Tuscumbia, AL

I made my delivery in Ringgold this morning and headed to Dalton to get loaded. I've been to the shipper before, so I have the routine down: pull onto the scales, sign-in, put on orange safety vest, wait for an open dock. Though normally, the receptionist doesn't express concern for my safety; she explained that I was about to make a bunch of big truckers very unhappy. Turns out, she was right. All thirteen docks were full and there were five trucks waiting in line for a dock to open up. Several of them had been there for hours. Unfortunately for all of them, the shipper didn't have their loads ready. Fortunately for me, I wasn't them. The receptionist said she would open up a dock for me since I was the only one whose load was ready. I pulled around back and was looking for a place to park out of the way, when another driver stopped me. Noticeably exasperated with the whole situation, he pointed out a place to park and explained that he was third in line and those two trucks over there were before me. Apparently, he had been there a while and wasn't happy about it. Since he was trying to be helpful, I didn't tell him I was about to cut in front of him and everyone else. A dockworker came over and told me a dock was open and I could back in. Before I even got it in gear, the driver that was "first in line" was backing in. Guess he didn't get the memo. Someone must have said something, because a few minutes later he pulled out and the dockworker motioned me to back in, which I gladly obliged. That's when the three drivers had a little pow-wow and were all staring at me and shaking their heads. They definitely got a raw deal, but only because the shipper ordered a bunch of trucks and ended up not having the product to put on them.

With my load complete, I headed up the road to get fuel and scale. What? The scale is out of order? Great. Ever since the last scrap paper load, I've been getting pulled into the scales quite a bit, so I didn't want to take the risk. I drove south a couple miles to another Pilot with a scale. Seriously, I think these recycling places get together and conspire against me. Fifteen-hundred pounds over on my tandems meant a return trip to the shipper to get one bale taken off the back of the trailer. And I didn't have to wait the second time, either. I could get use to this.

I made my delivery in Cherokee this evening, but my next load won't be ready until tomorrow. After picking-up, I'll be headed back to Georgia for the weekend.

Lawrenceville, GA

I'm a little confused and not quite sure what to do about it. See, everything seemed to work out today the way I had hoped. I decided last night I was too tired to drive to Catawba, so I got rolling this morning as soon as my 10-hr break was up. I made it to Catawba with no delays. Just as I had surmised, it took two hours to get unloaded. Afterward, I headed down to Columbia, SC for a quick drop and hook before heading back to Georgia. No traffic, no 7-hr unload, and no problems. I made it home this evening with time to spare and I'll head back out in the morning to make my delivery in Ringgold before picking-up in Rome and heading over to Cherokee, AL.

Catawba via Lawrenceville

It was imperative, according to my instructions, that I not be late for my 7am appointment in Calera, AL this morning. I arrived last night and was only the second truck parked outside waiting for the mornings appointments. Upon awakening around 6am, 15 additional trucks had come in and parked. Great, it's going to be busy. So, I checked in at 6:30 and was backed in and ready to unload by 7:00. The rest of the trucks soon followed and all the docks were full. Trucks everywhere. Thinking it might be a couple hours, I decided to hop in the back and take a little nap. An hour or so later, I awoke to find most of the trucks gone. By the time they finished unloading me and I got my paperwork, it was 2:30pm. A grocery distributor, no less. I headed up to Birmingham and got loaded with no problems. I'm supposed to be in Catawba by noon tomorrow, and I'm thinking I might try to get there tonight. I stopped at home to eat and shower and now I have to talk myself into getting back on the road. We'll see how that works out.

Calera, AL

My attempt to get an earlier-than-necessary start this morning was thwarted by my desire for sleep. I knew I had to be on the road by 9am, so I slept until 7am instead of 6am. Yeah, I'm a rebel. I made the drop and hook in Cherokee, but unfortunately, the trailer I picked up needed a repair. One of the locking pins on the tandems was broken and wouldn't release, so I drove over to the trailer repair shop we use in Tuscumbia and the guys had me fixed up in no time. After that, it was a short 160 mile drive down here. I'm set to deliver at 7am and then I'll be waiting for my next load.

Jiggity Jig

It should be no surprise that I slept well past my initial alarm this morning. Something about starting your work-day at 4am two days in a row just doesn't seem right. So, I got rolling around 7am and headed west on I-16. A quick check of my atlas revealed DOT scales just north of Macon. Not keen on testing my luck twice on the way home, I debated taking some....alternate routes, though taking a bunch of back roads home wasn't going to make for the quickest trip. I eventually talked myself out of it and got the green light anyway. Nice. I'm set to deliver in Alabama on Monday.

