Route driving

Got broke in on hills Thursday in Orange, VA. Like Big Don said, no choice. The whole place was a slope. I thought the slope being in my favor (nose up/tail down) would make it easier and I guess it did. I'd have never been able to get the palate jack to move if it had been the other way. They were 2,500 pound palates of 50 pound bags of top soil and lawn products (fertilizer, ant killer etc) with another palate of various pieces shrink wrapped and set on top of them because you know: 2,500 pounds just wasn't enough. They hadn't put quite enough on to bend the palate boards so you know; they had to put more on. Can't have that palate jack rolling right on into the palate. Loader isn't doing his job unless he makes it difficult for the driver to unload.

Yeah, getting it started was no problem. It started rolling as soon as it cleared the deck. Keeping the speed down and getting it stopped before it went off the tail was the challenge for my skinny little arse. Why is it that when you want the palate to go down fast, like with a heavy load you need to get stopped, the hydraulics take twice as long to release as they do with a light but high cube palate? Anyway, the first one I let get going too fast before I could get it turned and I sort of panicked when I squeezed the handle to let it down and stop it and it didn't seem to be going down. It was getting a good head of steam so I steered it into the wall as I stretched my arm and stayed out of it's way. It hit a stack of empty totes and crushed them. I was thinking: Holy snap! If that'd been me instead of totes I'd have been leavin' in an ambulance!

Yeah, hills suck.

 

UPDATE and LONG POST ALERT (LOL). Fun read, though - hopefully. I'll break it up into separate stories though. Hope you enjoy.

Despite the challenges (I have a whole new level of respect for route drivers - this is more physically demanding than flatbedding was) and the fact that there is so much to learn and this is so different than the OTR that I feel like a rookie all over again; I'm still really enjoying this. A lot of little adjustments I hadn't thought about like not packing for a 3 or 4 week tour. It was funny, my wife always helps me pack for my trips and load the truck and we're like: This can't be all. Well, yeah I guess it is. I'll be home Friday. If I lived closer to the terminal I'd be home twice during the week too. My wife says: "But what if you get extended?" Then I'll be home Saturday morning. Yeah, let's leave half this stuff at home.

The driving part I totally got to an extent. I mean 16 years of driving the same type of truck I got. It's a different mindset, and a lot of city driving though because I'm delivering to hardware stores in towns and at strip malls. I'm not used to that. I've been through most of these cities before but it was to the industrial section or warehouse district. You know - truck friendly. I'm looking at some of these places like Tierra Verde, FL (little island retirement community off the coast of St. Pete) and going: "You can't bring a truck in here", and "Oh HELL NO I ain't goin' into that parking lot with a tractor trailer!" Um, yes you can and yes you are and don't curb it and "other drivers do it all the time". That one you actually come in on the side street, swing close to a bunch of dry docked boats to set up for a serpentine back between another bunch of real expensive boats in the dry dock, about a foot away from those nice twin 200 HP outboards on than nice Boston Whaler or Mako I'd love to own but don't want to buy by hitting one LOL. In 16 years of driving I never knew just how tightly I could maneuver a 53' dry van. Takes me longer than the guys that have been doing it for years but I get it done without scraping or curbing. I admit that I have learned that I have no problem stopping on the street in front of a store, popping my four ways and walking in and asking how do the other drivers get to the unload spot. Or calling the store or better yet during the break at the parking spot for the first customer (I try and spend the night at my first stop so I'm there when they get to work and we can unload off the clock) pull the stops up on street view in Google maps. That doesn't always work, though.

My store in Deale, MD (a pretty little coastal town) when you pull up street view the imagery was shot in 2008 before the store was built and just shows an old abandoned building and a bunch of trees. It comes in real handy sometimes, though like the store in Hyattsville, MD (part of metro DC). City driving is a totally different Aminal. LOL. But so far I'm still lovin this.

 

The DC story.

This will be funny to all you LTL folks that go into DC all the time. In all my years of trucking it was the first time I'd been inside the Beltway and I'm not gonna BS y'all; I was intimidated. I don't know how many of you have done OTR but there is a big aversion to anything inside the Beltway. It's drilled into your head to stay out of DC. Trucks aren't allowed except for local deliveries and then (I actually believed this one until this week) if it's in an OTR rig you have to have an escort and a predefined - cleared route, like as if you were hauling an oversized load. Yeah. That inaccuracy is pretty common among OTR drivers. We're not allowed inside the Beltway and if you do have to go there you have to have an escort. Um - no you don't. But you DO have to be real careful about truck restricted streets and low clearances and tight turns that you can't make with a 53 footer. So I'm trippin' when I get my route and the first stop is inside the Beltway.

