CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK TWENTY EIGHT​

Monday, July 7th through Sunday, July 13th​

OK, ready to start another week on the road. My last week ended with me pulling into the Crete yard here in Indy and putting in for the night. I have another trailer loaded with tires like last week that isn't scheduled to deliver until Tuesday at 13:00. It is now 3am on Monday and that leaves me with 34hrs to go 200 miles. I could stay here and put in a 34hr reset, but I still have 27hrs available before that will be necessary and I have no desire to do that at this time.

It is my intention to Tcall this load so that I can keep moving (getting out of a live tire unload would be nice too). Before contacting dispatch I did a quick check of the yard for an empty trailer (to facilitate getting a clean dispatch) and found that I was out of luck. The yard was packed full of trailers, but they were all loaded. This was the tail end of the 4th of July weekend which resulted in a large number of loaded trailers that had been Tcalled by drivers that live in the area so they could take their time off. Good news in a way; I wouldn't be able to get an empty trailer, but my chances of re-powering a load in the yard was good. The only question was which load they would need me to deliver. Most of them were to deliver in the immediate area, but there where a number of them that had good miles on them. Scary part - two were going to eastern New York and one was destine for Baltimore.

With that in mind I sent off a message to dispatch. "I'm at the Indy yard and have a load that doesn't deliver until tomorrow after noon. What are the chances of Tcalling this load here or in the Columbus yard so that I can keep moving? There are no empty trailers available, but I can re-power any of the loaded trailers sitting here in the yard." The early morning dispatch shift must not have been too busy because I received an answer almost immediately (This is why I set my alarm for 3am. If I had waited until 7am or so I would have to compete with an entire fleet of drivers vying for their attention).

My answer was, "Tcall complete, what empty trailer do you have?" Dispatch tends to scan messages and apparently failed to read that no empties were available. I once again reminded them of this and offered to re-power a load, if not "I could forward this load to Columbus and get an empty there". After about 10mins I was sent out a single load offer and as I had feared, it was the Baltimore load. The pisser about this one; I had put in for home time on or about the 10th of this month (that will make 6 weeks out); today is the 7th. Now, I'm not dead set on getting home at this time and I would rather be making miles as opposed to sitting around waiting to make a delivery. There were no loads in the yard headed in the direction of PHX anyway, so I went ahead and accepted the load. I might be able to make it home by the weekend if everything goes perfect (I'm not counting on it though). Murphy 's Law was in full effect. I haven't been anywhere close to the feared Northeast since early May. I put in for home time in PHX and BAM, I'm off to Baltimore. I suppose I could have requested another load, but I was happy to be moving.

This Baltimore (584mi) load wasn't all that bad, other than the fact that I was going to Baltimore. It was sitting here and ready to go and had an appointment delivery the next day of 09:30. I could have went back to bed and started later in the morning, but I wasn't really tired and if I left now I wouldn't have to deal with the rush hour traffic here in Indy (not really anything to worry about anyway) and would hit Columbus after the brunt of their morning traffic. The main deciding factor however was the burning desire to get into Baltimore as early as possible so that I wouldn't have any trouble finding parking at the TA in the center of town. Generally speaking, it fills up quickly and you really need to be parked by 4pm to guarantee a spot for the night (at a cost of $12, F... TA)!

After getting my load info I was happy to see that the customer had overnight parking so I could avoid paying the parking fee. I guess I could have stopped outside of town some, but if I could park at the dock of the customer I would be able to avoid the morning traffic going into town and I would also be able to start my 14hr clock much later in the day. Always helpful in getting good miles the following day. I also had my normal hope of delivering early, but the load info stated under no circumstances was this load to be delivered early. So much for that idea.

A few hours into my day I heard the familiar beep of the Qualcomm and was able to read the first few words of the message on my dash and it was from an unfamiliar name. Better pull over and find out what that one is about. Turned out to be a question "Are you still wanting home time in PHX?" That would have been a nice question to have received while I was in Indy. The day crew tends to pay a little more attention to home time requests and I find when I've been out for six weeks, they tend to be a little more attentive. I sent off a response, "Yes I am, Thx."

That was the last I heard about it (at least I know someone is working on it), and I spent the rest of the day making my way to Baltimore. Once there I was tring to decide where I wanted to park for the night. The truck stop was only about 2 miles from the customer and would afford me a place to hang out until the sun went down so that I could avoid idle time, but it was a pleasant day and I decided to head on over to the customer. When I got there I found a very small "distribution center" with 5 rundown docks and a small lot next door (that must be the so called overnight parking). I pulled into the lot and prepared to spend the night there. That didn't last long; within 15mins a UPS bobtail pulled up next to me and informed me that I couldn't park there. It was one of their transfer lots and not affiliated with the place I was delivering to in the morning. I appoligized for the intrusion and pardoned myself long enough to ask where this elusive overnight parking was. It turned out that I could park at their dock overnight, but only after they went home for the night and that was still 3hrs away. Looks like I will be spending my night at the TA.

