Moving along

Shucks another week gone by since been on here. Got to do better.

Lets see, I guess I pick up with dropping the load in Buford, GA on Monday morning and then running down to Winder, GA to pick up a load of insulation going back to Olive Branch, MS on the south side of Memphis. This load was a drop and hook that had to be dropped before 6:30am the next morning. I got it there at 5:30am, but they didn't have any empty trailers. There were at least a dozen company trailers there and all of them were still loaded. I had to wait on the premises until they came into work and unloaded one. The first one out of the dock was an old trailer and it had a damaged door on it. Great, back in the shop again. This time it took 6 hours to get it repaired, they had to replace the entire door.

My next load picked up that night at Kelloggs there in Memphis going to Kelloggs in London, OH near Columbus. I got the load picked up and made it up about half way between Memphis and Nashville and went to bed. Next morning did my pretrip and had a flat on my tractor. Rats in the shop again. Fifth time in a week. This was getting old. Found a nail in the tire and I was gone. Delivered the load the next morning and picked up a load near Columbus going to York, PA. Another short trip but an easy one.

I delivered this Friday morning, it was another drop and hook. It was time to go home and I had it set up already to get a load that way. Had planned on the 1st. They gave me a load out of Muncy, PA which is north central part of the state, going to Mansfield, TX to deliver on Tuesday the 2nd. I picked the load up before noon and headed out. I had to cut down through the mountains northeast of Pittsburg on the way down to I-70 which is never fun with a heavy load.

Another front was bearing down on the southeast and a nasty one. I made it to Columbus, OH Friday night and when I got up the next morning it was 13 degrees but it was clear. I did not get to where the snow was until I got halfway between Cincinnati and Louisville. By the time I got there it was just wet roads all the way to Nashville. All the ramps were iced over but the roads were good. Nashville had gotten 7" of snow and was a mess. Lots of wrecks. Had to make one detour coming in to town because one accident had the entire freeway closed. I got off with a couple of other trucks and went down Dickson Pike for a few miles and hopped on the other side of the wreck. Stopped got fuel and was gone to Memphis.

I got to West Memphis, AR tonight and the roads west of here to Little Rock are iced over. Will wait until the sun comes out tomorrow and thaws it out before heading on down to Dallas.

In the South

Delivered in Allentown, PA and then picked up a load of water in Allentown going to Steubenville, OH which was the home town of Dean Martin. From there down to New Concord, OH to pick up a load going down to London, KY that was supposed to be a drop and hook at a Walmart DC as soon as I got there that afternoon. Got in there at 4:30pm and they told me I had a 4:30am appointment that morning. Dispatch didn't even dispatch me to go pick the load up until 8:30am. I was 4 hours late before I even headed down to pick up the load.

They must have needed it because they decided to fit me in, but it took them 4 hours to unload me.

They dispatched me on a load to pick up over in Bowling Green, KY that had a pickup time of 4pm the following day. I went to bed, slept late and went in and had leisurely breakfast the next morning. When I got back out to the truck I had a message the load was ready and to go on in and pick it up because they needed my empty trailer.

I pretripped my truck and trailer and found the trailer had a leak. It was raining hard for the last 3 hours. I was picking up a load of dog food and it didn't need water added so I had to get it repaired. They sent me to a shop in Bowling Green which was a 2 1/2 hour drive away, and when I got there it took the guy about 15 minutes to repair the leaks. They have a tape that works pretty good, even in the rain.

I drove over to pick up the load. The loaded trailer I picked up had a flat. Sent to a tire shop to get that fixed. Finally off and running to Ennis, TX. Made it down to West Memphis, AR that night, which was Wednesday. Next morning made it on into our Wilmer, TX terminal around 3:30pm Thursday and was able to get tractor into the shop for a service. Next morning unloaded in Ennis at 7am. Then to Hawkins, TX on north side of Tyler to pick up another load of water going to Kroger in Memphis, TN for Saturday morning delivery.

From there they deadheaded me 180 miles to McGehee, AR to pick up a load of paper going to Buford, GA. Had to go down a lot of narrow, narrow 2 lane roads. Some only had 9' wide lanes. Difficult with a 8' 6" wide trailer. Especially with the curves thrown in.