Oak Park, GA

Twenty-four hours ago, I was expecting to be in Alabama on Friday. And normally, I might be disappointed that that won't be happening, except that I'll be home all weekend instead! Thinking that I only had to go to Alabama by tomorrow, I called it a day around 6pm yesterday and started my ten hour break. I got an early start this morning and made my pick-up in Florence before heading to Savannah for the delivery. Along the way, I got a Qualcomm message saying to take the Alabama load home for the weekend. Sweet - I'll be home tonight! Maybe. Because I was lazy yesterday and didn't drive into Florence, I had farther to drive today. I made the delivery in Savannah with no problems and and drove over to the shipper for my pick-up. A recycling facility. Great. I crossed the scale and drove around back - through the mud and water-filled craters - to the scrap paper docks. Which were all full. "They're supposed to move that trailer in 20-30 minutes. You can have that spot when they do," says a dock worker, as he points to one of the seven trailers. Great, I wanted to sit here all afternoon anyway. About an hour later, the trailer is moved and I back in. And wait. Two hours later, they have me loaded. Only, my suspension gauge tells me the load is overweight on the drive wheels. A quick look in the trailer confirms the load is not properly distributed. The trailer is barely half-full, so all the weight is obviously on the front of the trailer. FNG's. I got my paperwork and headed to the nearest scale. 1,500 over on the drives. After sliding the tandems all the way up, I got it to...uh, let's just leave it at "I slid the tandems all the way up." That's the best I could do. The company guys said to roll with it, so I rolled. I guess they know what they're talking about - I got the green light at the weigh station. Works for me.

My 14-hr clock was up at 6:15pm, so Oak Park is as far as I was able to make it tonight. I'll take a ten or twelve hour break and head home in the morning.

Kenly, NC

It's been said that attitude is the key to happiness. Or something like that. I think one's expectations are a pretty big factor, as well. Take, for instance, this past weekend. I had been out for two weeks and was expecting at least three full days off at home. I got two and a half, so I wasn't thrilled. This morning, I opened the trailer doors and backed-in so the guys could start unloading the 45 rolls of paper from my trailer. I was munching on some Pop-Tarts and about to pour a cup of orange juice when one of the guys knocked on my door. "You know this is a driver assist unload, right?" Not what I was expecting. Feeling as though I had been swindled into forced manual labor, I hopped in the back of the trailer and started rolling paper to the forklift. Then I remembered I was going to get paid extra for my efforts - $30 for about an hours worth of work. After I got unloaded, I ended up sitting around until almost 3pm before I got my next load. Since I don't generally get paid to sit, making myself useful and making a few bucks in the process turned out to be a good thing.

I have to pick-up in Florence, SC in the morning and then I'll head to Savannah to deliver.

Manteo, NC

Apparently, I have a past life that involves living in Manteo, NC. It was news to me. I left home this morning and got rolling at 8am. While stopped for fuel and lunch in Mebane, NC, I decided to call the receiver to see if it was okay to park overnight since it looked like there weren't many other options in the area. "No problem," says the guy on the phone. Wonderful. "If you get here by five-thirty, I'll show you where to park." Yeah, I don't think I'll be there that early. Since I had him on the phone, I figured I'd compare his version of directions to the ones I had. Now, there are two bridges to the island. His version was something along the lines of "take the new bridge and go through town, past the old bread building, and our driveway will be on the left." I guess in my past life, I was around when they built the "new bridge" and back when the "old bread building" was the new bread building. I crossed the first bridge I came to. I guess it was kind of shiny. I went through town going about 25mph and must have forgotten where they put the bread building. Fortunately, he had mentioned a cross street that was just before the facility, and that was the only way I was able to find it. After I finally got here and made sure it was the right place, I was backing up in the parking lot to get over to the side and out of the way, when an SUV pulled up next to me. The driver got out and walked over to my door. "Are you lost?" Turns out the guy was a UPS driver and had been behind me through town, so he stopped to see if I needed help. Thanks, dude.

That was my day. Saturday, I left Corbin around 6am and stopped in Knoxville to have breakfast with my folks. After a drop and hook in Calhoun, I made it home around 3pm. I was off Sunday and Monday and managed to get caught up on a few things. I'm not sure where I'll be heading tomorrow. That's half the fun.

Corbin, KY

This trucking thing has become rather time consuming, so I'm thinking about applying for commerce secretary. Apparently, the new administration can't give the job away, so I'm pretty sure if I hold out long enough they'll accept my offer.