I was very surprised when I pulled into that arm pit of a TA truckstop. It was 5pm and the place was half empty; unheard of at this time of day. I don't know if it was due to the recent holiday weekend or decline in freight, but whatever the cause, parking was plentiful. All I had to do was go into the TA and buy $20 worth of stuff so that I wouldn't have to hand over $12 to the parking attendant when I left in the morning.

It was a pleasant 80° day with a wonderful breeze but the direct sun made sitting in the truck rather unpleasant and I wanted to keep my idling down, so I grabbed a book and sat under a tree across the street and watched the people go by. Apparently this TA sits on a corner that doubles as a major buss stop that commuters use to run up and down the coast. A number of different commuter bus lines were stopping here and my curiosity was peaked. Later that night I pulled out the computer and started checking out various bus lines and found out that I could get to virtually anywhere on the east coast from here. I also learned that a number of these buses run deep into the surrounding states at reasonable rates. I will make a point of utilizing this info the next time I am able to take a reset in this area. In a mater of a few hours I could myself in DC doing the tourist thing or any number of other points of interest. I might even be able to swing a Manhattan trip someday or maybe a baseball game in any of the ballparks in that part of the country.

My delivery was set for 09:30 and I considered heading over tonight and parking against one of their dock so I would be ready to go, but I had failed to ask when they opened in the morning and was afraid I would be chased off. My load info was adamant about not delivering early and I didn't want to cause waves and I opted to wait until the morning to arrive.

This turned out to be a bad idea. I arrived at 9:00 only to find another truck sitting in the docks blocking my entry and I was forced to park in the street and block a driveway or two (right next to the sign that said, "Don't block drive"). I also learned that this customer didn't open until 9:30 (who opens that late!). To make matters worse, the Werner truck that had beat me there had backed up to the middle dock and could only manage to back in at an awkward angle that had one corner of his trailer against the dock and the other corner at least 18" away. When I politely suggested that he "might want to strengthen out his truck" so that the dock plate would be able to catch the end of his trailer he looked at it and made a statement to the effect of "it should be OK." I had the feeling he was a little inexperience and left it at that.

When the dock doors opened up we where greeted by your traditional east coast dock worker who was far from impressed with Werner's docking attempt and wasted no time in telling him to try it again (with a much less tolerant manner than I had employed earlier). He then instructed me to take one of the two docks next to him.

My first impression of this Werner driver turned out to be dead on. I could not back into my spot until he finished his maneuvering, so I sat back and enjoyed the show. This was one of those nightmare docks that could beat up the most seasoned driver and Mr. Werner was out of his league. He was having one hell of a time dealing with the fire hydrant and the protective posts around it that sat dead center in front of the dock. What a ridiculous setup this was. I finally broke down and headed over to help him out. I don't like to do this for two reasons. One, some guys don't appreciate the offer, and two, I really don't like taking on the responsibility of someone else's actions, but this poor guy was lost. We finally got him situated and I headed out to my truck to start what I was sure was going to be an unpleasant experience. I hope Werner appreciates the fact that he got the "easy" spot.

What I now had to deal with was docks that were setting on a piece of property that was in a triangle shape. The bulk of the building was on the wide part of the property and the docks were situated at the tip of the triangle. This tip was bordered on one side by a very busy main artery 4 lane road with a built up median (preventing me from splitting the lanes of traffic) and a standard side street on the other side that had its share of traffic going in and out of a busy industrial area. At the center of that dock area was a fire hydrant with a box truck parked across the street (with tall grass growing out of cracks in the road under it telling me it was a permanent structure). These obstacles prevented me from making a traditional approach to the dock from the side street and left me with the sole option of driving into the oncoming traffic lanes of the 4 lane and then blind backing into my dock with a dropped pup trailer on one side and the Werner truck on the other side. My only saving grace was that I had the width of two docks to play with so I could shoot out into the street and quickly back into my spot and then worry about wiggling into my dock once I get off the street.

