Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

It's a balmy 72F here in my truck.

 

81F and cloudy here in Bridgeport, MI

 

Same

 

Traffic going northbound on I-95 slowed me to a 40MPH average for a couple hours yesterday, making it impossible to run my load of refrigeration equpiment all the way to Danvers, MA before running out of HOS. Swapped with another driver at Vince Lombardi and grabbed his load of tobacco going to South Windsor, CT.

Got a pre-plan last night for the subsequent load: Hop over to West Hazleton, PA to pick up a load of plastic containers and take 'em to Ashland, VA. Great! Straight shot across I-84 from Waterbury, skip all that nasty NYC traffic. After the tobacco was unloaded, I punched in the new load assignment and hit the road.

And then I got a text message from my DM.

"We took you off that load. Sending you to North Bergen."

So instead of a nice, easy, no-traffic drive across the Poconos, I spent 2hrs 20 minutes driving six miles across the Cross-Bronx Expressway.

Load assignment says to have this in South Hill by 8:00am. I ain't gonna make it.

 

My previous experience with this load suggests that the delivery time on the load assignment is basically wishful thinking on the part of the load planner.

Like the Volvo loads, as long as you get it there on the right day, they're happy.

 

Been a while since none of the numbers in the app worked as a pickup number

There's always more in there than Qualcomm for when that one doesn't work

But today, nah, none work

 

Woke up this morning at the Richard Stockton travel plaza on the NJTPK, hauling a load of blue jeans to South Hill, VA.

I got hometime coming up, and I didn't figure they'd have much to offer me in terms of getting me out and back by tomorrow. So I was anticipating a deadhead back to the yard and an early day off.

Surprise surprise, though, about an hour from delivery I get a phone call from HQ. They wanna know if they can give me a short run to the Eastern Shore. Hill-Phoenix load, due at a Family Dollar at 6:00am. They told me they were in kind of a bind and it would really help 'em out. So I said "Sure."

Made my way through tunnel traffic in Hampton, coasted up the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, and am now parked just across the MD-VA state line at the Family Dollar in Pocomoke City, MD.

Little bump in the road town, but I just had shrimp chimichangas for dinner, so it ain't all bad.

Hopefully they'll just deadhead me back home tomorrow.

10hrs 50min of driving, and 625 miles for the day. Not bad at all for staying entirely in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia.