I had to wait until Monday morning for them to get an appointment set for me to deliver. My worst nightmare and it happened, got a 10pm appointment. Hate those after setting up all day long. I can't sleep in the daytime remember, especially after getting a good night's sleep. I went over to drop the load and then search for an empty trailer, that took almost a hour to find one.
They next gave me a load setting on their drop yard in Macungie, PA that needed to deliver in Mahwah and Clifton, NJ the next morning. It had to drops on it and I had to pick up the load and drive to the first stop in Mahwah, which is on the New York line in far northern New Jersey, and luckily they had enough room I could park at 2am and wait for them to open. I got about 1 or 2 hour nap in before they showed up to unload the first half of the trailer. I had until 3pm to deliver the second half of the load so I stayed at the customer until I had a 10 hour break in and then finished the load.
I was given a Budweiser load out of Newark, NJ next. It was going to Traverse City, MI. Never been in this area of Michigan before. Very northwest tip across the lake from the upper peninsula of Michigan. Further north than Toronto, Ontario. I figure it is the winter vacation spot for Santa's elves and they needed the beer for the big party after Christmas Eve. Here it was my delivering there on Christmas Eve and it looks closer to the North Pole than home. Couldn't hitch a ride with Santa so not making it home.
Starting out with the load I discovered that I had a ground problem with the trailer lights. Fairly new trailer too. When you turned on the lights the brake lights came on and stayed on. So had to find a shop in Penn. to get it fixed, by the time I got that done I had to get some sleep, it was 11pm by then. I was a little tired.
Next morning had sunny skies and moderate temperatures and headed west and try to make it as close to the my delivery as possible. I was lucky that the temperatures Thursday in Traverse City was near 30 degrees, couldn't believe my luck. It was actually colder in Indiana and Illinois than where I was. Pretty country up there, and the town was a resort area on Lake Michigan. Didn't see any elves though, course they were still working I'm sure.
Picked up a load of water about 100 miles south of there near Grand Rapids that I will deliver in Rockford, IL on Saturday morning. I am spending the night in Gary, IN tonight and it is raining hard outside. Same system that was dropping 2' of snow west of here, just a little warmer here for some reason. Supposed to change over to snow tomorrow afternoon, but I'm going to be sitting in Rockford by then.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
WI-MI-PA
I delivered my load to Jefferson, WI on Friday morning. I had to drive up from around Springfield, IL to make my 10am appt. Left at 330am. Got there with one hour to spare. Roads were in good condition although it is always hard getting in and out of customers at times because they don't spend as much time cleaning the ice and snow out of their parking lots and docks. When I went to back into their dock I was sitting on ice and there was a 12" high clump of snow and ice in front of the dock door. Backing up I got up against it with my trailer tires about 6" or so from the dock. My tractor tires were spinning on the ice, to get it all the way back I had to pull forward some and get some speed to get up on the ridge of snow. Just caused a problem of slamming the dock really hard because I couldn't stop the momentum.
After getting empty I was sent over to Pleasant Prairie, WI, which is between Milwaukee and Chicago on the state line. I picked up a load of blue trays going to a Pepsi plant in Howell, MI. Got loaded and headed south around Chicago. It is 100 miles from the north side of Chicago around to Gary, IN. Traffic all the way. Had a mixture of snow and rain when I started out and it had stopped about half way down. Made it over near Kalamazoo, MI for then night.
Started out the next morning and was having light snow. The right lane of the freeway was pretty good shape but the left lane was snow and ice covered still. It was 5 am when I left the truck stop. Had another idiot passing me on the ice and just as they got up along side my tractor they lost traction on the ice. I'm sitting here watching this joker starting to slip my way backing off my accelerator and moving over right on to the icy shoulder, he steers right, then back left, right, left .... back ass wards in the ditch. OOPS! Missed me, all I care about. Two miles down the road they had both lanes cleared off...impatience and stupidity strikes again.
