CRETE - A Year in Review

It's almost a moot point at this time, I haven't exactly been keeping up with these updates, but here is week 50. I had most of it done and just finished it off. I do want to get the numbers up for the rest of 2008 along with my year end totals, so in the interest of saving time I will go ahead and post the finial weeks of the year with a condensed summary of events along with my weekly mileage.

WEEK FIFTY​

Monday, December 8th through Sunday, December 14th​

Week fifty begins with a Monday like all the others and like many other weeks, I find myself finishing of the tail end of a load. I have just under 300 miles to go. I had an open window delivery anytime between 7am and 2pm, but I couldn't get there any sooner than 11:30 because I had been hung up in Ottawa waiting to gain back hours. My inability to catch a reset last week continues to plague me and today is no different.

My later than desired delivery has landed me at the receiver's door moments before their lunch break. He has just enough time to direct me to the appropriate door and head off to the break room. He'll be back in an hour. Not what I wanted to hear, but not all that unexpected either. That will happen when you pull into a number of companies anytime close to noon.

The hour passed slowly, but the unloading eventually began and was complete within 20mins once he got himself into gear and the empty call went in. I wasn't overly hopeful with regard to my next load. It was well past noon and I imagined I would be get the "no freight" line again. The news wasn't as bad as I had envisioned. They actually sent me out a load offer with 2 choices. Wow, who saw that coming?

It was nice to have a choice for a change, but the choices weren't exactly what you could call Grade A. Load #1 was a short hope over to PA of 227 miles. It wasn't really all that bad of a load. I had already run about 300mi today, and this load delivered first thing the following morning. So I could have run out the miles today and found a place to park close to the receivers and ended up with a solid 550mi day. But the destination part had me worried. I just haven't had all that much luck with PA lately and I'm not all that excited about trying my luck again tomorrow.

That left me with load #2. It was going down to NC and had 750mi+ on it. The good part, this was a D/H P/U just down the road, and it was supposed to be ready to go. It didn't really make any difference if it was preloaded or not though, because the bad part about this load is that it didn't deliver until Wednesday morning at 7am. Well this is Monday and I still have time to run out another 200mi or so before my logs tell me find a place to park. It was also a live unload at some kind of a small convenience store distribution place. There is always a potential for a problem to arise at these places.

That would leave me with 550mi for the following day to get me to the receiver. Not the greatest run in terms of miles, but I don't suppose it is anything to complain about either. Especially considering what I've been hearing from other drivers of late.

I went ahead and accepted the second offer and waited for the load information. Once I had all my ducks in I row I headed out and showed up at the receiver in hopes of finding my preloaded trailer. Nope, no Crete trailers in sight and when I checked in I was informed that it would have been loaded if they would have had an empty Crete trailer available. He then made it very clear to me that Crete had been slacking in keeping up with empty trailers lately and because of that I would have to do a live load. Oh, lucky me. Not only do I have to be scolded for the lack of empty trailer, I now have to wait around to be loaded. I felt like he was trying to make a point because loading took far longer than it should have. But it was probably based on a general lack of ambition and less than favorable attitude in the place. I was in NY after all and I really shouldn't expect anything other than that, should I?

By the time I was loaded and in conjunction with my delay at my delivery this morning my hours were basically shot for the day. I still had a bit of drive time left, but I was concerned about parking and decided to take advantage of the onsite parking and put in for the night. I would be able to get a nice early start in the morning a run out most of the miles tomorrow, getting close enough to my final destination to knock it out in a couple of hours on Wednesday.

Tuesday had me looking at a little over 700 miles to the customer. I can't run that many miles in a day, but the load didn't deliver until Wednesday morning anyways. I would be able to get within 50 miles or so with my 11hrs of drive time today, but I was going to be running down I-81 through VA and hanging a left down in Roanoke and taking a 2 lane from that point. I would run out of hours somewhere on that stretch, and other than a few pull outs alone that route there is no parking to speak of.

