It's A BIG Country!

The United States really is a big place, although being a truck driver and travelling all across the continent all the time tends to make it seem a bit smaller.  It is funny how after doing this for awhile you start to get to know places all over - you recognize intersections, places to park, and points of interest, or places that have good food.  Having the knowledge or the stored data base of these things starts to make the job much more efficient because you can anticipate how to manage your trips easier and you don't have to be a slave to the map.  I find it amazing how I can drive now from Texas all the way up into New York or Connecticut without even having to consult my map, and still do it without getting off the route of the path that is the most efficient as far as turning the least amount of miles to get there.

Another thing that shows the vast size and geographic diversity of our great nation is the differences in weather that one experiences when constantly moving across the country.  I just completed my work week yesterday afternoon, By work week I mean the time period in which I will have to turn in my paperwork showing my miles that I accomplished for that time period.  In my case we need to have our miles turned in each Tuesday morning by 10 am Central Standard Time.  I started out this week by leaving my comfortable bed and lovely wife in Texas early on Monday morning.  I drove to Delhi, LA to pick up my first load which had several stops on it.  First I went to the Chicago area, then down to Louisville, KY - back northward for two stops in Indianapolis, IN - then all the way up to Wausau, WI.  Form there I was sent to Eau Claire, WI where I picked up almost fifty thousand pounds of sand that was bound for a well site in Baton Rouge, LA.  This brings me back to the point I was making about the differences in the weather.  Once I got as far North as Wisconsin I started seeing things that are so strange to this East Texan - frozen rivers and lakes!  We are still growing produce in our gardens down in Texas in early December, and these poor folks up North are almost ready to start the ice fishing season.

It is amazing all the stuff you see when you spend all your time like some travelling Hobo moving all about with no place to call home.  If I could safely take pictures while driving, this blog would be filled with all kinds of stuff that just sort of happens right before my eyes - like the intriguing site of a grey fox gingerly prancing it's way across a frozen lake, or a white-tailed deer with her triplet set of white spotted babies peacefully grazing in an open field.  It's like living three life times when you are on the go all the time.  It has it's pleasures, which are almost addictive, and it's pains which are only eased by the brief visits at home with the people you love.  Although it was very cold in Wisconsin the snow isn't anything like it was last year, but we are still early in the winter season.

Just in case you are the inquisitive type and are wondering how I hauled a load of sand on a flat-bed trailer, I am happy to show you.  A trip from Wisconsin to Louisiana with fifty thousand pounds of loose sand would leave quite a trail of sand along the way, so it was all packed away in these nice little "gift bags" to keep it all on my truck as it made it's way down south.

This job I am doing is serving a dedicated customer, SAPA Aluminum, but when we get so far away from Louisiana like this, we will try to find a "back haul" load such as this one to help pay our way back to the plant where we will pick up our next load.

So, getting back to the thoughts about how big this land is, when I turned in my paper work showing that I had accomplished the things that were sent to me to do this week, I had driven around thirty six hundred miles!  That is all in a weeks worth of work - the crazy part is I do this all the time.  That is a lot of miles, and you have to be very careful with your time management to be able to do all that legally.  To be honest with you, I actually broke the law in a couple of different ways this week, I'm not excusing it or saying it is right to do, but let me tell you how it happened and you can be the judge of what I should have done.

Just before I picked up this load of sand my dispatcher had scheduled me a fuel stop with instructions to fill up.  This truck holds 250 gallons of fuel - that comes to about 2,000 pounds of fuel.  This load of sand put me over the legal weight limits by about six hundred pounds.  What is a truck driver to do in this situation?  He has the authority to refuse the load, but that means he will sit idle while they unload him and try to find another load for him, which foolishly burns up his legal working hours.  He could demand that the company get him some overweight permits which costs the company more money on a back haul load which they may have taken on the cheap just to help pay for the cost of the trip, plus depending on which states we will be travelling through this may take a couple of days to get processed.  Had I known the weight of this load beforehand I would have instructed my dispatcher to let me wait until loaded to see how we were on the weight before fueling, but I wasn't privy to that information.  So here's what I did: I first contacted my dispatcher with the information and told him what my plan was.  I decided to roll with it because once I had driven about six hundred miles I would be legal due to the burn off rate of the fuel.  This is where math is so useful to a truck driver.  I studied my route and knew that I would be passing two weigh stations in that first six hundred miles.  I also knew that one of them was closed, or at least it was closed earlier that morning when I passed it.  Another part of this calculated risk of mine was that they will usually give you a pass if you are only a small percentage over weight, and by the time I would be at the second weigh station I would be down around less than two percent overweight.  So, I took my chances and what do you think happened at that second weigh station?  They were closed also!

