Pictures Tenn, Wyoming, Utah March 2008

First, after sitting the weekend in Ardmore, OK I finally got a load this morning. I am going up to Edmond, OK, near Oklahoma City, to pick up a load tonight going to Houston. I pick up at 11 pm tonight and deliver to Houston at 1am Wednesday morning. Truck is in need of a PM service and although I am going by the terminal near Dallas, I will probably not have time to get it done and still make my appointment. This means I will have to head out next week still needing truck serviced and be that much more over due for one. Should be going home for a few days after I get unloaded in Houston though.

The pictures below are from a trip I made to Salt Lake City, UT about this time last year. Again, forwarded to me by a good friend who kept the emails of the pictures I sent. I lost all that I had before Oct. 2008.

It starts with a picture coming north on I-75 into Cincinnati, not the same trip. Then 3 pictures around Lawrenceburg, TN of Amish buggies there. This is the furthest south I know of them living. There are also some groups in Oklahoma.

The next group of pictures are going across I-80 starting around Laramie, WY with sunrise. Then on over to Rock Springs, WY in the Southwest corner of Wyoming. The rest of the pictures are all of mountain range on the east side of Salt Lake City. I got pretty lucky with the weather on that trip.

Wisconsin to Oklahoma

I picked up a load yesterday in Janesville, WI going to Ardmore, OK. Was supposed to pick it up at 2pm. I went on in and they loaded me at 9am so was able to drive across Illinois and down into Missouri before I had to stop for the night. This was important because of the blizzard rolling out of the Texas panhandle and right up through where I was going.

It was a matter of timing and points out how many things I rely on when it comes to weather and trip planning. First I read USA Today every day and watch the weather page on where I am going. Then on XM Radio there is a 24/7 weather channel that tracks storm systems, I have the NOAH weather radio channels on truck radio for local forecasts, and finally I pull it up on my laptop. The one on laptop is most important. The weather.com page you can pull up the weather forcast hour-to-hour on any city on your route. When I left out this morning I knew that the rain was not supposed to start turning over to mixed precipitation until around 7 or 8am in Joplin, MO. I was going to be able to get through there at 7am. The snow was moving in from Oklahoma City which was getting pretty heavy snow. The storm was rolling up I-44, the direction I had to go. Knowing all this, I turned south on US-69 down through eastern Oklahoma keeping the front to my west. Doing this I only ran through a short snow storm this morning of about 10 to 15 miles wide. It was heavy too. The temperature dropped 5 degrees at that moment, but once I got 15 miles further down the road I got out the other side of the cold front again, the temperature got back up to 38 deg and back to all rain.

I made it on down to Atoka, OK and cut across some two lane roads to Ardmore. I came in the back way and dropped the load a day early. No snow or icy roads. If I had been running about one hour behind the schedule I set for myself I would have hit it bad coming out of Joplin, MO. That would have slowed me down letting the front run right over me, and as hard as it was raining, once it turned to snow it was going to be bad. It worked out.

Now I set here 290 miles from the house and no freight until Monday. Supposed to be headed to house for home time, so set here, set there. Will post some pictures later tonight or in the morning of some of the trip down here.

Made it to the Dairyland

I made it into Madison, WI about 1230pm today. Left the Toledo area around 530am. Was nice drive today across I-80. Sun began to peek out while coming across northern Indiana.

Made it to Chicago at 9am and breezed through pretty well, morning traffic had already died out. Another part of the preplanning part. Got into Wisconsin and found the state had built a brand new weigh station on I-90 near Beloit, WI. Hadn't realized been that long since I had been up here. Close to a year now I guess.

I went back to the posting on March 17 and added pictures I had taken on the trip from Kentucky up to Rochester, NY, so you might want to go back to look at those. The 4 pictures from the cave warehouses in Kansas City were from March of 2008.

The following pictures on this post are on the trip headed here. All are along I-80 starting in the Pocono Mtns. and going west toward Ohio. In 7th picture in the group is a picture of an Amish farm in a beautiful valley not far from Lamar, PA. After I snapped the picture I went about a mile further down the road and saw about two dozen Amish children playing ball near a small school house. All were dressed just a like, in all black, girls with bonnets and boys with the flat brim straw hats. They are an interesting culture and are all along the nothern midwest from Pennslyvania to Iowa and south. I have seen them in south central Tennessee too.

Halfway There

Finally got rolling today, up at 5 am and drove up to Tobyhanna to pickup the load. It was a drop and hook, but took a while to get past the security gate. They are pretty slow letting you in there. Was in and out in about one hour. Dropped down on I-80 and headed west. I made it as far as Stony Ridge, OH for the night. Finally got a shower, first since Saturday. What happens when freight so slow you sit a lot. Sometimes you are stuck where there are no showers. Use plenty of Febreze in the truck.

Started growing a beard about this time last week. Had a full week's growth today. Since I got tired of the itching, one week was all I got out of it. Found all my gray hair though, hidden on my face.

