Lock Ho!

Those are the infamous words of "Riderhood," the greedy, gruffly spoken character in Charles Dickens' wonderful novel "Our Mutual Friend."  I couldn't help but recall them while I was in Waterford, New York looking at the Locks there at the Erie Canal.  I give a "hat tip" to Captain Terryble for mentioning to me, in a comment on this blog, to take a look at them while I was in Waterford.  It turned out that my delivery happened to be on the Hudson River Road, right there in view of that section of the river Locks.  It truly is an amazing testament to mankind"s ability to come up with an engineering solution to a daunting problem.  I saw some barges in the waters making their way up river.  By the time I got done with my business there, the weather turned bad and the freezing rain kept me from getting any decent pictures of the locks.  Next time I'm in the area I will try to get some pictures and share them here with you.

Here's a shot of the folks at Gregg Beeche Logistics unloading me in their slushy parking lot at Waterford - the weather was pretty nasty, and quickly turned worse once they got finished.

They left me with only one lonely bundle of stadium seating on my truck that I pulled all the way back over into Kittanning, Pennsylvania.

That run I was on had me going through some beautiful parts of the country.  I was in the Catskill Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, the Susquehanna Valley, and even some time in the Smoky Mountains.  I came across the highest point on I-80 east of the Mississippi river in Pennsylvania, and just covered a lot of nice territory up here in the North East.  I'm taking a 34 hour break today in Dandridge,, TN.

While I was on the last leg of that trip my dispatcher called me with this conversation:

Dispatcher:  Dale, the head boss over the SAPA account (from Phoenix) called me and wants you to rescue a load that Sherman (a fellow driver on this account) can't get to because he has broken down. I told him that you can't do it because we have scheduled you to go to the terminal in Carlisle, PA to have your truck serviced after you complete your load. If we don't have that scheduled maintenance done on time you will lose your bonus money this quarter, and I told him that we just can't do that to you.  He was very insistent with me that we have to do this.  I refused, and reminded him that Corporate insists that we get these regularly scheduled maintenance visits done and yours is due.

Me:  Okay, well you are correct, I will go over my mileage limit on my "B" service if I do that.

Dispatcher:  I know it, and they were not very happy with me when I refused to do it.  The whole reason I'm calling you is that I have a sneaky feeling that he is going to call you direct and tell you that you have got to do this load.  I just wanted to give you a heads up so that you know the background of what is going on.  If they call, you will need to be adamant with them that you cannot do this, or else it will jeopardize your bonus money.

Me:  I'd be glad to do it if you can get us a waiver for the scheduled maintenance.

Dispatcher:  Oh, I know you would, but you know that I have tried that before and they will not give us a pass on this.  If there was any other driver in that area it probably wouldn't matter.  We could just get one of them to do it, since most of them never qualify for their bonus money anyway.  I just can't see us doing this to you - that's like us yanking 1,800 dollars out of your wallet just because you were willing to help us out with a little problem we've got going on.

Me;  Okay, well thanks for the heads up.  I'll be firm and let them know that it just can't be done.

As you can imagine, that was a little unnerving knowing that I was going to have to refuse to do something for the one guy who decides whether I get a raise or not whenever that issue comes up.  I was thinking about the most diplomatic ways to refuse to do something, but when you flatly refuse to help someone with a pressing problem, it is not usually easy to come off as diplomatic!

About thirty minutes later my phone starts ringing!

When I looked at the phone it was my dispatcher, Jason.  This time he tells me that the "Big Boss" called him back and was forwarding him an e-mail from the head of corporate maintenance indicating that they were going to waive my mileage limitation on my scheduled maintenance and allow me to exceed my mileage on this service without penalizing me.  He then forwarded it to me along with the new marching orders to go and pick up the load in Cressona, PA.  The load goes to IMC Aluminum in Unicoi, TN - which is how I ended up over here in the "Smokies."

This is me parked inside the building here at Unicoi...

I've mentioned in here before about the wide variety of shapes of these extrusions that I haul.  Take a look at this one.  It reminds me of a dinosaur's foot print for some reason!  I've hauled these before, and they are used in manufacturing some sort of a control arm in the automotive industry.

After taking care of my original load, and then rescuing this one for Sherman, I have run almost 3,500 miles this week, and burned up all my available hours.  Thus I am here taking a break in the "Smokies."  My next thing I've got to do is dead-head back to Delhi so that I can drop this "Conestoga" trailer off there, and then I will "bobtail" over to Gulfport, Mississippi to have my "B" service done on my truck.  After that is complete I will "bobtail" back to Delhi for my next load.  Hopefully if all goes well I will be back in Delhi by Tuesday, (they usually have some good loads on Tuesdays) and rinse and repeat!

I mentioned recently about my history in the sign business, and how interesting signs still catch my attention.  Here's one that I see in Bristol, TN every time I come through here.  I managed to get a shot of it this time while I was stopped at the intersection.  I thought my good friend and Luthier, Steve Kinnaird might appreciate it!