Part of this whole scheme was that I instructed my dispatcher how far I needed to go to become legal, and then I told him where I would like him to dispatch my next fuel stop.  That way I could get myself down to a legal weight, and then when I needed to get fuel I could just weigh my truck at the certified CAT scale at the truck stop, and determine just how much fuel I can take on and still be legal.  I can then manage my fuel intake and burn off to keep me legal the rest of the way to Baton Rouge.  The whole point of telling all this is so that you can realize the challenges I face daily, and the creative ways one can develop to overcome them and keep the wheels turning so that I can maintain a decent level of income.  So many drivers get overly frustrated and give up on this career early on into the learning curve, but I enjoy facing the problems while safely, and creatively coming up with ways to succeed at this stuff.

Okay, I said I broke the law in a "couple" of ways.  The other thing was that as I was on the last leg of my trip, which was from Baton Rouge back to Delhi, I had only three hours and fifty three minutes left on my seventy hour clock.  It was tight but doable, until I got into a construction project where they were stopping the traffic for lengthy periods of time.  So about fifteen minutes before I got to the city limits of Delhi, my Qualcomm started going crazy with it's alarm warning me that I had gone over my seventy hour working limit.  I just calmly ignored it until I got into the plant at Delhi where I am now taking my ten hour break hoping to start all over again on a new work week.  This week I will be working off of my re-cap hours since I didn't get the benefit of a thirty four hour break.  Re-caps are a crazy regulation which states that each day you can only work the same amount of hours that you worked on the day you were working eight days before.

As soon as I can, I will share with you my next adventure, I never know where I may be going, but I can be confident that I will be going somewhere very soon.  My dispatcher is out this week for some training.  Our safety director will be dispatching us and it is never the same when that happens, but hopefully I will still have a productive week.

Oh, I almost forgot, Daniel and I got to meet up with each other in Baton Rouge!  It was kind of late, but we found a restaurant that was still open and we enjoyed a meal together.  He gave me a nice compliment on Trucking Truth when he told about meeting up with me.  He said that having people like me in his life has improved his character.  He is all the time asking me advice, and I try my best to give him good solid wisdom when I can.

Moving On

To do well at this job one must always be moving.  In fact, that is what I get paid to do.  I don't get paid by the hour, nor do I get a salary, I get paid by the miles dispatched to me.  Today I got to my second stop on this load in Louisville KY, where it took them a little longer to unload me than I had anticipated, then I moved my way back up to Indianapolis, IN for two stops there.  My Driver manager had arranged for me to have an appointment at our terminal in Indy to get my truck serviced, and I had to get that done before I could make my next two stops.  I barely made it to the terminal in time for my appointment.  Then my second stop here was going to be closed at 3:30, and I wasn't sure I could make that.  I stayed in contact with them on the phone and it ended up that I made it to their location at 3:29, but they knew I was running late and they agreed to get me unloaded.

Do you remember that photo from the previous post?  All those different bundles of aluminum extrusions on my trailer have now been off loaded with the exception of one.  I am now making the final leg of this journey to Wausau, WI carrying  only one bundle of product!

I'm spending the night at the Pilot in Gary, Indiana with the express purpose of getting up early to get through Chicago before the traffic gets started too heavy.  To be honest with you there is always traffic in Chicago, but early mornings are usually the best times to go through that place.  Once I'm unloaded in Wausau, I will roll on over to Eau Claire, WI to pick up something from a "sand and gravel company" that will go down into the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana.

My friend Daniel Babayev called today to tell me he has a load to Baton Rouge this weekend, so we may try to see each other if it all works out.  I am very tired tonight and will soon be going to bed.

Time To Get Back To Work

Well, I had a wonderful time at home for Thanksgiving.  Stayed home for 5 or 6 days.  It is always hard for me to leave once I've been home a few days.  It is one of the greatest of the many difficulties that go with this job.  Just about the time I get to feeling nice and comfortable at home with my precious wife, then I have to up and leave her again.  It never gets easy.

We had such a sweet time together.  I enjoyed cooking a large pot of seafood gumbo for her and the girls.  Our daughter Sarah got engaged while I was home.  Her "beau" actually met me out on the road at one of my deliveries in Texas to ask my blessing before he proposed to her.  We are very happy for them both.  He came by the house and did the lions share of stirring the roux for me, so if that keeps up as a family tradition, he will be a fine son in law indeed!  We've grown to love Austin just as much as he loves our little girl, so we are glad to have them joined together.

