Weight problems and new old maps

This section of I-95* was a toll road once, I think.

I can't see what else Maryland House is doing here. A welcome center, yes, and that's not odd this close to a state line. But it's on an island in the median of the highway. And there are restaurants. Restaurants where only people driving the Interstate can eat? I've never seen that anywhere but in toll road service plazas.

Therefore, Maryland House must be left over from a more mercenary period in this highway's history. Q. E. D., he typed smugly.

(I will have to look that up somewhere, he thought, less arrogantly...)

Be that as it may, Maryland House is a welcome thing. It's not QUITE the only truck stop anywhere near here, but it's the handiest place to park. And being able to get a hot meal at a rest area is a treat. When I pulled in here last night, it was the end of a thirteen-hour day. Ten of those behind the wheel. With two fifteen-minute restroom breaks Fueled by a pint of water, one package of peanut butter crackers, and a small cup of welcome-center coffee (thank you, ladies--I will remember the North Carolina border kindly**). A real meal before bedtime was cause for celebration.

Ten hours behind the wheel. And it could have been worse

Day before yesterday I got to the terminal and picked up my first load for the week. Filled out my paperwork, pulled out the gate and went straight to a truck stop.

I believe I've told you about weights and balances already. The load was heavy enough the company would compensate me for the scale fees, so I did that first.

Good thing. Whoever loaded that trailer put way too much weight in the back. The load wasn't overweight, but the trailer was badly tail-heavy.

I've told you the various states are picky about both weight and weight distribution. And I think I mentioned that the trailer wheels can slide back and forth, so the load can be properly divided between truck and trailer. I'm not sure if I mentioned that you can only slide those wheels so far back before you get in trouble with the law a different way. There are legal limits to a tractor-trailer's wheelbase.

I slid the wheels on this trailer as far back as I dared, and scaled it again. The weight on the rear wheels was still more than a ton over the legal limit.

If it had been too heavy in the front, there were a few things I could have tried. Moving the fifth wheel*** a little, for instance--that could transfer some of the weight from the back wheels to the front. But when a trailer's too heavy in the back, that's all she wrote. The only thing you can do is take everything out and rearrange it. Or let somebody else do it. So I went back to the terminal, where I was told to drop it and wait for another load. I suppose a local driver took it back to the customer. I didn't sit long enough to find out.

The next load I was assigned didn't look too bad, at first glance. About seven hundred miles, with a day and a half to deliver. Not a problem. Until I looked at the route I was expected to take.

The first part of the trip was pretty straightforward. Two-hundred-odd miles to the fuel stop. Given everything that had happened so far, I would get there just about in time to shut down for the night. And I did. But then I had to get up in the morning and cover about another four-hundred-and-something miles. And less than half of that was on Interstates.

On an Interstate, I typically plan for an average speed of 50 mph, and hope for 60. On a two-lane, I plan on 30 and hope for 40. Four-lanes are somewhere in between, and I've never been able to make a really good guess.

Yeah, I know the speed limits are a lot closer, but the complicating factors have nothing to do with speed limits. On an interstate, you don't have to run smack through the center of town very often. And when you do, you don't have to worry about red lights. Or pedestrians. Or cars parked within a foot of the travel lane.

And even when you're between towns, interstates don't have people pulling out of driveways, or county roads. Or slowing down to look at mailboxes. Or pulling off to get a candy bar at that convenience store that's right beside the road, just around that blind curve.

Limited access roads are beloved of travelers for a reason. When I'm going somewhere for fun, I like driving the more ordinary highways. You see more. But I don't travel for fun as much as I used to. And I usually do it with something a little smaller...

My route for the day was marked on the map as four-lane all the way. But that was still going to be a good bit slower than an expressway. In fact, I found myself wondering if I could make it in one day, period. Legally that is--I'm only allowed eleven hours behind a wheel, as I believed I mentioned.

Well, I made it with an hour to spare. But only because my map was wrong.

It appears the people who published my road atlas haven't updated their maps recently. I knew that, of course, but still...In this case, quite a bit of the road in question (US29 through North Carolina and Virginia, in case you're wondering) has been upgraded to limited-access. Maybe a third to a half of it. I saw a few signs talking about a "future I-785 corridor." Be that as it may, the surprise was a pleasant one.

So I made better time for a lot of the way than I expected.

And it STILL took me ten hours. Not counting the two restroom breaks.

Stromboli can be so comforting.

-----
*North of Baltimore, that is.

**One of the nice ladies said she wished her husband could try truck driving. I asked her if she was really that tired of his company. A nice laugh all around, and she said maybe she'd better stop saying that. "Yeah, you'd better," said the other...

***That big flat thing on the back of a semi-tractor, that the trailer sits on. It does for a tractor-trailer what the ball on a bumper hitch does for a car-and-trailer. The trailer has a "king post" that slides into the slot in the back of the "fifth wheel" and is locked in place. The fifth wheel then holds the trailer up and gives it a surface to slide on when it needs to turn. (It's usually covered with a layer of THICK, STICKY grease. Don't get it on your clothes...)
Like the trailer's tandem wheels, it's made to slide back and forth. We don't do it often, though--that's a major operation, and on a lot of trucks you can only make BIG adjustments...