This Week

Been busy. After Metairie, LA I picked up a load of imported coffee going to Cincinnati, OH. From Cincinnati picked up a load of plastic bottles going to Harrisonville, MO just south of Kansas City, MO.

Then got stuck, they had loads that would get me home for home time, but I didn't have the hours to get them delivered by the appointment time. Ended up getting a load (after being offered 3 different loads I couldn't deliver) that picked up after midnight Friday night going to Houston. Doesn't deliver until Monday so a lot of time wasted. Wouldn't have been so picky but have a CAT Scan on my ear that follows one I had last year for a comparison. Had to get in by Monday in order to drive back to Houston to get it done on Tuesday morning. Ended up losing money this week by not moving much over 4 days.

Ever now and then I get low on fuel on these trips. Everything is done by computer when you get your load assignment. When you report in that you are empty you also let them know how much fuel you have. Their Fuel Solution computer system assigns you fuel stops along the way on your next load. The computer is a little ignorant when it comes to head winds, or heavy loads and mountains though. Sometimes I have to call my home terminal and request an extra fuel stop. It is imperative that you stay on top of your fuel mileage and know how much you are burning. I have become pretty accurate with it over the years.

I have a digital reading on the dash that gives your miles per gallon read out, which is an estimate that is rarely right on the money but at least within 5 gallons or so usually. The fuel gauge is all but useless. It does OK until it hits a 1/4 of a tank. Then the orange warning light comes on and the gauge drops like a rock down to the "E" within a hundred miles. This gets a little disconcerting to say the least. The digital readout saying you have used approximately 140 gallons and the gauge says much more. I have two 100 gallon tanks on the truck. You can only get 95 gallons maximum in each tank, then as a rule you can only pick up all but about 10 gallons out of each tank. So that is 170 gallons of usable fuel. I have run down to 160 gallons once. Didn't like the feeling much since the gauge had been sitting on "E" for almost 200 miles. Normally I never let myself use more than 150 gallons without getting fuel somewhere. I think I did that one just to check and see if I could have a heart attack. Didn't work.

Weekly report

About all I get to now adays...

Delivered over in Alsip, IL, then loaded just north of there at Northlake, IL going to Menomonie, WI for the next day. They sent me from there over to Green Bay, WI to pick up a load from Georgia Pacific going to a grocery warehouse in Monroe, MI on south side of Detroit. It delivered at 1 am Thursday morning. Love those.

There was a truck stop 3 blocks from the warehouse so I was able to get in there in the morning and park and try to sleep before delivery. Got lucky and got 4 or 5 hours before getting up. It took them 3 hours to get me unloaded, wasn't busy they were just slow. From there I drove down to Lima, OH to pick up a load from Procter and Gamble going to Procter and Gamble in Pineville, LA. This load was supposed to be ready at 8 am when I got there, but they had problems and it was 1pm before I finally got the load. That was fun since I had been up since midnight. I got down to Louisville, KY though and went straight to bed. Got up early as soon as my 10 hour break was up and drove hard down to Brookhaven, MS. I needed to get as far as fast as I could because it had to be delivered before 4am on Saturday morning. The 5 hour delay getting the load messed me up on being able to take my time.

Getting up at midnight Friday night, I made it into Pineville with about 30 minutes to spare. They loaded me out of the same plant going to Cleburne, TX on the south side of Ft Worth and it had to be delivered same day. So had to hot foot it over there. Wasn't hard drive since I did get a good night's rest before hand for a change. Once I dropped the load at Walmart, I drove a mile away and picked up a load of insulation from Johns Manville going to Metairie, LA for Monday morning. Stopping at the terminal south of Dallas and waiting to get my truck serviced this afternoon. Hopefully....

If they get me in tonight then I will drive on down to Metairie tomorrow and park until Monday morning.

Up the Pipe

I delivered to General Mills and then got another load out of the General Mills warehouse 15 miles east of there going up to Indian Trails, NC to a grocery warehouse there. I delivered it at 6 pm the next afternoon. Liked this grocery warehouse, they had me in and unloaded in 30 minutes. No lumper to mess with, just did their job. Wow, an anomaly.