Delivered the load to Pepsi, then over to Grand Rapids, MI to pick up a load going to near Allentown, PA. Blizzard (nor'easter) coming right up I-95. Those are fierce ones coming out of the south like that. We experienced a couple of those before back in the 90s. I came all the way across I-80 this morning in Pennsylvania and was wet/dry roads all the way.
I'm stopped north of Allentown about 50 miles and will wait until Monday morning until dispatch tells me what my appointment time is. Seems they didn't get it set over the weekend.
After getting empty I was sent over to Pleasant Prairie, WI, which is between Milwaukee and Chicago on the state line. I picked up a load of blue trays going to a Pepsi plant in Howell, MI. Got loaded and headed south around Chicago. It is 100 miles from the north side of Chicago around to Gary, IN. Traffic all the way. Had a mixture of snow and rain when I started out and it had stopped about half way down. Made it over near Kalamazoo, MI for then night.
Started out the next morning and was having light snow. The right lane of the freeway was pretty good shape but the left lane was snow and ice covered still. It was 5 am when I left the truck stop. Had another idiot passing me on the ice and just as they got up along side my tractor they lost traction on the ice. I'm sitting here watching this joker starting to slip my way backing off my accelerator and moving over right on to the icy shoulder, he steers right, then back left, right, left .... back ass wards in the ditch. OOPS! Missed me, all I care about. Two miles down the road they had both lanes cleared off...impatience and stupidity strikes again.
Delivered the load to Pepsi, then over to Grand Rapids, MI to pick up a load going to near Allentown, PA. Blizzard (nor'easter) coming right up I-95. Those are fierce ones coming out of the south like that. We experienced a couple of those before back in the 90s. I came all the way across I-80 this morning in Pennsylvania and was wet/dry roads all the way.
I'm stopped north of Allentown about 50 miles and will wait until Monday morning until dispatch tells me what my appointment time is. Seems they didn't get it set over the weekend.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Houston
I delivered my Oklahoma loads and was sent up to Sapulpa, OK near Tulsa to pick up a load going to Houston. Had a full load of new empty beer bottles going to a warehouse across from Anheuser Busch. I delivered that Tuesday evening and picked up a load from Clorox plant and delivered out to Walmart DC west of Houston in Sealy on Wednesday morning. Then drove into Deer Park, TX and picked up a load going to Jefferson, WI. It is an additive that goes into dog food. I deliver the load Friday morning. Should be halfway decent weather, at least not in single digits.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Iowa Blizzard
Well that was a fun trip...not!!
I sat most of the day Wednesday because I-80 west bound was closed between Iowa City and Des Moines, IA. Seems a set of doubles had jack knifed and blocked the road at the 175 mile marker. Couple of other trucks too. The winds were blowing at up to 30 mph with gusts to 60 mph in places. That is not fun when you have a light load or are running empty. A van trailer like I have acts like a sail on a boat and if you are sitting on ice you are like a feather on the wind on Forest Gump...you go where it blows you. I had 45,000 pounds on my trailer and on slick roads, heavier is better.
I had contacted dispatch and told them the road was blocked and was waiting. I was getting the information off of the computer where Iowa has a 511 site. This is supposed to be a nationwide emergency road system that is put up by each state. Most of the states where you have snow areas have the system in place. If they would update it now and then it would work better. I combine that with checking with drivers going east on the conditions. You have to learn to read those reports because there are many drivers on the road today that are not very professional. They like to give false reports just to mess with the minds of rookie drivers. Over the years I have come to be pretty good in weeding out phony reports. I have complete confidence in my driving abilities in any conditions. What you cannot predict is what others do around you, because quite frankly, most of them have no ability at all.