I left out early Monday morning and headed to Delhi Louisiana where I picked up my load which has five different stops on it.  I managed to get the load secured and ready to go, and then made my way up into Marion Arkansas where I shut down for the night.  I drove all day the next day to get myself parked in the parking lot of my first stop in Chicago, IL.

Here is a picture of the guy unloading the fifteen bundles of aluminum that came off at this first stop.

This load is a little crazy in that I now have to backtrack down to Louisville, KY for my second stop, and then back north up into Indianapolis, IN for two more stops,  Then I will have one bundle remaining on my truck which I will drive all the way up to Wausau, Wisconsin.

Tonight I decided to stop at a truck stop rather than trying to sleep at the customers lot.  I'm at a Pilot just on the north side of Louisville.  I will get up and leave at about 5:30 in the morning hoping to be one of the first trucks to get unloaded there tomorrow morning.

This new job is really working out well.  It pays very well, and they seem to have all kinds of work to keep me busy.  My Driver manager often gives me my choice of several different loads that he has available.  That is something very few truck drivers have the privilege of doing.  Most of us are just told where we need to go and that we should have been there yesterday.  As of now I see this as a long term position with some very positive things about it that kind of help make up for the sacrifices one has to make when doing this kind of work.  Nothing can make up for the time that you miss with your family, but knowing that you are able to provide in a meaningful way for them, while absent, helps to mitigate the lost time together.

The Travelling Lifestyle

Well, I've been absent from here for too long.  I know that no one has missed me though, because as far as I know, no one pays any attention to this silly little blog.  I guess I do it for my own pleasure. Does that sound narcissistic?  Who knows maybe I should just stop it all together.  I honestly don't know why I do it - I started it as a way to keep my family informed on where I was and what I'm doing, but it hardly seems necessary with the everyday communication of cell phones.  I remember when I thought people were silly for keeping blogs, but once I started doing it I kind of enjoyed it.  I'm getting way off track here with my personal musings on why I do this little exercise in writing.  I intended on talking a little about the travelling lifestyle, it's ups and downs, and show you one of the interesting places I recently came upon.

I'm sitting here in Franklin Tennessee, the area where many of my dear wife's relatives are from, taking a forced 34 hour break.  I would really rather be working, I'm not overly tired, but according to the crazy regulations that some of our brilliant thinkers in Washington D.C. have come up with to supposedly keep our nations highways safe from overly weary truck drivers, I'm forced to lose income while resting unnecessarily.  Not only did those brilliant minds in Washington think that 34 hours would be just the right amount of rest one needs to get back behind the wheel, but somehow they also thought it would be really wise to make sure that break included two time periods between 1am and 5am.  So, if I happened to have already run my clock out by working for 70 hours at 3pm,  then if you do the math you will find that I have to take a 38 hour break to be able to include those two "magical" time periods.  I don't know where these kind of people could ever possibly be successful in the working world other than in D.C.  They sure wouldn't get anywhere in a real job where you need to be productive with measurable results of your efforts.  The head of the transportation bureaucracy (an Obama appointee) refuses to reconsider their rulings despite the continuing problems their decisions have resulted in for the drivers and the truck driving industry as a whole.  Oh, boy I'm getting off track again with a political rant, but I'm telling you these people have got to go!  Our nation can not survive any more of their arrogant presumptions that they are wiser and smarter than the people who put them there.  We may only have the power of the ballot box, but ultimately it will bring us back to the path our founding fathers put us on.

I'm sitting here at the T/A truck stop in Franklin with a nice set of lime green tarps on my load of aluminum extrusions that I picked up in Yankton, South Dakota.  I will be delivering this to a trailer manufacturing plant in Enterprise, Alabama.

So, how do you like those tarps?  I picked them up at the Yankton SAPA plant.  I didn't really want them, but they insisted that they go with the trailer.  I already had some tarps, but these are better, and a little bolder too!  I guess I'll keep them.

Okay, let's see if I can get back to my topic that I titled this rambling post about.  I was recently in Cressona Pennsylvania to pick up a load of aluminum from the SAPA plant there.  SAPA is one of the world's largest suppliers of aluminum extrusions and has factories and plants all across the nation.  I always find it interesting where some of the great industries in our nation are located.  Often times they are found in small towns - I think this is by design.  So many times you will find great factories or industrial operations in these types of towns because there is a good honest hard working labor force there.