I managed to use all of my 6.5 hours today, barely making it to Corbin this afternoon. I'll have 11 hours coming back at midnight, which should be enough to get me home tomorrow. I made my delivery this morning a mere 4 hours past my appointment time and then headed over to New Albany to get loaded with scrap paper. Recycling places are always fun to go to because they're all remarkably similar: there's a scale you have to cross upon entering so they know your empty weight, and again once you're loaded, there is paper and glass everywhere, and they like to load as much weight as possible and then some. Today, they snuck an extra bale on the trailer that put me overweight on my tandems, but were kind enough to take it off when I mentioned it to them. After that, it was smooth sailing to Corbin. I'll have to fuel in the morning before making a drop and hook in Calhoun, then will finally be headed home.

Richmond, KY

Here's a little math problem:

Which is least?
1. 4+10+1
2. 10+5
3. 2+10+3

My dispatcher seems to think #2, as she suggested I start my 10 hour break early this afternoon so that I could get up at 2am and drive to Indiana from Knoxville in order to "get there as soon as I can". Wow. Unless my dispatcher has made a breakthrough regarding the physics of time and space, it still doesn't matter how I slice the drive hours and when I take the ten hour break, the total time and distance required to get from point A to point B remain the same.

The question arises because, for the first time, my workdays are limited by the DOT's 70-hour rule, which says I can't be on-duty more than 70 hours in an eight day period. As of yesterday, I'd logged 61 hours in the past 7 days, leaving me with 9 hours today with which to drive, scale, and fuel. I used most of them today and I'm still about 2 hours from my delivery. The good news is I only have 6.5 hours available to work tomorrow, so it will be a short day. The bad news is I'll be 8 hours from home.

Catawba, SC (and no waiting!)

...

Sylacauga, AL

I apparently have superhuman abilities that allow me to simultaneously be in multiple places, though I haven't figured out how to utilize them yet. My dispatcher appears to have every confidence in me though, since at one point today she had assigned me 4 pre-plans all picking up today. Most in different cities. Birmingham to Catawba. Birmingham to Calhoun. Catawba to Charlestown. Hickory to Wisconsin. Nevermind that my current load isn't scheduled to deliver until tomorrow. At the very least, she has me thoroughly confused. According to my load instructions (which were sent by my dispatcher), the receiver's hours are 7am-5pm. I was at the shipper in Little Rock at 7am this morning. I stopped once to scale and shower and once for lunch. I knew all day that it was highly unlikely I would make it to the receiver by 5pm, and I was right. The Qualcomm message I received (and read after I arrived in Sylacauga) was "if the receiver is closed when you get there, drop the load in Lincoln and you can pick up in Birmingham tonight". Great. Then what? Thanks to the traffic on US-280, which was so terrible I'm convinced it's the cause of all the world's problems, it was after 6pm when I got here. And with only two hours remaining on my 11 and 14-hour clocks, there was no way I could get to Lincoln and Birmingham. Since I'm only five minutes from the receiver, I decided to make the delivery as scheduled and go to Birmingham in the morning.

Oh dear

...a test of my patience near Birmingham this evening

North Little Rock, AR

You might think that my lack of correspondence the past couple days means I spent a long relaxing weekend at home watching t.v., sleeping late, and eating something other than fast food. And you'd be wrong. That little vacation in Maine put me a day behind schedule, so Saturday was spent driving from Virginia to Georgia and Sunday from Georgia to West Memphis, AR after making my delivery in The Rock, GA.

I realized last night that I had all day to deliver today, so I didn't bother setting an alarm for this morning. I got up and rolling around 9am and made the two hour drive to Little Rock. It only took half an hour to get unloaded. Afterward, I headed back up the road a few miles to the nearest truck stop. My next pick-up isn't until tomorrow, so I've been hanging out here all day doing the usual, with the added event of perusing the trucker's flea market. Yep, there was BBQ on channel 25, truck tires on channel 22, a pistol on channel 19 - a bargain at only $250, and computer software on channel 14. All fine wares, I'm sure, though I was not in the market for any such items.

I'll try to get up early *rolls eyes* and make my pick-up in the morning so I can get over to Alabama at a decent hour. I've got two more loads lined up already and I'd like to see home again before the change in seasons, so I don't want to waste much time on these next few trips.

Tom's Brook, VA

I have escaped Maine. It was an arduous task that required many hours of digging long tunnels deep under the snow. Ok, I just drove out. But there was snow on the ground.

After battling with the setting sun for about an hour this evening as I drove west through Pennsylvania, I stopped in Harrisburg to regain my sight, err, I mean to give the sun a break. Meanwhile, the sun took advantage of my gracious reprieve and disappeared. Wise choice, Sun, wise choice. I still had a few drive hours remaining, so I decided to get as far as possible tonight. I should have a relatively easy drive back to Georgia tomorrow, though the hills in the Carolinas may have other thoughts regarding my 46k lb load.

