Going to California

This load had two stops, at our terminal in Phoenix, AZ and the terminal in Los Angeles.

After I dropped the trailer at the LA terminal, I drove over to our shop a few miles away to have a few things on my truck looked at. I somehow have a talent for getting trucks with dodgy fuel gauges. I also asked them to replace the radio. Mine broke a week ago. A week of no music at all..... I started developing a Tom Hanks/Wilson the Volleyball relationship with the truck. Not healthy. At all.

The new radio has an iPod input, which is awesome. I am loving it.

There were two women at the drivers' lounge that I had a lot of fun talking with. One rides with her husband and the other teams with hers. They were really fun. It's nice to get to know some of the other drivers.

I spent the night at the driver's lounge and ran errands the next morning. So much easier to go shopping when you're not pulling a trailer. That afternoon, the dispatcher asked for help dropping empty trailers at various customers, so that's what I did. My next load wasn't ready yet and I had nothing better to do, so why not? I took a load early the next morning up around Yosemite National Park. It had stops in a couple of small towns, the last of which was at the top of a mountain and it was a ski resort town. I was wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt, capri pants and loafers.... it was kinda funny to get out of my truck and see the looks on the faces of the people all geared up for snowboarding walking down the street. I was only going to be there long enough to drop off three pieces of furniture, so I thought it was pretty pointless to put on my winter gear. I don't mind the cold. The tiny little side street was really hard to maneuver into.... They wanted me to back up (about a meter away from the line of personal vehicles) to the door of their shop.... I parked on the other side of the street and said I'd happily dolly all the furniture (three pieces) into their building from there rather than risk hitting one of their cars. One of the guys who worked there had come out to direct me as I was backing so that I wouldn't hit anything as I turned the truck around (one block long dead-end street) so that I wouldn't hit anything, which was very nice of him.

Left there and was told to drive back to the Los Angeles terminal. It was a 6% grade for the first 8 miles down the mountain.... and it was windy as f*ck. Pulling an empty trailer down that road was like trying to fly a kite in a wind tunnel. I only had about three hours left on my clock for the day, so I drove as far as I could and then pulled into a rest stop for the night. I've still not made it back to the terminal. I had to find a truck stop with wifi so that I could make some bill payments online (that I can't do over the phone or through my phone's internet). I really need to get something worked out so that I can have internet in the truck.

Do any of you do the thing through Verizon where you can use your phone as a mobile hotspot? If so, how much data do you use? Do you stream video (I have Amazon Prime) or does that just eat up way too much data? I may have to get that set up when I'm home over Christmas.

Thanksgiving in Tupelo

So my load to Tupelo. It couldn't be delivered on Thanksgiving because they were closed. The last I spoke with my dispatcher was Wednesday morning (when I was finishing up the furniture load.... picked up the load bound for Tupelo in the afternoon) and she said she was trying to get me a delivery appointment. I called the place myself several times on Wednesday afternoon after I picked up the load... but no one answered the phone. I figured they'd just gotten off early for Thanksgiving or something so I didn't really pay it much mind.

I drove all the way to Tupelo on Thanksgiving and drove to the customer first thing the next morning (I got there about 15 minutes before they opened). I parked in a nearby parking lot and waited until 8am to call and ask about setting up a delivery time. Apparently they only unload from 8am to Noon and they were fully booked for the day. Crap. The office manager had me park on the side of their lot and wait and said they'd do their best to get me in. I called my dispatcher and asked (if the customer couldn't unload me until Monday) could I drop the trailer at our Mississippi terminal (about 30 miles away) and another driver could deliver it on Monday rather than me sitting around for three days. She said no other driver would be available to do it... and it really did look like I was going to be hanging out in Tupelo until Monday. They did finally manage to squeeze me into their unloading schedule after 11am. Yay!

My next load was dropping my empty trailer at our Mississippi terminal, hooking to an already loaded trailer and heading west. I'd never been to New Mexico or Arizona, so I was kinda excited about it. I still can't get over how much the scenery here makes me want to watch roadrunner cartoons.

