Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

Yeah, L.A. seems like a tough place to find parking. NOt sure there is any.

I haven't heard anything about it yet so I'm not going to bring it up.

 

Currently at an Iowa rest area. There is free WiFi but it is timed. Nor sure how long you get but my time ran out in about an hour.

Got a run from Otay Mesa out to Loveland, CO. Great run but a Blue Beacon truck wash sprayed off a piece of rubber on one of my fins and they told me to call it in as an accident. I had the truck wash manager write up an incident report. Haven't heard back from claims but this better not go on me. I'll have to call again tomorrow.

I got a load from Denver out to near Omaha and now I'm on a load from Omaha out to Illinois. Got a load picking up tomorrow after I drop this going from Illinois up to Wisconsin. They've been keeping me busy which is great, getting oreplans before i finish the one I'm on. I have home time set out in Virginia for 4/3 to surprise my mom for her birthday. I'm looking forward to that.

Also I'm looking forward to seeing my new to me bike. The guy that was to buy this dream bike flaked, as is customary on Craigslist, and I jumped in there. Its costing me a small fortune but its worth it. Deal is supposed to go down in my absence with a family member of mine acting as agent tomorrow night, weather permitting. I'm too excited to get this bike. I'll be are to keep it out in the parents garage in safety and now I can start preparing some other aspects of my upcoming trip.

Going to sleep to start early tomorrow morning.

 

Currently at the Columbus, OH terminal doing some $.25 laundry.

I spoke to someone that handles the claims regarding the piece of rubber that flew off at the truckwash. She said that it basically goes down as an incident report only and that it wouldn't go against my CSA or my Swift record. I hope she was correct in this. So, case closed with that.

I just got back from a load going from Wayne, NJ delivering out here in Columbus. Not a t-call but delivered about 14 miles away. The delivery that got me out to Jersey was a load going from near Peoria, IL out to Bayonne, NJ. Despite the fact that I'm from that part of Jersey I absolutely hate driving out there - at least a truck like this.

When I got the preplan for the load going from Illinois out to Bayonne, NJ I did not want it. I messaged them stating that I did not want to get stuck out in the NYC/north NJ area due to that load. So, they stacked me with a load picking up near Bayonne and coming out here to Columbus. Good enough, I thought, and I mac 9'd and accepted.

Years ago in between driving a cab out in Jersey City I drove a truck out of Jersey City out of a small furniture warehouse based of Route 440. We were contracted to deliver and assemble JC Penny furniture. Back then the truck I drove did not require a CDL. It was a box truck, 27 ft. if I remember right. Anyway, it was a large box truck but despite its size, I could navigate around pretty well. I drove through all parts of North Jersey including the densely populated Essex and Hudson Counties, all 5 boroughs of New York including Manhattan, Long Island all the way out to the eastern end and up as far as Kingston, NY. At the time I never knew how difficult it would be to drive something like I do now around out there. It was misery.

For my Bayonne delivery I got there in the evening. Not too late to order a large pie and a meatball parm. I parked at the consignee's location on a slab of asphalt on the corner of the property. There were no docks there. No lines indicating parking spots. It seemed I wouldn't be blocking anything. About a half hour before my scheduled delivery at 0700 I woke up to find a mess of cars parked all around me. There wasn't street parking, from what I could tell the night before, and this seemed like a fine place to park. It wasn't. I managed to wiggle my truck out of there without taking anyone's car with me. The gave me a dock assignment and maneuvering around the trucks parked in the street and the trucks that were docking facing me across the street, I finally bumped the dock. A few hours later I was on my way with an empty trailer towards Wayne for a live load. Or so I thought...

I had just gotten over the border of Bayonne into Jersey City on Route 440 north when traffic just stopped. From that point forward it was about 1.5 hours crawl until I got to the Jersey Truckstop over the bridge across from the Kearney Jail. This part of the journey must have been no more than 5 miles in distance yet took this long to complete. Not sure why the traffic was so backed up but it was miserable. Basically it was backed up somewhere way off down the road and this was causing a ripple effect in every direction. The traffic light would turn green yet the traffic ahead was still stopped so no one could get through the green. We would just sit through light after light, green, yellow, red.....green, yellow, red. Nothing would change and we sat and sat. I had no option to get out of this mess so I just stared out my windshield occasionally shaking me head. I pulled into the Jersey Truckstop to use the bathroom and realized that, despite sitting in that mess of traffic for so long, I was relieved that I was not taking a 10 or, worse yet, a 34 hour reset here. Absolutely miserable place and has to be one of the worst truck stops ever. I have no doubt.

Got past the mess finally and traffic broke up as I hit the Turnpike out towards the highway to take me to Wayne. I was never so happy to see Wayne, NJ.

