CRETE - A Year in Review

2008​

WEEK TWENTY​

Monday, May 12th through Sunday, May 18th ​

Well it was a nice day spent in the town I grew up in, but I had no problem remembering why I left. A great place to grow up, but I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s one of those small Iowa towns that has all but dried up. The only businesses left open were two bars and a gas station. A little depressing to be honest.

Monday is here and I have an 8AM appointment at a grocery store warehouse. Never a good place to be. I arrived an hour early and pulled up to the gate and saw a sign that I was to go to channel 3 on my CB to contact receiving. It’s a good thing I finally had my CB fixed the other day, it turned out that I just had a bad mic. I tried to hail them but got nothing back. Not all that uncommon, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been ignored by a shipping clerk. I waited a couple of minutes and was about to make another attempt when I heard them calling me on the CB. My response went unanswered and it became apparent that my CB still wasn’t working. In these cases there is usually a speaker box nearby to communicate on, but a quick search of the immediate area turned up nothing. As I was getting into the truck the gate finally opened up and I pulled around to the receiving door and went inside. Sure enough, they saw me on the surveillance camera and let me in, but where not able to hear me on the CB.

With that little complication behind me I was assigned a door. I docked shortly there after and waited for unloading to begin. I took this opportunity to take the CB out of its mounting and see if I could resolve the problem. As I had suspected, I apparently I had connected everything except the antenna. The Coax was actually lying close enough to the CB to allow reception (this explains the poor, distant sounding reception I had been getting), but transmissions weren’t going to happen. I put everything back together and all was good again.

After a standard 3hr grocery warehouse wait to unload (actually I will consider that a quick unload) I was ready to go. I already had a load preplanned on my truck. My home time request to Phoenix was in for Wednesday, (this is Monday) and I had a message waiting on my Qcom when I got back in the truck this morning, “No loads going toward PHX, but this will keep you moving”. I had anticipated running into an obstacle or two with getting a load going west and was thankful to get a productive load that didn’t leave me sitting around.

I was to PU a load in Sioux City and run it down to Saint Louis (589mi). It had an open drop delivery the following day, but I was sitting in a good position to deliver it today. After a short hop down the road I found myself at the shippers. Not a welcoming sight though. This was one of those rundown, small warehouses with one dock. To top that off, I had to do a blind back from the main road around a telephone pole. After a few pull-ups and dealing with a couple of impatient four wheelers I was able to bump the dock and hope for a quick loading. Lucky me, this was the forklift drivers first day and the guy training him was more interested in chatting with me. Apparently he had aspiration of becoming a truck driver and thought this would be a good time to get some advice. I attempted to speed up the loading process by returning to the cab of my truck, but never managed to put more than two strides between us. This guy was determined to continue the conversation.

So what should have been a 15min loading, (it was only 12 pallets) ended up taking an hour or so, but at least I was finally putting some miles behind me. I was still in a position to make it to the receiver today, but my two delays have me on a schedule that will be a little tight. Not so much for the actual delivery, but more so with regards to having enough time to PU another load afterward (I assumed I would be getting a Bud load just down the road) and finding a place to park before running out of hours.

I spent the rest of the morning driving across IA and per my fueling solution, stopped at our Council Bluffs terminal to get some fuel (that’s a bit rare, I’m not routed through terminals very often). As it turned out, a refueling truck had just arrived and I was not allowed to get fuel while the transfer was going on. I was also told I would have to wait for an hour or so to get fuel. Well that’s just not going to work for my schedule. I stuck my less than accurate “fuel stick” into my tank (haven’t had the chance to get my fuel gauge fixed) and had 7-9” of fuel left. I had a little less than 200 miles to go and my best estimate was that I could make it to the KC yard with 15gals or so left (we can fill our tanks at any terminal even if it’s not on our fuel routing). Hopefully they won’t be out of fuel like they were a couple of weeks ago.

I went about 100 miles and stopped at a rest area to check the fuel one more time and was down to the 5” area. There was a Pilot on the way but I had a good tail wind today and felt I would have enough to get to the yard, as long as I could make it up the hill just outside of our yard without all the fuel running to the back of the tanks. Could be interesting. Result, I made it and filled the tanks. 179gals pumped into 200gal tanks with a 95% volume max. Looks like I had 5-6 gallons left in each tank.