Cressona is on old town and has a distinct New England feel to it.  The residential architecture is unique and has a style that is foreign to my surroundings in East Texas.  The homes have a small footprint, yet may have three or four stories to them.  Some of the homes in this town are old store fronts along a long forgotten commercial district that has since dwindled up and faded away.  This photograph is not the greatest at conveying what I'm speaking of but as you can see these residences are all connected to each other along this street, and some of them still have old signs embedded in the masonry work indicating a long forgotten enterprise that was conducted along this street.  There are so many people packed together in some of these communities in the North East that they turn any and all available buildings into residences.

I took a few photos of some of the individual houses that I saw, simply because I like to share with you the things I see.  I often wish my wife were here with me to enjoy the sites I see, but she has other responsibilities right now.  Maybe one day we can do some of this together - it would be my greatest pleasure to have her along with me, even if just for a brief time.  I'm not sure she would enjoy the whole travelling lifestyle, but I think she might enjoy a week or two of it at a time.  Here's a glimpse at some of the residences I found interesting during a brief walk I took while waiting at the factory.

In the heart of this quaint little town lies this huge factory, which I am sure is the major employer in the area.  I've been here before, but it always surprises me as I pass through these old homes and neighborhoods, then suddenly I come upon the entrance to the plant, my destination and reason for being here in the first place.

The following photos really don't capture the size of this place adequately, but I tried to take a panoramic view using three different shots to show you the size of this place.  In the third photo my truck is sitting in the picture along with some others there and maybe that will help give you a reference as to the size of the factory buildings here at this facility.

The fall foliage has already gotten quite impressive up here in this part of the nation.  Here's a few shots of a stream that meanders along beside the plant and through the town, and a few shots of the fall foliage I saw on this trip.

I started off on this little journey pulling one of those nice "Conestoga Wagons", a flat-bed trailer with a vinyl canvas covering that can easily be rolled back while it folds itself up like an accordion bellows.  This company I'm working for has several of them so it's less physical work for me when pulling one of them.  I don't really mind the tarping so much, but it is nice when you don't have to do it.  These Conestogas will really be nice in the bitter winter time.  Here's what they look like.

One more thing about these North East towns that you really have to watch out for when driving an eighteen wheeler, is the dangers of getting yourself in trouble due to your size.  These towns are so old that they were built long before anyone thought much about having vehicles this large.  Therefore most of them don't have roadways, loading docks or bridges that were designed to accommodate such a monstrous vehicle.  Case in point is the main road entering Cressona passes under this treacherously low bridge to get you to the plant.  This bridge is about 150 yards from the entrance to the plant and many unwary truck drivers have taken the top of their trucks off because they didn't pay attention and find the way to route themselves around this low bridge.  The bridge itself is scarred by the many times it has been hit by big trucks.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed visiting Cressona Pennsylvania with me!  One place that I failed to take a picture of was the quaint little restaurant where I had a delicious club sandwich with chips, a side of pickles, and a drink for 4.95 - what a bargain.  It was in a small corner section on the lower floor of a larger building which was turned into apartments, and it was called "Jeans Place".  When I went inside there were only maybe six tables, and one lady (Jean) who did it all.  She took my order, went to her little cooking area behind the counter, prepared it, served it, and took my money with a smile when I was finished.  It was like stepping back in time, in fact the whole town is like that.  If it weren't for the big factory there I never would have gotten to experience this little place.  But somehow the nostalgic feel of a time gone by is still alive in this little town of Cressona.

Trying Something New

Well, I have been missing in action here lately.  Part of the reason is that I got wind of a job opening that an internet friend of mine contacted me about, and it sounded so interesting to me that I decided to check it out.  I have this friend who I've only ever known as Sand Man on an internet forum that I contribute information at.  He's always seemed like a pleasant person with a decent head on his shoulders, and he sent me a private message wanting to know if I would be interested in getting in on a new dedicated flat-bed account where he was working.  So I contacted him by phone and we visited about it.  I really liked some of what he was telling me, and I told him that I would like to look into it further.  So he gave me the contact information for the people responsible for hiring new drivers for this account.  After several weeks of prayer and consideration, I decided to go for it and turned in my two weeks notice to my very disappointed Driver Manager at Western Express,

