Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Well, I decided to show myself as available for the remaining hours of the day (reluctantly) but it looks like it will (hopefully) work out to get me out of here. Picking up a shorthaul load now that I will relay nearby, then drop and hook at another customer tomorrow morning and run down to VA, then from there off to Indiana. We'll see how it goes, this shorthaul load that I'm relaying was supposed to be a drop and hook but got here and its a live load. 14 is ticking, 2 hours left and I haven't felt my trailer move yet.

 

OTR doesn't bother me, I enjoy the change in scenery. As long as I'm not pushed to the limit and stressed trying to find a place to park I'm fine. But this joke otherwise known as the northeast us... Just wow. 297 miles for the day. QC shows 47 minutes of drive time logged as on duty because I was sitting in traffic crawling along in low gear. I had to keep tapping the throttle to keep the anti idle from kicking in. Of course this supposed drop and hook that was supposed to be ready at 1800 has still not been finished live loading into my trailer 3 and a half hours after my arrival. 22 minutes left of the 14 hope this shipper is gonna let me Park here, otherwise gonna throw a fit and call the police to escort me to Kearny.

 

So far my list of customers that I will deliver to in the Northeast consists of BJ's Wholesale in Uxbridge, MA. Driver parking. Give you menus to order local food from. Clean bathrooms, lots of vending machines, nice people.

And that's it for my list. Got any additions? LOL.

 

Thank God I'm finally out of New Jersey. Got my load to Kearny this morning. Then spent 45 minutes going 13 miles from Kearny to my next pick up in the middle of town in NJ, only to get there and told it was at a different location. Off to the other side of town again with nothing other than some poorly written directions. Finally just pulled into a place that sorta looked like where I was supposed to go, even though the directions said to take a turn at the second stop light that was definitely NOT there. Appears I was at the right place, dropped the empty then had to find where to go to get my load out of there. Spent a good hour trying to get all that sorted out because the release number wasn't correct (so they said), called schneider, talked to the guy at the shack some more, etc., etc., etc., come to find out the release number WAS correct, but the trailer had been brought back to be re-worked because it was overweight the first time around so they thought it had already left.

After wasting all that time finally got out of there and headed south to Winchester, VA for the delivery. Scaled at my favorite TOTAL CRAP Pilot near Clinton, NJ, too much weight on the drives to make it worth fueling there and the tandems were already slid to the limit. Spent tons of time sitting in traffic and rain, flatbed jacknifed into the median so all the fourwheelers had to slow down to 5 MPH to take cell phone pictures causing a backup of epic proportions. Literally no blue lights, no nothing slowing ANYONE down, just rubbernecking. What a bunch of tools. After that more accidents and more rain. Stopped through Carlisle and did my 4th quarter training and went through my permit book to make sure it was all updated. Glad I did that, lol.

Finally reached my delivery, dropped it and bobtailed towards my next pickup which I will make tomorrow morning.

I sure hope I can get some better miles now that I'm headed out to Indiana. I really need them to make up for the past 3 days.