Quasitrucker

Welcome to my moving window.

2012-05-04T18:46:00.000-04:00

quasitrucker:
someone who does some of the things a real trucker does, and can be mistaken for one at first glance.

Okay, so it's not in the dictionary. But it seems to cover the situation fairly well.

Welcome to my new world.
I've been in it less than four months as I write this (05/04/2008--pay no attention to the date in front of the curtain). Or a little over six months, if you count the time I spent getting a license to drive tractor-trailers, and the time I spent learning to drive them well enough to be trusted with one (quite a different thing...). Not much time at all.

I still don't know much about this world. I've got a lot of learning to do. If you'd like to look over my shoulder while I'm learning you're welcome to.

I guess it's called confidence

2011-07-14T22:50:00.004-04:00

Well at least I didn't strain anything permanently.

Yesterday was what you might call eventful. One of the more interesting events was a landing gear that jammed. I strained something in my shoulder trying to crank it up. But I'm in a good bit less pain this evening than this morning, so it doesn't seem to've been permanent.

So I won't talk about that.

In fact, I guess I won't talk about yesterday much at all. It was what you might call one thing after another--not boring, but neither entertaining nor edifying. Today was a bit more relaxing. But I did run into something interesting.

I stopped for fuel this morning, and another truck belonging to the same company I drive for pulled in behind me. After I had fueled and pulled forward he pulled in and started to fuel his own truck. I went in to get something at the convenience store (convenience stores are dangerous that way). When I got back, the other driver waved, and then motioned me to come talk.

Turned out he wanted help sliding his tandems. I've talked about that part of this job before, so I won't go into too much detail here. But it is the kind of thing that's easier with two people--one moving the truck while the other watches to make sure he doesn't move it too far.

But that's not what he needed. He wanted me to help figure out how much to move it.

He had his scale ticket, and it told him how much too heavy his tandem wheels were. But he couldn't figure out how much to move the wheels to make it balance. I told him a few of the rules of thumb we use for that, and then about how much they said to move it. Then I watched while he did--as I said, two people does make it easier.

I also suggested he should scale it again just to make sure--the rules of thumb are not that reliable. I don't know whether he did that or not--I had to roll. I hope so.

The scary thing is, he was a lease operator. Translation: he rents a truck from the company, and pays the rent out of his own profits. I get paid a price per mile. He gets paid a considerably larger price from which he buys fuel, scale tickets, repairs, and whatever else the truck needs.

In other words, where I am an employee, he's running his own business.

Several people have tried to talk me into doing that. My response is always the same: "if I were that good a businessman, I'd be in another business." Maybe he is that good a businessman. I don't know. What I do know is that he hasn't bothered to learn some of the basics of operating a truck. If you don't know how to balance the load, and have to call a friend when it doesn't scale properly, something is wrong.

I worry about that guy.

A trucker's holiday

2011-07-04T20:35:00.004-04:00

I drove under a parade today.

I didn't know what it was at first. I had just passed an exit with a large (and permanent) "NO TRUCKS" sign, and noticed that it was closed to EVERYBODY today. Orange cones across the opening, and a police car with bright flashing lights and a uniformed gentleman leaning on the hood with his arms crossed. Obviously something was going on.

Then I looked at the overpass coming up and saw a big ol' truck pullng a big ol' flatbed trailer. Flashing lights all over the truck, as if it normally spent its time pulling oversize loads. Something bulky on the trailer, though I could't make it out at first.

So what was a big ol' truck doing pulling a big ol' trailer across the expressway on a street that was posted "NO TRUCKS"? Hmm...

That was when I noticed that the railings on that particular overpass were noticeably more colorful than the norm. And that the extra colors were reds, whites, and blues. And about that time I noticed that the top of the trailer was waving. With several hands. In different directions.

Fourth of July in Massachusetts. Kind of charming.

Taking the coward's way
And it made me feel a little better about a decision I'd already made an hour or so before. I had two sets of instructions about how to get to today's customer. The directions on file with Dispatch said to follow expressways all the way to a certain exit, then take the exit and the warehouse was right there. The Fuel Department said take a shortcut that involved about fifteen miles of two-lane road. Now normally I'll do what I'm told about those shortcuts. Unless the directions make no sense coming from that direction. Or unless I know the road in question isn't usable. You know, like straight up a mountain, or over a bridge that'll barely hold a Cadillac.

And normally, I would have taken this one. But a two lane road through at least two small-town business districts? On the biggest day of the year for small-town parades? I MIGHT have gotten away with it, but...

And I felt still better when I brazenly followed the expressway and got off at the specified exit. There on the right was the turnoff to the customer. And there on the left was a road that led to a state park. And a sign saying the state park was "FULL."

Yeah, I think today was a special case...

An hour or so later
I pulled up to the guard shack at a large chain-store Distribution Center (warehouse writ large) and showed them my bills. They looked at them and asked for an appointment number.

"Any other kind of load, we could look it up," they said. But this one wasn't going to the warehouse. It was going to about two dozen different stores in their chain, and they had shipment numbers for ALL of them. No way they could negotiate their computer maze and find the appointment number for themselves.

So I sent a message to my dispatcher. Long pause. Then, "Fax us the Bills of Lading, and I'll try to get you an appointment number."

They'd sent me more than a thousand miles, giving me three days to get there. I was supposed to negotiate the place on a holiday. And they hadn't done the paperwork yet.

It took me half an hour to figure out how to use the fax machine at the guard shack. (They didn't know how to use it either...) And another two hours to get an answer after they got the faxes. But I did get the number. And I did get the trailer dropped. And picked up an empty.