Once I had fueled up and stopped by the shop for a few gallons of oil and some anti freeze (the trucks running good, but seems to enjoy her fluids a little more these days) I decided I would go ahead and make this drop tonight with the hopes of getting a load out tonight. I would have 1 1/2hrs left after my MT call to find parking or get a load out of Saint Louis if I was lucky enough to be offered a load.

I took about 15 minutes to put the kibosh on that plan. I had only made it a few miles down the road and started hearing rumors of an accident on I-70. It’s 4:30 and rush hour has a good head start and the backup is not sounding pleasant. There is a way around it, but it’s a good 30 miles out of the way and it there is no guarantee that traffic will be much better that way so I just stick with the mess in front of me. Bumper to bumper crawling and after 45 minutes I make it past what ends up being a couple of banged up cars on the left shoulder and a lot of rubbernecking. About par for the course I guess.

I still have just enough time to make it to the shipper, but I don’t know if they have overnight parking and can’t take a chance. I decided to hold up at a truck stop about an hour out of town. The traffic jam in KC really messed me up today. Not only was I not able to make my delivery today, but now I will be driving into St Louis at 7am. I can’t tell you have much I look forward to that.

I started as soon as I could Tuesday morning and the rush hour traffic was everything that I expected it to be plus the excitement of a steady downpour mixed in with a fair amount of lighting. My drop delivery was not what you would call pleasant. It involved a lot of walking from parking lots to shipping offices and driving around from one warehouse to another. Not really a problem on a normal day, but the weather was really nasty and I couldn’t help but notice that every MT trailer that was available to me was situated in such a way as to require wading boots. Unfortunately I don’t stock that particular item on my truck and had to resort to a stroll through the ankle deep water. I do have an extra pair of shoes under the bunk for just such a day, so it wasn’t exactly the end of the world. I guess it’s a fair trade off for not having to deal with snow for awhile.

OK, the load has been dropped and the MT call went in. I wait for a good 15 minutes and still no response on the Qcom, not even the traditional “no preplan available”. A check of the screen and I see that my MT call is still waiting to transmit. Looks like the rain and cloud cover is messing with the satellite signal. This really sucks, I’m stuck in limbo until the skies clear a little. After about an ½hr I finally get a couple of beeps and I check out my load offer with great anticipation. Will I be heading home today?

Load offering; one going to NJ(920 mi) and the other going to Montgomery, AL(611 mi). Yeah, they are both next door to PHX. So much for home time. Of course I went with the AL load. Anything to stay out of NJ, not to mention it’s 2500 miles away from PHX. I send off a quick message reminding dispatch that I was hoping to get a load to PHX but am told they have nothing going that way. Alright, AL it is.

Not only does this load not get me home, it has a crapy 7pm appointment live unload delivery at a Big Lots whse (no chance of an early delivery or drop on this one), the next day even though I will be there by tonight if I run straight through. There is no point in running that long today because I would just spend all day tomorrow sitting in a truckstop so I did my drop/hook PU and putzed around for the rest of the day and decided to hold up for the night in Nashville. The TA is very close to downtown and I would get there early enough to guarantee a parking spot. This way I could take in a nice meal and break the driving up into two days so that time would go by a bit smoother for me.

Wednesday has as even less excitement in store for me that yesterday did. I’m only looking at 5hrs of drive time to my delivery and I don’t want to start my 14hr clock too soon on the off chance that I might get a good run offer after my delivery. With this in mind I hang around Nashville until 1pm and then head out. It’s another slow paced day and my drive into AL has me craving some Cajun boiled peanuts. I’m determined to find some and start pulling over at every little dive truckstop I can find. After my 4th stop in less than two hours I manage to score at a Shell on the south end of Cullman, AL and contently finish my drive to Montgomery.

After my numerous stops for the day I managed to arrive about 30mins early for my appointment. It didn’t take long to come across my first little problem. I pulled up to the guard shack which was a glass both packed full of numerous items that made it clear that this particular facility was no longer in use. I looked around for some kind of signage that might give me directions of some kind. After seeing nothing I put the truck in gear and started to pull into the yard in hopes of finding a receiving office. No sooner than I started to move I could hear someone franticly hollering at me to stop. So I did, climbed out of the truck and was finally greeted by a less than pleasant individual demanding to know “where the hell do you think you’re going”. With that I gave a controlled yet curt eye to eye explanation that pointed out the lack of any signage and complete absence of directions, a guard, etc that prompted me to assume I was to check-in elsewhere. I must have made my displeasure with his attitude clear because his demeanor seemed to calm down from that point.

