Millis OTR journal

Usually never have a toll road be suggested even if it means taking 3 hours longer if I followed the suggested route. I'll avoid some tolls when I can and it is a reasonable alternative but I'm not driving way out of my way or hours longer for it. I'm also not driving thru every city, town and stop light for mile after mile to avoid them either. Many of these deliveries would be late if those suggested routes were followed religiously. Plus I would be burning my hours up faster.

I read up on Heartland when I first heard of the takeover. I read all sorts of stories about having to avoid tolls at all costs with them so who knows. I generally take the fastest route and like I said before if I can reasonably avoid some of the tolls I will. They can write them off on their taxes as business expenses to recoup some of the cost and I'm sure they are built into the rate quotes to some degree. I mean a lot of the northeast and all around Chicago is peppered with toll roads. Ok I've blabbed on enough about that.

 

The Milwaukee facility is closed until next week due to an employee who was terminated and returned and shot up offices there...that could be the reason for the spike right now.

 

Yeah I remember hearing the same thing about them but since then I've had the route suggestion tell me to take not just a small piece of it, but to take it all the way from where 70 joins at New Stanton all the way to New Jersey. Then I had a route suggestion that had me cross the GW, and I had a load, I think it was an Owens load from Lexington to Trenton, that routed me on the WV Turnpike instead of the usual US19/WV16/WV61 crap that anybody with any sense ignores.

 

Speaking of route suggestions, when you guys go from Minnesota down to Memphis do you take the Avenue of the Saints from Iowa City down to St. Louis? Because I've always been going the long way and taking 80 over into Illinois and then 74 and 155 to 55.

 

Us 218 down to us 61 to St. Louis is 4 lane hey all the way down to 70 in St. Louis area..

 

Yes Avenue of Saints good easy running

 

Yeah I saw that on the map but it put me in mind too much of 69 and 75 from Big Cabin to Dallas and I freakin' hate that road. I'll give it a shot next time, though.

 

Appt at Lakeshore Bev 7 am tomorrow. How early can I get there without it being a nuisance? Do they usually have a ton of trucks lined up at the gate?

 

Yeah, I feel slightly bad about taking the toll roads, but at the same time...at least in the winter, I also learned my lesson not to mess with back roads if I don't have to and if my paid miles match up closely with taking the toll roads, I think it's a little crappy to make me drive an extra 100 or 200 miles to avoid those roads. (I always stay on the WV turnpike). I got off once to stop at that Pilot near Nitro I think, and it was so busy I ended up skipping it, but then had to take the really steep backroad to get to the next entrance for the freeway. Don't feel like getting into an silly spot because I'm getting off the interstate in an a tight area.

 

I got there 2hrs before appt noone said a word. Just watch your mirrors when backing in or when someone backing in beside you. Tightest docks I've been to. Plenty of room to back into but there is no room from truck to truck when in docks. Had to pull my mirrors in just to let guy back in beside me.