Back to the Midwest

So I was finally able to pick up that load on the morning of January third. It wasn't ready yet when I got there, so I had to sit for almost an hour. It weighed in at 77-something thousand pounds. Much better. I will get $50 "detention" pay for having to wait more than 24 hours for that load to be redone. It sucks though, because I had to wait in Indianapolis all day Monday for the load to be ready in the evening and couldn't take it until Wednesday morning because it was way too heavy. Two days of waiting. $50. Not cool.

A driver friend of mine texted me and reminded me to go through my permit book and see what expired on January 1st. I'm glad she told me because I wouldn't have thought to do it. I called the main office and had them FedEx my new permits (and IFTA stickers) to the Mississippi terminal because I'd be going straight there after I delivered.

I arrived at the delivery point in southern Mississippi at noon on Thursday. Only twelve hours past the original delivery window (we arranged a later delivery with them because of the delay in picking up the load). I'd delivered there before, so it was much easier this time around because I knew where things were. Took me less than ten minutes to drop and hook.... and the better part of an hour to move my tandems. I finally had to use my belt and a hammer for leverage to get the handle to pull all the way out.

I drove up to our Mississippi terminal (where I'd been told my new load was ready and that my permits/stickers had arrived and they'd put them in my trip envelope in the mailbox). I dropped and hooked and drove about 30 more miles to a truck stop for the night. I didn't have enough hours left on my clock to get all the way through Memphis (and I knew that the rest area just across the border from Tennessee was closed) so I figured that's the best I could do. It'd been a long day.

I have five stops on my current load, all of them terminals. Richmond, Kentucky was the first. I delivered there on Friday night, spent the night at a truck stop just north of there. I drove to Indianapolis early the next morning.... to discover that there isn't anyone at the Indianapolis terminal on Saturdays. In retrospect, it explains why no one answered the phone any of the times I called that morning trying to get ahold of someone to give the my ETA. I drove to a truck stop five miles away and sent a qualcomm to the weekend dispatcher. She replied that they did have Sunday morning hours, so I was able to deliver there this morning.

My next stop was our Columbus, Ohio terminal. I didn't even know we had one there. It isn't on our phone-list card or in our list of terminals in the red binder that we are given in orientation. I sent another qualcomm message to the weekend dispatcher asking for the phone number and address of the Columbus terminal before I left Indy. She replied with the information when I was almost to Columbus. I pulled into a truck stop and called the number several times. No answer. Since I'm going to have to wait until Monday morning (24 hours) to deliver there, I'm turning it into a reset since I've pretty much used all of my 70 hours and wouldn't get any back until Wednesday. I was hoping to deliver in Columbus this morning and then drive north until I ran out of hours and do a reset then.

So I'll deliver in Columbus on Tuesday morning and then head north.