It's Sunday night and I've pulled into a truck stop in Arizona for the night.

I had a guy tell me this morning that I should forget about truck driving and look into prostitution... because I'd make a lot more money. He used that as a segue into hitting on me and was genuinely surprised when I didn't go for it. I hadn't had enough coffee yet for that conversation to be even remotely funny. Most of the people I meet are really nice, but some of them are such creeps!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Finished up my series of stops in Texas. Had to backtrack to one of the stops. Very unpleasant customer and one I hope I don't have to deliver to again. Not a fun trip, all told. Glad to be moving on to other adventures.

I picked up another load in Houston and I'm sat in Tupelo, Mississippi ready to deliver first thing in the morning. Not sure where I'll be heading after this.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Be safe.

Deep in the Heart of Texas...

So I ended up waiting for more than 24 hours for a load out of North Carolina, which qualifies as a layover. I looked it up in the binder and layovers are $50 per 24 period. It's something, but nowhere near what you'd make driving.  That truck needs to be moving in order for you to make money. Sitting sucks.

I got my load Friday afternoon. It's a furniture load to Texas and there are ten stops. Eight are scheduled for Monday and two for Tuesday. I debated whether to wait at the North Carolina terminal another 10 hours (with the layover, that would be a 34-hour reset)... but I was so ready to go. I drove until almost 3am and ended up at a Love's in Alabama. I had tried several truck stops and rest stops during the hours leading up to when I finally did stop.... there were either no open spots or (in the case of the rest areas) signs posted everywhere saying "overnight parking prohibited". I'm not keen on getting a ticket... so I kept going. I'm glad I finally found a space because it was beginning to look like I'd have to park on an exit/entrance ramp and that can't possibly be safe (or legal) despite the fact that I see people doing it every day.

My first delivery is about half an hour over the border from Louisiana, which was (according to my phone gps) around 7.5 hours of driving from where I spent Friday night. I decided to drive most of it today (with minimal stopping so that I'd get to a truck stop early enough that I wouldn't have trouble finding an open spot). My fuel stop is near the border of Louisiana and Texas, so I hauled butt and got here just before 8pm (7pm local time). I fueled up and found a parking space close to the building (and well-lit!)

So I'm squeezing in a 34-hour reset and I'm less than an hour from my first delivery on Monday. Take that, time management!

I've just finished up my first month on the road. I'm going to go through my notes and figure out how many miles I've run so far. I bought a month's worth of wifi at Love's, so I should be online more in the next few weeks (and tomorrow, since there's noooooothing else to do off this exit and I'm sat here until Monday morning).

I don't like the radio in my truck. It doesn't have the input thing for an iPod and I tried playing a CD in it, but it scratched the brand new cd all to Hell.... so that's not an option. I just bought a set of "CB extension speakers" at the truck stop for about $15. They are designed to clip to the visor and have the right size input jack for my iPod (and don't require a power supply of their own). I wanted speakers for the iPod in the truck, but didn't want speakers and lots of cables plus an inverter clogging up my dash. This isn't a good solution, but it's better than nothing.  They aren't really loud enough to be hard over the sound of the diesel engine.

My CB radio doesn't work.  A friend's dad used to be a truck driver and he gave me some of his old stuff (the 12v cooler is awesome!). I had one of the shop guys check the wiring in the truck. All the wires and antennae are good (and hot).... but the radio isn't working. I thought maybe I had hooked it up wrong. The shop guy suggested that either the radio was dead or that some CB radios have internal fuses that can go bad. I'll look into that when I have time/money to throw at it. So still no CB.

The windshield mount I got for my phone is great. Makes it really easy to see it for navigation and much easier to make hands-free calls on. I have a cheap hands-free headset (I'm not big on talking on the phone in general, let alone while driving. one more distraction I don't need)... but it's not a bluetooth or cordless. The cord was so short that the phone had to be in my pocket (wouldn't reach to the dash) while I used it. Not convenient. So that mount kit was $6 well spent.