Whereupon I was told where to pick up my next load. Tomorrow morning. Still in New England.

I may have mentioned how hard it is to park in New England.
I don't really think they try to keep us out, but they do make it hard to stay overnight. In this case, there wasn't a truck stop listed within 75-100 miles of the shipper.

Fortunately, the people at this Distribution Center understand. When I came in, they gave me a map of their yard. On the back was a list of places to park. Not all of them official.

So here I am,
hiding in the back corner of a commuter park'n'ride lot. There are four or five other trucks back here, and the police came by an hour ago without comment, so I think I'm all right. There's a drug store across the street, and a WalMart© down the road, so I'm actually better set up than I often am. I do wish I had a shower nearby, but other than that I'm pretty well off.

I don't know if I'll see any fireworks tonight. The lady in the drug store said they're talking about some at a park a few miles down the road. They may be visible, they may not.

But what the heck. I saw a few seconds of a parade, anyhow.

The scariest non-event of my career (so far)

2011-06-08T21:50:00.001-04:00

This afternoon I dropped off a trailer at a rail yard,* the last bit of business before taking the truck to the Atlanta terminal and myself home.

Traffic on I-285** was moderate-to-heavy, and moving well. Since I wasn't going to pick up another load, the dispatcher didn't try to find an empty for me. So this was one of those rare times when I didn't have a 53-foot tail to wag in traffic. This simplifies driving quite a bit. And in a few more miles, I would be getting into a compact car, which would simplify things even more. For some reason, I was cheerful all of a sudden.

I have to remember not to be cheerful while on the job.

About a hundred yards or two ahead of me, a car spun out and blew a tire--or blew a tire and spun out. Hard to tell when you're in a hurry. What I noticed was that he lurched, whirled, and ended up sideways in the lane, not moving. Right in front of me.

Fortunately, even when I am preoccupied with happy thoughts, I'm still paranoid about following distance. Even with the surprise of it, and the uncertainty of which lane he'd end up in, I was still on the brakes in plenty of time. There shouldn't have been any problem stopping.

Except for the fact that I was bobtail. I mentioned once, I believe, that a tractor without a trailer has practically no weight on the rear wheels. I may have even mentioned the picture I saw of one braking too hard and turning a front somersault. It makes me less enthusiastic on the subject of brake pedal pressure, for some reason.

And then there was the fully loaded tractor trailer behind me. Don't want to stop TOO quick.

And the lanes on both sides were full of cars. Cars that were now moving considerably faster than I was. Translation: Changing lanes to dodge wasn't an option.

So there I sat, trying to feel how close I was to losing traction on the back wheels. And how much luck the fellow behind me was having matching me. And watching the fellow in the car watch me (the driver's seat was right in front of my bumper--of course). It was an interesting few seconds. But at length, I came to a stop--a good three feet from the driver's door--and waited for the big fellow behind me to arrive. I wondered idly how hard he'd hit.

Two or three seconds went by, and no bump. So I stopped scrunching and looked in the mirror again. And there he was.

I'd been right--he hadn't had time to stop. So he'd started a lane change instead. Had he seen an opening? Or taken a chance that nobody was going to argue the point? Fine by me, either way--he'd come to a stop about six feet past the back of my truck, slanting across both right lanes of the Interstate. He'd missed me by a good ten inches.

Well, we were both stopped. And we were blocking all the traffic in both those lanes. So we just sat there with our flashers on until the fellow in the car got his head together, his engine started, and his car off onto the shoulder. Then we both went on our way. As the other truck passed me, he grinned and waved and shrugged. I did the same.

And I went on to the terminal. And from there home.

Scary, huh?

Um, not really.

And that scares me.

I came closer to actually hurting someone today than I have the whole time I've been driving these things, I think. But it's not that different from the kind of thing that happens to me pretty much every day. Between drivers who think they can dance with elephants, weather that makes the road invisible and untouchable at the same time, schedules that put me behind a wheel when my brain insists on dreaming, and a hundred other things, those ten seconds may have been one of the more straightforward problems I've had thrown at me from out of nowhere. Both I and (I think) the other driver were as amused as we were relieved.

Just another day on the job.

Now THAT's scary.

-----
*The reason I was thinking--hypothetically, of course--about the ethical conundrum of the previous entry.

**The Dreaded Perimeter Highway, that loops clear around metropolitan Atlanta. Said to have been built as a last line of defense in case of another Northern invasion--just let them get on it and they'd never figure out where they were. If so, it won't work--I've seen the D. C. Beltway. But it was a good try...

Ethical conundrum

2011-06-08T15:39:00.002-04:00

For those of you considering this career, here is a test question that won't be on any of the state tests, and probably won't come up in your interviews (assuming you interview for a position like this). Nevertheless, it is a problem that might well come up in the course of your duties. It hasn't happened to me, of course...

You drive to the shipper,* drop the empty trailer you brought with you, and pick up the trailer the shipper has thoughtfully pre-loaded for you to carry away. From previous experience with this customer (as well as the way the truck strains to move this thing), you know the load is probably heavy--perhaps as heavy as you're allowed to haul. You are therefore pleased to see that the customer has their own scale on-site.

It's a simple small-platform single scale, so you pull your steering tires up on the platform and make a note of your weight. No problem there, not that you usually have one. The steer tires mostly carry the weight of the engine and such--much of the weight of the tractor, in other words.

So you pull up further and make a note of the weight on your drive wheels. Again, no problem. A good two or three thousand pounds light, in fact

Not so good--that weight has to be somewhere.

