Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Interesting day today. I stayed overnight at BJ's in Uxbridge, MA. Cheaped out and went the PB&J route instead of ordering pizza. Last time I ordered pizza, fries, a 2L coke and had them delivered to BJs. 20 something dollars later... lol.

So, I got up this morning about 0515 and headed for my pickup at the Home Depot DC that was about 70 miles away. In and out of there pretty quick, headed to my delivery up in Maine about 200 mile away. Got on 95, stopped at one of the welcome centers along the way to take my 30 minute break, and to burn up some time so I wouldn't be too early for the delivery window. Ended up staying there for about an hour until I knew for sure I wouldn't be too early. After that, got off 95 and the fun stats. What a friggin trip. Nothing but two late state/US routes, in the rain, roads no wider than my truck. Stoplights,speed zones, then traffic.

Ended up getting to Home Depot about an hour later than I expected thanks to all that crap. But, I was still about 5 minutes before my ETA, so had plenty of time.

They were a little slow to unload me, but were nice and I hung out on the dock while they unloaded.

I had a preassignment to pick up from Sappi Fine Papers way up here in Maine, been there before. Only had 3 hours left on the clock and about 120 miles to go, but the pickup window only lasted through tonight so I had to get there. Same BS getting out of there, finally got to 95 and headed north again. Foot on the floor all the way up 95. Got to Sappi with about 30 minutes left on my 14, luckily they have a place to park here for the night so I was OK. By the time they brought my loaded trailer down and I got it scaled and got my paperwork I was out of time.

But, thanks to running my day down to 30 minutes I did manage to pull off 400 miles today. Not bad considering 70% of it was little northeast towns and a live unload.

I'm headed south to NJ with this load, but it doesn't deliver until the 5th. That sucks, but at the same time I guess I can get a 34 in there and have plenty of hours left to hopefully get out of the NE. I was only regaining 7 tomorrow, and then 9 or so the following day, and that would probably mean more crappy NE loads if I tried to keep rolling it. So my plan tomorrow is to run as far down towards NJ as I can and find a truck stop where I can take a comfortable 34 at. Take my 34 through the 4th (woo won't that be a fun 4th of July sitting a truckstop) and then finish up my delivery on the 5th.

I guess it'll work out. Frustrated about having to take that 34, but if it means I can have a fresh start and hopefully get out of the NE, I'll happily take it. I'm sure not too many shippers/receivers are open on the 4th so I might be lucky to even have a load.

My larger inverter that I use to power my laptop crapped out today. What did I expect from a company called "Power Drive". I think it lasted 3 weeks. My smaller one can't run the laptop on anything other than power saver mode, and as soon as the compressor on my fridge starts it gets real mad and starts beeping and shuts off. So, no games to kill time tonight. Can't idle to keep the voltage up higher to keep the inverter and fridge running happily at the same time because its below 60 fricking degrees in July up here. I guess summer just avoids this part of the country.

So, until next time...