That meant that I would have to hold up short for the night. My plan was to stop at the TA down there in Roanoke, but past experiences there have prompted me to vow never to return. Unfortunately I was hurting for options. If not there, I would have to hold up at the LeHi truck stop and that was close to an hour further up the road. That would just mean that I would have to drive that much further the following day, therefore reducing the number of miles I would be able to run on my next load before my log ran out for the day.

What I had to worry about was finding a parking spot at the TA. Anyone who has tried this knows what a crap shoot that can be. If you pull in anytime after 4pm you are usually out of luck and it is not uncommon for the last spot to be gone long before that. The only way I could reasonably assure myself of a spot was to start driving at the horrible hour of 2am so that I would get to the TA at a reasonable hour. I wasted as little time as possible and outside of loosing a little time going through our New Kingstown terminal to top off the fuel tanks I manage to pull into the TA with 600 miles behind me at what I thought was a safe hour of 2pm.

At first I set my eyes on the Pilot across the street but realized that would be a pointless endeavor. I wasn't exactly feeling too good about the TA either. The fuel islands were backed up (as usual) because trucks can't pull up when they are done fueling. This usually results in trucks being backed up in the street and that was the case today. The line getting into Pilot was just as bad. Hence, my reluctance to pull into either of these trucks stops, even when one of them is on my fuel solution.

I have learned long ago that the best strategy in getting a parking spot in a lot nearing capacity is to go against the flow. If everyone seems to be going in on direction, or if one way looks better than the other, go the opposite direction. I did just that and quickly found myself in a quagmire of trucks. It has probably been over a year since I've tried putting into this place for the night and it was just as I had remembered it. What an absolute disaster. It was barely after 2pm and the place was packed with very few spot left. The only good thing about the whole mess is that I had a parking spot scoped out almost as soon as I pulled in. The trick was getting to it.

There was no competition for it from any of the other trucks in the lot because I was the only one going in the right direction to get to it. The problem was that a steady stream of trucks were coming from the fuel islands, thus impeding a couple of trucks that were trying to get into other spot. This caused a jam up of trucks all through the lot. There was also a spot on the other side that drivers were attempting to hit, but too tight and they would eventually give up on it. But each attempt would cause a horrible bottle neck and so it went for way to long. I finally got my chance to put myself into position for my coveted spot that everyone was eyeing (but couldn't get to) and backed on into it 35mins after arriving. I think I'll take the hit and hang tight at the LeHi an hour up the road next time.

By the time Wednesday rolled around I was itching to get going early once again. Due to my 2am start the day before, I hit the sack early last night. Now it was once again 2am and I was wide awake. I had a 7am appointment with about 2hrs of driving ahead of me. If I wanted to arrive an hour early I would have to pull out by 4am or so. But I was wide awake, and because I was headed to a convenience store DC I hoped that I might be able to get in even earlier than that. I wanted to get unloaded ASAP to get my name on that list for the next load out. I had been driving for a little less than one hour when I got a message on the Qcom. It seemed that the customer was anxious for this load and had called Crete asking them when I would be there. Well, doesn't this work out nice. I just let them know I would be there within the hour and put on a smile.

That smile was promptly removed from my face shortly after arriving. Someone in the supply chain wanted that product off my truck yesterday, but the people unloading my truck were not of the same mindset.

First of all, my load information had come with a few reference related to unloading. Things like, absolutely no driver unload (no complaints from me on that one), in capital letters, "CUSOMER UNLOAD ONLY", no lumper fees will be authorized, which is then followed by "under no circumstance are lumpers to be paid more than $120. Well, there's a nice little conflict for ya. The BOL also stated "customer unload only".

Guess what they said when I showed them that? "We are a lumper unload facility. The charge will be $150. If you don't like it you can do it yourself". Apparently they aren't in that big of a hurry to get their product.

I considered unloading it myself, but after seeing the breakdown I headed out to the truck and started my banter with dispatch. I was expecting a drawn out battle, but it went rather smoothly. As a matter of fact, they made a comment something to the effect of, "yeah, that place took us for $250 on a load last week". I then wondered back in with my Comcheck and told them to have at it. Three hours later I put in my MT call expecting a load out soon thereafter. Why should I expect anything else, after all, it was 7am on a Wednesday morning and I was empty and ready to go.