So you pull up further and make a note of the weight on the trailer's tandem wheels. And sure enough. You're WAY over.

Far enough over, you decide after a few moments of calculating, that you can't adjust the wheel spacing enough to make the thing legal for Georgia roads. You'll either be half a ton too heavy on the tandem wheels, or the distance between the drive wheels and the tandems will be a foot or two past the legal limits.** And the DOT will come after you for either one.

At this point, the problem would be simple enough. Give the customer the bad news and let them glare at you as they take the trailer back and rearrange the load. You won't be popular, but you won't (technically) be in trouble with the customer, or your employer. And you GUARANTEED won't be in trouble with the DOT. The others might get you fired. The DOT will fine you***--and if you do this too often you might lose your license. And then where'll you be?

Like I said. Simple, if not painless. But no, you have to be thorough. And, technically, you're not really taking this load through much of Georgia. You're taking it to a rail yard, where the nice people will put it on a special flatcar and haul it to Chicago. From whence some other driver will take it the rest of the way to its destination. Which, you notice, is still in Illinois. So you pull out your handy "trucker's road atlas"--the one with the section on weight restrictions from various states. And sure enough--Illinois has different "bridge laws" than Georgia does. The wheels can be a good foot and a half further back there.

Quick calculation. Yep. That is enough to get the back wheels down to a legal weight. You won't be legal in Georgia, but the other guy will be legal in Illinois.

Additional information: There are no government scale houses between you and the rail yard. Unless somebody has a brainstorm and sets up a portable scale on the way, nobody will ever notice that your back wheels are overweight. On the other hand, a sufficiently alert state trooper MIGHT notice that the wheels are too far back. Not likely, but possible. And you are, after all, knowingly breaking the law.

So. Do you---

a)
Tick off the customer?
Go back to the manager and tell him you can't take the load unless they completely rearrange the 20-plus tons of stuff they've already loaded and sealed inside the trailer?

b)
Split the risk?
If you set the wheels to Georgia's legal limits, you'll be way overweight on the trailer wheels. But the chances of your getting caught are real close to zero. And if the guy in Illinois takes it past a scale without weighing it first, that's his problem, right?****

c)
Pick up the bomb?
If you set your wheels so it'll be legal in Illinois, you're breaking the law in Georgia. The chances of getting caught are bigger than in option b) (a policeman with a sharp set of eyes would be enough), but they're still small. And the guy in Chicago will be just fine.

Please answer a), b), or c). Then turn the page...

This question will not be graded--now. But I can just about guarantee you'll run into things like this at least once a week.

Don't you hate word problems?

-----

*We will not, at this time, discuss the turn you missed on the way, or the "no trucks allowed" road you were forced to follow to find a place to get back to the main highway, or how odd it was that the "no trucks allowed" sign was a good half mile past the last possible side road that would have allowed you to escape this necessity.

**I think I've mentioned that the "bridge laws" that regulate weight and balance on these trucks also regulates wheelbase. I'm not sure why having the back wheels too far from the drive wheels threatens a bridge, but there it is...

***Technically, the DOT fines the company you work for. If you can persuade the company you had no way of knowing about the problem, they MIGHT not dock your pay to cover the fine. But we've already eliminated that option here, haven't we?

****Adding to the complications here is the nature of the guy picking up the load in Chicago. On the one hand, it may be a local driver. They have a tendency (or so I've been told--by some of THEM) to simply go around the scales and ignore any possible weight problems. After all, they know where all of the scales are--and the good detours. On the other hand, it might not be a local driver. I've been sent to pick up trailers at rail yards myself--just because I happened to be handy when the local drivers were already spoken for. And if it were me on the other end...

The man in the middle

2011-05-15T22:43:00.003-04:00

I've said it before, but Texas has some really nice rest areas.

Not all of them, mind you. On the average, they're ok, but often a bit on the small side. Finding a parking space can be interesting at a lot of them—at least for something the size of an eighteen-wheeler. The free wi-fi makes up for a lot, though, once you squeeze in.

And then there are the "Safety Rest Areas."

There's one just north of Laredo, where I first learned how nice a rest area can be. Another is at the border of Texas and Louisiana (where it doubles as a welcome center. I suspect there are several more that do that...). That one is built out over a swamp, with a nature-trail boardwalk that meanders above the marshy ground.

They all have a huge (relatively speaking) main building with exhibits showing you how neat the local history/ecology/people/what-have-you is, large and thoroughly landscaped grounds, and all the other stuff that you might need to ENJOY your rest stop.

The one I'm sitting in now is an hour or so east of San Antonio: the "Guadalupe County Safety Rest Area." There's a nice playground to my left (it's getting dark enough the kids are reluctantly being shepherded back to their cars), three or four lofty and lovely stone picnic pavilions, and a fair bit of woods and bushes.

Lots of birds. A rabbit that froze and stared at me as I stepped out the front door (I slipped in and went out the back, just to be nice).

And evidence that people live and work nearby (at least I assume somebody must work at that stockyard I faintly smell...)

All that is nice, but I'll admit I stopped mainly for the free wi-fi. If nothing else, I need to check on what the Mississippi is doing to Louisiana. I-10 and I-12 in particular. I've got to go through there tomorrow.

Hmm. Doesn't look too scary at the moment. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I prepare to relax. I've got 'til Wednesday morning to make about 800-900 miles, so I don't have to start at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I intend to take advantage. The last three days have made me eager for rest.

Friday morning, in Atlanta, I got assigned a load that was due to deliver at 1:00 pm the next morning. In Laredo, Texas.

