Life on the road

I try not to let laundry get too behind. Almost all truck stops have laundry facilities. Pop in, do a load, watch an episode of Law and Order for the gazillionth time. I carry about 2 weeks worth of clothes.

I'm 6'3. Haven't found a sleeper I didn't fit into yet. Comfort is relative.

 

I carry 10 days clothes, all of which can be tossed into a single seabag. (Which itself can be tossed into washing machine) Clothing go with a set of outerwear from Oilers for the sea to layers for the worst of winter cold. Nothing fancy.

Although I have a habit of walking into a dispatch office in ordinary because I came out of 'bama 130 degree heat into a air conditioned office filled with suits.(Dispatch) And you wonder why I am unpopular lol.

You would run into different situations, for example in New Mexico, if the land is in good condition without rain and will accept a 18 wheeler off road, you simply pulled off, set your markers and went to bed. Have a small handful of stones vs rattlers and so on that might get near your engine block and such in the night by morning.

My previous post about bad people is because Ive gone into some areas that are not good to go into. For every one of those there are 10 that are really good to visit.

In the Rockies you will learn about altitude and it's effect on the human body. Denver for example is a mile up by the time you get there you are going to know you are pretty high. But that's not half as high you are fixing to be in some of those passes that are only open in the summer.

The weather has to be taken into account very carefully every day and night for the entire nation in general and along your route in particular. Memphis through the midwest east of the Wabash River is fixing to get a proper ice storm by morning to noon tomorrow. Buffalo to Erie are going to see another 2 feet of snow from lake effect again. That 90 will vanish in a few hours in a total snow out you cannot take a big truck through.

You say you are from Maine, Well up near Canada you are fixing to get hit with 18 to 24 inches by Sat. So that's not going to be different.

As a company driver, dispatch will tell you what you will be doing and sometimes what you aint going to be doing. It's one thing to take off from say Boston deadheading to ... Allentown and then loading for .. Cleveland with 10 dollars in your pocket.

Tolls are paid for with transponders, which is the very best way to have the company directly pay it. In my time back in the 80's we carried several hundred dollars cash of our own money, paid the tolls and turned in reciepts. I probably lost upwards of 20,000 dollars in unreimbursed tolls in my life time. I don't care about that because I rather take a toll road and be yelled at for using it in a storm than not to. So that's my cost.

You will wake up wondering what date it is, day of week, where you are etc. Sometimes Ive asked strangers what town? They look at me funny. Then I say I am a trucker came in last night from... Iowa and need the town for logging purposes. Oh it's such a such. Hunting for it in paper maps is fun.

If you are going trucking, BRING paper maps designed for trucks with you. I don;t care if you think the GPS is the church attended by the ayatollah of the digital map. It WILL BE WRONG many times vs a big truck.

I hate to pick on Maine a little bit. To us it means driving half the state past all the likker shops that line the road trumpeting taxes etc. to a small town on a hill with a gigantic warehoues full of bottled water. WTF? I think we are in the money with Likker, but nooo bottled water by the trailer ful.

He he he.

 

Worst part of the job is not knowing if you will find safe, legal parking at the end of the day. Some drivers are lucky enough to only run in the middle of the country where parking is more available or they can set their own pickup and delivery times and can shut down early enough in the day.

Best part of the job is the solitude. Just you and the open road.

 

The corn dogs are to die for. You might literally die but that’s okay because, hey, corn dogs!

 

It's all good. We have been north of there.

There isnt too much freight going up there see, and that's the challenge. I picked poland springs as a .. tease because it seemed all we did lolz.

There is one truckstop up there I forget exactly which one that was essentially beautiful. Slow and laid back all around with that good food. I'll have to hunt for it from the old listings.

 

Actually it's worster (My 3rd grade teacher just rolled in her tomb... equal to the curseword "Ain't". (It's a Baltimore thing...) when you have a collection of good parking spots and find yourself with 20 more sleeping trucks and god help you two RV's cross the front of everyone.

I developed a habit of sleeping 50 miles or more from a target city. My theory is thuggies wont drive or walk that far out to bother me.

 

I'm so sorry..I ate one. Just one. I still have nightmares.