Once unloaded they gave me a load sitting on their drop lot in Greensboro, NC 110 miles away that needed to deliver to York, PA asap. I still had to take a break before delivering it, so I only got up into southern Virginia before I went ahead and took a break. I was only picking up 5 hours to work with at midnight and only had 4 hours left for that day, so I couldn't work more than 9 hours total over 2 days anyway.

Friday morning I got up and drove back road up to Richmond, VA and jumped on I-95 going up to north of Baltimore. I call it the "pipe", running up 95 through Richmond, DC and Baltimore all in about 3 or 4 hours. Depends on severity of traffic. Going into DC there was a 30 mile backup going south, glad I was going north. It was only noon on Friday, where all them people were going was beyond me. Got around DC and headed up the 30 miles to Baltimore and there was an accident on the south side and another 4 mile backup, glad I was going north.

Made it up to York about 2:30 pm and dropped the load and was finally given one out of the Church & Dwight facility that I had just dropped in going to the Chicago area. My directions said it was not supposed to be ready until 9 am on Saturday which means I had to leave and there was no place for me to park for 30 miles. On a hunch I stopped by shipping office and found out they had just finished loading the load and it was ready to go. She had just brought in the paperwork for it, or dead tree. There were over 50 pages in the bill of lading. There were that many different products on the truck and it had 7 different P.O.'s.

I got out of there with it and it allowed me to get about a 140 miles up the road. I shut down for a day so I could restart my hours, and will get up Sunday morning and drive the 540 miles over to Gary, IN, and have a fresh start for the delivery on Monday morning.

Hoosier State

I spent the night at the Indianapolis terminal last night because I had an annual review that had to be filled out, along with watching a safety film. Took me a little extra time, but I only had 160 miles to go for my delivery and my load information said I could deliver up to 1 pm.

I got about half way up to Nappanee, IN and I stopped to call the customer to get directions since this was a new one. Should have called the day before, turns out that they stop receiving at noon instead of 1 pm. So I had to push it harder and I got there with about 15 minutes to spare.

Leaving Atlanta it was in the 90's and just hot. When I got up to northern Indiana it was rainy and 68 degrees. Kinda nice. Going north to south helps the spirits sometimes on the heat and humidity. Of course it works in reverse in the winter time.

After unloading my load of insulation at the mobile home manufacturer, I ran 40 miles east to Kendallville, IN to pick up a pre loaded trailer going to Covington, GA. Yep back to Atlanta. Can't get them loads like that in the winter time. The trailer only had 5 pallets of packaging on it going to General Mills. Cereal boxes I believe. I will deliver this one at 3 am Thursday morning.

Back to Abi-Normal

Made it home on the 28th of June for 4 days. Supposedly...early the morning after I got home Pat fell and suffered serious sprain of her left ankle. Thought it might be broke. Took her to the doctor as soon as she was in and she sent us over for x-rays. I ended up taking 2 extra days off and didn't get back to work until July 6th. I had to wait until Pat was at least able to hobble around and take care of her self.

I picked up a load from Longview going to Hutchinson, KS for next day delivery. I unloaded early next morning and waited until 4 pm that afternoon before they gave me a load that picked up Friday morning in McPherson, KS going to Addison, AL. They said I could drop the load on the Kansas City yard since it did not deliver until the following Monday. I was supposed to be able to pick up the load anytime after midnight, so I tried to take a nap, didn't work, but went on over to pick up the load arriving about 12:30am. Wasn't ready. He told me they were loading it though and would call me when it was finished. Two hours later they called me in and gave me the paperwork and....whoa...load was going to Indiana. Wrong address and wrong bill of lading number. He double checked and told me that the load I was waiting on had a glitch in the bar codes, one product had two different codes and couldn't load the trailer until morning when the IT department came in and fixed it.