So in watching the 511 site all day it kept saying I-80 was closed, talking to drivers coming east I learned it was open and had been since noon. It just took them until 3pm to get to where I was in Atalissa, IA. At 3:30pm I left headed west. Blizzard conditions were still going on with the high winds and blowing snow. Temperatures were dropping and down to 10 degrees. Near Iowa City I put myself in a bad situation by not letting off the accelerator soon enough. Braking you don't do on ice. Was following a truck in front of me and keeping around 10 seconds of following distance. Coming into Iowa City we were going up an incline. I was watching traffic coming up on my left side because you have to watch everyone who gets close to you. More on that later. When I looked back to the front the truck in front of me had slowed dramatically going up the incline and had never touched his brakes. Touching my brakes it just slid so let off and steered to the shoulder because 2 cars were in the left lane and coming up on me quick. If I had pulled left they wouldn't have been able to stop and would have been in it too. Had to steer gently to keep from jack knifing and just missed the right rear of the trailer in front of me by inches. Thank God the shoulder was clear, I just kept going up the shoulder because if I had stopped going up the hill on that ice I couldn't get going again. The truck that was causing the problem in front of the one in front of me was only doing about 5 mph. I had to pass 2 trucks and a car in between them and pulled back in to the right lane in front of them. Telling them while I was passing on the right what I was doing. That came out all right no accidents caused.
Further toward Des Moines I had stopped to get fuel and pulled back out on the road going west again. It was dark and about 7 pm. Roads were ice covered but the winds had finally died down and could see. I was going down a hill about 30 mph and a couple of cars came by me on my left side. The last one, a large Continental, lost it a couple of hundred feet after he got by me. He started doing 360's in front of me. It reminded me of a NASCAR race. Here I'm going down an icy hill trying to slow down and he is sliding sideways in my lane, I was getting ready to wake up Leroy. As the joke goes, because he has never seen an accident like this before...
Well again, there was another car on my left side which limited my choices. Right at the last moment that car on my left cleared me and he had enough sense to keep going on past the sliding guy, I started gradually steering left and finally just before I got to this guy he slid off into the right hand ditch. What I mean, you can't protect yourself against the stupidity of others when your outs are limited. You have to work constantly to keep as many outs around you as possible whether you need them at the moment or not.
I finally made it to Des Moines and out the other side. You find in conditions such as this that they pull the snow plows off the highway, because as soon as they pass an area the winds cover it back up again. In a populated area it is a losing battle because the larger than normal traffic packs the snow into an icy glaze that takes time to remove. Once I got 20 miles out west of Des Moines the roads cleared off and had smooth sailing to Council Bluffs, IA across the river from Omaha.
I went to our terminal there and let dispatch know I got there and didn't have enough time to take my 10 hour break and make the 7am appointment Thursday morning. They let me drop it and would try to get another driver to deliver it next morning. Well my night wasn't over because once I dropped that trailer and pulled out I got stuck. A bobtail tractor gets stuck on ice every time and their parking lot was full of snow and ice. They had over 12" that day and hadn't gotten it removed yet. I had tried to back into a spot where a trailer had been parked all day. It was dry there but blowing snow had left a drift on each side of the space. I had backed up against the drift which was about 12" of loose snow. There was a slight ridge in the ice in front of me and I was blocked front and back. I had to get out and hack the ice with a crow bar and scoop out with my hands in front and back of all 10 tires. I did this continually and rocked the truck back and forth until I finally started moving a few inches after each hack job.
Took me close to 1 hour to get moved over to another area out of the drive. The temperature was down to -1 degree and was glad the wind had stopped blowing. Next morning they had given the load to another driver, but he was stuck in front of the trailer I had dropped. Dispatch sent me a note to get back on the load and deliver it because this driver was stuck. Well until he got unstuck I couldn't get to the trailer. Shop workers came in and got him moved with shovels and cat litter. I drove over to the trailer and went past it up the hill. I put it in reverse and started backing down to it blowing my horn. Bouncing over the snow ridges and right up under the trailer.