The night before, despite my familiarity with the area around the Newark Airport, I almost took the wrong highway. Screw what the GPS says, I had to use a mix of experience and common sense just to find my way from I-80 to Bayonne. I feel bad for those unfamiliar with the area around Newark Airport. It is one big, hot mess of highways and confusion. There's not time to deliberate which way you are going to go at the last moment when you are in that area. Know beforehand, commit to the decision and just go.

I do not want to go back there ever again. I'm not sure what I'm going to say in the mac 9 but I am not returning to the metro Jersey area again in a truck if I have anything to do with it. It's just plain not worth it, despite the delicious pizza.

 

Thanks, me too. I'm still crawling out of my skin anticipating my first look at it and ride. I insured it a few days back. Full coverage all the way around, plus a lower comprehensive deductible of only $50 and I got it insured for the year for just over $300. Not bad considering. For ships and giggles I got a quote on my other bike and it was 3 times the amount of this one. That bike out in WA I usually keep uninsured, as it is legal in Washington, until I go to ride it. Then I just get a temporary insurance policy while I ride and cancel when I park it. Where I grew up in Jersey, we traditionally had the highest auto insurance rates in the country. I remember when I was young, I had a newer car, wasn't married, newer driver, a couple of tickets, etc. - basically I belonged to the highest insurance risk group. My insurance at the time, under those circumstances and at that age was about $5,500 per year! It was unbelievable.

So, considering this bike still has a decent amount of value and is at the higher end of motorcycles, I'm happy with my $300/yr rate.

I've been doing more research on this trip I want to take. It's going to have to be pretty simple this year. I'll consider it my practice run but still enjoy it for what it is. The expenses of the trip itself plus considering how much I went over my budget on buying this bike, I'll have to definitely cut this trip short and plan on a longer one next year.

I've been researching Emergency Evacuation Insurance which will get me somewhere safe should I get severely injured out in the middle of nowhere. I also need to get comprehensive insurance that will cover me out of the U.S. I asked Geico about it since my new policy is with them and they do not insure out of country. Probably won't be cheap either will the Emer. Evacuation Insurance.

I've been drafting a list of everything I need to bring and plan on revising it, chopping and adding things, as I go along. It's a fairly difficult task as you need to bring enough to keep things going but you can't bring it all. Usually the model is to pack as light as possible. One of the tougher elements of this has been considering what tools to bring and what spare parts. Spare parts are available at the dealerships in some of the larger cities but that doesn't help when you are in the middle of nowhere. Deciding what spare parts to bring is a cross between an exercise in reading the future and predicting what parts may get used up quickly or break in a fall. The new bike is shaft drive so that is kind of cool. No need to bring a spare chain, chain tools or the like. But I will still need tire repair kits, spare clutch handles, spare brake handles and a bunch of other things. It's been a lot of work but it's been fun work. I enjoy the prep and having the new bike makes it that much more exciting.


I've been reading about these Spanish immersion schools. There's a couple in Mexico and a couple in Guatemala. It's relatively cheap. For the price you get your week or two of daily classes in Spanish, you get lodging at a host family's home for the duration and the family provides you with meals. It's all very cheap.

Unfortunately, during my last Washington State hometime I was tied up moving my storage and I forgot to grab my birth certificate. I need this to file for a passport. I can't get an international driver's license without the passport so now I will have to make a quick run back to Washington after this next time off in Virginia to grab my birth certificate and file for my passport. Not a big deal but wasn't planning on another visit to Washington for a while.

 

Yeah anywhere around Newark is trouble pretty much. I don't blame you for nominating that as your worst experience. It is a mess. I don't remember having many problems when I drove a car or rode a motorcycle around there but in a truck fuggedaboudit. My biggest fear is being over tired or something and hopping on the Garden State Parkway with my truck. I"m sure it must have happened to some poor driver at some point but I couldn't imagine what the NJ State Police would think of it. They are notoriously very tough.

