CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK TEN
March 8th through March 14th

The perils of a missed reset!

I'd have to say that I'm relieved to have that week behind me. It started off on a bad note when I got a load at the end of last week going to Michigan that once again prevented me from getting a reset. By the time I did all the calculations it appeared that I would be about 30mins short and my options included putting in my reset and missing my appointment by that 30mins (if I encountered no other problems during the 900mi trip) or delivering my load ontime with the dim prospects of a two hour day following my delivery instead of a full days work that a reset would have provided.

There really wasn't a choice in the matter as far as I was concerned and I blew off the reset and made my way on up to Michigan with my load of paper rolls that I was sure no one would miss if I had in fact pulled in a few minutes late. As suspected, when I arrived the warehouse was stacked from floor to ceiling as far as I could see in any direction with rolls of paper that looked just like the seven I had on my trailer.

Minutes later I found myself empty at 7:30AM with a whole two hours available on my log which landed me a load that didn't pickup until 7:00PM and had me headed on back down to Arkansas (662mi) with a Wednesday morning drop delivery. Nothing to write home about, but considering my available hours it was about as good of a load as one could expect. I sure wish I would have been able to fit in that reset.

As a matter of fact it was a great load because it had a drop delivery anytime before 7am on Wednesday. If I had managed that reset I would have had the load there by Tuesday evening, but as it were, I had to hold up about an hour short of the final delivery because I ran out of available hours for the day and as a result I wasn't able to arrive until 5am on Wednesday.

At the time I didn't think it would make all that much difference, but what a mistake that assumption turned out to be. I had actually thought that a 5am delivery would have put me in pretty good shape for getting a quality load out of the area, but what I had failed to foresee was the chronic trailer shortage that I was about to be faced with.

The story has been told, but as a quick refresher, the two hour wait that I was originally told to expect turned into a horribly aggravating 32 ½ hrs and the 34hr reset that I had assumed would be automatic by this point was once again thwarted (not that I needed one at the moment). But this week has once again enforced the importance of resets. If I had been able to get one in at the beginning of the week, I would have arrived here during the previous night and I would have been one of the three drivers that left with an empty trailer by 10am. Instead, I didn't get my reset which forced me to arrive after those three drivers and it cost me more than a day.

Now, it was once again in the back of my mind that a missed opportunity at this time could come back to bite me in the back side later in the week. But like last week, I once again had to pull out just short of the required 34hrs in order to make an ontime appointment pickup (it ended up being a preloaded trailer that could have been picked up at any time, I hate that).

At least the load I got was a good one and I was headed back up north to Chicago (510mi) with a drop delivery anytime during the following day. As it turned out I was able to make it there right at Midnight and took advantage of the open delivery window to get into Chicago without the headaches of dealing with the traffic. This load was going into Chicago proper and it makes life much easier when you don't have to deal with daytime traffic.

I arrived with a few hours left on my 14hr clock and hoped that I would be able to get a drop and hook load out of town in the middle of the night, but I also knew that this customer had overnight parking and in either case I would be able to avoid the brunt of rush hour traffic. I would either be out of town by 3am or parked out of sight until 10am at which time the traffic would be manageable.

It only took a few minutes to get a load offer after putting in my empty call. Looks like my driving is done for the night because I would be picking up an Augusta bound load (860mi) at 11am the next morning just down the road.

And so ended a horrendous week with a pain in the butt detour around the I-40 rock pile in NC to add a good chunk of unpaid miles to the aggravation of the week (not that losing an $500 Blackberry did much to improve the mood of the week either). I pulled into Augusta Sunday night and parked across the street from the customer and waited for them to open up Monday morning.

So that's what happens when you miss out on a reset by 30mins and then days later find yourself sitting for 32hrs waiting for an empty trailer. Grrr!



WEEK TEN
Monday, March 8th through Sunday, March 14th
Miles include deadhead

McGehee, AR to Mendon, MI(last leg)....................................................688mi
Kalamazoo, MI to Jonesboro, AR.............................................................662mi
Paragould, AR to Chicago, IL...................................................................510mi
Melrose Park, IL to Augusta, GA.............................................................860mi

Total Paid Miles........................................................2720 Miles
Actual Miles..............................2872 Miles

2720mi x .44 = $1196.80