Well I delivered the load 2 hours late but I got it there. They gave me a load from Omaha to Chicago. Had to go back across I-80. The only place I had a problem was getting back through Des Moines which was still icy. They had 10+ car pile up coming into town that closed the freeway and had to wait about 1 hour for them to push the cars off into the ditch. They don't tow in weather like that. They let all the ice melt before they start towing. Tow truck drivers were going to get rich as soon as they let them out there. Lost count of the number of semis and cars off the road.
I delivered to downtown Chicago area Friday morning and then picked up a load of T-posts in the area going to Oklahoma for Monday. Stopped at our terminal in Ottawa, IL on the way out and they serviced my truck Friday night. Made it to Muskogee, OK Saturday night and will set here until Monday morning.
I sat most of the day Wednesday because I-80 west bound was closed between Iowa City and Des Moines, IA. Seems a set of doubles had jack knifed and blocked the road at the 175 mile marker. Couple of other trucks too. The winds were blowing at up to 30 mph with gusts to 60 mph in places. That is not fun when you have a light load or are running empty. A van trailer like I have acts like a sail on a boat and if you are sitting on ice you are like a feather on the wind on Forest Gump...you go where it blows you. I had 45,000 pounds on my trailer and on slick roads, heavier is better.
I had contacted dispatch and told them the road was blocked and was waiting. I was getting the information off of the computer where Iowa has a 511 site. This is supposed to be a nationwide emergency road system that is put up by each state. Most of the states where you have snow areas have the system in place. If they would update it now and then it would work better. I combine that with checking with drivers going east on the conditions. You have to learn to read those reports because there are many drivers on the road today that are not very professional. They like to give false reports just to mess with the minds of rookie drivers. Over the years I have come to be pretty good in weeding out phony reports. I have complete confidence in my driving abilities in any conditions. What you cannot predict is what others do around you, because quite frankly, most of them have no ability at all.
So in watching the 511 site all day it kept saying I-80 was closed, talking to drivers coming east I learned it was open and had been since noon. It just took them until 3pm to get to where I was in Atalissa, IA. At 3:30pm I left headed west. Blizzard conditions were still going on with the high winds and blowing snow. Temperatures were dropping and down to 10 degrees. Near Iowa City I put myself in a bad situation by not letting off the accelerator soon enough. Braking you don't do on ice. Was following a truck in front of me and keeping around 10 seconds of following distance. Coming into Iowa City we were going up an incline. I was watching traffic coming up on my left side because you have to watch everyone who gets close to you. More on that later. When I looked back to the front the truck in front of me had slowed dramatically going up the incline and had never touched his brakes. Touching my brakes it just slid so let off and steered to the shoulder because 2 cars were in the left lane and coming up on me quick. If I had pulled left they wouldn't have been able to stop and would have been in it too. Had to steer gently to keep from jack knifing and just missed the right rear of the trailer in front of me by inches. Thank God the shoulder was clear, I just kept going up the shoulder because if I had stopped going up the hill on that ice I couldn't get going again. The truck that was causing the problem in front of the one in front of me was only doing about 5 mph. I had to pass 2 trucks and a car in between them and pulled back in to the right lane in front of them. Telling them while I was passing on the right what I was doing. That came out all right no accidents caused.
Further toward Des Moines I had stopped to get fuel and pulled back out on the road going west again. It was dark and about 7 pm. Roads were ice covered but the winds had finally died down and could see. I was going down a hill about 30 mph and a couple of cars came by me on my left side. The last one, a large Continental, lost it a couple of hundred feet after he got by me. He started doing 360's in front of me. It reminded me of a NASCAR race. Here I'm going down an icy hill trying to slow down and he is sliding sideways in my lane, I was getting ready to wake up Leroy. As the joke goes, because he has never seen an accident like this before...
