Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Interesting day to say the least, not great but could have been worse. Made it up to around Norfolk, VA from starting out at the SC/NC border to deliver my loads this afternoon. I was wide awake and ready to go 2 hours before my 10 hour break was over, driving much later than usual yesterday really threw my internal clock off. No issues getting up to VA thought, just a quick drop and hook and I was out of there to pick up my next load.

This one I grabbed out of our intermodal yard in Norfolk. Kind of a pain in the butt to get there, I've never been to this yard before. I followed the Qualcomm directions to the yard which had my take the loop all the way around the city. I'm not sure if there was a shorter route, but generally I trust Schneider to know best when it comes to getting to their own yards. Dropped my empty and grabbed the relay trailer. I really have no clue what the hell it was doing in Norfolk considering the load originated from SC? Seems way out of route considering its going to NJ. Doesn't make sense.

This is where I feel like I'm really getting screwed. Zip code to zip code its a 350 something mile drive, according to the mileage on the workflow that we are supposed to estimate our times based off of. Actual mileage is a good hundred miles more. Stupid. That really hurts out of route and really throws a curve ball into trip planning. If I did nothing but two lanes or tried to cut up through Delaware or some other odd route I may have been able to get there with fewer driven miles, but I'm not wasting my time on that. So I just went back around and am going to get back on I-95.

Of course I can't magically pull extra drive time out of ###, so I won't be able to make the delivery appointment window on time. Messaged after hours explaining the impossible dispatch and haven't heard back yet. Looks like the customer is open 24/7 though so I imagine it shouldn't be a problem and I won't have to deal with the usual trying to deliver to a customer that is closed.

I shut down after about 450 miles today, traffic was getting bad (I'm guessing everyone heading back from VA beach) and there was no sense in wasting time sitting in it, since regardless of when I take my 10-hour break the load will still arrive late. I also didn't want to get a late start tomorrow and have to deal with nighttime parking in the Northeast if my next loads take me further into the hell hole.

Fingers crossed for delivery working out OK tomorrow and a preassignment the heck out of the Northeast.

 

Thanks for the the tip, I will remember that for next time. I was running low on hours and didn't know if I would have been able to find a place to stop, are there any rest areas or truck stops along the way?