Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

Yesterday was a really bad day.

I had only about 30 miles to drive to my shipper for my noon appointment. I got loaded and everything was fine, but I had another incident. Not good. I'm not going to go into detail, but suffice it to say: it was my fault and totally preventable. I just didn't see the other truck. I have been told that if anything else happens, I will be let go. Honestly, I can't blame them. I'm not turning out to be such a great truck driver. I'm trying hard, but it just isn't going well.

Then I had a DOT inspection later in the day at a scale in California. And my load routing looked weird (there was a much more efficient way to get where I was going), but it's been mentioned to me several times lately that I have a lot of off-route miles and unscheduled fuel stops, so I followed the load routing. Any time I've missed a fuel stop or had to make one that wasn't in my routing (either due to a faulty fuel gauge or more commonly, not being sent my load routing or fuel routing until I was several hundred miles into my trip and had already passed the fuel stop), I've always called in and talked to the guy in the main office who handles all the fuel issues. That's what I was told to do. Apparently I need to be writing on the envelope that it's an out-of-route stop. So I've racked up quite a few fuel stop violations.

Anyway, those three things combined to make me late on this load. I was supposed to deliver at 10am, but there's no way I could get there. The shipper closes at 2, but they open again at 9pm so that is when they made my new delivery appointment for. On the bright side, it gives me plenty of time to get there.

 

I feel like almost every trailer has some glaring mechanical issue that I have to report to maintenance. It's ridiculous. I really hate that the drivers who used the trailers before me couldn't be bothered to report the issue. It's really pissing me off.

 

I picked up another load in Modesto (after dropping my empty at the terminal and reporting it for maintenance and grabbing another empty) and drove down to L.A. I stopped in the late afternoon so that I could get up around 2am and arrive at my delivery at 6am (and not worry about where the heck to park overnight in the city). It was snowing just north of L.A. Totally not expecting that.

Delivered on-time and then dropped my empty at the terminal and headed to the driver's lounge to do some much-needed laundry.

I got a load out yesterday. It's going to Tennessee, which is in the general area of home. Still very much hoping to get home for Christmas. I was told that if you worked Thanksgiving, you were promised hometime at Christmas. That is apparently total crap. I did put in for a few days off at Christmas (at the beginning of November). Very much hoping to get there.

I had to put chains on for the first time today. In Arizona. Totally not expecting that either. Was delayed about five hours by heavy snow and several wrecks ahead of me. So I spent my afternoon eating Gummi Bears in my truck with my rust-stained Oompa-Loompah hands, which I'm sure was somewhat less than sanitary. Baby wipes were no match for rust. They did eventually get traffic moving, but very few trucks bothered with chains (even though there were so many trucks either in the ditch or on the road, just spinning their tires and going nowhere). So every few hundred feet, another truck would get stuck or slide off the road and the traffic back-up would begin anew. There were signs coming up the mountain warning that chains and/or 4x4 were highly recommended. There weren't any places to pull off and chain up though. It was really hard to find a place to take the chains off once I got to a place where the road had been plowed and no new snow was falling. Any rest area or truck stop was full to the brim and the shoulders hadn't been plowed, and weren't generally wide enough for a truck anyway.

About the time I finally was able to get out of the mountains and find a truck stop (the first few were way overcrowded with people waiting out the storm), they closed the road. After I'd parked, but before I'd turned of the engine, we got a qualcomm message telling us that I-40 East in Arizona through the mountains was closed because of weather and a wreck. I'm surprised it took them that long to close the road.

About an hour before I stopped, I got this warning: headlight low beam right short circuit. It wasn't dark at that point, so I figured I'd check it as soon as I'd stopped. I have no idea whether that's a fuse or a bulb issue or what. I looked at the fuse panel, but I don't see anything labeled as headlights. There's no one in the shop on Saturday nights, but there should be somebody there in the morning that I can ask. I know absolutely nothing about headlights and I'm not driving it this way because the last thing I need (or can afford) is a ticket. And knowing my luck, the other headlight would decide to throw in with the first one. Mutiny!

And so here I sit. I could do a lot worse than a truck stop with hot showers, food and wifi. I could literally be stuck in a ditch somewhere. Very glad I'm not. It's snowing here and in New Mexico. I think I'm channeling the White Witch of Narnia. Winter seems to follow me wherever I go. Always winter and never Christmas. Sorry, folks!

I got to watch the news while I was eating dinner. The school shooting in Connecticut is just horrific. My heart goes out to them.