Instead of a load offer I was told to find a place to park. Out of freight; check back in a few hours. WHAT! I was not expecting that. After all, I took this live unload over the drop and hook PA load to avoid just such a message. With nowhere else to go and no truck stops to speak of in the area I headed on over to our Greensboro terminal. It was only 5 miles away, but I really didn't like the idea of going there. It is one of the smallest terminals in the fleet and is nothing more than a gravel lot with a mobile home on it for an office. Not even a place to catch a shower. But my choices where limited and off I went.

The day only got worse when I got a regional wide message to update everyone in the area. "No freight left today, working on tomorrow's freight, doing what we can, don't try contacting us, etc". Looks like I'll be spending the night in the little dirt lot after a most prosperous day of 110 miles. I dropped my trailer in the yard and headed over to the local mall to stretch my legs for a bit and catch a movie on the big screen for a change. I can usually watch most of the new movies online, but it's always nice to see them in full size and resolution when I get the chance.

My wait for a load offer dragged out until the following morning when I was finally dispatched. A two stop pickup going a grand total of 380 miles into PA. That put a sinking feeling into the pit of my stomach. I wasn't all that concerned about the 380 miles because it was a drop delivery at a Kmart DC so I could get it there as soon as possible, putting in my MT call in PA again had me very worried though, and for good reason. This no freight thing is really starting to get the best of me and I can only imagine what is going to happen to me in PA. All went well and the delivery was made on that same day so that I could get my name as high as possible on the load list.

Imagination or premonition, it doesn't really matter what you call it. Either way the result was another "no freight" message once again. Not to worry though. By this time it was Thursday evening, raining and close to freezing. I didn't really mind parking for the night and getting a fresh start in the morning.

Once I found a place to park up the road I set to work putting together something for dinner and getting a hot meal into me. As bedtime was rolling around the Qcom came to life. It would seem that a Shaffer load was sitting in the terminal 35 miles up the road and they were not able to cover it with a Shaffer driver. It also turned out that I was the only person in the area that was able (willing) to repower the load. Dispatch had sent me the load offer and asked me how soon could I be in OH with this first stop of this 3 delivery load. I ran the numbers and let them know I could be there between the hours of 11-noon. Since it was a Wal-Mart load scheduled for a 3am delivery I figured that would be the end of it. There is now way I could have it there on time and Wal-Mart is not know for their liberal receiving policies.


It was a nice 1100mi run, but the delivery schedule was a mess. It was going to 3 different Wal-Marts on three different days, each with a 3am delivery time, give or take. I wasn't one to complain too much though. Freight has been a little hard to come by lately and even though this was a reefer load; I was up for it if it meant adding 1100 miles to the paycheck.

It was about an hour later when I heard from dispatch again. Looks like I was the one that drew the short straw and was awarded this fine reefer run along with a message, "Go ahead and deliver this load, get it there a soon as you can safely and legally get it there. We will let the customer know you are on your way".

Now, I'm not exactly sure what was going through my mind, perhaps it was an abundance of optimism, but if I had employed the slightest amount of realism to this situation I would have objected on the spot and refused the load. Why? Because as I stated earlier, this was going to a Wal-Mart DC and I've been in this stupid business long enough to know that if a delivery appointment is missed, they don't just "fit you in". They reset your appointment time. But whatever the reason, I chose to live in a fantasy world and took off as soon as my 10hr break had concluded at 2:30am to pickup the Shaffer trailer that was waiting for me in the New Kingstown terminal and high tailed it to OH. After reading subsequent messages from dispatch I actually thought I would be able to deliver this load when I arrived at 11am.