1100 miles in 24 hours. Less the legally-required 10-hour break. Do the math.

Normally this kind of load would be assigned to a team. With one driving while the other sleeps, it's not a problem. For a solo driver, it's not a problem, either. It's an impossibility.

My dispatcher told me he thought the delivery could be rescheduled. Said to just go get the load and run with it. So I did.

About the time I got the load, my dispatcher called back. The load was hot, he said. The load info used the work three times, in fact. So forget rescheduling. Run as far with it as you can tonight, he said. We'll get somebody to repower it when you shut down.

So I started driving, and I didn't stop until midnight. Then I sent my (night) dispatcher a message telling him where to find me.

Half an hour later, I got a message asking me why we were repowering this load.

I called in and explained what I'd been told. An hour or so later I was told to just get up in the morning and get it to Texas as quick as I can.

O-kayyy...

600-plus miles in 11 hours of driving left me a full hour from my destination last night. So I got up this morning and came the rest of the way bright and early. And the local office said "Where the #%&& have you been?"

Turned out that load was even hotter than I'd known. As in "the factory will shut down if this load doesn't get there quick" kind of hot. I explained what I'd been told, and they said, "We'll have to have a long talk with someone."

Gulp.

I don't think I'm in trouble. I did ask all the right questions. But I still don't like being in the crossfire.
Driving into flood country is actually a bit more comfortable.

And in the meantime, this rest area sure is pretty.

How things improve in this job

2011-04-23T21:16:00.002-04:00

My very first post in this blog dealt with the importance of windshield washer fluid. At the time I didn't consider the dark side of that.

Come to think of it, this particular dark side didn't exist at the time.

In their never-ending attempt to make themselves feel better by bankrupting ordinary citizens, the EPA raised the bar yet again on diesel truck emissions standards a year or two ago. I've described the previous round of technical "improvements" and how they've made my life more interesting here. The latest standards were far more than that approach could easily handle.* So the standard approach has gone from not making the Bad Stuff in the first place, to destroying it before it gets out of the exhaust pipe.

This involves something kind of like a catalytic converter. But it's doing a completely different job, in a completely different way. And part of the process is injecting a chemical into the exhaust as it goes into the converter. "Diesel Exhaust Fluid," it's called, and its active ingredient is urea.

So what does all this have to do with windshield washers? I'm getting to that.

Diesel Exhaust Fluid, as sold in truck stops, is a pale blue fluid, almost transparent. In truck stops it's sold in fancy bottles at equally fancy prices. At many trucking company terminals, it's delivered in large translucent plastic tanks. They look a lot like the tanks those same companies use to dispense windshield washer solvent. And in the last two or three months, I've had two trucks where someone put the stuff in the windshield washer tanks.

News flash. Diesel Exhaust Fluid doesn't clean a windshield too well.

When it dries, it forms crystals all over what you spray it on. The first time this happened, it cleaned the road salt and dirt off the windshield, then covered it with something even harder to see through. It took two or three tries before I began to realize the problem wasn't with the road.

Two days driving in wet snowy weather. Afraid to use the washer to clean the stuff off the windshield. Less than fun.

And neither truck even uses the stuff. They aren't new enough.

Thus the government improves our lives.

This post exists primarily to let you know I added another back-post, for 03/28/2011. But as long as I was typing, why not say something?
-----
*I read somewhere that one company did do it the hard way. Because the government had decreed that the chemical approach I'm about to describe wasn't acceptable. Then, after they'd spent huge amounts of money doing it the EPA's way, the EPA changed its mind--possibly because of lobbying from the other truck makers, who didn't want to spend huge amounts of money. Last I heard, lawyers had entered the infected area...

Return of adventures in navigation

2011-04-17T16:09:00.001-04:00

Diner Dela in Pierceton, Indiana serves large hamburgers.

They're a sandwich and Mexican place, but I'd had Mexican a day or two ago, so I ordered a cheeseburger. A double cheeseburger, to be precise. With fries.

Big mistake. And I should have known better. They had a poster on their wall advertising their “Dela Dine-o.” As in “dino.” A five pound burger. They had a picture of the only customer who'd managed to get through one in an hour (and therefore didn't have to pay for it), and a “Wall of Shame” for those who'd tried and failed.

Their standard burger isn't that bad, but it was big enough. The double was wretched excess. For me, anyway.

What the heck. I earned it.

This was not a weekend for freight in Ohio. I sat around all day yesterday (though I was technically under a load—long story). And when they finally found something for me last night, it was a load that was two hours away and didn't pick up until midnight tonight. I've discussed me and driving all night, so I won't do it again. Let's just say I'm not looking forward to it. But I figured it would be a little better if I could sleep right up to the appointment time. So I headed out there this morning.

Ideally, they'd let me sit on their property and wait. Park before 2pm, and I could get a full 10-hour break in and then get my trailer loaded. If not, I could always backtrack to the nearest truck stop. And I'd know how to get there when it was time to come back. It's always easier to find a place in daylight.

Boy, howdy, was that ever the right decision.

Following my directions like a good boy, I turned onto the road that runs through downtown Pierceton. Two streets down, turn right. Yep, there was the sign for the proper street. And there was a “NO TRUCKS” sign, just beyond it.

Houses and kids playing, and trees with large branches less than 13'6” off the ground, and a one-lane right-angle turn that would have made me nervous with a large delivery van. This was not the way to the factory. Not for me, anyway.

And no other street going in the right direction was any better. I crawled through the tiny downtown, finally turning right on the only road wide enough to take the tractor-trailer. I still don't know for sure whether I was supposed to be on it, but I only brushed a tree branch twice.

