't realize where I was at the time and then I started to see why alot of people were stopping. On the right side of the road there was a parking lot for what used to be a gas station and that is where everyone was pulling into. What was left of the gas station looked like just a couple of pieces of twisted, burnt metal and by pulling into that parking lot it was giving people a birdseye view of the area that the tornado had gone thru because the ground sloped away giving a clear view. As you have heard everyong on the news say...'words cannot describe' the total destruction that I saw. The part that bothered me the most was that the destruction was on both sides of the road....the road I was supposed to be driving down that night! God Bless those people!!
Happy Trials
Mike
Sunday, June 5, 2011
The HEAT rolls on!
I saw a sign this morning in front of a church that said "You Think It's Hot Here?" I actually enjoyed some cooler weather today....it only got up to 96 where I drove today!
I left Memphis this morning and had a pretty uneventful day of driving. Traffic was pretty heavy again and I got to see an unlicensed driver pulling doubles. For those that don't know, I'll explain. Drivers of commercial vehicles have to go through extensive training to be licensed to drive big rigs up and down the highways and there are special endorsements that we have to get to be able to do certain things like, haul hazardous materials, pull a tanker, pull doubles(2 trailers), or pull triples(3 trailers). Unfortunately there is a double standard when it comes to other people pulling doubles and triples. Joe Vacationer can hook up a trailer on his motor home to pull his car and have a trailer attached to his car that is pulling his boat and can do all of that with a regular operators license!!! You tell me. Who would you rather have pulling that many things behind his vehicle? Joe Vacationer....or a licensed commercial driver? Like I said, there is a double standard and I for one don't think that these people should be allowed to travel like that. There is too much that can happen that they are not trained for! I got up the St Joseph, MO which is where I am delivering tomorrow. I was watching the news while I ate dinner and see that the Missouri river flooding is just north of here in Iowa where they had to evacuate like 600 people. Glad I'm leaving here tomorrow!
Had a short lived scare at home. I got a call this morning from Lisa saying she had no water!!! Fortunately Justin and Melanie were there and Justin found that the contacts had corroded and he was able to clean them and get the pump going again so Lisa had water again. Ahhhhhh, the joys of being on a well.
I got my next load preplanned on me today and I have to go a total of 1 mile to pick up my next load which is going to Assonet, MA. That is if they leave that load assigned to me. Maybe I'll get lucky and get to see my nephew Adam while I'm out there!
If you like what you read in these post when we write them then please become a follower of our blog. The more followers we have, the more followers we will gain and that will just promote a more interesting interaction between us and our followers!
Happy Trails,
Mike
I left Memphis this morning and had a pretty uneventful day of driving. Traffic was pretty heavy again and I got to see an unlicensed driver pulling doubles. For those that don't know, I'll explain. Drivers of commercial vehicles have to go through extensive training to be licensed to drive big rigs up and down the highways and there are special endorsements that we have to get to be able to do certain things like, haul hazardous materials, pull a tanker, pull doubles(2 trailers), or pull triples(3 trailers). Unfortunately there is a double standard when it comes to other people pulling doubles and triples. Joe Vacationer can hook up a trailer on his motor home to pull his car and have a trailer attached to his car that is pulling his boat and can do all of that with a regular operators license!!! You tell me. Who would you rather have pulling that many things behind his vehicle? Joe Vacationer....or a licensed commercial driver? Like I said, there is a double standard and I for one don't think that these people should be allowed to travel like that. There is too much that can happen that they are not trained for! I got up the St Joseph, MO which is where I am delivering tomorrow. I was watching the news while I ate dinner and see that the Missouri river flooding is just north of here in Iowa where they had to evacuate like 600 people. Glad I'm leaving here tomorrow!
Had a short lived scare at home. I got a call this morning from Lisa saying she had no water!!! Fortunately Justin and Melanie were there and Justin found that the contacts had corroded and he was able to clean them and get the pump going again so Lisa had water again. Ahhhhhh, the joys of being on a well.
I got my next load preplanned on me today and I have to go a total of 1 mile to pick up my next load which is going to Assonet, MA. That is if they leave that load assigned to me. Maybe I'll get lucky and get to see my nephew Adam while I'm out there!