Once I had hooked to the trailer I was looking at a solid 7hr drive ahead of me and I had no intention of wasting any time along the way (I was still under the impression that I would be unloaded if I made it by noon), it was going to be tight, but doable. Every thing was going great, with the exception of my bladder, and I had just made my southward turn out of Columbus to finish off the last 45mins of the trip. A couple of hours prior to now, I had received a message from dispatch asking me when would I be arriving at the customer. I pulled over just long enough to read and respond to said message, "No change, as I informed last nights dispatch, I will be there between 11:15-11:30". I assumed they were just checking up on me and that was the last I heard of it, UNTIL!

I had made my southerly turn and was on the home stretch and was actually going to make it before the "deadline" of noon. That's when the Qcom once again started to beep and the first few words that I could read on the dash did not exactly have me feeling confident. It took another 15mins of driving before I could find a place to pull over to get the bad news. Sure enough, it was just what I had feared. My load had been rescheduled for the following day, at 3am. This would have been a very appropriate time to loose my mind, but then I don't really have any to spare these days and just hung my head in defeat. How could I have been so naive to think that this reefer load was feasible? That message was followed by two more, each one informing me of my reset appointment for the following drops, each delayed by another day. Disappointed!

I would have been advantageous if this info would have came across the Qcom an hour earlier so I could have pulled into our Columbus yard on my way by to wait out my new found layover. Instead I found myself 30 miles past. I am usually acutely mindful of out of route miles and do whatever I can to limit them, but today, well let's just say I wasn't quit as concerned. I turned the truck around and headed back to the yard. It would result in 60 OOR miles, but my truck was do for an A service anyway and a few minor issues were in need of attention.

I also took this opportunity to take a shot at Tcalling this load. I really didn't want to be saddled with this Shaffer trailer once empty. It would mean nothing but headaches for me. Having a Shaffer trailer means that I will not be able to do a drop and hook, leaving me with only live load opportunities, and even those would be limited by the weight of the trailer. There are a lot of Crete loads that are too heavy for a reefer. Not to mention the fact that I will be sitting in AL on a Sunday morning looking for a load. Freight is painfully light in that part of the world and having limited options is not a enviable position to be in.

After all, this is a Shaffer load, and there are a number of Shaffer drivers on the lot. Surely one of them would want this run instead of sitting around waiting for a load. They are used to these silly delivery schedules. How hard would it be to get rid of this thing? It made sense to me, but apparently not to anyone else. It didn't help that freight in the Columbus area was a none existent thing on this weekend. Apparently there were somewhere in the neighbor hood of 100 trucks in the area waiting for loads. Not really a significant number because we regularly have that many, if not more trucks running around here, but today they were parked. It would mean sitting around for at least an extra day, but this reefer load that I was under wasn't all that much better. I eventually decided to stick with the 700+ miles that were left on this run. There weren't any empty trailers in the yard anyway, leaving me little chance of getting a load if I did Tcall. Later events would have me second guessing this choice, but hindsight is usually far clearer than speculation.

The rest of the day was spent in the drivers lounge while I was regaled by feats of truck driving magnificence and amazing tails of the road (every one true, no doubt). I would have retired to the solitude of my truck on this fine day, but evidently it takes about 7hrs to do an A service. To be fair, they decided I needed new breaks too along with new steer tires to fix the wobble I've been dealing with on the right front tire. I guess the new tires they put on a couple of months ago hasn't convinced them that they might want to take a closer look at the front end. Oh well, It's their dime and I'm just a dumb truck driver, what do I know?

My truck was finally released much later than I cared for and I crawled into the bunk to get a quick nap. I had been up since 2am this morn and was going to have to get going by 1am to make my delivery ontime down the road. Sure don't want to have another reschedule on my hands.

After a little 3hrs nap I was headed down the road. It was a quick one hour jaunt and I was at Wal-Marts front door. All I had to do was hand over the paper work and my appointment number. I do this and am immediately told that the apnt# is invalid. I then try to explain that this load was originally to be delivered the previous night, but had been rescheduled for today. Dispatch also informed me that all apnt# had remained the same. "That's not possible", I'm told. "If you have a different appointment time, you must have a different #".