After checking in with the well educated guard (perhaps I was expecting too much to start with, this is AL after all) I headed around the building to the receiving office. I was very excited when I was told to drop this trailer in the yard, PU an MT and come back in for my paperwork (although I couldn’t help grumbling a little under my breath about sitting around all day and last night waiting for an appointment time). Another short lived moment of happiness however, because when I returned to the receivers office I was informed that this was in fact listed in the computer as a live unload (and on my Qcom, I thought I was going to get away with one) and I would have to go back out to the yard and get my trailer and bump a dock door. My initial suggestion that I formulated in my head found me biting my lip (just remember, you are in AL), my second suggestion was better suited for verbal communication. “How about I put this trailer in whatever door you need it in, then I will grab one of our MT trailers and be on my way?” “No!” she says (picture a very large AL woman in this scenario, if you will, don’t forget the cherub like personality), “It’s a live unload, we’ll let you know when its done.” A quick chat with the driver in the door next to me let me know not to expect any unloading record to be broken. He had been sitting for over and hour and they hadn’t even started on his load yet.

I wasn’t disappointed; the unloading was completed in 3hrs flat. Time to put in my MT call and hope for that golden load to get me home. I wasn’t exactly surprised by the single load offer that had an anytime D/H PU in Cullman, AL and a anytime D/H delivery to Seymour, IN (510mi). It didn’t get me home, but I know freight going that way is slow and I had anticipated a delay anyway. At least this is a turn and burn run that I can deliver a soon as my log would allow. As I was accepting the load offer the Qcom beeped again and this message was a preplan. “Excellent”, I think to myself, “Must be something to get me home”. Silly little me and my optimism. At least it was something interesting. I was to deliver my load to a Wal-Mart DC and them PU an old trailer that was sitting in their yard and take it to the Wabash factory in Lafayette, IN to turn it in. Then I was to PU a shinny new trailer. Sounds good to me, keeps me moving and I could run out the miles as fast as I wanted too, no sitting around. But I couldn’t help noticing my hours were starting to get very tight. I wasn’t able to get my reset in last weekend, and it was starting to catch up with me.

I had plenty of hours left because of my late start today and headed on up to Cullman. I made it by midnight and got my trailer. I still had a few hours left but decided to put in for the night so that I could work on getting back on a more conducive daytime schedule.

Thursday has me looking at 370mi hop up to Seymour, IN to drop this load and PU the old trailer. Sounds simple enough, but when I get there the trailer is no where to be found. I make two rounds of the place with no luck. There is only one MT trailer on the lot so I hook to it and assume someone has already taken the one I was suppose to pull out. A message to dispatch is answered with a “computer shows trailer is still there, look for it again and let us know”. I do so and still come up blank. One thing left to do, hunt down a yard jockey and find out what they know. Not much as it turned out, but apparently phone calls where being exchanged and it wasn’t long before a yard jockey came around the corner with the trailer in question. They had it locked up in a secured area to prevent anyone from taking it. It ended up taking 1½ hrs, but I was finally on my way.

North I went, the sooner I picked up my new trailer, the sooner I could get another load. The trade-in process took a little longer than I had hoped, the weather (heavy rain again) and driving back and fourth between lots was a pain (it would have been nice of them to inform me that I was to return the trailer registration to the bill box after they looked at it as opposed to keeping it with the rest of the paperwork), but I had been there once before so at least I knew where I was going this time.

Once everything was in order the MT call went in and I waited for my next load offer. Beep, I get two offers. Both were D/H PU in Indianapolis. One going to NJ (enough with NJ!), the other going to Atlanta. At this point it didn’t really matter if I got a load home. I was so short on hours that even if I was offered a load to or through PHX I would have to stop along the way and take a 34reset anyway. That would have me getting back on a Monday or Tuesday, leaving me the option of taking my time off while the wife was at work every day or extending my time off to get me through the weekend. I don’t think I would get any flack from my fleet manager for this because I had been out for so long, but I didn’t want to go that long without working either. The info came through for the Atlanta (599mi) run. A D/H PU in Indy with an anytime D/H del Saturday (or earlier).