If you like what you read in these post when we write them then please become a follower of our blog. The more followers we have, the more followers we will gain and that will just promote a more interesting interaction between us and our followers!
Happy Trails,
Mike
Saturday, June 4, 2011
BBQ isn't all that's cookin' in Alabama!
It must me turtle migrating season. I'll leave it at that. I also think that school got out this week and everyone decided to start their summer family vacations this weekend. It has been a long time since I've seen that much traffic on a Saturday and I think it was more than what I've seen on Memorial Day weekend too. I took a picture of my dash today and posted it on Facebook showing the outside temperature at 112. It was ungodly hot today. I told my lovely wife yesterday, when I had the priveledge of talking to her, that when I was driving yesterday it was nice and cool inside the truck and I put my arm on the window ledge on the drivers door and my arm rested against the glass and the glass was HOT! The sun wasn't even beating on it at all.
I unloaded at Wally World at 3:30 this morning with my load of little piggy parts and that went well. As soon as I sent in my empty message, I got my next load assignment which was the chicken load I mentioned yesterday. The load wasn't scheduled to pick up until 6:30pm in a town only 1 hour away so I drove down there and had breakfast (gotta eat....John can verify the "I Like To Eat" factor). After breakfast I called the shipper and a miracle occurred.....my load was ready!!! It wan't even 10am yet! Went and picked up my chickens and found that they are bound for the pet food plant so off I went.
Other than the extremely large volume of traffic, it was a pretty uneventful day. I made it to Memphis this evening and have parked for the night. Had my first knock on my door already but it was only a guy wanting to shine the wheels on my truck. After that I put up my curtain and will thankfully be left alone.
Plans are starting to come together for our 4th of July get together up in Indiana. Unfortunately my step daughter Melanie and her husband Justin can't make the trip but my daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Jay are coming and Lisa (my wonderful wife for those that don't know) is planning on riding with me for about a week prior to our arrival up there. For those that are prayers out there, please keep our plans in your prayers that they will come together and all traveling will be safe.
Thats it for tonight. I think this just about qualifies my for the book of records having posted 3 consecutive posts on here!!
Happy Trails
Mike
I unloaded at Wally World at 3:30 this morning with my load of little piggy parts and that went well. As soon as I sent in my empty message, I got my next load assignment which was the chicken load I mentioned yesterday. The load wasn't scheduled to pick up until 6:30pm in a town only 1 hour away so I drove down there and had breakfast (gotta eat....John can verify the "I Like To Eat" factor). After breakfast I called the shipper and a miracle occurred.....my load was ready!!! It wan't even 10am yet! Went and picked up my chickens and found that they are bound for the pet food plant so off I went.
Other than the extremely large volume of traffic, it was a pretty uneventful day. I made it to Memphis this evening and have parked for the night. Had my first knock on my door already but it was only a guy wanting to shine the wheels on my truck. After that I put up my curtain and will thankfully be left alone.
Plans are starting to come together for our 4th of July get together up in Indiana. Unfortunately my step daughter Melanie and her husband Justin can't make the trip but my daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Jay are coming and Lisa (my wonderful wife for those that don't know) is planning on riding with me for about a week prior to our arrival up there. For those that are prayers out there, please keep our plans in your prayers that they will come together and all traveling will be safe.
Thats it for tonight. I think this just about qualifies my for the book of records having posted 3 consecutive posts on here!!
Happy Trails
Mike
Friday, June 3, 2011
The load with too much time
Getting a load with too much time is a common occurrence in this business but it is usually only an extra day or two on the load....not six!!! This morning I am still waiting to get the disposition on this load so I can get my next one and move on.
Last night I had to park in a Hardee's parking lot cuz there are no truck stops around here and I thought that since I was where I was, I wouldn't be bothered. But NOOOOOOO.....around 10pm last night there is a knock on my door. I almost got up to answer it but thought better of doing that. I figured if it was the police needing me to move, they would be pretty persistent and eventually a tow truck would show up and other than the police, there was nobody that I wanted to talk to in a Hardee's parking lot at 10:00 at night. So I just stayed in bed and they went away. After that I slept like a baby!