Took a few pics of Poconos but not much to look at, nothing budding out yet. I'll get some more on next trip when the color is out.

Going to post a few pics today that were from last year. They were very interesting and I had never seen anything like it. In the rock cliffs around Kansas City, MO they cut warehouses into the mountains underground. You drive in and there are docks and warehouses and all. The streets going in and out are very narrow, and you have a heck of a time getting the 53' trailers backed around those rock columns.

This is the first time I went into one of these. The first time there was a one way in and out, and it took over 5 minutes of driving back into the mountain to reach the docks. The second underground warehouse I went in and out the same way and it was a little crowded. Got stuck getting out when there was a truck trying to back into a dock and had a devil of a time doing it, and had the drive blocked in and out. Happened to be around lunch time so time he got it in there, there were a lot of cars and trucks backed down the tunnel wanting out. The pictures here are a little blurred, I found out after the fact that I had the wrong setting on the camera. I had the camera only about 4 months at that time, and first pictures in low light.

I had several more pictures but lost them all when my hard drive crashed last fall. A friend was kind enough to forward these back to me to use. I have a memory stick I back the the pictures and files up now. I have lost a lot of pictures over the last 4 years due to hard drives blowing up. Try to stop that from happening in the future.

Get a Load Tomorrow

Well, I finally was dispatched this afternoon on a load to pick up tomorrow. I travel north of here to Tobyhanna, PA to pickup at 7am in the morning. The load goes over to Windsor, WI for delivery on Friday.

Tobyhanna is right in the middle of the Pocono Mountains. A lot of resorts in the area and a big vacation area year round. Beautiful there in the fall. Mom and Dad may remember coming back through there when we made the trip to Vermont back in 1989 to see the fall colors.

Also not far from Tobyhanna is the NASCAR race track where they have two races each year. Not a fun place to drive through when that is going on though.

When I pickup the load I will be traveling I-80 all the way to Chicago, then up I-90 to Madison, WI. Will be toll road across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Some years ago we used to carry large amounts of money to pay for the tolls, never let yourself get below $300. Now they have what they call EZ-Pass which is an electronic sensor attached to your windshield, as you go through a toll booth it reads it automatically and you just drive on through. The company gets the bill in the mail. EZ-Pass is good for all toll roads in the north eastern states, West Virginia, Indiana, and Illinois. Doesn't work in other states, still have to come up with the cash and turn in receipts for reimbursement.

Going on to Long Island New York used to be a minimum of $100 to get in and out. Had to cross 2 bridges going in and 2 coming out at $25 a pop. EZ-Pass system sure helps.

Have a blizzard blowing through the Dakotas right now, but according to weather on internet Madison will miss that. Supposed to slide off to the south of there. I will try to get a picture or two of Poconos tomorrow when go in there, but the trees haven't really starting budding up here yet, so may look a little dull.

Another Day Another Set

I delivered my load yesterday at Noon to grocery warehouse in Bethlehem, PA. Grocery warehouses are another sticking point to truck drivers. They have a lumper scam that has been in place probably over 50 years.

You arrive at a grocery warehouse and you have the option to unload the truck yourself or pay a lumper service which is conveniently set up in an office next to the receiving office. If you choose to do it, you do it by hand one piece at a time because you can't use their pallet jacks or other equipment to do it with. You hire the lumper service to do it for you, the prices to unload the truck can range from $50 to $350 depending on where you are. The $350 I paid in Salt Lake City once.

You take the price they give you and you have to get a Comchek from your company or pay them cash. The company turns around and gets the money usually from the shipper. Why the receiver can't just bill the shipper for the unloading is beyond me. The lumper service is not on the receiver's payroll so they have no responsibility if the lumpers hold you up for hours or tear up the product getting it off the truck. Very convenient. Kind of puts you at the mercy of the receiver, but that is always the case with driving a truck. Part of the job.

Had a lady tell me the other day she had trouble with a driver and he really copped an attitude, pulled a hand gun and wanted the stuff off his truck. He got a free room for the night, idiot. No wonder we have a bad name.

After getting the load off the truck, no freight. They were still working to find loads for drivers sitting over the weekend. Now it is Tuesday morning and hoping something will come up soon and get moving again.

Everyone have a good day. Down to 18 deg last night, but the sun is out.

What Fun

Since I am only about 2 1/2 hr drive from where I deliver, and I have an appointment time tomorrow of 12 noon, I decided to stay here in Binghamton, NY. Had good signal for computer and get CBS for basketball, and Fox for NASCAR. If I move down closer to where I deliver, I probably won't have any of those things. If I got to sit this long anyway, I'll just stay here.

This kind of waiting on loads is very uncommon. I haven't seen it in all my time out here, especially with this company. Weekends have become super bad. There just aren't any loads on the weekend to pick up anymore like used to be. And if you only get one of 250 miles on Friday that delivers on Monday, it is all you going to get.

So nothing much to write about today, don't feel like standing on a soapbox. Back to my races and everyone have a great week.