Indian River

Yes, that’s the way I usually go from Baconton to Ship. 75 to Macon and stay to the right where I would normally split to the left, then exit off and run the backroad to Augusta. I’m not a big fan of Atlanta (or the southeast in general). Side note for any IRT drivers who haven’t been to Shippensburg… They will take it early sometimes. I was scheduled for 8am on the 31st and got there a day early. They unloaded me on the morning of the 30th. You can do your break on their property as well. They’ll come outside and get you when they’re ready.

Update on the mileage question that’s been asked on here from time to time since I started the thread:

When I moved out of my tall roof condo truck last year and back into a mid roof it was on November 1st, 2021. The tractor I moved into had 95,475 on the odometer and was pretty much new. Exactly one year later on November 1st, 2022 (last week) the odometer read 247,359.

Throughout the last year, I’ve probably taken a week off work 7 or 8 different times, so in 10 working months (ballpark) I’ve put 151,884 miles on this truck running OTR. Obviously, those are odometer miles, and some were for personal use, etc. But, for those who have asked how many miles you can get at IRT, hopefully that helps.

 

They’ve been good about honoring appointments for the last couple of years. Most of the drivers you see there have previously dropped and hooked in Spokane. If your appointment is 10pm (just an example) and you show up in the afternoon, you’ll most likely have to stage in the lot. Once in awhile they’ll load you early if a previous scheduled truck didn’t show up, but it’s usually on time when I go there. A few years ago they ran out of juice and had some type of “plant breakdown.” About 10 of us sat there for a few days. They paid everyone a generous amount of detention and actually dead headed me all the way back to California just to get me rolling because they weren’t sure when the issue would be resolved. I like going there because I’m able to restock my fridge at the grocery store across the road, and 9 times out 10, those Fruitsmart loads are headed to Florida or at least have 2,000+ miles behind them (with the exception of Watsonville).

 

I unloaded in Shippensburg last Sunday morning. It was scheduled for the 31st (Monday) but I arrived Saturday night and went to bed where we normally stage. The guy woke me up Sunday morning and asked if I was scheduled for tomorrow. I replied yes. He said “back it on in and drop it, I’ll get you out of here.”

 

As much as you run the NE and Canada, you oughta just move up there to Bensalem, Redtwin. You could probably get home more often. I’ve considered moving to California for that very reason, but I don’t know if I could afford housing in that state from what I hear.

Corning, CA would have been a perfect location a few years ago when we still had Tropicana in LA. That was 1,100 miles down from Washington and usually an 1,100 mile dead head back up for another one. Corning was the halfway point where everyone did their break. I spent a lot of nights at that Loves thinking to myself “If I lived here I could be home every 2 days and still turn 3K miles a week. Hated to see that customer go away.

 

After seeing Redtwin’s reply about Shippensburg being closed on the weekends, I went back and looked at my outbox on the Qualcomm to double check the date/time on my empty call just to ensure I wasn’t posting incorrect information on a public forum that might cause a fellow driver to sit somewhere unnecessarily.

Loaded Call at shipper (Baconton) 10/28/2022 at 1:15pm.

Arrival at Consignee (Shippensburg) 10/29/2022 at 06:38pm.

Empty Call (Shippensburg) 10/30/2022 at 08:54am

I will say, there weren’t any other trucks there that day, so it’s possible I lucked out and caught someone in the receiving department who was getting in some overtime or something, but my offload was on Sunday. They sent me to the Port of Wilmington in Delaware afterward to pickup a loaded tank that went to Bradenton, Florida. The loaded call on that one was:

10/30/2022 at 12:04pm (Wilmington, DE)

I was in and out on a Sunday, but since Redtwin runs the NE I would assume he posted that reply for a legitimate reason. I must have lucked out. Halloween being the following day could have played a role. It’s possible the receiver was trying to get a head start for Monday in order to take his kids trick or treating or working overtime. After reading his reply, I probably won’t try to go there on the weekends anymore, although there are some truck stops nearby if you try it and strike out.