I called the DM: "Um this stop is inside the Beltway. Where do I get a clearance and escort?" "A what?" "I have to get the route cleared and have an escort" [Laughing] "No you don't. Who told you that?" "I don't remember. Been driving a long time. It's just known." "[Still chuckling] You mean to tell me that a million plus miler like you has never been to DC?" "That's right. In 16 years never been inside the Beltway. Not much call for flatbed freight in Metro DC I guess. Know every inch of the Beltway itself but never been inside it." "[STILL chuckling - I think I made his day]. "It'll be fine. Just follow the route I printed for you (every route has a clipboard with some paperwork - arrive and depart times at each stop, overages, shortages and returns - that sort of thing and he runs the whole route on Google Maps and prints it for you). "I really appreciate you printing route directions, I mean I never had that before and it's real nice and all so please don't take this wrong but you can't trust Google Maps. It's for cars not trucks." "No, you're exactly right which is why I check each route for low clearances and truck restrictions. I'd get into just as much trouble as you if I got you jammed up. (I'm THINKING but not SAYIN' because he is a real nice guy) Wanna bet? It wouldn't be YOU getting the ticket and fine - it'd be ME. But I just said: "OK. I appreciate it. I'll run it that way and spend the night at the first stop. Talk at you tomorrow when I'm done and on my way back." Then I ran it through my truck specific GPS and he was right. Then I checked my map book for low clearance and truck restrictions and sure enough. The route was good.

Still not convinced; I mean all the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Still not convinced I'm gonna be OK in an OTR rig inside the Beltway, I pulled up the store on Google Maps and dropped down to street view and took a virtual walk around the place looking for signs and just getting a good lay of the land. Just couldn't shake that OTR unease about being in DC. Good thing I did. At the entrance to the store (and it was current imagery) was a gate; like a tube metal farm gate, with a sign with the store hours on it and you could see a chain and lock on it. I'm thinking. I bet they close and lock the gate when they leave. Well, maybe they leave it open when they are expecting a delivery in the morning. In Metro DC? Probably not. Well I see where I can stop and check and if it's locked I can still get back to my inbound route and back track. I better have a parking plan B in case it IS locked. So I plugged Walmart into the Google Map "search nearby for" field and sure enough there was a Wally World about a mile and a half away; but could I get to it? I plugged that into my truck GPS and I could get there but it was a 10 mile trip to get to the place only a mile away in order to avoid truck restrictions but that was fine. I looked at the Wally World on street view and there weren't any no truck signs it was very big and would be easy to get in and out of. I had my plan B and off I went. Reasonably confident but still had my doubts but resolved to "Oh well. I'm gonna do it and it'll be whatever it is. I'll work something out. Until then enjoy the ride until you hit 495."

I did and waited til I got to DC to start sweating and no lie: I was trippin' as soon as I got onto 295, and started trippin' more and more and got slower and slower as the roads on the route got smaller and smaller. To rub some salt on it; it started raining. Not the clear off with wipers rain but the little drop and lots of spray stuff so even the four wheelers passing ya blind ya and the refection off the wet street and LED traffic lights make seeing the lines on the road darned near impossible stuff and did y'all know there are a LOT of people on the road in DC even in the middle of the night and they have no problem blowing their horns at you? I'm looking up and saying: "Really? Dark, late and DC wasn't enough? Rain too? This slop to boot? Really? I didn't have enough on my plate? You just HAD to throw this at me too? Really? 'Preciate that!" Anyhoo, I'm pokin' along ignoring car horns and searching every sign I see for any indication I shouldn't be there or a low clearance - squinting to try and read the yellow signs from half a mile away. I know you experienced DC rollers are probably having a good laugh at this and I don't blame you. It was a total rookie first delivery feeling and I was acting like one poking along - yes; scared and intimidated. But all went as planned except I was slow, and I get there and . . . the gate is locked. A gate and it's locked at night in Metro DC. What a shock right? It's all good. I had my plan B and the GPS took me to Wally World where I slept for the night. Sort of. Apparently there is a fire station and police precinct somewhere close by because I got woke up like every hour by a blaring siren and air horn going down the road in front of the parking lot. Sure are a lot of fires and crime there I guess cause it went on all night long. Thought about moving down close by the store and away from the street but there was only one slot viable there and you know who was parked there: Yup. A Walmart truck. I was eventually able to tune the noise out, though and catch a couple of hours. Not great but good enough. Little tough waking up but felt fine after my morning coffee. I am former OTR and I can do fresh coffee in the truck and I still roll with that. I'm a total coffeeholic and I wasn't about to leave that gem at home. I sent a message explaining my situation to nightwatch (all after hours messages go to the OTR night DMs) and asked them to forward to my DM so he could see it soon as he logged on.