Back to the truck I go whistling a merry tune (please read between the lines) and start up a nice little back and forth with the dispatcher with eventually garner me a new apnt# a short 40 minutes or so later. In that time every other 3am delivery had pulled through the gate and now instead of being one of the first deliveries I was in the back of the line and had to wait for a door to open up. Well, it takes Wal-Mart a good two hours to unload a truck and that's how long I had to wait to get a door. Then the wait for my unload began. Perfect, another 5hrs shot with no detention pay because I was considered late by Wal-Mart because I didn't have the right # when I showed up. At least they unloaded me.

Other than the frustration associated with it, the delay really wasn't that big of a deal because I had a short 200mi hop to my next stop. I would then have to shut down at a local truckstop for the remainder of the day before making my next 3am delivery. I just LOVE reefer work (between the lines again).

I made it a point to request new apnt #s for my next two stops to avoid a repeat of this morning, but was assured that only the first # was changed. I didn't have the least bit of confidence of that being the case, time will tell.

Well, Sunday is here, or is it still Saturday. I'm not really sure. These 3am appointments have really messed up my sleeping habits. I'm sleeping through half the day and catching quick naps in the middle of the night before my deliveries. I had found a truck stop less than a mile away from my second Wal-Mart delivery which made it very convenient to hop on over to get there one hour early (the acceptable early delivery time frame set forth by Wally World). These reefer appoints are set up for a group of trucks. You may have a 3am appointment, but so do 10-20 other trucks and you are processed (and unloaded) on a first come first served basis. I wanted to be the first in the door so I could get out as quick as possible and showed up about 5mins before the 1hr window.

Moments later 3 other trucks pull in behind me as I am walking up to the guard shack at which time I present my BOL and apnt # (hope it works) with a smile on my face and a cheery "Good Morning". "You're early, go back to your truck until 2am!" (No more cheery face). I look at the wall clock and see that it reads 01:56. Reading between the lines at this point could get me banded from the board, so please avoid doing so. I went back to my truck and waited out the remainder of the 4mins and threw and extra one in just to avoid further confrontation and returned to the window.

I once again greeted her with a "Good Morning", however this one had a definite hint of sarcasm to it and went through the paces (at least my apnt# worked this time). Shortly there after I was backed up to my door and waiting to be unloaded. Unlike the day before, I was the first one in a door for this round of 3am deliveries and I was the first one to be unloaded, although they did wait until the exact hour of 3am to do so.

They say time flies when you are having fun (I'll have to work on getting that pilots license some day). The trailer was unloaded in about an hour, but yet another hour had expired before I finally got the call on the CB to head on in to pickup my paperwork. Wal-Mart gives me such a warm, fuzzy feeling. I was once again ready to do some driving.

My next and final leg of this journey had me going 423 miles down to good ol' Mississippi. My load wasn't scheduled to deliver until the infamous hour of 03:00 on Monday morn, but I would be there much earlier. I had only made it about one hour down the road and was finding it difficult to stay awake. These funky hours have been getting the best of my and I eventually gave in and pulled over at the next rest area for a rare nap. A couple of hours later I was up an rarin' to go. A short day of driving later I found myself at the Wal-Mart by 3pm (only 12hrs early). I had been to this one before and knew that they had parking available along their drive. I shut down close to the guard shack and settled in for another fun day of nothing.

I did notice a couple empty Shaffer trailers sitting in their lot along with a few Crete trailers and the thought occurred to me that I might be able to drop this trailer and take off with a Crete trailer. That sure would go a long way in getting me my next load. I headed on into the guard shack and presented my little plan, but they didn't think it was such a hot idea. They did actually call control and ask them if it would be possible, but in the long run the answer was no and I wondered on back to my truck and awaited my Monday morning 3am appointment.

This concludes yet another week on the road of this OTR driver. Whoop! Whoop!





