Home For The Holidays

It is December 30th and I arrived home on the 23rd of the month - I have been home for an entire week!  This is unheard of, but I am really enjoying it!  I was planning on starting back to work yesterday, but I got an unexpected call from my dispatcher saying that it was a little slow this week and if I wanted I could stay home for a few more days!  Well, I jumped at that chance - it is very seldom an over the road truck driver gets this much time at home, but when opportunity knocks I'm throwing the door wide open.

I really do enjoy my job, and of course I'm only getting paid when the wheels are turning, but I have thoroughly enjoyed being home with my wife and children this week.  Since I am now working on a dedicated account (SAPA Aluminum) I am somewhat at the mercy of the demands of their workload. At this time of the year they are just getting back to work from their holiday break and the factory at Delhi, Louisiana is just now getting fired back up to start filling orders so there is a slight delay after the holidays before things are hot and heavy.  It is one of the many benefits of this new job that I hadn't realized would be available until now.  Next year I can plan more appropriately for it if I find the situation to be the same.  Part of it this year was the day of the week that Christmas fell on.

I've had such a nice time at home, it was so nice stepping into my house and seeing the way my wife and daughters had it all decorated up so festively.  The sights, sounds, and delicious smells of Christmas were abundant in our snug little home, but the best thing for me was just being able to relax and enjoy the comfort of being near the people I hold dear - that includes my close friends of 30 plus years at our church.  We enjoyed an intimate little dinner at the Alston's house in Nacogdoches just a few days after we had a brief Christmas Eve visit with our relatives down in Seabrook, Texas.

As you can see the house was completely decorated right down to the deer heads on the wall!  We have had a very nice time together and I really hate to see it come to a halt, but halt it must.  I will be gone for another month when I start rolling again, with a plan on being home for my birthday at the end of January/beginning of February.  I will begin this new year with a resolve to watch my caloric intake a little closer and see what I can do about losing a little weight.  I'm not excessively over weight, but as a truck driver it can creep up on you quite unawares.  I've seen too many of my peers out there on the road who can barely waddle in and out of the truck stops.  I refuse to let myself get like that.

I'll start posting again as soon as I leave home.

Dyslexic Paperwork Blues

It is Sunday afternoon and I have parked my truck in the empty parking lot of an abandoned shopping center to spend the night here in Baker, Louisiana. Baker is a small community on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. I have on my truck some material called Flex-a-mat which is used for erosion control. This is what I picked up at the place where the grumpy old guy, who was going to be late for his date, berated me with his sour attitude and bitter tongue.

Yesterday and today were very pleasant days, just as weekends often are for me, since I am usually not dealing with shippers or receivers. They were days where all you have to do is drive. My plan was to get in here during the middle of the day so that I would have daylight hours to find a place to park, and so I could locate the place I will be delivering to on Monday morning. Parking for Big Trucks is really limited down in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas. My little truck stop guide book showed there to be a truck stop in Baker, but I discovered it to be out of business when I arrived with signs all around warning you not to park there unless you want to get towed.

It turned out to be a good plan to get in here early like I did because the information on my paperwork was totally useless. The numbers in both the address and the phone number were transposed so that I could not find the “job site”, which is the only information I had for the location – no company name or contractor name was provided. And the phone number which was supposed to be my contact named Aaron, went to someone named Pierre who was just some individual who didn't have a clue what I was even talking about. After several hours of fruitless phone calls to various personnel who might could help, I finally managed to figure out that it was going to an Exxon refinery, so I got on the internet and discovered there were only six Exxon refineries in this area!

I will say that good fortune smiled on my efforts though, as the first refinery I went to, so that I could inquire for a little more information, was the proper location, and the guard even helped me get the proper numbers together so that I could make contact with the contractor. Driving a truck is easy, it is all the other stuff that goes along with the job that can make it a frustrating job for the naive souls who think all they've got to do is hold that steering wheel and point it in the right direction.

Here's what the Flex-a-mat looks like on the back of my trailer. You can't see it well because the material is rolled up, but the other side of it has little concrete waffle looking squares on it to give it some weight to hold it in place while it is doing it's job of controlling the soil erosion.

As you can see, I am pulling gone of those "Connestoga Wagon" trailers.  They are very nice in that they eliminate the need for dealing with those heavy tarps.  Almost all the loads that I pull for Sapa must be tarped.  This is a back haul load that didn't require tarping, but it got protected any way due to the equipment I had with me at the time I got dispatched on the load.

