Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Sitting at the first stop now. Took me 20 minutes to find how to get to the door. Of course the contact number is just the store main phone number and they don't open till 1000. My appt is at 0915. Had to drive through the middle of the parking garage to get there. Luckily got ahold of security to make sure I would fit, lol. Hopefully someone will show up soon...

 

So far so good. Just got to the 2nd stop early, they're fine to start unloading me now. Hopefully I'll get out of here quick then I'm gonna stop by my cdl school and show off my truck since it's only a few miles away. Not sure where I'm headed next.

 

Bah, waste of a day. Sears loads weren't too bad. First one was at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, NC. Qualcomm shows the entrance being one that you absolutely WILL NOT make in a truck. Gotta keep going down a little further until you come on the second entrance. Turn in, look to your right. You'll see the big tunnel going through the parking garage. Go all the way to the end, it'll curve right, follow the curve, you'll come out from under the garage, the road will curve left, keep following. Look to your left and there is a giant garage door, enclosed docks behind it. Not too bad to back in to, just gotta watch cause cars come flying by both directions. Cut in towards the dock first then aim your tractor back out and block all the lanes. Get out, take your time, open your doors. Then they can wait and get mad.



Next one (forget the name of the mall, its about 15 miles away) is real easy. Don't worry about going all the way to the point the Qualcomm shows as being the entrance... start looking as you pass by the mall and when you see one big enough to turn in, go for it. Go right, follow the road around, look for the Sears sign, drive towards it, you'll eventually find the docks.



After that stopped by my school and talked with them for a bit. I got a preassignment out of Henderson, NC headed up to Delaware. Good old P&G load, place I've been to countless times. In and out of there quick, headed north. Planned to make it almost all the way to the delivery tonight then deliver early tomorrow morning. How wrong I was. 12 car pileup on I-95 in VA had me sitting for about 2 hours. Then, finally got out of that mess and started running into the blackest sky I have seen in a long time. Was just about to chance it and keep running with this load when I saw all the other trucks start pulling off and aiming for the truckstop. I'm glad I did. While I was sitting at the intersection waiting to turn in to the road that looped around to the truckstop the skies just opened up. It was so bad I had to drive around the truckstop until I could find a spot to pull forward through because that was absolutely no chance of being able to see out of my mirrors and back in. I watched several other trucks try this and give up and pull around and go back in forwards. Made me feel a little bit better LOL.

So, only about 230 miles today. Ouch. 2.5 hours left on the 14 and ticking away, but I'm taking state highways pretty much all the way to Delaware so I know stopping points would be few and far between. Not worth the risk with this weather.

So, I'll have to get up early tomorrow if I want to make my original arrival ETA, which I plan to... I really wish that on these loads that have large delivery windows our "ETA to Final Service" wasn't knocked if you deliver outside of your original ETA. I mean it's a window, if it gets there within that window, who cares? Anyway... enough of a rant about that.

So, now that question is, will I get home on Friday as I planned???!

 

Got my P&G load up to the Walmart DC in Smyrna, DE this morning. Barely made it there before my original planned ETA, but hey it was close enough. Picked up an empty and had a preassignment to pick up a relay to another Walmart DC in VA. Of course it was one of those random drop lots, luckily another Schneider driver was going to the same place so I just followed him in. We talked for a while, I gave him the empty I brought up from Walmart, just by chance he was headed right back to the exact same place. Got my relay, old crappy trailer with a 46k load, of course not scaled. I found a scale not too far out of my route and took it there, was over on the trailer axles but I was able to slide them back and put some more weight on my drives and get it legal. Made it to the Carlisle OC tonight, wanted to get a little further, but having to scale that load and adjust the tandems ate up some time. Took the trailer to the shop since one of the tires had a nail in it, they pulled it out and luckily it hadn't punctured all the way through.

So, I'll have to get up pretty early tomorrow if I want to get this load there by my planned ETA again, having to scale it and stopping to get the tire looked at really slowed me down today. Oh well.

Hopefully I'll be able to make it home tomorrow... we'll see.