WEEK FIFTY
Monday, December 8th through Sunday, December 14th
Miles include deadhead

Allegany, NY to Waterford, NY (final leg)....................................281mi
Saratoga Springs, NY to Greensboro, NC....................................764mi
Winston-Salem, NC to Madison, NC.............................................381mi
New Kingstown, PA to New Albany, MS.....................................1090mi

Total Paid Miles...............................2516 Miles

Actual Miles............2640 Miles

2516mi x .43 = $1081.88 + $90 pickup/drop pay = $1171.88

 

Until recently I really haven't spent all that much time on the east coast. Most of my time was spent bouncing around the middle part, but the last month or two I've been a prisoner to the NE. I finally got my coveted load home. It actually took two runs, but dispatch put a little extra effort into it and put me on a load from Columbus to St Louis and found me a load of air conditioners going down to AZ. Homeward bound baby, and they already have a student waiting for me when I head back out next week.

And I'm actually going to end up with over 3000 miles for the week.

I thought I would be home by Sunday, but they threw a curve ball at me by putting three stops on this load, so I'll have to spend the weekend in Albuquerque and wont be able to pull into town until Monday night. Then back to the truck on Tues to deliver in PHX and down to Tucson with a deadhead back to PHX unless they find a load that I can pickup to drop in the Phx yard before I head back to the house.

Looks like I'll be home for Valentine's day. Makes the little lady happy, for sure.

 

WEEK FIFTY ONE​

Monday, December 15th through Sunday, December 21st​

OK, the abridged version of this week. The 3am Wal-Mart load proceeded as expected. Slow! The MT call at 6am was greeted with a “no freight-find a place to park”. Later massages informed me that would continue to be the case for the rest of the day and they were working on finding freight for the following day. This stupid empty Shaffer trailer following me around didn’t help matters out either.

I was sitting at a Pilot and there were 4-5 other Crete trucks waiting and when I woke up the next morning they were still there too. I had sat for 12hrs after arriving the day before to deliver my load. When I crawled out of the bunk on Tuesday morning I was once again looking at a no freight message and an additional 29hrs of sitting with no hope in sight.

I knew that dispatch was probably getting more messages than they wanted to deal with but I finally broke down and ask for permission to run up to our Memphis yard (70mi) so that I could swap out my Shaffer trailer for a Crete to improve my chances of getting a load. It took awhile, but the answer was “no empty Crete trailers in Memphis, sit tight” and I continued my wait.

I eventually got a load offer along with a message “this is the only place you can drop your Shaffer trailer”. I was to deadhead up to AR to pickup a preloaded trailer going to MD. It didn’t pickup until the next day, but I could run up tonight just to have something to do. I had already been here for two days and with nothing more than a 160mi run up to the customer, I would be sitting for another. 34hr resets are sure plentiful this week.

The trip up to AR was unusually difficult. A rare snow and ice storm had descended on the place and they just aren’t equipped to deal with it. There was only 1-4 inches of snow along with some freezing rain, but the roads were treacherous. Not an ounce of salt or sand and absolutely no snow plows working the back roads. This made for an interesting drive while pulling an empty trailer. As a matter of fact, I had the CB on and from what I was hearing; a tanker had hit the ditch not more than 2miles behind me. I wasn’t too surprised by that news, I was sliding around fairly good myself. The trip took far longer than I had expected it too, but I was in no hurry and eventually pulled into the customer’s lot and parked it for the night.

I picked up my load the following morning and also got a message that I had a student waiting for me in Spartanburg. I would have to be rerouted about 100mi out of the way to get him and it would make delivering my load on time difficult to say the least. I drove out the rest of the day and called the trainee. “Meet you at the terminal 8am sharp and be ready to roll, we are on a tight schedule”

He was there and we were gone. I apologized for the rush, but informed him that the reroute to pick him up had put me way behind schedule and we would have to drive non stop (with the exception of our 10hr break) to get there ontime. I let him know that we would be making one 5min stop today and that would be it. With that stop we should pull into the customer with “maybe” 15mins to spare.

The rest of the trip was a hard push and I pulled into the customer on Friday morning with 9 mins to spare. The trainee was amazed that I was able to tell him two days in advance when we would arrive. “All part of the game”

Oh yeah, I pushed hard to arrive on time for our 6am appointment, only to find that it was a drop/hook delivery with no real urgency to it. Nothing new.

