Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Thanks ya'll for the suggestions. Hopefully I can get it looked at soon. Today I picked up a load nearby in eastern NC and made it up to New Jersey to deliver it. With today being a Sunday I made great miles and time. Hopefully I can have more days like this. I'm glad we've got that extra hour of daylight in the evening now, too... now I just need the days to get a little longer... I'm not a fan of trying to find places I've never been before in the dark, especially when I can't watch my trailer well in the turns.

Well, the Pilot that my GPS found turned out to be a Loves... so in a few minutes it'll be time to whip out the debit card for a shower... worth it though.

I've been trying to put together a list of items that Schneider doesn't mention you need... here are some of them so far:

*Reflective safety vest - never once was told to get one of these, luckily I managed to pick one up before I went to a place that actually required it and wouldn't let drivers hook up without one.
*Push broom - some places specifically say they want the trailer swept out or they will refuse to load it. Luckily I haven't ran into this situation, but I was quick to pick one up at a Pilot, not to clean a trailer, but to push all the snow off my truck after I sat through a snowfall the night before
*Sledgehammer - I keep forgetting to grab mine when I'm at home. Truck stops sell what appears to be a tack hammer that might be useful for killing roaches or driving thumbtacks into a cork board. Not for banging on that stuck pin that's keeping you from sliding your tandems. I've had to improvise and use an adjustable wrench, lol. Also useful for banging on the ratchet mechanism on the crappy old trailer landing gear crank. I split the handle on my tire thumper using it for this purpose yesterday .
*Lots and lots of notepads - trying to cram all the information you need into that little Pumpkin Book and actually be able to read it is impossible. I have a clipboard and plenty of legal pads to write down all the information and all 8 40-digit numbers that Schneider provides you with - finding out which one is the actual number that shipper needs, however, is another story.`

Thats my list for now... I'm sure it'll continue to expand.

Tomorrow I've got to pick up an empty, go to another stop and get loaded, then head back down to VA to get unloaded. I think at that point I'll have to take a 34... soon I want to try the "work 8 hours every day and never run out of hours" thing so I don't have to ever sit around for a 34 in a place I don't want to be stopped at... need to do some more looking into how to actually make this work... I'm guessing it can be tough to actually do though...

 

Finally getting loaded in NJ. Where I dropped last night didn't have any empties, next place it sent me this morning didn't have any either, 3rd place it sent me to a place I couldn't find, had to call in and get some directions, turns out I was stopped right next to the entrance....

Then came the adventure of getting out of there... I ended up getting lost and going down a cloverleaf-style on-ramp at which point I saw a large 13' 2" sign come into view above the far left lane... crap... stopped at the end of the ramp and took a better look around and saw the right lane was marked at 13' 9"... phew. One thing I've learned is that even if you trip plan and make sure your route is safe, its so easy to take a wrong turn and next thing you know you're ended up in an area that your truck may not fit in. Looking at my atlas where I was, this overpass is actually marked as a 13' 2" low clearance. I didn't plan to go through there, but it happens. I try to read each and every sign no matter where I am or what it says. The thing that still scares me the most is I hear that in some cities there are often low-clearance bridges that don't have any signs... don't think I'm ready for those yet.