Seven miles and two towns later, I found another right turn big enough to accommodate an eighteen-wheeler. One more right turn, and I was on the main highway, heading back toward Pierceton for another try.

This time I ignored both GPS and directions. I knew the name of the street. I'd seen the factory on an earlier pass. I knew where I had to be. And there HAD to be a street off this highway that went there—there sure wasn't a way in from town!

I finally did see something promising. The street name I was looking for, in about the right place. I turned in, gingerly followed it around, and found the plant. And the NO TRUCKS sign just beyond it. The directions I had would have been fine, if I'd been in a car...

I sent some corrected directions to my dispatcher and spoke to the nice people in the plant. They said sure, park over there and you'll be out of the way. So I did. Then I walked into town and looked for some comfort food.

And now, overstuffed and torpid, I think I can sleep all day. So I will.

G'nite. Sort of.

Hidden dangers

2011-04-14T20:04:00.000-04:00

This job is bad for the waistline.

Not always for the usual reasons.

The truck stop in Bucyrus, Ohio, is within easy walking distance of a Bob Evans(tm). You don't even have to cross a street. You barely have to cross a parking lot.

I had a nice big lunch already today. And the closest thing I've ever managed to a diet was to limit myself to one real meal a day. Logically speaking, I should have stayed in the truck tonight and gone in the morning. Breakfast is my favorite meal at Bob Evans(tm) anyway.

Not an option this time.

I started my day in North Carolina. I crossed Virginia, West Virginia, and half of Ohio before I stopped for a break of any kind. At which point I had a leisurely lunch* and drove the rest of the way to the customer in one jump. By the time the nice people had unloaded me, I had done my research and found the only truck stop within fifty miles. Getting here and parking more or less ended my day.

In Bucyrus, Ohio.

Bucyrus is about equidistant from every major city in Ohio. Or so it seems. Beautiful country, but not a hotbed of industrial activity. I had no idea where my next load was coming from. Or, to be more accurate, where I'd be going to to get it.

Fortunately, my dispatcher was already on top of things. I have a load tomorrow. It picks up at 7:00 am, about 50 miles from here. Which means I'd better be rolling by 5:00. Anything later than 5:30 would be insane.

The Bob Evans(tm) in Bucyrus opens at 6:00.

Sigh.

So here I am, finishing up a bowl of their famous sausage gravy. For supper. When I didn't need supper. It was that or park next to a Bob Evans(tm) and get nothing.

Svelteness is a receding goal.

This job has perils you might never have imagined.

- - -
*Unusual for me—I usually get a sandwich and eat it while driving. (I know what kind of distraction I can handle—your mileage may vary.)

Intuitively obvious

2011-04-06T20:59:00.001-04:00

The weather is starting to annoy me.

April is not supposed to be a month for snow. Or 30-degree nights. Yeah, I know, I'm in the mountains. In Pennsylvania. Ski resorts surround me. But still.

On the other hand, I was more annoyed an hour ago. And last night, my mood was downright hostile. Toward an inanimate object, fortunately. And maybe its designers.

One of the reasons for the relatively thin-on-the-ground posts lately has been mechanical. I've been averaging one or two breakdowns a week for the past month or so. The climax occurred this week, when my time off was up (or so I thought). I called in to learn the status of the truck I was supposed to take out, and was told--

1—it was in the shop,
2—there wasn't much telling when it would be out,
3—meanwhile, I had been assigned another truck
4—but it was in the shop, too,
5—and there wasn't much telling when it would be out, either.

A day or so later my dispatcher lost patience and found a third truck to assign me to. One of the later models. Which means it's equipped with a bunk heater. The night looked to be a bit chilly, so I spent a little while figuring out the controls, turned it on, and curled up for the night.

I woke up shivering.

It never did a thing. Heck of a note.

But, being a good employee, I bucked up and drove another day. That night, I looked at the snow falling on the hood and played with the bunk heater some more. No joy.

Finally I gave it up and called a friend to vent before sleeping.. Said friend listened sympathetically, then said “Hmm” and pulled up Google. After several minutes of typing in various keywords, he decided there were no manuals online for operating the thing. But he did find a manual for installing it. And partway through the schematics and instructions on what tools you needed, he found a note:

WARNING: Before using the auxiliary heater, Let the truck run with the heater turned all the way up.

Turns out the bunk heater has a heater core that's connected to the truck engine's heater system. And it uses some of that coolant to “store the heat” it's generating with its burner. So if you don't run the engine with the heat all the way up, the bunk heater won't have any coolant in its heater core. And a safety switch will keep it from coming on at all.

But you knew that already, didn't you? Doesn't everybody?

No matter. I'm warm now. No complaints.

Timing is everything

2011-03-30T20:12:00.000-04:00

I-68 in West Virginia. They made us stop at the top of the mountain to check our brakes. They warned us of the steep downhill grade. They proclaimed a 50-mph speed limit for heavy commercial vehicles.

A mile or three down the road, they posted a sign telling us about the runaway truck ramp just ahead. The runaway truck ramp was duly found and passed.

And a little way after that, I saw a sign telling me I should be in a lower gear.

Fortunately, I already was.

(Footnote:
(One of the things I was taught in CDL school was to never try to upshift on a steep uphill grade--and never, never, NEVER try to downshift on a steep downhill grade. It's almost impossible to get the rpm's to match. Which means you will—almost guaranteed—miss the shift. And there you are, on a steep grade, with the truck in neutral. Freewheeling down a hill in an 40-ton truck is a Bad Thing.

(In either direction.