So I get up and message my DM to make sure he got my night message and knows what's going on and can make calls cause all the trip planning and me poking through DC to a locked gate and then having to go to ground at Wally World this has caused me an HOS problem. My 10 wouldn't be up until 2 hours after the first stop was scheduled to start unloading. I probably shouldn't say this in a public forum but what the hell, I'm pretty sure it's common practice. We run e-logs and they do NOT want you to violate. That was a big adjustment for an old loose leaf logbook road runner, but I've learned to be cool with it. But the reason we spend the night at the first customer is so we can unload the first stop without starting the clock. You're not moving since going onto sleeper "line" so you finish the 10 at the first stop and are rolling to stop two as soon as the ten is up, which is right about the time you finish unloading or very shortly after. I mean I know safety and anti-fatigue and all that but you're well rested. I mean who sleeps for the whole 10 anyway? What difference does it make if I'm unloading or messing around in the truck killing time waiting on the full 10 to reset my clock day so I can go? I still got all the sleep I wanted.

Anyway, the fact that I was a mile and a half away meant I couldn't move until my full ten was up and since the trip up was about 9 hours splitting the sleeper wouldn't get me back enough time to finish the route then take a 10 to reset for the run back. Sometimes a short outrun and the stops are all close enough that you can split the sleeper and get enough time back to run it that way if you wind up having to sleep somewhere other than the first stop but not if it was a long out run and spread out stops and this one was one of those. So the DM needed to know as soon as he got in so he could make calls and adjustments. He did and I went to the first stop and the rest of the route went fine. Late but fine. I was talking to the store manager when I got there and he said he was cool. He understood. e-logs have given all his vendors problems. He knew I was gonna be late when he saw me parked at Walmart on his way to work. Unbeknownst to our DM and the rest of us the regular driver has a key to the gate and the others just call the day before and they just dummy lock the gate so they can get in and they lock it back after pulling in. When I got back I was chatting with the DM about it and let him know. Dude was apologetic - like he had caused the problem or something. And here I was thinking I'd messed up by taking longer than I should getting there. I told him it was cool and about me using street view and having a plan B already in place. He liked that, so it was all good and thus I now have, after 16 years OTR, added "delivered inside the DC Beltway" to my list of "BTDT".

Always something to learn in this biz.

 

The cherry pop story:

This LTL thing is pretty cool. I have experienced a lot of new things and I really like going to the same places. The people are real nice and you get to know them in ways you don't doing OTR. Sometimes they watch you struggle with a heavy palate and you're thinking; "You could climb up and help, you know", but I get it. They don't have to and struggling at first is part of the growing and paying your dues process and let's face it; 16 years OTR is all well and good but in truth I AM a rookie all over again. So, I pay my dues again. I'm sporting more salt than pepper in my mustache so it's pretty obvious that I'm not young and the way I handle the truck I you can tell I been doin it a while and I admit it is nice when I do get help.

Last little story and I'll wind it up. My first trip to this one store in FL (that I've come to learn always gets a bunch of the heavy stuff), my first time to it I make the turn off the highway and I see the parking lot fenced and I can tell immediately I wasn't going in THERE, so I pop 4 ways and as I'm walking up this kid in a store vest is running across the parking lot waving his arms to stop and the people behind the store are waving their arms. He gets to me and says "DON'T go in there (pointing to the fenced lot)". I'm like [with a chuckle] "Don't worry. Got no intention of going in there. That's why I stopped. How we gonna do this?" "I don't know. You gotta unload on the road behind the store where the forklift is." "Ain't gonna make that turn from here either. Not without takin' out your fence on that side." About that time one of the older guys gets to me and says; "I'm glad you stopped. We just put up all new fence because the last guy you guys sent tried to come in there (pointing) and tore everything to hell and back, drug fence through the parking lot and scratched up a couple of customers cars. The owner was super pissed off with you guys." "I guess so. Had a right to be. That was a pretty dumb move. Anybody with any sense can from the highway see you can't make that turn. I don't know why he'd have even tried. I didn't know about that but I'm sure our company was pretty pissed at him too. Can't say for sure but I'd bet a paycheck he got rocked back to the OTR fleet the next day. Well, I can't make the turn goin behind the store either so you got any suggestions? I'd really rather not back onto the highway if I don't have to. I got a couple high vis vests and if you guys can stop traffic I can do it, but I'd rather that be a last resort. What YOU think we should do?" "Well, you can follow this road through the neighborhood and make a left somewhere and get back to the highway, make a left and go down to the shopping center, turn around then come in on the road you passed." "Yeah, not real keen on going through a neighborhood either. Power companies got a bad habit of stringing' low wire. Not supposed to string it lower than 13' 6'' but they do it all the time. Tell you what, though. How bout I take that left there and put my nose in that parking area across the street and jack her back around and back up down the road where that forklift is? You guys will just have to stop any cars that come up on this side street." "You can do that?" Yeah. Be tight but I made tighter. Long as you guys stop the cars far enough back so they don't get so close that I can't wiggle."