This new job is a dedicated account which means that I will primarily be driving for one customer. That customer is SAPA, a major player in the aluminum extrusions business.  I have already hauled their finished products coming out of their plants, and their raw materials that go into their facilities, so I am somewhat familiar with their operations.  They are a very large company with many carriers getting a slice of the pie.  Okay, so the way this particular arrangement works is that I will be employed by Knight Transportation in a new and very small (15 trucks right now) dedicated division that will primarily serve the needs of SAPA's plant in Delhi, LA.  Knight transportation is planning on developing this relationship with SAPA, and they have been very successful in the past with developing dedicated customer accounts.  It is the type of business that they like to do, sort of a niche for them.  The difference on this particular job is that Knight has not been pursuing any flat-bed business.  For the most part they have been in the dry-van, refrigerated, and inter-modal transportation end of things.  They seem to be excited about expanding into this field and were looking for some good reliable experienced drivers to help them on this new venture.

Originally they had decided that they would only hire drivers that lived near Delhi, Louisiana since that was going to be the base of operations.  They have set up the only dispatcher on this account with an office right there inside the plant in Delhi, so he can work hand in hand with the shipping and receiving department at the plant.  Well, they'd been doing it that way for about six months when my friend heard the dispatcher saying that they were going to start expanding their hiring area into the freight lanes they run in.  Originally they wanted people right their near Delhi, so they could get them home easily and also so they could be right close by when they needed them.  But now that they are starting to get the relationship developed a little better they are looking to expanding the number of trucks and drivers so they can better serve the needs of SAPA.  Well, my friend knew that Nacogdoches had one of SAPA's customers (Bright Coop) right there in town, and not only that, but when they go to their customers in Houston or Dallas they have to pass right close to Nacogdoches.
Before he contacted me, he asked the dispatcher if he would be interested in a good driver that lived in Nacogdoches, and he said yes.  So, that's how this tale began without my even knowing that someone was looking into getting me into a unique truck driving job.

So here's the benefits to my new situation.  I'm still running all across the country, although maybe not as vast an area as before.  I will get more consistent home time, and I'm allowed to just stop by the house for the night if it works out when I'm passing through the area.  These are big advantages to me.  I also get to drive a brand new Volvo truck with all our trailers being very nice new all aluminum Reitnour units. About fifty percent of the trailers at this point are "Conestoga Wagons" which is a type of flat-bed trailer with an accordion like cover over the trailer so that the driver does not have to wrestle with those heavy tarps to protect his freight from the elements - another nice benefit to me.  When we do have a load on a regular flat-bed trailer that has to be tarped we get paid 45 dollars for the tarp pay.  When you compare that to the 15 dollars I got paid at Western Express for tarping that is another nice benefit.  My pay started at 27 cents per mile at Western, but here I started at 40 cents per mile - again, a very positive thing.  Now, I've talked before on this blog about the nature of the trucking business and how the pay is performance based, so one of the down sides of switching to a new job is that you've got to prove yourself all over again before you start getting the choice loads.  So I'm expecting things to be a little slow at the beginning for me, until the dispatcher gets a feel for what I can do.  That relationship between dispatcher and driver is built upon trust and experience.  I don't think it will take very long before we've got a good working relationship going, and he's already indicated several times that he is pleased with what he's been seeing.

So far I'm enjoying this new job.  I'm still getting accustomed to the way they do things here.  One of the differences is that they like to hear from their drivers.  This is so different from Western Express that I'm having a little trouble getting used to it.  At Western Express we would get these fleet messages all the time telling us "DO NOT CALL your driver manager unless you have a dire emergency. All your communications should be done on the qualcomm - we are too busy and we cannot get our jobs done because you are tying up our phone lines."  They would have about seventy drivers assigned to each dispatcher, where as here my dispatcher only has about fifteen to twenty drivers he's dealing with.  My first few days I would get phone calls from him asking me is everything okay?  I haven't heard from you.  It had been so pounded into me at Western to not contact them that I was still operating that way.  What my first employer wanted is apparently what makes these people a little nervous - what a contrast!  So I'm having to get accustomed to some new ways of doing things, but all in all it's a positive thing.

I forgot to mention that they have a really positive bonus pay program here that pays out quarterly bonuses to the drivers who reach the mileage and efficiency goals set forth for the fleet.  As best as I can tell right now I should have no problems getting a nice bonus check each quarter.  I don't see too much of  a challenge at meeting the goals they have laid out.  Again, it's another positive thing that I never could get at my former job.

Well, I've rambled on here long enough.  I'm taking a little break today in Delhi while waiting on a load headed to Akron Ohio.  I'll be posting some more as I move around and get settled in at my new job.  Oh, by the way, here's a couple of shots of my new "office with a view".  The first one is the first time I saw it, and the second one is at a SAPA plant in Cressona Pennsylvania where I picked up a load of aluminum pipe that went to a coal mining operation in West Virginia.