Too bad this truck stop doesn't have laundry facilities. I need to find a place to do laundry in the next few days.

And Away I Went...

I'm in North Carolina, near our terminal and enjoying some free wifi at a McDonald's. Iced coffee and free wifi... you can't beat that with a stick.

I finished my load from Montana to Pennsylvania, then took another load from there to South Carolina. I had another incident that is really embarrassing in retrospect. Did you know that some shippers actually anchor you to the dock when they load you? I didn't. There's a red/green light that tells you when you can go. I just thought it indicated when someone was still in the trailer. I had been called into the shipping office, given my Bill of Lading and a seal and told I was good to go.

So I went.

I thought the reason that the truck wasn't moving was because I had just been loaded with 44k lbs of cargo and there was an incline down to the loading dock. Not so. My bumper was anchored to the dock. The bumper itself is fine, but the part of the trailer where it is anchored is bent. It needs to be bent back and welded.

I called the main office and reported it to the Safety Department and then talked to the shop about when/where to fix it. I was told to continue to my consignee and then call them back to make arrangements to get it fixed. The bottom of the bumper was about a foot further out from the truck than it should be. Luckily, the design of the dock at the delivery place was such that it wasn't a problem.

I unloaded and then since I was almost out of hours, I drove 5 miles to a Flying J to park for the night and have dinner. There was a shop there, but the main office told me to talk to my dispatcher to see whether I should have it fixed there or drive the 3 hours to the North Carolina terminal and have them fix it. I was told to bring it to the terminal.

I arrived a little before noon yesterday (there isn't a shop at that terminal, but there is a local shop that does all the repair work). I had one of the shop guys (whom I passed coming in the gate) take a look and tell me whether I should bring the trailer to them or drop it in the terminal yard. He told me to drop it at the terminal. I called the shop to arrange for them to fix it.

It was such a dumb rookie mistake and now that I know that they anchor your bumper to the dock, I will not be making that mistake again.

And I'm still waiting for a load out. This is the longest I've had to sit waiting for a load. I think it's due to the fact that Thanksgiving is next week and a lot of drivers are taking home-time, so it makes dispatching more complicated because they're trying to make sure everyone ends up at home when they need to be. I didn't ask for time off at Thanksgiving, but I am going home at Christmas.

It's been a nice little break though. I bobtailed to Walmart to stock up on food. There's a skating rink about 2 miles from the terminal (I used to play roller derby and I've been dying to skate at a rink, but where do you park a giant truck?) I stopped in when they were closed yesterday just so that I could get their hours from the sign. The manager came out while I was taking a picture of their sign and I talked to her. She went into the office to get me a printed out schedule and told me that I was welcome to park my truck there anytime I wanted to skate. There's an empty gravel/grassy lot right next to their actual parking lot. She said I could park there even if I had a trailer (I wouldn't. This close to the terminal I'd just drop the trailer at the yard rather than try to maneuver it into that lot because there's not enough room to turn around, so I'd have to jack-knife back into it).

So I got to go skating and it was awesome. I've got outdoor skates and wheels (okay, but not as nice as my indoor skates. I don't want to wear my expensive skates outdoors), but skating in a parking lot is never as fun as skating on a rink floor in my derby skates. It was really great.

I just bought a window mount for my smart phone. I'm still using that not so much to navigate, but more to be able to see where my shippers/receivers are located. I can get to the general area, but I need the GPS to find the exact location. My receiver in South Carolina was a warehouse in a string of warehouses with no sign and no number on the building. That was fun. Stuck with just the phone GPS for a while longer because catching up on bills means I still haven't bought a trucking GPS. For those of you who are drivers, what kind of trucking GPS do you have and why did you choose that one? I'm trying to decide between Garmin and Rand McNally. Does the Rand McNally tell you which lane you need to be in ahead of time? I know that the Garmin does and that's an awesome feature.