Meeting The Challenges

Well it's Saturday morning and I just woke up to a gentle snow here at the T/A truck stop in Florence Kentucky.  Friday went really well for me with only a slight disturbance near the end of my day which I will tell you about later in this tale of a truck driver's day.  As I was making my way from St. Louis up to Indianapolis I was formulating a plan for the next day in which I decided I would sleep in Hoosier Trim's parking lot so I could get unloaded first thing in the morning.  I've been there once before and I was thinking they had a large enough parking area where I could sneak in there and bed down for the night.  But, just to make sure I stopped at a rest area and pulled up "Google Earth" to take a look at the site from a "bird's eye" view, which thankfully reminded me that there is a gate at this plant and they close it at night.  So plan B took shape which was to find a truck stop just outside of Indianapolis and get some rest there.

I woke up on Friday to an early morning foreboding looking grey and wintry sky.  From the drivers seat of my truck I nibbled away at my bowl of Raisin Bran cereal as I watched the trucks rolling in and out of the truck stop, thinking about how to manage my time for the day ahead.  I don't know what I'm doing after I finish this load, which is information that always helps me when planning, but since my regular dispatcher is out this week, I'm having to make do with whatever tidbits of information I can get from the person who is halfheartedly standing in for him.  I don't mean to sound critical - I'm sure this gentleman has his other responsibilities to tend to also this week, it's just the way it is, and I certainly can deal with it for a week or two.  I got everything done on Friday and sent my empty call in over the qualcomm at about 1:30 from the parking lot of my final stop in Edgerton, Ohio.  Then my phone starts ringing and it is the temporary dispatcher letting me know that they have a back haul for me that picks up in Sharonville, Ohio and delivers to a job site in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  That's great except for the part where I have to be there in three hours and it is four hours away on little state highways that run through small towns with stop signs and traffic signals all along the way.

So, I have to make some phone calls while on the road to let people know I will be late, and so far it appears that they are fine with waiting for me, as I will be the fourth truck load going out from there today to this job site, and it is critical that we all get the product delivered on Monday.  I actually got there thirty minutes ahead of the ETA I had given them, but I was immediately given a royal cussing out by the grumpy old guy who had been forced to wait on me by the boss.  I literally had to bite my tongue to keep myself from going off on this guy and let him know that I didn't really care if his load got delivered or not, and as far as I was concerned he could find someone else to pull it.  It really made me angry - he was accusing me of "dragging my ass" all day and making him be late for his "date" tonight, when the truth is that I have been giving it my all since probably long before he even got out of bed this morning, and I would just about give anything in this world to have just a few minutes with the woman I love.  But I remained calm and just grinned at him, gladly knowing that the power of Christ in me has thankfully made me a new creature which doesn't react to unkindness in a like fashion.  This of course just proved to make him more angry.  I'll spare you all the details of getting loaded, but after I left there I was stuck in a traffic jam on I-75 south for hours due to a bad accident.  As soon as I could I got myself into the T/A here in Florence Kentucky, I crashed in the bed exhausted from a very long day with a trying end to it.

But here it is, a new day with a fresh start.  I have the whole weekend ahead to make my way down to the Southern most parts of this great land, and I will be two or three days closer to getting home for Christmas by the time I deliver this load down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

On Time - Barely!

It's Thursday night and I am bedding down in my sleeper in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Love's Truck Stop.  When I returned to Delhi on Tuesday they had my next load ready to go about four o'clock that afternoon.  It is a load headed for Edgerton, Ohio and it has it's first stop in St. Louis at a place called French Gerleman.  They stop receiving at 3:00 and by the time I got my load secured and ready to roll at Delhi I had about five legal hours to drive, which I used as carefully as I could to get myself up to Marion, Arkansas where I stopped for my required ten hour break.  Then just as soon as I could I got myself back on the road and made it into the Shipping/Receiving clerk's door at ten minutes to three!

Sometimes it helps to make friends with these people who have the power to really mess up your day, and I knew I was pushing all the limits by rolling in here at quitting time, but what else could I do?  I had done everything in my power to get here on time, but the folks who give this stuff to me don't really understand what all we do to make things happen, or if they did I would think they would try to get these loads ready a little sooner so we aren't breaking our necks to make their company look good to it's customers.  The receiving clerk just rolled his eyes and then looked up at the clock on the wall and asked me "You do know it is quitting time don't you?"  So I tried my best to be comical with him and said "Yes sir, and I am very sorry about that, but if you only knew what I went through to get this to you on time, then you would probably agree that it is nothing short of miraculous that I am here as early as I am.  Now surely you wouldn't take a guy who just experienced a miracle to get this to you on time and tell him that you are not going to unload him would you?  He tried to hide his smile as he told me which door of the huge warehouse to back my truck into.

As soon as we got his stuff off I headed on to Indianapolis where I will deliver all but five of the pieces left on my truck to Hoosier Trim first thing in the morning.  Then I will make my way over into Edgerton, Ohio where I will empty out my trailer and then find out what I am doing next.  It snowed on me a little bit at St, Louis, but then it cleared as I started heading out to Indianapolis.

