A load/trip all newbs should get!

Being a newb, I have to say the last day and a half has been filled with amazing experiences...

I started at 6am yesterday morning and after 7hrs of driving was back at the Conover terminal waiting on my next load by 3pm...At 3:30pm I'm given an 8 stop run from Conover, NC going thru VA, WV, MD. PA and ending in Austintown, OH...By 4pm I'm on the road and already a little tired so figured I'd run a few hours and call it a day, well, it didn't take long until I was in the hills of VA and it's dark with light snow and sub-freezing temps...About 7pm I'm pretty frazzles from going up and down the hills and notice I'm being passed by almost everyone as I'm being very cautious and decide to find a TS...

I pick one in Wythville, WV...I go to the back of the TS where there were plenty of spaces as I was tired and didn't need more stress squeezing it in somewhere...This area is on a hill...I'm backing in, what I thought, was very slowly but noticed when I hit the brake, I wasn't stopping, RUT ROH I thought, then bump, I hit the curb behind me...GOAL, no damage, good, I'm happy...

I start the day at 7am again as I have all those stops and wanted to get to as many as I could...Back thru the hills and tunnels!...

First stop...I call for close in directions about 15 minutes out(I do this on ALL deliveries) and am told to pull up out front and someone will direct me...This stop is in Weston, WV, a town designed in 1730 I think, so stopping outside on Main St had the whole street blocked...A man comes out and gives me directions to their warehouse which is in an alley which is also behind me now...I manage to get turned around and in the alley, ok no problems, unload...Now I have to get out...The first turn and already I had NO room...I had to run up on the far side sidewalk and still managed to just clip the stop sign, it wiggled a little but that's it, whew!...And I was as far left in the alley as I could be making a right turn...Every turn getting out of there after that was pretty much the same, by the time I made it to a main road I was sweating and thankful I wasn't filling out an accident report...Next!

Stop 2 is a warehouse in Anmoore, WV, 10 docks...#9 had a trailer in it and there was a wall on other side of 10, the rest were empty, I'm loving it!...I go in and of course they say, pull into 10...Turned out to be nothing but good practice and once again my confidence was up there...

Stop 3...This place reminded me of a Lowes except they had many concrete islands in the parking lot...An older woman gives me my close in directions which were so bad it's beyond my ability to articulate...First she tells me their dock is on right side, great, straight shot back there down a little winding road...Well, I drive back there and it's so tight there is absolutely no maneuvering room but figured someone else did it so it must be possible(not that I saw anyone do it)...In the middle of my wiggling around a man comes out and tells me I'm in the wrong place, I need to be on other side of building and says just drive around the front but now I have to back down the winding road, that was not fun...I turn where he says and now I'm along the front of the building and imagine if Lowes was giving away riding mowers and how busy that would be, that's where I found myself...It took 15 minutes to traverse the front of the building and I'm sure more than one person was cursing me...I get to the other side and It's just an alley about 12' wide with a dock at the end, oy vey...Now I can't maneuver at all as I sit 90 degrees to the alley, the lot is packed and the aisles are too tight, what's my choice. go over one of the islands which all had very small new trees on them about every 3'...Oh well, no choice, time to kill a tree or two...I soon as I managed to get myself in a position to back down the alley and an RV pulls into a space blocking me, before I could get out and ask the person to move they were in the building ARGH!...25 minutes later they emerge, move and I back it down...Now I can't find the ONE item I'm to drop off turns out it was buried behind the next stop's items so I had to rearrange truck, that sucked...Phew, that one's done...

Stop 4...This is in Elkin, WV down a winding road, no biggie...I pull behind building and there's enough room in front of the dock for the trailer and maybe an axle or so with a drop off to a creek, like a moat around the shipping/receiving area, what a terrible design...AND the dock is surrounded by concrete walls leaving about 6" of play on both sides for the last 15' of the dock which drops down...I"ve never done a dock where my tractor was going to be at almost 90 degrees to my trailer so here comes my old friend, Mr Sweat again...It took me 20+ minutes to get it in there and still scraped my DOT bar on the wall twice(like 100s of others before me from looking at it, I think it was made for horse and buggy deliveries)...Drop those items and now it's time to leave...For the life of me I couldn't figure out how I even got it in there and now couldn't move the tractor without hitting the concrete walls and my wheels were spinning in the 3" of snow they had...After 10-15 minutes of making what felt like a 100 3" maneuvers I get it out, now I'm wore out...

On to stop 5...This one is in Oakland, MD...After driving into the dark and up and down hills for an hour or so, I call ahead for directions and thankfully they weren't taking any more today, WOOHOO!...Now to find a truck stop...Route 68 off of 79(Just south of MD) have very few TSs or rest stops or I passed them all but now I'm exhausted and needing to stop AND it's foggy...I caught glimpse of something I thought said Truck Stop and turns out it's this tiny little place called Sandy's Small Truck Stop, I think there's all of 10 spots for parking and thanking god I spot one!...Normally I avoid backing into TS spots like the plague but was so tired I knew this was it...Another 10 minutes and here I sit, exhausted thinking over the long, what was to me, tough day...However, the experience I gained today will last thru my career and thought this was a day all newbs should have as it put me in so many crazy scenarios, as opposed to just driving a long time which was pretty much my previous experience in my short time on the road...To me this was as action packed as I would like and hope it gets, hope it didn't bore you to tears...

 

For some reason the theme from Deliverance kept running thru my head today...

 

Furniture...