I'm hoping to get a load going out west or to the southwest. I absolutely hated driving in Pennsylvania (so much road construction and I was routed on tiny highways with hills so steep I had to climb some of them in 3rd gear) or Maryland (where there are so few rest areas or truck stops that there was nowhere to park). You'd see like 80 trucks in a rest stop designed to hold like 30. Ridiculous.

I really like driving and I sincerely hope I don't have any more incidents. I like this company and I really want to keep working here.

Review: First Three Weeks on the Road

So I finished that trip from Myrtle, Mississippi to Lakewood, Washington. I stopped in Missoula on the way out (as good a place as any to shower and sleep), but my new truck wasn't ready. They got me a load going from Oregon to northern Montana, after which they routed me through Missoula to pick up a new truck.

It's a Volvo, just a few years newer than the one I had been driving. They had it detailed, so it was gloriously clean when I moved in. A few minor mechanical things (such as the driver's side utility compartment didn't latch shut) had to be fixed before I could leave. I had time anyway because they were replacing the front two super-single tires on my trailer that day anyway. I didn't leave Missoula until late afternoon (eastern time, which is where my home terminal is and what time zone my logbook kept in). It's clean and it is so maneuverable! And both doors open (and lock!), which is my favorite feature. The fuel tanks on this model are set much further back (just ahead of the drive axle) so that makes a difference when you're making sure your axles are legal. I'm loaded really heavy this trip, so I can't have more than 3/4 of a tank or it puts me overweight on my drive axles (and there's not much more weight I can put on my tandems before they're either overweight or so far forward that I am in danger of swinging my trailer into things when I turn).

It seems like I drove forever... and I still hadn't left Montana. t had been snowing when I left Missoula, but clear in eastern Montana. I was routed through North Dakota (straight through winter storm Brutus). The freezing rain made for some interesting driving. I had to stop every 30 to 45 minutes to beat the ice off my wipers and headlights. The road wasn't too bad if you drove slowly, but there were so many people who slid off the road because they were driving too fast. I kept going because a friend of mine who was giving me weather updates informed me that once I passed Jamestown, ND, it was all clear. I'm glad she let me know that. If she hadn't, I would have just pulled off at a rest stop and bedded down for the night. They were predicting 10 inches of snow overnight, so that wasn't going to be a fun drive the next day either. It was clear and dry immediately after passing through Jamestown. I made it well into Minnesota before my hours dictated had to stop for the night.

When I was leaving the last rest stop before Jamestown, the truck who left immediately ahead of me was an empty flatbed. He immediately floored it. I hung back at around 45 mph. Not ten miles down the road, he was tangled in a ditch with two grain trucks. Sometimes it pays to be a wimp about driving in bad weather!


I have been driving for three weeks now and I absolutely love it. Just this week, I got routed near home, so I can finally pick up my stuff! Katy brought my CB and my 12v cooler (courtesy of her dad, who was a truck driver once upon a time and never got rid of his stuff) when she picked me up at the truck stop. I plugged in the cooler (so it'll be nice and cold by the time I get back) and I am sat in our apartment. My laundry is almost done, I've filled my dvd book to capacity and I'm currently uploading music to my iTunes.

It's so nice to have my winter clothes and a lot of the little things that didn't fit into my suitcase for orientation. A lot of toiletries, extra clothes, my rollerskates, my Kindle, etc. Just things that'll make life cozier in the truck.

I'm going to borrow a friend's car and drive to Elkhart to visit Lola. She's the queen of Katy's mum's house. After 90 days, I can have her in the truck with me if I want. I really miss her, but I doubt I can ultimately justify taking her from having the run of an entire house to living in the cab of a truck. No matter how desperately I miss her, I don't think I can do that. She deserves better.

I need to run to Meijer or Walmart to get some storage containers for stuff in the truck, but other than that, I'm good to go. I'm going to leave late tonight and drive east. I have a delivery appointment in eastern Pennsylvania early Tuesday morning. If I drove most of the way tonight, I can have an easy day of it Monday.