Well again, there was another car on my left side which limited my choices. Right at the last moment that car on my left cleared me and he had enough sense to keep going on past the sliding guy, I started gradually steering left and finally just before I got to this guy he slid off into the right hand ditch. What I mean, you can't protect yourself against the stupidity of others when your outs are limited. You have to work constantly to keep as many outs around you as possible whether you need them at the moment or not.
I finally made it to Des Moines and out the other side. You find in conditions such as this that they pull the snow plows off the highway, because as soon as they pass an area the winds cover it back up again. In a populated area it is a losing battle because the larger than normal traffic packs the snow into an icy glaze that takes time to remove. Once I got 20 miles out west of Des Moines the roads cleared off and had smooth sailing to Council Bluffs, IA across the river from Omaha.
I went to our terminal there and let dispatch know I got there and didn't have enough time to take my 10 hour break and make the 7am appointment Thursday morning. They let me drop it and would try to get another driver to deliver it next morning. Well my night wasn't over because once I dropped that trailer and pulled out I got stuck. A bobtail tractor gets stuck on ice every time and their parking lot was full of snow and ice. They had over 12" that day and hadn't gotten it removed yet. I had tried to back into a spot where a trailer had been parked all day. It was dry there but blowing snow had left a drift on each side of the space. I had backed up against the drift which was about 12" of loose snow. There was a slight ridge in the ice in front of me and I was blocked front and back. I had to get out and hack the ice with a crow bar and scoop out with my hands in front and back of all 10 tires. I did this continually and rocked the truck back and forth until I finally started moving a few inches after each hack job.
Took me close to 1 hour to get moved over to another area out of the drive. The temperature was down to -1 degree and was glad the wind had stopped blowing. Next morning they had given the load to another driver, but he was stuck in front of the trailer I had dropped. Dispatch sent me a note to get back on the load and deliver it because this driver was stuck. Well until he got unstuck I couldn't get to the trailer. Shop workers came in and got him moved with shovels and cat litter. I drove over to the trailer and went past it up the hill. I put it in reverse and started backing down to it blowing my horn. Bouncing over the snow ridges and right up under the trailer.
Well I delivered the load 2 hours late but I got it there. They gave me a load from Omaha to Chicago. Had to go back across I-80. The only place I had a problem was getting back through Des Moines which was still icy. They had 10+ car pile up coming into town that closed the freeway and had to wait about 1 hour for them to push the cars off into the ditch. They don't tow in weather like that. They let all the ice melt before they start towing. Tow truck drivers were going to get rich as soon as they let them out there. Lost count of the number of semis and cars off the road.
I delivered to downtown Chicago area Friday morning and then picked up a load of T-posts in the area going to Oklahoma for Monday. Stopped at our terminal in Ottawa, IL on the way out and they serviced my truck Friday night. Made it to Muskogee, OK Saturday night and will set here until Monday morning.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Long Couple of Weeks
Got call at 7am Monday Nov. 23rd from my brother Charlie, Mom and wife Pat all within 10 mins that Dad had just passed away. I was 30 minutes from my delivery in Laredo. Had to get with terminal to get routed to the house which is not easy. They won't just deadhead you 400 miles to the house for anything, life of a trucker. Had to pick up a load Monday afternoon and take all the way to Dallas to drop it on the yard there for someone else to deliver. I left Laredo and made it to San Antonio Monday night and was out of hours. I left there at 4:30am Tuesday and drove straight through to Dallas and dropped the load at 9am. Picked up an empty trailer and made the 3 hour drive home. I got home at 1pm Tuesday.
We loaded up the pickup and I showered and hit the road at 3pm. Went to town to pickup a prescription for Pat and headed out to Athens, TN for the funeral. They got it set for 8pm Wednesday night so I would have time to get there and the grave side ceremony on Thursday morning, Thanksgiving Day. I drove straight through getting to Athens around 7am Wednesday. Eastanalle Baptist Church fixed lunch for the family at 1pm. We had private viewing around 3pm. The visitation that night at 6pm to 8pm with the services afterwards. I got to bed at 10:30pm after having been up 42 hours. Slept pretty good. I remember having the cell phone in my hand setting the alarm so I could get up early and found it laying under me the next morning. We had the graveside that morning at 10am and then lunch at Calhoun's Methodist Church at noon.