A couple more things - this new truck is really nice, it rides very nicely and is very quiet inside for a big truck.  It also has two beds!  No more sleeping on the floor for me when I have one of my daughters with me.  One more positive thing is that Abigail can ride with me now.  At Western your passengers had to be eighteen, but at Knight they allow anyone over ten years old.  Woo-Hoo - I can't wait for her to come along.  And if my dear wife could ever figure out how to come with me it would just be the greatest thing I could imagine!  I miss them all, but hopefully this new change will help me see them more often.

Some Days It's Hard To Believe I'm Getting Paid To Do This

Well it seems that after I delivered those light poles I have been bouncing back and forth from Southern California to Arizona for the whole week.  It is a wonderfully beautiful desert area that is intriguingly harsh and yet has it's own appealing features.  I kind of figured that I would get dispatched to one of the copper mines in the area while here, and finally I did go to one in Hayden Arizona.  This is one that I have not visited before, but I would like to return someday as it was a stunningly beautiful journey.  The driving was as challenging as the scenery was breathtaking.  I passed through a portion of Arizona that is an Apache reservation territory that includes a beautiful canyon called the Salt River Canyon.  Here is my truck loaded down with about 48,000 pounds of copper anodes sitting high atop the ridge of this canyon.

Signs like this are not exactly a welcome sight when you are trying to keep 80,000 pounds of rolling steel under control and still be able to half way enjoy the view.

I've covered this nation pretty well so far in my travels and I've go to tell you that this was one of the most scenic routes I've been on yet while driving this big truck.  I also learned something about truck drivers that I didn't know yet.  Apparently truck drivers have two sets of ears, and the state of Arizona expects us to use our "lower ears" when trying to descend these mountains.

Maybe our "lower ears" don't pop as easily while going down these steep mountain roads.  That sign just tickled me, it reminded me of my story about the sign that had something about the "Untied States of America" on it.

Well the old saying says that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'm so tired tonight I'm not sure I can produce a lot of words, so I am just going to let you take a look at what I was trying to look at while descending into this beautiful canyon while earning my daily bread this week.

The Little Sacrifices That Help You Succeed At This Stuff

One of the keys to success in this field is being able to make sure things happen in your favor - it becomes a part of my regular trip planning, and then again sometimes it just happens on the fly depending on the situation I might find myself in.  Anytime you can get yourself off loaded a day ahead of schedule and or first thing in the morning it will generally work out in your favor so that you are the one the planners have the first choice of giving their "good stuff" to for that day. I was a little surprised that none of the other flat-bed drivers thought of this, but I slept right there outside the gate of the construction site and woke up to an early morning sand storm over there in that California Desert area. Can you see the sand flying around in the air in this picture?

My plan worked out well because the crane truck was a little delayed in getting there. As the other trucks scheduled for a Monday delivery started showing up, they had nowhere to park but behind yours truly in an ever lengthening line. Take a look at all the trucks lined up behind me at the gate - you can't really tell from the photo, but when I left I counted the trucks lined up on the road. There were nineteen trucks waiting in line as I left out of there with my next load assignment. I've got a one thousand mile load and I'm certain I was loaded and on the interstate before the final truck in this line got unloaded. Three or four trucks back in line is another driver from my company who had stopped for a restroom break on Saturday at the truck stop where I was taking my 34. We had visited at the stop and he told me he was needing to take a 34 hour break but he was going to go ahead and get to the location so he could get unloaded first. I asked him what day his delivery was scheduled for and he replied Monday, so I just said well mine isn't scheduled until Tuesday. That's how I left it, but he was all astonishment when he came up there and realized I was ahead of him, still got my 34 in, plus got the best load available when I left there.

I love doing this stuff, and I really enjoy sharing my experiences with you all. Hopefully if some future truck driver rookies stumble across this little blog they will catch on to some of the ideas and strategies of how you not only survive in this career, but excel in it. Now let me explain one thing further about this scenario. I know it is more comfortable to stay at the truck stop, and that is what many of these drivers did - I know because as I passed the truck stop about twenty minutes from this location I saw a lot of these flat-bed trucks with the same poles that I had, just sitting there in the parking lot. The other advantage that I now had over them was that they have started their fourteen hour clock - not me - I'm sitting there watching the sand storm, sipping at my hot tea and just patiently waiting for that crane truck to show up without a care in this world.