Tis the Season... for Cold Weather And Christmas Tunes

I started my day early today.  The alarm went off at 3:45.  I looked out my windows into a thick fog and saw that there were four of us waiting on Yarde Metal's property to be unloaded.  They let us all in the gate at four a.m.  They told me to pull up to door number one and they would open it up when they were ready for me to pull in.  At six a.m. the door finally opened!  That is a good example of why I mentioned that I would start this day without logging myself on duty when I get started.  Had I logged myself on duty, I would have lost about three hours off of my fourteen hour clock today.  I was inside their building for another hour by the time we got finished.

As fork-lifts hustled and bustled around me, I listened to the melodic strains of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" as it played through the warehouse's speaker system while getting unloaded at that first stop this morning.  Here I am inside the building at last. I waited all night for this moment to take place, and I finally got moving on out of here around 0700.

Next stop was in Bristol at Reed and Stephanow Machine shop.  They got right to me and I was out of there in a flash.  We removed six bundles at Yarde, and six more at Reed and Stephanow.  Here is Scott White, the only employee at the machine shop who even seems to know anything about how to operate a fork lift, taking off the materials that they have been waiting on.

From there I made my way over to Stanley, my final destination, where Jorgo always takes good care of me.  They get the last 18 bundles off the truck.  Here's Jorgo, "git'n er done."

By 9:30 a.m. I'm finished up and ready to start rolling toward Bridgewater, New Jersey to pick up the return materials bound for the SAPA plant in Delhi, Louisiana.  I arrived in Bridgewater at about thirty minutes past noon, and I was out of there by 1:15.  They only had one bundle, so it didn't take long at all.  I made my way from there on down to Carlisle, Pennsylvania where I am spending the night at one of our Knight terminals here.

All in all it was a very good day, but man this wind over here in Carlisle is like a knife - it is almost painful.  I am tired tonight, and I should sleep very well.  I've earned another night's repose.  We accomplished what we set out to do, and it all went well.

My dispatcher called today and wants me to hurry up and get back,  He says he wants me to run another load right back up to the Northeast, and that he already has a back-haul load lined up from Cressona, Pennsylvania to go with it.  These are gravy runs as far as I'm concerned, but very few of our drivers want to even touch them.  I was talking to one of our drivers the other day, and he asked me where I was headed.  When I told him Connecticut he stated emphatically that he wouldn't do that run.  He then went on to tell me that he doesn't drive at night, and he won't go north of the Mason Dixon line!  Well, I did both of those things to make this load work, and I guess I'll just keep on getting those "gravy" runs while these other guys settle for the left-overs.

I've got to hit the sack... I'm leaving here at about three in the morning, and gonna get just about as far down the road as I legally can tomorrow.