We left Friday afternoon headed home. Got to Meridian, MS spending the night there. Got home Saturday at 3pm or so. Crashed pretty soon afterward.
Spent the rest of the week trying to finish the living room to the point I could at least get it painted. Did that and got some trim up. Next time in need to get the flooring down, finish the trim and work on taxes. Yep that time again. Since I only get 4 days a month at home I have to get early start.
Went to Houston on Saturday the 5th to eat lunch with grand kids. Then back home and watched Alabama get by Florida. Hated that. Don't like either but like Alabama less. Then the Texas/Nebraska game. That was a good one and what a defensive battle. See if Texas can pull off an upset of Alabama next.
Left home on Sunday Dec. 6th, my birthday, picking up a load in Kilgore going to Lexington, KY. Load of aluminum jar lids going to Smuckers. Then a load Monday night out of just south of Lexington going up to Terre Haute, IN which I delivered at 9am this morning. Only had 2 pallets to deliver to Kelloggs there.
Then they gave me a load from Terre Haute going to Omaha, NE. Bummer because a blizzard coming through there. I got up just west of Davenport, IA and the roads were ice and snow covered and night time, and temperature dropped to 30 degrees and I parked it. Still have 300 miles to go and it won't be fun tomorrow. Will still be snowing and wind gusts up to 45 mph which means blowing snow. Temperature will be down in the teens too. Probably 8 to 10 hours to get over there if can get there at all. We will see tomorrow.
We loaded up the pickup and I showered and hit the road at 3pm. Went to town to pickup a prescription for Pat and headed out to Athens, TN for the funeral. They got it set for 8pm Wednesday night so I would have time to get there and the grave side ceremony on Thursday morning, Thanksgiving Day. I drove straight through getting to Athens around 7am Wednesday. Eastanalle Baptist Church fixed lunch for the family at 1pm. We had private viewing around 3pm. The visitation that night at 6pm to 8pm with the services afterwards. I got to bed at 10:30pm after having been up 42 hours. Slept pretty good. I remember having the cell phone in my hand setting the alarm so I could get up early and found it laying under me the next morning. We had the graveside that morning at 10am and then lunch at Calhoun's Methodist Church at noon.
We left Friday afternoon headed home. Got to Meridian, MS spending the night there. Got home Saturday at 3pm or so. Crashed pretty soon afterward.
Spent the rest of the week trying to finish the living room to the point I could at least get it painted. Did that and got some trim up. Next time in need to get the flooring down, finish the trim and work on taxes. Yep that time again. Since I only get 4 days a month at home I have to get early start.
Went to Houston on Saturday the 5th to eat lunch with grand kids. Then back home and watched Alabama get by Florida. Hated that. Don't like either but like Alabama less. Then the Texas/Nebraska game. That was a good one and what a defensive battle. See if Texas can pull off an upset of Alabama next.
Left home on Sunday Dec. 6th, my birthday, picking up a load in Kilgore going to Lexington, KY. Load of aluminum jar lids going to Smuckers. Then a load Monday night out of just south of Lexington going up to Terre Haute, IN which I delivered at 9am this morning. Only had 2 pallets to deliver to Kelloggs there.
Then they gave me a load from Terre Haute going to Omaha, NE. Bummer because a blizzard coming through there. I got up just west of Davenport, IA and the roads were ice and snow covered and night time, and temperature dropped to 30 degrees and I parked it. Still have 300 miles to go and it won't be fun tomorrow. Will still be snowing and wind gusts up to 45 mph which means blowing snow. Temperature will be down in the teens too. Probably 8 to 10 hours to get over there if can get there at all. We will see tomorrow.
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