Well, that's what we did and I got a "good job backing (it wasn't nothing but an alley dock only I was backing to a road, not a dock so it was actually easier because you didn't have to get the trailer square to a building and could do a pull up to get the truck straight to the trailer and off the side road, but I guess they'd never seen anybody do that) and next time you'll know to come in on the back road from up the highway so you won't have to do this." from the older guy. As I was struggling with the first of the heavy palates the young kid was on the ground watching and the older guy on the forklift pops off: "Don't just stand there with you thumb up your arse, get up there and help him. That $#!+'s heavy". Kid was like: "Oh yeah. Duh. Sorry." Hopped right up and helped. That was nice. It was one of my first trips and no lie, it was the last of a 9 stop that kicked my arse. They popped my cherry right. Everything from heavy palates to heavy carry offs to the next to the last stop which was 289 pieces of all carry off with no hand truck so I got a good cardio burn running back and forth in the trailer with only a box each in my hands to get it all off in time to get to the last stop before the store closed. By the time I got to this last stop I was sweating with the AC on high and struggling just to push the empty palate jack LOL. To top it off, I had managed to leave a piece of every store's order at the wrong store and had to spend half the next day back tracking.

Gotta love payin' your dues.

This week's be safe is: Lift with your legs, not back and keep what you are lifting tight to your body, and if you feel any downward pressure on your goober sack; put the s#!+ back down! Swallow the pride and get help. I got this gig cause the regular guy went out for hernia surgery. He's not likely to be able to return to this gig when he recovers. Probably have to go back to the OTR "no touch" fleet. This is a heavy lifting position and they are not going to let him go back to that after having a hernia repaired, and I hate that for him. It's a good gig. So BODY MECHANICS folks. Body Mechanics and back braces aren't to give you better back strength. They are only there to encourage your body to keep your spine in line when lifting and push the floor down with your leg muscles.

Peace all!

 

DC UPDATE - short post, mark it on the calendar. LOL.

Second run to same customer. Didn't rely on DM to call to make sure they left the gate unlocked. Did it myself. Good thing. The store Manager hadn't heard from us. Trip went well. Good weather, a LOT more confident and I get here (that's where I'm at now) and the gate is unlocked. Cool and a fair bit faster, though I screwed up and didn't top off after my last trip (no excuse but my daughter and grandkids were in town and I had my mind on getting home to them). So it took me about 45 minutes longer than I could have done it in. I needed DEF too (could they have made THAT a more tedious process?). Lesson learned, though. Top off at home terminal after each trip so you get out of there faster. Got it.

Trip went fine, maneuvered around the parking lot fine and am all set up for when they get here. I don't know how much actual sleep I'll get, though. It's not sirens this time. I hear those but they are more distant. It's the TRAIN! Fire engines only WISHED they had a horn like the Amtrack. It looks like a people train anyway. It runs as often as one would expect a commuter train to and boogedy boogedies so it shakes the ground and my truck and I'm probably a good 75 meters from the track with my customer's yard stuff between us. And Dude just HAS to blow the horn when he goes by because you know: My truck might spontaneously start and levitate sideways over all this yard stock and fence and all and land on his tracks. Safety first on the Railroad!

I got this DC Politics thing figured out. It's not that our Congress doesn't listen to us. They can't HEAR us. They're all DEAF from the noise in DC! Make fluency in American Sign Language a prerequisite to holding public office inside the Beltway and we'll probably actually get something done! President Regan wasn't blowing off reporters questions with the gesture to his ear. Dude really couldn't hear!

Well, I'm going to bed now; UNDER everything that muffles sound. Takin' my phone with the alarm set with me and I have no doubt there will be a huge noise to augment my little Android's beep, beep, beep and I'll be up in plenty of time to make coffee and grab a bowl of cereal before we start to unload. LOL.

Night all.