A Brief Respite

It is Wednesday morning and I am just taking it easy!  I spent yesterday resting and taking a few nice walks in the pleasant but cool weather here in New Albany Mississippi.  I've got dispatch directions to head back to Delhi, but I'm not going to leave until around 10 a.m.  My experience has been that they won't have a load ready for me until late in the afternoon, so there is no sense in me starting my clock only to have it run out on me before I can get something profitable accomplished for the day.  This is where some of my experiences help me be the kind of driver who know how to keep himself available for loads, and helps me manage my available working hours more efficiently.

I could have kept running on my re-cap hours, but I kind of had an ulterior motive in taking this break.  Besides the advantages of being more flexible in the game of time management this week it will also help me to make sure I have some hours left next week when it is time to head home for the Christmas Holiday.  Several times in the past I have had enough time to get my work accomplished and then I get stuck somewhere for an extra day waiting for my clock to regain some legal driving hours so that I can get home - that is very frustrating, especially if you aren't really even tired.  I remember one time I made it to Carthage, TX on my way home and I had to stop and take a ten hour break there before I could drive to my house which was only about an hour and a half away!  Such is the life of a Truck Driver.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my dear wife, and my daughters at Christmas.

Just Like Clockwork

That's how my day went today.  Everything went off as planned and I will be emptying out my trailer at my final destination first thing in the morning when the employees at CEC Metal Processing show up at work.  I am sitting in their driveway waiting to back in the door of their building.  I will sleep right here tonight and I will be the first truck to get unloaded here in the morning.

My alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, and I started rolling down the highway by 6:00.  I made it to my first stop in Nashville, TN at Thyssen Krupp about 10:00 A.M., was unloaded and on my way by 11:00.  My next stop was General Electric in Selmer, TN - they stop receiving at this location at 2:00 P.M.  I was going to be hard pressed to make it in time, but I got there at 1:52, and they were glad to see me.  Once I got that portion off-loaded I began the last leg of this trip down to New Albany, MS.  Arrived here about 4:00 P.M. (they close at 3:30) but my plan was to just get in here tonight so I could shut down in their parking lot for a first thing in the morning delivery.

Now, I have the option of taking a 34 hour reset of my clocks if I want to.  I will have to decide that in the morning when I get unloaded.  Since I was able to get here and shut down tonight, I will have one of my time periods of 1 A.M. - 5 A.M. out of the way for meeting these silly regulations.  I can just take the day off tomorrow and get started back to work on Wednesday morning at 5 A.M. and I will have a fresh set of seventy hours to work with for the next eight days.  That will give me a lot more flexibility in planning my days and making sure everything works out properly.  I ran this whole last week on my re-cap hours which meant that each day I had to look back and see how many hours I worked eight days ago, and that was how may hours I could work for that particular day.  The reset will give me more freedom to manage my time efficiently, plus I've been getting after it pretty hard, so a day off is actually sounding really good right now.

Our new Republican controlled congress just sent a ridiculously massive spending bill to our dear leader's desk, and tucked away somewhere deep in that voluminous stack of unsustainable, reckless, out of control efforts at buying off the uneducated masses votes, there is some language inserted in there that will remove the silly provision for truck drivers to have to include those two time periods of 1 A.M. - 5 A.M. in their 34 hour break.  It will also eliminate having to wait 168 hours in between each reset.  That will really be a big help to the American Truck Drivers.  Now, if they would only see the light on how restrictive the 14 hour rule is, the American Truck Driver would be able to rest when he needs it instead of when the government's elitists think he needs it.  As the rule stands now, if a truck driver feels the need to take a 2 or 3 hour nap because he's tired then it will take away from his legal driving hours.  So instead of taking a break when he needs it, he just has to keep on working and driving when he is really too tired just so he doesn't lose the income.  We are a highly regulated industry, and I understand the whys of that, but some of this stuff just takes a little common sense to figure out.  Sadly, common sense went out of vogue back in the days of Thomas Jefferson.

What A Difference One Day Can Make

Today I rolled out of the pleasant little town of Cressona, made my way out of the state of Pennsylvania, through Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia and landed myself at the Pilot truck stop in Dandridge, Tennessee.  I drove 552 miles today and that just about puts me where I need to be to get my two stops here in Tennessee accomplished tomorrow.  We will see how everything goes - there's a million ways for a glitch to develop in a truck drivers day, but having a plan and taking the steps that have proven successful in the past always help to give you a little bit of an edge over Murphy's laws.

It is amazing what a difference one day can make in your scenery when you are living like a modern day drifter.  Yesterday I was looking at knee deep snow and frozen bodies of water.  Today I was watching a mowing crew mowing grass along the highway in Virginia!  Yesterday I was driving in a dense fog and having to take mountain roads where the "truck speed limit was 25" - Today I almost exclusively ran on Interstates under clear blue skies and will soon be back in the deep south.  I don't know where I will go next, but it is quite possible that I will be running right back up into the North East.