The empty call went in and I had expected the “no freight” thing again. After all, I’m sitting just north of Baltimore. That can’t be good. I’m stunned to get a 3 load offer. I run through each of the offers with the trainee pointing out the good and bad about each and have him pick the one he would take. Of course he thought the longest run would be the wise choice. I then point out which are live loads, which are drop/hook, which ones would have use driving through Baltimore and DC compared to the one that picked up in the middle of nowhere, good freight destinations and bad once, etc.

The final decision was a load that was headed to LaCross, WI (1371mi). Good miles, OK delivery time, good freight base when empty and the load acceptance went in. Then the load info starts to flow in with way more beeps than I should be getting. Why would that be? I think to myself. I start paging through the messages and take this moment to point out to the trainee the importance of the little number in the corner of the screen when choosing a load from the offers. That little number “right there” denotes the number of stops on a run. If the number is a “0” it means you only have one pickup and one delivery point. Now if it has a “3” like this load we accepted does, it means you will be making deliveries all over the place and you can generally count on that load being a major pain in the butt. “This is you first lesson, pay close attention to detail or you can get burned”. Of course I did that on purpose. I wonder if anyone believes that?


This trip was went directly into the path of a major storm and our first delivery was in MI. I had asked my trainee if he had ever seen snow in large quantities (he was from NC) and he informed me it had snowed a couple of inch where he grew up a few years ago. Well, he was absolutely stunned by the 6-10 foot drifts and solid blanket of snow that covered everything when we made it to that part of the world.

We made our first delivery and then had to wait and entire day before the next one. Actually enough time to put in an unwanted 34 reset and woke up to another foot or two of snow on the day of our delivery. We were in the Grand Rapids area, and although they are well equipped to deal with this kind of snow we still hit some rough spots. The first one being moments after leaving the truck stop.

The approach to the interstate was on a slight incline and I was pointing out to the trainee how to avoid the shinny packed snow where most of the traffic was flowing. Stopping on these tracks on an incline with a light load was a sure way to get yourself stuck. I was explaining how you get better traction by staying on the fresh powder and look for sand if possible (not this morning). I also pointed out a truck in another lane that had stop exactly where I had told my trainee not to. Sure enough, the light turned green and his wheels started to spin. I thanked him for demonstrating such a scenario to my trainee.

We weren’t out of the woods yet because the incline was on the increase and the light quickly turned red. I would have liked to hang back a bit, but the light was on such a short cycle that I couldn't stop where I wanted to and still make it through the light. That left us sitting on a fairly steep incline with a load far to light for the circumstances. Even though I had stopped on a spot that I felt would give me the best traction when the light turned green, I made it a point to inform the student that I wasn’t feeling overly confident about our chances.

The light changed and the wheels started spinning and we were dead in our tracks. The one saving grace was the other truck that was stuck behind us was blocking one of the lanes, therefore giving me some wiggle room. I was going to need it. Going straight up hill was out of the question, but I’ve been in this kind of mess before. If I could get the truck going sideways a little bit I should be able to get going again. I turned hard to the left when the oncoming traffic was stopped by the light and started to do a snake wiggle across the road. All the way left and then back all the way to the right. Thus reducing the incline enough to get my traction back and we were rolling again. It had taken long enough that the light cycle was once again green and off we went.

The rest of the day and most of the next was just as fun filled and the trainee’s eyes were wide open. For someone that had never really seen snow, he was getting a crash course on winter survival. He just couldn’t get over how many cars were in the ditch. “Welcome to truck driving”




WEEK FIFTY ONE
Monday, December 15th through Sunday, December 21st
Miles include deadhead


Paragould, AR to Aberdeen, MD…………………………………………........1325mi
Harrisonberg, VA to Grand Rapids, MI (first leg)……………………….….933mi

Total Paid Miles…………………2258 Miles

Actual Miles………………..2253 Miles

2258mi x .43 = $970.94 + $30 Stop pay = $1000.94