(But climbing the hill, at least you're moving slowly. You might get the brakes locked down in time. Downhill? If you're trying to downshift, you're already moving too fast...)

Oh, well. At least they warned us...

Quick touristy note

2011-03-28T20:55:00.000-04:00

US 250 between Dover, Ohio and Wheeling, West Virginia is a beautiful drive. Up and around and over and through the mountains. Along the way you can stop in Cadiz, Ohio and see the Clark Gable museum (he was born there).

The map marks it as a scenic route, and I believe them. Can't tell you myself, though. It's hard to admire the scenery in the dark.

Playing catchup yet again

2011-03-17T11:29:00.003-04:00

To more back-issues, for you collectors:

02/16/2011
02/17/2011

The machine stops

2011-03-17T09:14:00.003-04:00

This motel room has all the latest amenities you expect to find for the price. Including a hair dryer, a coffeemaker, and free wi-fi for your computer. Even an iron.

All you have to do is find a place to plug them in.

The architect obviously didn't see the Information Age coming. There are three outlets in this room. The tv, the alarm clock, and the wall lamps use every socket on two of them. The third is in that clever little alcove outside the bathroom. You know, the one that lets you shave while the wife's taking a shower? Well placed for the hair dryer, ok for the iron. A little odd for the coffeemaker, but it'll do.

But that's why I'm typing this next to the sink. Hope there isn't a splash on the power supply...

Three days ago I got to the terminal
and found out my truck was in the shop. Some problems with the exhaust system. Since problems with the exhaust are potentially lethal, I decided I could live with that.

Two days ago I went back,
and hung around 'til after lunch. At which time the truck was running again and I could start north with a load. Fueling a hundred miles later, I noticed the tractor took an awful lot of starting--but it did start. And it ran fine once it did start. And I'd already lost one day of driving. So I went on.

Yesterday I got up and turned the key.
It took a good ten or fifteen seconds of cranking and some old-fashioned pumping on the accelerator to get the truck running. But start it did. So I headed down the road. A few miles down the road, I started noticing a distinct lack of pep. As in, it lost 10 mph or more going up a hill. In southern Illinois. It'd barely lost that much climbing Monteagle in Tennessee the day before.

Something was wrong here. I'd have to get someone to look at it after I'd delivered.

Twenty miles later, it quit. Right in the middle of the highway.
You haven't had fun until you've tried to steer a 70,000 tractor-trailer off an Interstate with the last 30 mph of coasting speed. A modern one. With no engine. And therefore no power steering. If I'd had to turn the wheel more than ten degrees I'd have been in real trouble. At least the brakes run on air...

Half an hour later, the Breakdown Department answered their phone, and told me to look at the fuel filter.* I told the gentleman it was more than half full but a good ways from the top. "It's probably that," he said casually. "Drain it and you shouldn't have any more problems."

So I did. Truck started up again. Two miles later I stopped at a rest area and looked at it again. It was half full again. So I drained it again.

And two more times in the next twenty miles.

And then it quit again.
This time I'd decided I didn't want to be on a narrow (for Interstates, anyway) shoulder. So when it'd started to lose pep, I'd looked for an exit ramp. Up the ramp, across the intersection, partway down the next ramp, and I'd be well clear of anything trying to do 65+.

It quit at the intersection. Right at the stop sign.

Oh, well. At least it hadn't quit IN the intersection.

I called breakdown again with the bad news (was only on hold fifteen minutes this time), put out the reflectors, and settled down to wait for rescue.

Half an hour later the sheriff showed up.
All right, it was a deputy. But still a little hard on the nerves.

He told me I was blocking a major intersection. And since this was the middle of the rush hour (such as it was--I was a little ways into the country), he needed me to move it. Or he'd have it towed.

I think he expected me to make a fuss. At least he was primed for one. I agreed with him a little too emphatically, and he thought I was setting up for a tirade or something. Fortunately, I caught that in time and apologized quick. He grinned.

"Haven't had my coffee this morning," he said.

"I'm a little too far from a bathroom," I said.

And things were ok again.

He let me call my company again, so I could assure him we really were on this--and assure them that he was serious. I was still on hold when--

the mechanic showed up.
He got out of his pickup and went over to talk to the deputy. They had a good laugh--turns out he was the one the deputy was getting ready to call and have me towed away. "At least your company knew who to call," he grinned.

Thirty minutes later I started out again, with a new fuel filter. I drained it once more a few miles down the road, but had no trouble driving after that.

But it still didn't want to start.

After I'd made the delivery
I called Breakdown again and told them about the starting problem. They reluctantly sent me to the nearest major shop. When I got there, I was told they couldn't look at it before morning. So I went to a nearby truck stop and shivered all night.

Next morning I came back. And spent half the day in their lounge waiting for a diagnosis.

Turned out to be the fuel injectors. Once the engine was running it could force enough fuel through to keep running, but starting it from scratch was another matter.

Half a day later, they came back and told me they didn't have all the parts. I couldn't get the truck back 'til tomorrow at the earliest.

And it's hard to sleep in a truck with no engine. Locked in somebody's garage. So after another hour on the telephone, arrangements were made. And somebody at the shop gave me a ride.

And here I am.
Typing on a laptop set up next to the bathroom sink. In a warm room. After a good night's sleep. And a hot shower. In a private bathroom. In a few minutes I'll pack up and wander over to a Bob Evans for breakfast.

I'll get through it somehow.

-----
*Mostly a water separator. It has a big bowl covering the paper cartridge, so you know when it's too full of (possibly contaminated) fuel to work.