I dropped off my brand new trailer and traded it in for a 10yr old loaded one and drove as far as my hours would allow me that night, which was a total of about 30 miles. I pulled into a Pilot south of Indy, no parking here (I should have know better than that, it’s after midnight). I head on over to the J and see a total of 3 space available and 6-7 trucks driving around. Now, when you are in a truck stop at this time of night and there are only 3 spots left, it is because no one wanted to try to wiggle into them. Not exactly prime spots if you know what I mean. Two trucks in front of me pass up a spot (they must have more time on there log than me, I have 15mins) so I set up and start my less than desirable squeeze and manage to get parked just about the time my leg starts bouncing like a rubber band. G.O.A.L. (get out and look) is a great bit of advise but starts to get old after awhile. Oh yea, add one more thing to the fix it list. Power steering pump going out. I can only turn the wheel at low speeds if I push in the clutch and rev the engine while the truck is rolling. Makes repeated tight turns a little exhausting.

My 10hrs are in and I don’t get started until late Friday morning. I have a little more than 500 miles to my delivery and hope to make it by early evening. I should be able to drop this load early and still have a couple of hours left to get started on another load if something is available. Nothing to exciting to report on this trip except for a little hiccup on the uphill side of Monteagle. It’s a mountain pass of sorts (as far as the east side of the country goes) in TN just northwest of Chattanooga that has developed a bit of a reputation in past years for killing truck drivers and anyone that gets in their way. It has somewhat of a long drawn out downgrade that tends to heat breaks up. Not quite the threat it used to be since Jake breaks showed up on the scene, but still worthy of a cautious decent. Anyway, on my way up I was alerted to the fact that I had a low coolant level by a flashing red light on the dash along with a piercing buzzer (great pretrip this morning). Oh goody, I have a few seconds before the emergency shutdown happens. At least there are nice wide shoulders, which is very convenient for all the vehicles that breakdown on this particular stretch of road.

It was a quick fix; I had a couple of gallons of coolant and water on the truck. For some reason she has started losing ½gal every two or three days with no visible leak. That can’t be a good sign. At least I’m only using 1gal of oil a week, OK, maybe 1½ gals. It’s just a matter of time before I get a nasty bit of unwanted shop time. The fixit list just keeps growing.

Outside of that the rest of the trip went OK, other than a horrible two lane that I took to avoid Atlanta. This load was actually going to a small town west of ATL and the short cut shaved off a few miles too. After a painfully slow crossing of Hwy 61 I arrived at my destination with promise to myself to avoid this road in the future and dropped my trailer and put in the MT call and await my destiny.

Two offers, one to MO and the other to TX. The MO load is actually a longer run, but the TX load has an open delivery on Monday and is pointed in the direction of home. The open delivery time also allows me enough time to put in a reset. With that I will have a clean 70hr on Monday morning and will be able to take any load and not have to worry about constantly bumping my clock on a daily basis, I would hate to be forced to turn down a load going home because I’m short on hours. I have just under 2hrs left today and head on over to PU my load of beer. Back over the very same Hwy 61 I had vowed to avoid, at least I’m empty this time around. I can get my preloaded trailer tonight and shut down for the night at a truckstop next to the brewery.

Saturday was an annoying day of two lane highways and running my hours out. I managed to make it to a lovely Super 8 in Texarkana and settled in for my reset.





WEEK TWENTY RESULTS
Monday, May 12th through Sunday, May 18th
Miles include deadhead


Small town, IA to Cherokee, IA(last leg)....................................45mi
N. Sioux City, IA to Bridgeton, MO..........................................589mi
Granite City, IL to Montgomery, AL.........................................611mi
Cullman, AL to Seymour, IN……………………………………....................510mi
Seymour, IN to Lafayette, IN……………………………………..................129mi
Indy, IN to Villa Rica, GA………………………………………......................599mi
Cartersville, GA to Texarkana, AR(first leg) …………………….............682mi


Paid miles…………………………………………3165 Miles

Actual miles………………………3242

3165 Miles X .42 = $1329.30 plus $35 shag