Well, thanks a lot. Could have told me that 2 hours before. Come to find out they had another load on the yard preloaded going to the same place. Dispatch canceled the original load and redispatched me on the other load. I drove over to Kansas City and dropped the load at 7 am. They then gave me a load that was loading in Kansas City going to Fairburn, GA outside Atlanta. It didn't unload until Monday either but I gained 200 miles.

When I showed up to pick up the load it was delayed because Nestle Purina could not decide what they wanted on the truck. I had to wait 2 hours for them to figure it out. That only left me 45 minutes to find a parking place before I ran out of hours.

It was only 12 noon when I shut down, but since I didn't get any sleep the previous night I was ready for bed this time. I woke up at midnight and ate some breakfast and headed out for Atlanta. I stopped in Murfreesboro, TN for the night, and was thinking of staying until early Monday morning before heading on down to Atlanta, but I had an air leak on the tractor and I left out next morning so I could try and get it fixed along the way.

I figured it was the small air bag that the back of the cab rode on, same thing I had the year before. It could be fixed at a TA truck stop and the only one was in Cartersville, GA. When I got on the south side of Chattanooga I sent a message to break down department and they surprised me by sending me to a truck shop in Chattanooga to get it fixed. I turned around and went the 5 miles back to town and down to the shop and sat and waited until the mechanic showed up. Took him 1 1/2 hours to show up. Took him 5 minutes to tell me he didn't have the part to fix it. Break down then sent me down to the TA truck stop...surprise. I sat outside their shop for 1 hour for an open bay. When he pulled me in it took him 5 minutes to jack up the cab, bleed the air bag, pull it off, slip on the new one, air it up....done. Total down time 4 1/2 hours from time I first called in.

Drove on down to Fairburn where I delivered this morning. Got a load now of insulation going up to Nappanee, IN for tomorrow.

Back to Work

I have been very busy since the last entry. I delivered my load on Friday morning in Medford, OR and then was given a load to pick up at Cascade wood products in White City just down the road. It was not ready yet, so I had to set and wait until they were finished. It was around 4pm by the time I got on the road and I returned the same route that I came over by going up and around Crater Lake. Of course I took pictures again which are attached. I have got to get them labeled where they are before I forget them, but no time this morning.

I had to run very hard every day in order to deliver the load in Knoxville, TN on Wednesday the 23rd. There was no time to stop and eat much less stretch my legs. The problem was my hours to work each week and the distance. I pushed hard to get to Grand Island, NE by Sunday afternoon so I could set and restart my hours over 34 hours. That allowed me to start out Tuesday morning at 3am, run hard that day, and then get up at 2am on Wednesday morning and run the last 7 hours to the customer. I had until 2pm to deliver that day. Good thing I pushed hard because I got a message that morning that they would not take the load after 12 noon. I got in there by 10:30am.

Next I was given a hot load just down the street that had to be delivered in Vineland, NJ the next day by noon. I let them know I could not make that time. It was already 2pm and would be 3pm by the time I picked the load up and got going. It was a 630 mile trip which is a good 10 1/2 to 11 hours driving plus had to take a 10 hour break in there. They said go with it anyway. So another hard drive. Only had 3 hours to drive when got load, so I had to drive the last 8 1/2 hours the next morning starting at 3:30am. Other than a drag down going around Washington, DC, I did pretty good and actually got in there by 12:30pm.

I next got a load out of the same plant going to Social Circle, GA. It was not supposed to be ready until Friday morning, but I actually got it that night after I got my 10 hour break in. I drove all night stopping in Duncan, SC Friday morning. The load did not deliver until 1am Sunday morning but I was able to deliver it Saturday morning since it was a drop and hook at General Mills warehouse. I ran a shuttle load for them from their plant down the road back to the warehouse, and then got a load of insulation in Winder, GA going to Olive Branch, MS outside Memphis. The load was supposed to be ready at 6pm Saturday, but I did not get it until Sunday morning at 8am. Then drove all day delivering the load at 3pm Sunday, I had to get it in there before 5pm. It was another drop and hook.

Next load was out of Kelloggs in Memphis going to Garland, TX. They offered me one that had to be there at 3am the next morning and I had to tell them I couldn't do that load in 12 hours since it was a 7 hour drive and I had to have a 10 hour break since I drove all day already. They gave me another load out of same plant to same warehouse but it delivered at 7pm Monday night. That worked better.