Playing catchup again

2011-03-06T15:19:00.002-05:00

No excuses.

I could tell you all about the fun I've had finding wi-fi on the road, but I've had it at home.

I could go on about how if you're making money you don't have time to write. But I've already done that. and I was keeping up then.

There are probably three or four other excuses I could make. And they'd all be true. But never mind. Let's just start catching up, shall we?

I'm in a company terminal--one of the few places I can easily get Internet on the road. So we'll take advantage.

The following are new:

12/31/2010
1/1/2011
2/12/2011
2/13/2011
2/25/2011
2/26/2011

I'll try to get a few more up soon--I was taking notes, at least.

Sorry. Really.

Yer gonna pay f'r that, pilgrim.

2011-02-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

Today I solved yet another mystery that I never wondered about before.

You know how cowboys walk in the movies? That slow, relaxed, slightly stiff-legged, swaggering strut that makes the spurs jingle so nicely?

Hollywood didn't make it up. At least I don't think so. I think cowboys really move like that.

It's the only comfortable way to walk in those boots.

I delivered a load this morning, only nine and a half hours late.* As it turns out, due to oddities in their receiving hours, this wasn't too much of a disaster. And I ingratiated myself by helping one of their customers back her pickup and trailer out of a dead end she'd accidentally trapped herself in.** So everyone was friendly as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed west to my next pickup.

When I got there the gate guard smiled, and looked at my papers, and went over the company rules with me. At which point I realized I was in trouble.

I started this week in a hurry. Five days ago I called in and said “When do I take the truck out tomorrow?” And they said “You take it out today.” It was after lunch when this happened. So I did a lot of throwing things in the duffel bag and rushing out to the car. And I just KNEW I'd forgotten something.

Turns out it was shoes.

When I got in the truck in Atlanta, the weather was warm and pleasant. River sandals were most comfortable. And the weather has been mostly pleasant this week. Even in Pennsylvania, I could walk on top of the packed snow in above-freezing temperatures, wearing a pair of socks under the sandal straps. Those sandals are more comfortable than almost any pair of shoes I've ever owned, in these conditions.

But some places require you to wear something over your toes. Leather, at the very least.

I can't say I blame them—I've actually thought about a pair of steel-toed shoes myself, just to be overly careful. After all, I spend a lot of time in warehouses and lumberyards and things, just full of forklifts and jacks and piles of really heavy stuff that sometimes fall over and squash things. Like toes. So when a shipper or a receiver insists I put on real shoes, I smile and rummage in the duffel.

And usually I pull the shoes out and put them on.

Not this time.

After a few minutes poking into every corner of the truck, I faced the truth. And considered my options. There weren't many. After all, how many shoe stores have parking for eighteen-wheelers?

The only place I was sure would have both shoes and a parking space was a truck stop a couple of miles down the road. I'd never been there, but it was part of a chain I frequent; and their truck stops almost always have shoes in the travel store. In fact, last time I was in one, they'd had some inexpensive running/hiking shoes on sale.

So I made my apologies to the nice people at the shipper and made my way to the truck stop. And sure enough, they had shoes. They even had reasonably priced shoes.

Just not in my size.

They didn't even have unreasonably priced shoes in my size.

The only thing they had in my size was cowboy boots.

It took me something like thirty minutes to find even those. Cowboy boots don't fit the same way the shoes I usually buy do. It took some experimenting to find something I could walk in. And when I'd managed it, I found I had three styles to choose from:

A black pair with some kind of silver cap-like thing on the toe, that make me look like I was going to a Dwight Yoakam concert

The same style, in a color they called “black cherry”

And a more-or-less undecorated pair with low tops and zippers on the side.

I went for low profile. They cost a bit more (the other two pairs were on sale), but I was paying way too much anyway, so what the heck.

A hundred dollars to pick up a trailer-full of scrap metal. The things I do for this job.

At length I got back to the shipper, put my new boots on, and got out to walk to the shipping office. And within two steps I found myself frantically adjusting my stride several ways at once.

I mustn't bend the ankle much, I quickly discovered. Between the high heels and the high tops, flexing the ankle dug the boot-tops into my shins while throwing me slightly off balance. And if I didn't flex the ankle (much), I couldn't take as quick a step as I was used to. Not to mention the heel driving straight into the asphalt and jarring me clear through the knees and into the hips. So within ten feet I found myself walking at about half the speed I usually do.

Usually, I walk more or less flatfooted, my soles skimming the ground. Now the heel came down well before anything else, and I had to “roll” the foot forward to get the rest of the shoe on the pavement. And I soon figured out that the knee had to be in the right place, too, or I would feel it in the tendons along the side. To keep the knee lined up, I had to use the hips a little differently. And so on.

By the time I'd reached the office, I was walking in a slow, steady rhythm, slightly stiff-legged, with the tiniest twist to the hips with each step. I could almost hear it.

Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching...

The things you learn being a trucker.

- - - - -
*See here if you're really curious about why. Don't if you're not.

**Backing a trailer is something I do a fair bit of (surprise), and it's harder than it looks.
As it turned out, I was caught a little off guard myself. All the problems are more or less the same, but that tiny trailer could come around a lot quicker than the 53-foot monsters I'm used to. And if I'd jack-knifed it instead of her--
--come to think of it, maybe I didn't back her trailer out of that spot. If the Company's lawyers ask you about this, you imagined it...

Virtue is its own punishment

2011-02-25T13:29:00.002-05:00

I'm adjusting to the concept of warmth again.

This is the truck without a bunk heater. And for two nights running, I didn't have to get up in the wee hours to start the truck so I could stop shivering and go back to sleep. Pleasant, but disconcerting.

