Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Luckily I was headed north on 95 today... sure as hell glad I wasn't going the other direction. Combine the traffic with very heavy rain at times and it was absolute gridlock headed south.

I had a decent run along 90 today through NY, as soon as I hit MA though it was time to kick off the cruise, put the throttle on the floor and face the harsh reality of the Northeast again... hills, hills and more hills and traffic.

I made it real close to my delivery tonight and will finish it in the morning. I could have made it there tonight, but trip planning said I wouldn't and therefore my ETA is set for tomorrow morning. No reason to ding my final service ETAs by getting it there early tonight. After that... hopefully a load headed south? We'll see...

Oh and about your tire, that piece of metal is actually Schneiders new automatic tire regrooving device. When the tread depth gets too low it just carves a few new grooves in there for you. Its also handy for tailgaters, spray their windshield with steaming molten rubber!! They back off quick then.

 

Realistically, there are two possible loads out of Maine. There's that paper mill in Farmington me that you possibly could get a longer load out of there. Then there is the 90% likelyhood that you're going to get Poland springs out of there, and I haven't seen any loads out of there that leave the northeast. Just want to prepare you for the possibility that they won't find you a load directly out of the northeast from Maine.

 

Yeah the only thing I've ever hauled out of here is from Sappi Fine Papers or Nestle Waters.

 

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Theres schneiders new tire blowout device, bent back up so it doesn't gouge out the tire.

 

Picked up a paper roll load from Sappi today headed down to PA. I stopped a few minutes ago, decided to shut down early before heading too deep into the northeast hellhole area. If I would have had enough hours I would have run all the way to the Carlisle OC, but my recap hours decided otherwise.

Of course as I pull in the truck stop, my work assignment just gets deleted. Ok, WTF Schneider. This is like the 4th time in 2 weeks they have done this crap. Then I have to go all the way through all the tasks again, guessing on times, trying to remember what trailer I dropped where, etc etc. Huge pain in the ###.

So, I call in and while I'm sitting on hold I flip through the bills absentmindedly and notice that its not all one set of bills, there is actually a second set stuffed in under the first one. One roll is delivering to a different location nearby the "main" delivery. But my work assignment only showed one stop? And now its just been deleted... LOL.

Finally get ahold of someone and I guess SNI realized their mistake and deleted the assignment and will (hopefully) send me a new one with the 2nd stop added in.

They asked me what time I expected to arrive at the "new" stop and are hopefully going to set an appointment at that time. Then, I'll either go hang out at Carlisle for the rest of the day tomorrow or deliver to the second stop tomorrow, a day early, if I can. Either way I will hopefully be at Carlisle some time tomorrow and stay there for the night for some half decent food and a shower.

This Northeast has got me in a bad mood... all the rain and dreary skies are pissing me off. This is why I only lasted a year in Vancouver.

 

Been driving with Schneider for a year now. Seen a lot of things, both good and bad. Saw something today I have not seen yet.

Was driving West on I-10 in California. Saw up ahead a big dust cloud in the median. As I got closer I noticed a CRST truck driving West in the East Bound lanes!! Had to be doing about 35, driving on the shoulder with his flashers on! I deduced he had turned around in the median and caused the dust cloud, the median was too deep to cross over. Strangest thing I have seen yet.

Not sure what he was doing, but about two miles down the road a Highway Patrol flew by going East towards him. Guess somebody called?

 

I got to Green Bay yesterday afternoon after my bus never showed up at the local station on Sunday night. Started orientation today and passed all my physical stuff. I can't wait to get in a truck tomorrow!!

 

Give him a break... he was probably a new driver... at CRST they don't teach which side of the road you are supposed to be on, he's learning! CRST = Can't Remember #### Today

 

Diesel, don't you keep a personal diary?

It has been great reading your exploits.

 

Well this sucks it cooled off enough that the temperature sensor cut the engine off and now I can't idle all night. I needed to burn off ten gallons of fuel so I can fill up with 50 in the morning and not have to pay for parking at the TA LOL. Gonna have to get creative filling 50 gallons of fuel into 40 gallons of space tomorrow morning hahaha