Today is Sunday and made it to Villa Rica, GA by noon. Shut down here since very heavy rains, plus wanted to watch games. I get to watch 3 mins and then get no signal for 4 or 5 minutes. This thanks to digital signal. Since that went into effect I can't pick up TV signals anymore unless right under a tower. Something better than nothing, when I do get a signal it is a nice picture.

November and December Pictures

Start with some pictures from the week we said goodbye to dad. A fine man and dad and we miss him.

The next series of pictures are from November, December and up to this last week. Trips to Wisconsin, and over to New York are on here. The cat is Miss Minnie who keeps Pat company at home.

I am sitting today in Harrisburg, PA watching poor Cowboys get stomped in the first half. Don't know if they will turn this one around or not.

Thawing out

It has been a long week. I got down in my back and was too difficult to set up in the evening to type on computer. Probably from cranking on dolly in the cold temperatures, the grease stiffens up in the cold and is hard to crank, well everything stiffens up in those temps. Been in 50s and 60s last couple of days and feels good.

I delivered the load in Kansas and was given a load out of Lawrence, KS going to Kentucky. It was such a rush deal that I didn't figure my available hours very well and did not have the hours to make it to the delivery. I dropped the load on our drop lot in East St. Louis, IL and sat until Monday morning. I went over to pick up a load at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis going to Queens, NY. Got the load but instead of going to Queens it had an address in the Bronx across the river. I had to send the info on the change of address to dispatch and wait for them to clear it before I could leave with it. That took over a hour waiting on them. I think they just forgot about me until I reminded them and then was told to deliver to address on paperwork, which I already knew.

Over 90% of our customers we have directions for in their system. This one was no exception. Problem is that directions are only as good as the driver who sent them in. I found that this driver was stupid as a rock. I was fortunate that the night before I looked up the place on Google Earth and I drew myself a map and wrote in the main cross streets. If I hadn't done that I would have gotten lost. The directions in the system had me going down Westchester St for 14 blocks and turning left on 156th St. Well about 5 or 6 blocks down the street there was a 11'2" underpass for the subway tracks overhead. I had to make a left turn and hope for the best. Having the map I drew up I was able to catch a cross street going in the direction I needed, and after quite a bit of weaving and trial and error I made it to the customer. The streets in the Bronx are about like San Antonio in getting around. There is no such thing as going around the block. Streets are narrow to start with pedestrians jay walk every where, and I mean a lot of them. Took about a half hour and finally made it to the delivery.

Went up to Milford, CT to pick up a load from Schick Razor going to Atlanta, GA. Was coming back south on I-95 and went around the north side of the city instead of down through the Bronx again since it was 5:30pm.

Delivered in Atlanta on Friday morning and then picked up a load in Athens, GA going back to Allentown, PA area. Drove hard all day and got into Harrisburg, PA in time to settle in for NFL playoffs to begin. Will set here until Monday and have a 1 1/2 hr drive to my delivery.

Will try to post some pictures tomorrow since I have a good signal at this location.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Too Cold for Humans

Well the trip to Baton Rouge was short lived. Had load back to Dallas and then a 4 drop load going north again. Way north. Had 2 drops in Chicago, one in Madison, WI and final in Green Bay, WI.

It took 8 1/2 hours to get loaded so I sat at the shipper for the next 1 1/2 hours so would have 10 hour break in. That way I could go as far as I needed that night. There was a bad winter storm pushing south east from Canada...again!!

Well, I ended up driving all night because it was about to push into central Missouri. I made it to St. Louis, MO by 7am the next morning, showered and went to bed. The snow had come in behind me in central Missouri and dumped 8". When I got to St. Louis the sun was shining and when I got up it was cloudy and the storm had just about caught up to me. The second my 10 hour break was up I pushed up I-55 to Chicago. I called ahead and the first drop said I could park for the night in their dock, so that gave me a place to go. Good thing to because it started snowing 2 hours after I got in there at 11pm. There was 4" on the ground when I unloaded the first drop and the second drop was only 1 mile away so it was easy too. The rough part from there was to get over to Madison, WI.