All of this late pickup and rush rush has happened because warehouses ran their inventories down. My company quit replacing drivers that quit and had over 500 trucks setting. They kept their customers, but when they started filling up their warehouses again there weren't enough trucks and drivers. Now they are pushing everyone until they get those trucks with drivers in them again. Then what? Another slow down and too many drivers?

I made it over to North Little Rock, AR and spent the night. I am now waiting until about 11am to 12 noon before I leave. That way can drive in, drop the load and have some hours left to move. Which won't be far since I don't pick up any hours at midnight and will only have 4 hours to work over 2 days. Confusing?? Log books are a pain and some people can't get a handle on them. I have been doing them since 1975.

New Sites

Ever now and then, after 34 years of doing this, I actually see something new and exciting.

After unloading in Wilsonville, OR they sent me to Hood River, OR to pick up a load of imported Rum/Vodka/Whiskey etc. and I delivered it to the Utah Alcohol and Beverage Control warehouse in Salt Lake City Wednesday morning. In Utah all liquor sales are strictly controlled by the state. After unloading they sent me about 2 miles away to pickup a loaded trailer going to Medford, OR.

What was neat about this load was the routing. There is no easy way to get to Medford from the east. It is located 30 miles north of the California border on I-5 and has mountains on the east and west sides. North and South to actually. My good friend with the 76th Division, Jay Hamilton Ltc-Ret. lived in Medford. I have wanted a load up here for 10 years to visit with him, but sadly he passed away in 2008.

From Salt Lake City I came back in to southern Idaho and across to Boise on I-84 again. From Boise over to the Oregon state line and then picked up US-20 over to Bend, OR. The entire trip of 255 miles has only one town on it by the name of Burns. There is one stretch of 99 miles with no gas stations between Burns and Bend. The first 70 miles or so there is no cell service and it follows a river through valleys most of the way. One poor deer like to have bought the farm and my bumper. She decided to change direction in the middle of the highway and her hoofs were like ice skates. Luckily I had seen her in time to get slowed way down. Didn't have to worry about traffic, wasn't any. I saw another vehicle that first 125 miles about every half hour.

Bend, OR has a population of 80,000 and is kind of like a tourist trap city at the edge of the mountain range. Mt. Hood and 3 Sisters peaks are to the north and northwest. There are state and national parks and camp grounds and trout streams everywhere. Seventy miles south of Bend is Crater Lake. My route took me down and around the north side of Crater Lake and talk about beautiful scenery.

Normal states wouldn't let trucks that close to a National Park, but up here there just aren't any other routes through there. There is a highway on the south side of Yellowstone in Wyoming that swings down by Grand Tetons National Park that is the same way. Very close but just not into the park.

The pictures I have added I haven't labeled yet but will try to later. I have been up a long time and got to hit the hay. Basically the first 17 pictures are leaving Portland going along the Columbia River again, over Cabbage Pass at Pendelton, OR and the rain showers in the distance are around Baker City, OR. Last of these is at truck stop in Salt Lake City.

From there I have a couple in southern Idaho again. Then they pickup with the early morning shots beginning just outside Ontario, OR all the way to Medford, OR. All of the pics of basically vigin ranch land is the 255 miles to Bend. The city pics in middle of shots is one coming in to Bend on US-20. Then I pick up US-97 going south toward Klamath Falls, OR and this is where it starts to get pretty. Stopped at the truck stop for a quick shower in Chemoth, OR.

Leaving there, I went 10 miles south and picked up Oregon hwy 138 west to Oregon hwy 230 south and then picked up Oregon hwy 62 that comes out of Crater Lake National Park.

The last two pics are my sitting in the truck stop on south side of Medford looking at the mountains on west side of I-5 and 2 para-sails. I used my telephoto lens fully extended to catch them. All morning was 35 to 40 degrees until I came down into Medford. Here in Medford they had a high of 70 today. Like it up here.