Conspicuously From The South

They dropped my Buffalo delivery off of this load, so I ended up with a straight shot to Riverdale, New Jersey before making my final push into Charlestown, New Hampshire, where I am parked tonight in my customers parking lot awaiting the morning's rush of employees, coming in to work, so that I can get this final piece of freight off of my truck. Everything I had on this load, but for this one last bundle, was delivered earlier today at the Camfil facility in Riverdale, New Jersey.

I took advantage of a provision in the FMCSA regulations called the split sleeper berth rule to work a little magic with my clock today so that I could get the most accomplished. I'm not going to bore you with how this rule works because it is so confusing that I'm not sure I could explain it with enough clarity for a non-truck driver to comprehend. The truth is that most truck drivers don't ever attempt to take advantage of it because they don't understand it, and it's also true that a lot of truck drivers don't even know the rule exists. The last time I advantageously utilized this provision I got a call from my dispatcher the very next morning telling me it was brilliant. It really wasn't all that smart, but when you are dispatching a bunch of other drivers who are constantly complaining about the restrictions of the clock not allowing them to get enough done so they can make a dollar, it probably seems brilliant at the time.

Basically it allowed me to not have to take a full ten hour break after driving through the night last night which let me get to Riverdale in time to get unloaded today, and then after taking a two hour break at Riverdale it gave me enough time to run through New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont while arriving at Charlestown New Hampshire in time to shut down before my legal working hours were over for the day. Had I taken a full ten hour break last night I would have been late getting to Riverdale before they stopped receiving for the day, and that would have put both their delivery, and this one in New Hampshire, off for another day. This allows me to turn in my paperwork for this job in time for it to go on this weeks pay period which adds a little more than 1,500 miles on to this week's pay, and it also allows me to get a jump ahead onto the next pay period's work load.

Here's a look at Julio Quinonis, the friendly fork lift operator, as he unloads my truck while at Riverdale.

The folks up here pronounce the name of their state as “New Hamshah”. Every time I come here, after just a brief amount of conversation with them, they will always ask me where I'm from. Then after I proudly tell them I'm from the great state of Texas they will usually say something like, “Oh that explains it.” I've always thought it was a reference to my hat that I'm usually wearing, but today I wore a toboggan much like many of them wear, but they still went through the same verbal exchange with me. One of these days I'm going to figuah out what it is that makes it so obvious that I'm not from around these pahts!