Chicago was getting hammered pretty bad and was expecting up to 14" of snow by Friday morning when the storm got done. Once I got away from Chicago it was not too bad, the salt trucks had the freeway in decent shape and could get up close to the speed limit. I made it to Madison and got the third drop off. I next called the last drop in Green Bay to make sure I could park in their dock and they told me I could. Since it was only 230pm I headed that way. I did not want to fight the icy roads the next morning to get there.

I got to the last drop at 430pm and settled in. At midnight I got a cussing by the guy coming in to plow their parking lot. Said I wasn't supposed to be there. I didn't mind moving til they got done, but his attitude wasn't called for. He must have been from New York or something. No, I forgot I was in Green Bay...you know how those Cheese heads can get. Anyway, I just pulled up where they had finished plowing and went back to bed, I wasn't leaving.

This morning I unloaded the last few pallets and got a load out of Manawa, WI which was 60 miles west of Green Bay going to Ottawa, KS. As bad as the storm was on Thursday and all the high winds over night, the roads were in great shape. They were complaining on TV about the price of salt going up from $29 a ton to over $54 a ton just this year. That's a heck of a difference. Glad they are still paying for it though. Salt is a wonder drug for icy illness.

I ran over to I-90 near Fort McCoy, WI, and headed west into southeast Minnesota. Then south on I-35 through Iowa toward Kansas City. The temp in Minnesota was -5 degrees at 5pm and was dropping to -20 overnight, that was not wind chill temp either. Where I'm at just inside Missouri it is getting down to -5 tonight. Too blasted cold...

Chained in Tulsa

After delivering to Lowe's Distribution Ctr in Rockford, IL they gave me a load out of the Center going to a Lowe's store in Tulsa, OK. They had a pretty big snow storm in Tulsa and I had dry roads after getting out of Illinois. When I got within 40 miles of Tulsa it got nasty. It was mostly wet, but the closer I got to Tulsa the more ice was on the roads.

I knew with the snowfall they got that the store I was going to was going to have snow in the parking lot. It was worse than I thought. I turned in behind the store and it was an upward slope going up to the docks behind the store. It had a foot of snow on it and I only made it half way up the hill. Lost all traction because it had a coating of ice under the wet snow. I was stuck. For the first time in 33 years I had to put chains on the truck and it was just to get into a parking lot. It took me a while to do it to. Tried to just chain two outside drive tires, nope. Had to go back and chain the other 2 outside drive tires too. So I had all four outside tires chained on the tractor after a hour and 15 minutes. I had to lay the chains over the tires and roll back down the hill to get them wrapped over the tire so I could latch the chains. By the time I finally got the chains on the tires the rear of the trailer was on the edge of the street.

I got traction and got up the hill. We had an empty trailer in the dock, and it was a dock that sloped downhill to the dock doors. I had to drop my loaded trailer and pull the empty out, drop it and hook back up to the loaded trailer and put it in dock, then hook back up to the empty and I would be ready to go. Nope!!

It took me 4 hours. Dropped the loaded, but when backed under the empty I hooked up air lines and the emergency line had a hole in it. Couldn't release the trailer brakes, tried to pull back out and up the hill but even with the chains the tires just spun on the ice. The tires would dig a hole to the concrete and couldn't get over the ice on the back and front of the tires. Ended up going into Lowe's and buying a shovel and dig a trench up the hill out of the dock. Went and fixed the air line at a truck stop 9 miles away. Came back and got the loaded trailer out without putting the chains back on. Went to put the loaded trailer in the dock and got stuck on the ice when I pulled up to get lined up with the dock. Dug some more, this time was chipping through solid ice. The sun was out and had glazed it over and was hard enough to stand on it much less drive on it. Finally I got it in there and back under the empty trailer.

I then went to Muskogee, OK to pick up a load going to Mesquite, TX near Dallas. From there I got to go on home getting there on Monday morning where I spent the first 2 days trying to thaw out. Finished painting the living room.

Left out on Sunday morning and am now in Baton Rouge, LA where I will deliver a load at 3am in the morning, so off to bed.