Around lunch the company finally informed me of where they wanted me to drop the load but first I had to find a place to buy a padlock so I could lock the back of the trailer. I had to walk about a mile down the road to find a place to buy one but I did and then drove about 25 miles to where I was to drop the trailer. After that I sat at a little convienence store just around the corner from where I dropped the trailer until they sent me my next load. I wonder if there are alot of people in the south that have heart attacks. I went into this little convienence store to see what they had to eat and there was a little food area and I started looking at what little they had in there and everything was sitting in grease! I asked the lady if she could just make me a hamburger and she said yes and started to reach for what I guess where hamburger patty's sitting in this liquid stuff that I wasn't real sure about so I just told here to forget it. Yuck!
After a couple hours I got my load assignment and headed off to the Smithfield Packaging Company to pick up my load of dead pigs in the form of pork chops and other assorted cuts of pork. Them little piggies used to go wee, wee, wee but not any more! I spent the night at the plant and when I got up this morning my load was ready so I drove pretty much all day and got here to Brundidge, AL where I deliver this coming morning. Then it's off to the local chicken plant to pick up a load of chicken something going to Missouri.
That's it for tonight. I'm tired from driving all day and I have to get up in a few hours to make my delivery.
Happy Trails
Mike
Last night I had to park in a Hardee's parking lot cuz there are no truck stops around here and I thought that since I was where I was, I wouldn't be bothered. But NOOOOOOO.....around 10pm last night there is a knock on my door. I almost got up to answer it but thought better of doing that. I figured if it was the police needing me to move, they would be pretty persistent and eventually a tow truck would show up and other than the police, there was nobody that I wanted to talk to in a Hardee's parking lot at 10:00 at night. So I just stayed in bed and they went away. After that I slept like a baby!
Around lunch the company finally informed me of where they wanted me to drop the load but first I had to find a place to buy a padlock so I could lock the back of the trailer. I had to walk about a mile down the road to find a place to buy one but I did and then drove about 25 miles to where I was to drop the trailer. After that I sat at a little convienence store just around the corner from where I dropped the trailer until they sent me my next load. I wonder if there are alot of people in the south that have heart attacks. I went into this little convienence store to see what they had to eat and there was a little food area and I started looking at what little they had in there and everything was sitting in grease! I asked the lady if she could just make me a hamburger and she said yes and started to reach for what I guess where hamburger patty's sitting in this liquid stuff that I wasn't real sure about so I just told here to forget it. Yuck!
After a couple hours I got my load assignment and headed off to the Smithfield Packaging Company to pick up my load of dead pigs in the form of pork chops and other assorted cuts of pork. Them little piggies used to go wee, wee, wee but not any more! I spent the night at the plant and when I got up this morning my load was ready so I drove pretty much all day and got here to Brundidge, AL where I deliver this coming morning. Then it's off to the local chicken plant to pick up a load of chicken something going to Missouri.
That's it for tonight. I'm tired from driving all day and I have to get up in a few hours to make my delivery.
Happy Trails
Mike
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Been a while
I almost forgot that I had this blog!!! It has been almost 6 months since I wrote anything and one thing that I noticed while reading thru my old posts is that I did alot of complaining about different services and people out here on the road. I am going to change that about my posts and try to offer more compelling insight into what life is really like out here on the road. Yes, that will include some complaints but I hope to offer more variety by including alot of what actually occurs on a daily basis in my life out here.
Today started out bright and early in Winchester, VA picking up a Kraft Foods load. The load was just a short trip down to North Carolina but it kept me moving. My pickup appointment was at 0130 so I arrived at 0030 and checked in and they told me to park at the end of the lot and they would come and get me when they had a dock available to load me. I backed into the dock at 0240 and finally got out of there at 0630. I had planned on making it thru Richmond before the morning rush hour but that kinda went out the window as I watched 0430 go by. Anyway, I had been waiting for the company to let me know when my delivery appointment was and it got to the point where I was only an hour from my final destination and the company hadn't called yet so I called the receiver and found out the appointment wasn't for 6 days! NOT GOOD! I called the company and let them know and they tried to get the appointment changed but had no luck doing that either. They had me come to the town where the load is supposed to deliver and they are in the process of finding a place for me to leave the trailer and then they will assign me a different load. That probably won't happen until tomorrow since it is pretty late in the day here.