Where's Bret?

I am at
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.844432,+-73.899965

Kittery, ME

Yeah, about that whole "heading south" thing I mentioned yesterday......I got hosed. So hosed. Overweight 5,000 lbs on my tandems hosed. I weighed in Turner, ME this morning and was told by my dispatcher that those scales were usually off, so I should use the scales in Auburn, ME. So I did, and they showed my gross weight was 2,000 lbs heavier than the first scales. Now I get to go back to the shipper to get reloaded. An hour away. And I'm low on fuel.

Turner, ME has the only full-service station I've seen in almost twenty years. Yes sir, they'll fill your car up and you can just sit there in the warmth. Only, don't expect them to be happy about it. It took me almost an hour to get fuel and most of that time was spent with the old codger of an attendant trying to arrange payment. I think he got ticked off when I used an apparently special card that cost $0.08 (he bothered to tell me each card cost $0.08), instead of a notepad, to write down the fuel authorization number. Whatever, man.

Back to Jay. I checked-in, dropped my trailer, and waited. For three hours. And my trailer was right where I left it. After I got some big-wigs involved, the trailer was moved to the docks and two hours later I was ready to go. Add it all up and I spent 21.5 out of the past 32 hours at the shipper (10 of which was a break). Wonderful. Anyway, I stopped here in Kittery to weigh again and guess what? This time I'm only 1,300 lbs overweight on my tandems, which I can fix....tomorrow, of course. Maybe then we can start to think about heading south.

Jay, ME 2/4/09

MA, NH, ME....Check

Stuck in Maine because 14-hr clock expired while getting loaded....Check

Should be heading south tomorrow.

Middletown, CT

MD, PA, NJ, NY, CT... Check

Flipped-off by angry driver...Check

Yep, it was a good day. After a stop for some fuel and a shower in Harrisburg this morning, I made it to Darien, CT before stopping for lunch. Of course to get to Connecticut, I had to drive through New Jersey, which brings me to my next thought. If New Jersey were to get swallowed up in a giant sinkhole, would anybody really care? Really? I mean, really? After lunch, I was good to go all the way to Portland. Obviously I stopped short, which only leaves me second guessing myself and wondering if the weather would have gotten any worse. I like to think, however, that I learned my lesson in Chicago and made the right decision this time. Yeah, I'll go with that. So, I've informed my dispatcher, the broker, and the receiver that I probably won't make my delivery appointment in the morning. And I'm supposed to pick-up in Jay, ME sometime tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.

Either the typical winter freight-slowdown has hit, or the economic slump has finally touched H.O. Wolding. Probably both, but whatever the reason, we were told yesterday that business in the Southeast was slow and drivers should expect to see more loads into and out of other areas: Texas, Minnesota, the Northeast. Guess that explains why I'm up here and why I'm supposed to be in Little Rock, AR in a few days (which may end up being 4-5 days). Slow business or not, good ol' Wolding is keeping the loads lined up for me. Thus far.

Done for the Day

George Washington Bridge

Nua Yawrk Sittuh?!

More frozen stuff

Clear Brook, VA

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Much better. You see, after circling a truck stop for an hour with 5 or 6 other trucks, each taking turns trying to back into the same crappy parking spaces after a long day of driving, screaming is the only healthy way to relieve the frustration and maintain sanity. I do believe this is the last time I'll ever stop at this truck stop chain. I won't name names, but it starts with "Flying" and ends with "J". I know how this happens, too. It starts with a greedy developer who goes to an overzealous engineer for a design. And the engineer, who's on his third pot of coffee, crams 9742579 parking spaces onto 3 acres because more spaces mean more customers, which mean more money. Well guess what...I'm not buying anything here. Thanks for the real estate.

I probably should have just continued to my fuel stop in Harrisburg, PA. Oh well. Tomorrow should be fun - it'll be my first time driving in the Northeast, including a ride through New Jersey and the Bronx.

Union, SC

Regarding my recent hometime request, I distinctly remember saying "in on Friday and out on Monday," yet here I am in South Carolina on Sunday evening. Though, I suppose if that's all I have to complain about, I'm doing alright. My short weekend at home was good - I went to a movie (Slumdog Millionaire), did some long overdue shopping, and just enjoyed being home. I have a 7am appointment to get unloaded before I head to Lancaster, SC to pick-up my next load. Looks like I'll be heading to Maine this time.