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? My first hassle was finding a place to turn around. If I had arrived 10mins earlier before Werner got there I could have pulled into the U shaped dock area, spun around and back to the dock effortlessly, but now I was on the street pointed in the wrong direction. I was able to find a drive down the road that I could back into and get myself going the right way. Next, I pulled up in front of the docks and waited for an opening in traffic. The problem I now faced was that I couldn't pull all the way up to the street because I would be blocking all traffic behind me, but by stopping short of the stop sign I wasn't able to get a good look at traffic coming from the left (the traffic I had to pull into head-on). I actually had to get out of the truck and stand in front of it and when I saw what I hoped to be an ample opening, I then would have to run back to the truck and go for it. This was compounded by a double set of traffic lights in close succession and a ridiculous amount of traffic and the endless thread of left turning traffic that would throw a wrench into everything.

Ten minutes into my adventure I was horrified to see a bozo in a pickup full of pallets pull into my docks and park directly in the middle of both docks. I chased him down and was able to get him to move over, but I just lost my cushion of error. Long story short, yeah I know, too late, I sat there for a total of 25mins waiting for an opening that I though I could make work and it was off to the races.

I jumped into the truck and floored it. There were a number of cars bearing down on me from ahead and a few coming down the side road. I had one chance to make this work. Why me? I managed to hit my spot without backing into anyone and finally docked. Wow, I hate these antiquated docks.

While being unloaded I put in my MT call and hoped for a load home, or at least in that direction. I immediately received a preplanned load going to Missouri followed by a message that said "take this to the Columbus yard and Tcall it, we will get you a load to PHX from there". This was a pleasant surprise because no one had informed me that I had been preplanned. I was happy to be going home, but not too pleased with what would in all likelihood be a Monday or Tuesday arrival due to losing a day along the way for a reset (I'm running short on hours). I stay out for long periods of time and insist on spending a full weekend with the wife because she works during the week. I don't get any special enjoyment out of spending my time off while the wife is at work. I know I can call my Fleet Manager and stretch out my hometime, but I don't really want to take that much time off either.

I'll worry about that when the time comes.

This next load had an appointment live load just down the road and I showed up a few hours ahead of schedule in the hopes of an early load. They were more than happy to load me when I got there and I was rolling 45mins later. Columbus was only a little more than 400 miles away and I made it there by the end of the my day and informed dispatch so they could Tcall my trailer. I was looking at a log book with limited hours left on my 70 and let dispatch know that I was going to take a reset.

They said OK and sent me a preplanned load that I was to PU Thursday morning here in Columbus that was going to Fontana, CA with a Tuesday delivery and told to Tcall it in the PHX yard for my home time. Perfect, just enough time to put in a reset, thus allowing me to run hard once loaded. The mileage was perfect, I could run three 650 mile days and make it to PHX by Saturday evening as a best case scenario, or if I run into delays I would make it by Sunday morning for sure.

I spent my reset at the Columbus terminal. I was going to get a hotel, but since I was on my way home I figured I could put up with hanging out at the terminal. I pulled out my computer and used it to watch movies and pass time. There were plenty of drives to BS with too. There are always a number of trucker stories to keep me entertained.

Thursday finally rolled around and I headed over to get my home bound load on the north end of Columbus. It was a fairly quick loading process and I was on my way home before I knew it. My next three days consisted of steady driving with as few stops as possible. Fewer stops meant an earlier arrival and I was shooting for a early afternoon arrival. The entire trip was on interstates and I encounter no problems unlike this unfortunate driver just south of Flagstaff:




and found myself in PHX by 3pm Saturday afternoon. I'll be ######, I actually made it home for the weekend, or at least part of it that is. And NO, that's not good enough. I desire to be home for a whole weekend, Fri thru Sun at least; especially this home trip. I need to be in town for my Nieces baptism next Sunday (it had to be rescheduled from this Sun because I didn't think I had a chance of being home by tomorrow considering I was in Baltimore just last Tuesday). But I'll worry about that later.









WEEK TWENTY EIGHT RESULTS
Monday, July 7th through Sunday, July 13th
Miles include deadhead


Indianapolis, IN to Baltimore, MD.................................584mi
Baltimore, MD to Columbus, OH...................................409mi
Columbus, OH to Phoenix, AZ (first leg).........................1909mi

Total Paid Miles.................................. 2902Miles (Short week, Mon thru Sat)

Actual Miles....................2970 Miles

2902 miles x .42 = $1218.84

 

Supersnackbar wrote:

I hate the NE for three reasons: Parking, Traffic and Cory.


and:

I saw 3 of them in the Columbus yard and a couple more in Marietta. I'm still waiting for mine.


Lostboy wrote:

Thanks for the info, I will try it out next time in in town. Just missed the Cardinals game last week.


rr riley2 wrote:

It's about time they back tracked on that decision. That little snafu cost them a large number of quality drivers.