It was extremely hot in both VA and NC today and at one point the temp reading on my dash said 106. My little A/C unit was really struggling to keep up and for a little while it was getting uncomfortable in the truck.
My phone keeps letting me know that the weather channel tweets are saying there are tornadoes and severe storms in and around Springfield, MA. I have a nephew that lives near there and my sister has been trying to reach him on the phone but has not had any luck with that yet so I pray he is ok up there.
For the last several days I have had to drive at night and sleep during the day because of the load I was on but I am finally able to switch back to driving during the day. With the heat being so hot lately it has made it very uncomfortable to try and sleep during the day. I had a very close call with a deer the other night while driving....I was driving in some light fog and saw a car on the other side of the highway that was creeping to a stop on the shoulder of the road and it appeared that the front of the car was damaged. I remember thinking to myself that it looked like they had hit a deer when out of the corner of my left eye, I see a deer start to take off from the median coming across in front of my truck. I practically stood up on the brake pedal and kept watching my truck still gaining on the 'trying to accelerate' deer. It made it across the front of my truck until I could no longer see it as it passed in front of my right headlight. I didn't hear or feel any kind of a hit but I thought for sure there would be fur on the bumper of my truck when I stopped but I must have barely missed him cuz there wasn't any fur or any other sign of him on the front of my truck when I stopped. That was a close call that almost scared the crap out of me!!
Thats all for now. I'll keep this up to date hopefully on a daily basis with what happens out here each day.
Happy Trails
Mike
Today started out bright and early in Winchester, VA picking up a Kraft Foods load. The load was just a short trip down to North Carolina but it kept me moving. My pickup appointment was at 0130 so I arrived at 0030 and checked in and they told me to park at the end of the lot and they would come and get me when they had a dock available to load me. I backed into the dock at 0240 and finally got out of there at 0630. I had planned on making it thru Richmond before the morning rush hour but that kinda went out the window as I watched 0430 go by. Anyway, I had been waiting for the company to let me know when my delivery appointment was and it got to the point where I was only an hour from my final destination and the company hadn't called yet so I called the receiver and found out the appointment wasn't for 6 days! NOT GOOD! I called the company and let them know and they tried to get the appointment changed but had no luck doing that either. They had me come to the town where the load is supposed to deliver and they are in the process of finding a place for me to leave the trailer and then they will assign me a different load. That probably won't happen until tomorrow since it is pretty late in the day here.
It was extremely hot in both VA and NC today and at one point the temp reading on my dash said 106. My little A/C unit was really struggling to keep up and for a little while it was getting uncomfortable in the truck.
My phone keeps letting me know that the weather channel tweets are saying there are tornadoes and severe storms in and around Springfield, MA. I have a nephew that lives near there and my sister has been trying to reach him on the phone but has not had any luck with that yet so I pray he is ok up there.
For the last several days I have had to drive at night and sleep during the day because of the load I was on but I am finally able to switch back to driving during the day. With the heat being so hot lately it has made it very uncomfortable to try and sleep during the day. I had a very close call with a deer the other night while driving....I was driving in some light fog and saw a car on the other side of the highway that was creeping to a stop on the shoulder of the road and it appeared that the front of the car was damaged. I remember thinking to myself that it looked like they had hit a deer when out of the corner of my left eye, I see a deer start to take off from the median coming across in front of my truck. I practically stood up on the brake pedal and kept watching my truck still gaining on the 'trying to accelerate' deer. It made it across the front of my truck until I could no longer see it as it passed in front of my right headlight. I didn't hear or feel any kind of a hit but I thought for sure there would be fur on the bumper of my truck when I stopped but I must have barely missed him cuz there wasn't any fur or any other sign of him on the front of my truck when I stopped. That was a close call that almost scared the crap out of me!!
Thats all for now. I'll keep this up to date hopefully on a daily basis with what happens out here each day.
Happy Trails
Mike
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