Catching A Break

I have been really busy, so much so that I have not been able to post anything in here for a little bit. Typically this would be the slow time of the year for flat-bedding, but so far it has not let up for me. I took something like ten days off for Christmas, and while that is unusual to be able to do that in this business, I have that option in this position due to the fact that the plant we are dedicated drivers for shuts down for maintenance during that week.  If we want or need to work, Knight will find us third party loads, but for me it gives me a chance to take some time with my family, and that is a huge benefit to driving on this particular account.

Here's a look at what I picked up in Pennsylvania for my back haul load.

After my foggy trip up into the Northeast quarter of the country the weather got bad down in Tennessee where they were salting the roads as I was driving.  The salt on the roads makes such a huge mess of everything.  It gets all over your truck and your tarps, and then when you go to folding up your tarps it gets in your clothing and your gloves.  This time of year I can't even wipe my mouth with my hand without getting the taste of salt in my mouth.

I had a pleasant surprise at the SAPA plant in Cressona.  They had installed a new tarping machine! Now we no longer have to back into those ridiculously tight tarping bays and try to walk (more like ice skating) on top of the poly sheeting required to be underneath our tarps when pulling a load from this plant.  There are various types of tarping machines around, but this one lifts the tarps up in the air and you drive your truck underneath it until you get it lined up how you want and then the machine lowers your tarp down on top of your load.  Here's a shot of it after I've pulled underneath.  Notice the two tarps up above me suspended waiting to descend down on top of my load.  This tarping machine also lays out the poly sheeting for us.  This is great... the machine does all the work, and I still get paid an extra 45 dollars for tarping!  You can't beat a deal like that.

My next load out of Delhi was some stadium seating going to the State Fair Grounds in Salt Lake City, Utah.  We have a lot of customers that build stadium seating.  If you find yourself sitting on some aluminum benches at a stadium, it is possible that I delivered them.  We had five truck loads going to this particular location, and I got assigned one of them.

I stopped and took one of my ten hour breaks in Memphis, TX.  This is an old town in Texas that has just about withered away, but it still has some rather majestic looking buildings in it that testify to it's once prominent role in the history of the Lone Star State.  Here's a look at a couple of the older buildings on the town square.  Notice the old red brick streets that are still in place.

Having been involved in the sign business for thirty years prior to my foray into truck driving, unique signs still catch my eye at times. This one is uniquely fitted to this town in that it is an old design and it also shows some signs of deterioration.  Characteristics that are all too familiar with this whole town.

I stayed at a Love's Truck Stop in Memphis that had a Sonic attached to it.  When I went inside to purchase a Hamburger I noticed this strangely out of place piece of artwork right there inside the Sonic.  I'm guessing he had some significance to the town, but for the life of me I do not know what it was!

The weather on my way up to Salt Lake City wasn't too bad, but once I got onto U.S. Hwy 6 in Utah, going up through the mountains there got pretty treacherous.  There was a lot of snow and ice, and it was snowing very heavily in the mountain pass.  As I struggled along and made my way through there slowly, I saw quite a few people who didn't make it through.  I felt the Gentle Giant whom I was commandeering through that mess slip and slide probably more than a couple of dozen times.  My load was not real heavy, (only about 17,000 pounds) and that made it even more tricky.

It's a funny thing how SAPA insists that we tarp every load.  I understand why, but it is strange when you go to all the trouble of making sure this stuff stays dry and free from the road salts, and then the customer you are delivering to just unloads it off into a mud hole of salty melted ice water!  This stadium seating was delivered to the job site, and you can see here what they did with it as we delivered it...

You can see the stadium structure taking place in the back ground of this photo of the stack of materials that are waiting here in the mud to go into the project.

If you've never been to Salt Lake City, it is uniquely situated and surrounded entirely by a mountain range,  It really is a beautiful place; in fact the whole state of Utah has an incredible rugged beauty about it.  This is the view from the parking lot of the Fair Grounds where I slept the night before in anticipation of being the first truck unloaded as the sun came up.

I picked up a back haul load from a SAPA plant just south of Salt Lake City out of Spanish Fork, Utah with five stops on it in the Dallas Fort Worth area of Texas.  I spent one of my ten hour breaks in Milan, New Mexico at the Love's truck stop there and enjoyed a delicious meat loaf plate lunch at this little diner across the street from the truck stop.

Of the five stops I had to make happen all in one day, only the Earle M. Jorgenson company had me waiting excessively.  Here's a shot of what we truck drivers do best - "Hurry up and wait!"

My really incredible dispatcher put an extra 75 dollars on my paycheck for waiting at this customer for a few hours!  I couldn't believe it when I got the message about extra pay on the load.  I still managed to get it all done on that day because I started so early, but that is just the way they do me on this job.  I cannot express how generous they are with extra pay on this account.  Often times he pays me double for the tarp pay, if there are multiple stops.  I always appreciate their efforts at making the job worthwhile, and they are constantly surprising me with a little extra here and there.  I think they just do what ever they can get away with according to the terms of their contract.

I am "catching a break" right now and taking a 34 hour reset so that I can take off with my next load tomorrow.  It pulls out of Delhi, Louisiana and has four stops in:

✔  Waynesboro, Virginia

✔  Riverdale, New Jersey

✔  Kittanning, Pennsylvania

✔  Waterford, New York

Busy, busy!