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.
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