It was kind of weird being back there in that area and taking that Turnpike exit 14A into Bayonne. It felt like a strange home coming of sorts. In one way I felt like I was home - hearing the accent, seeing the different faces that seemed all too familiar, the driving, etc. - everything kind of clicked like I had never left there. But in another way I was so thankful that I no longer lived there. My last departing experience when I left Jersey City a little over 10 years ago was an acquaintance of mine's unfortunate murder. I was in contact with my ex whom lived in Washington. We were dating long distance, her living in Tacoma and I lived in Jersey City. I was struggling to get by, driving a cab on the 6 PM- 6 AM midnight shift in Jersey City. Slow nights, early in the week could see me making the long, tired walk home from the Jersey City Heights to my apartment Downtown with only $35 in my pocket. That was after the company took their cut (we did a 60/40 split, as they call it) and I paid the dispatcher his 10% "tip". You don't tip and you might not get a car the next night or you might not get the better paying airport runs in the morning. I was thinking about moving out to Washington and my parents were pushing it pretty strongly as they knew the dangers in my job and the poor future in it. The final straw that made my decision was when I found out that one of the guys from the other, larger cab company had been robbed off of Pacific Ave. somewhere and was shot in the face. He died. He was Middle Eastern and I had enjoyed talking to him almost nightly on one of the cab stands up in the Greenville neighborhood. I looked forward to it and not only had we kept each other company while waiting for fares but we were safer because we could hand on the cab stand together. Regardless, that incident left me angry and sad. You know it's one thing if you want to be a scumbag and rob us cabbies. We don't make #### but whatever. But it's another thing that you gotta shoot this guy in the face and leave him slumped over in his front seat dead. I was disgusted and I took the next opportunity to pack up my #### and leave Jersey City.

Back to the subject of those being rude and impressions, I never thought of myself as rude or those around me being rude back then although when I moved out to the other coast to Tacoma, WA one of the things I heard every so often in those first few years was that I was rude. It was completely unintentional on my part but I think we come across that way. Kind of crass, very matter of fact and to the point. That doesn't always translate well outside the metro north Jersey/NYC area. Understandably. But coming back there I picked up on the rudeness a little. I guess I've gotten a little soft living out in Washington state where any kind of edginess and sharp words get soggy and damp like the rest of the environment. I like to think that those working in the warehouse were maybe just tired. It was Monday mornings, which I hear suck, post-weekend, back to work for another week in a warehouse in Bayonne type vibe. Maybe. Or maybe they were just rude.

It's funny how I get out there and I just click back into Jersey mode with my driving, attitude, my superhero pizza-sense pretty easily. I just don't like driving out there with a semi.

More to come on my upcoming trip as I'm constantly planning it and preparing, the best I can prepare being on the road all the time. This kind of thing has to be a lot easier for those that work the 9-5 and can come home to get this stuff done. For me, the internet is invaluable and if I had it more often I could do more research. As it is, without a steady internet connection, it is a lot more slow going.

I have been looking into more options with what will have to be my later trip down to Ushuaia. I've been researching the hell out of the ways people get past that whole Darien Gap issue in Panama. There are a million different opinions out there and some are from a few years ago so it is difficult to determine which options are still valid. I read something from a thread on the riding site I frequent that Columbia won't allow riders to enter the country via sailboat any longer. I believe, if this is true, that the reasoning is that when you land on some beach in Columbia off a sailboat that you not entering through an approved immigration checkpoint so that is not acceptable. I think, in the past, that they basically trusted you to check yourself in at immigration once you had landed within the country. But not sure if that sailboat option is viable any more. That leaves only three options, if that rumor about sailboats is true: Option 1 is to ride through the Darien Gap which is not going to happen - no one does it. Option 2 is crate the bike, put it on a plane, buy a ticket for myself and fly the bike and myself there. That's the most expensive option. Option 3 is to crate the bike, put it on a cargo ship and book passage for the bike and myself to Columbia. I think this third option is still somewhat expensive. If I couldn't utilize the sailboat option the freighter would be what I would probably do. I wanna stay with my bike no matter where I am and considering how airlines can lose your luggage, I don't want to lose a 700 lb. piece of much needed "luggage". Another option I have been reading about is to bypass going directly to Columbia and go to Equador. I've heard this because I've also been reading, from some individuals including those whom have lived in Columbia, that you put your life into jeopardy when you ride around Columbia. This is due to rebels that set up between the cities. I've heard conflicting things about this. I would rather go to Columbia because some of the most beautiful cities in South America and the Americas, as a whole, are located there. So I'll have to figure that out later. That wouldn't be the trip for this year anyway but something I'll keep researching.

The interesting thing about the Darien Gap is that it is the only part of the Pan American highway that is interrupted. The highway basically starts up in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and goes all the way down to the tip of S. America. This route alone has been ridden many times. But, the Darien Gap portion of the highway has never been developed. It is anywhere from 60-90 miles long and about 30 miles wide, between Panama and Columbia separating South America from Central America. It is complete jungle and parts of it are controlled by drug traffickers, rebels, anti-government types, FARC as well as native indigeneous tribes. One of the concerns with developing it and continuing the highway has been the introduction of diseases from S. America north. I've heard Hoof and Mouth disease mentioned as well as a couple of others. There are also environmental concerns that restrict it being developed. So, it looks like for now, the long way around the Gap will be the only option.