This comes under the heading of counting my blessings. I might be ranting a bit otherwise.

I started driving at 9:00 this morning. This was a carefully considered decision. Any later and I might not be on time to deliver the load I picked up yesterday. Any earlier and I might not be able to deliver the load they assigned me for today. I was supposed to deliver that second load at 10:00 pm. By starting at 9:00 am, I could get there with an hour to get unloaded and find a parking space before I was in trouble with the law. Not enough, but better than nothing.

Yes, I'm going somewhere with this...

I got to my first delivery point before noon. A couple of hours later the forklifts stopped bouncing the trailer around and I got my paperwork. Whereupon I got the information for the next load.

They'd changed the delivery time. I had to have it there at 11:00 pm. Which, of course, meant that once they'd unloaded me, I'd be in violation of federal law from the moment the truck moved away from the dock door.

A mildly frantic phone call reassured me. It turned out that 11:00 pm was the LATEST time I could deliver it. Usually, they'll give you a “window” if that's true—2:00 to 11:00, for instance. But I wasn't going to argue. If they didn't mind an early delivery, I didn't mind having time to park and sleep. So I did my paperwork for the new job and drove the two or three miles to the shipper.

They didn't have my load ready, of course. So I sat around for an hour or so, after having dropped my empty in the back lot. At length they had finished shuffling things around in the trailer I was supposed to pick up.* So I hooked up, and scaled it (they have their own scale, which is handy), and did my paperwork.

In the process, I noticed that one of the tires on the trailer was messed up.

As in, it might blow out anytime.

So I sent a message to the Breakdown Department. After all, I had seven hours to go less than two hundred miles. Getting a tire replaced? No problem, right?

Two hours later I got a message back, asking me a quick procedural question. I answered it. And told my dispatcher I might be in trouble.

Two hours after that I called. On the phone. Waited about thirty minutes on hold. And learned that the fellow I'd sent the message to had gone home, and nobody else knew to follow up. The guy on the phone listened to my story, and said he'd call a service truck and send it my way. It would be there in about an hour, he said.

By this time I had exactly enough time to get the load to the customer if I started driving right now. Which, of course, I couldn't do—I had gone on record saying I had a trailer that wasn't safe. Not a good career move, driving happily through the night with a trailer you've SAID that you KNEW was potentially dangerous. So I called my dispatcher and told her I couldn't deliver the load before morning. She checked with the Customer Service people and said we weren't in trouble this time.

They were good sports about it. At least I'd warned them.

Some time into this, it occurred to me that if I'd just kept my mouth shut, I could have spent a (more or less) pleasant afternoon driving through the countryside, dropped this trailer at the customer, picked up another trailer, and gotten my next load. And that potentially dangerous tire would have been the next guy's problem.

And it occurred to me that a lot of drivers would have done precisely that.

I wonder if anybody considers me a troublemaker. Hope not.

No matter, tonight. I'll get some sleep, get up early in the morning and deliver this load as soon as I can. That's all I can do.

And at least it's warm.

-----
*At least, I presume that's what they were doing. This place has a rep for loading their trailers as heavy as they can get away with. Sometimes they get carried away, and have to take stuff out and redo it...

Sometimes you just gotta--the sequel

2011-02-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

Woke up this morning, blinked, and looked around vaguely. Grey sky, promising drizzle. One of the two trucks that was here when I parked last night. Three more behind me.

And a police car parked in front of me.

That'll wake you up.

As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn't really supposed to be there. The warehouse had a FOR LEASE sign on it. Private property. And no permission. I'd been told it was frequently used by out-of-hours trucker types, and nobody seemed to mind. And the fact that at least five other trucks had used it just last night seemed to bear that out.

But when you wake up and find a police car parked RIGHT THERE..

The drivers behind me were comparing notes about something. Loudly. The officer sat and watched the traffic, unconcerned. Apparently he was watching for speeders and other reckless types, and was using this lot for the same reason we were. Low profile.

When I pulled out, he just sat there and watched. My adrenaline level dropped noticeably.

In some places, they understand...

Sometimes you just gotta

2011-02-16T22:13:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in the darkness, in an abandoned warehouse's parking lot.

I don't like doing this. It's a good way to get in trouble. And even when you're fairly sure nobody's going to mind, it still doesn't feel right. At least not for me.

But I was told this particular empty lot was the unofficial hidey-hole for trucks that can't make it out of town to a real truck stop. I've seen a few places like that in other towns. The police know it's done, and why; so as long as the owners don't raise a fuss they don't look too closely. At least as long as nobody abuses the privilege.

Hope I heard right. I needed it this time. Badly

Examining the omens
I got up this morning and turned the satcom on. After its usual few minutes, it came back with my email list. With no new messages.

Which meant no load info.

So I sent my dispatcher a message. And shortly got a reply: Call in for a verbal.

The need for a verbal confirmation usually means the load is hot--either high-value or you-better-get-it-there-QUICK. If not both. The perfect way to begin the day.

Oh, well. I called in, and the dispatcher made sure I could get there. This time the heat was high-value. The load was 120 miles away, but the time constraints weren't bad at all. So I jumped through the virtual-paperwork hoops and started on my merry way. In the process, I switched to navigation mode, to make sure I had the distance right.

The map screen was blank.

My GPS had fouled up again. It wasn't working. At all.

Time for the modern equivalent of slapping the cabinet. I pushed the proper buttons. The computer said it was shutting down.

It didn't.

That should have been a hint...

Communication is the key
Oh, well. The time constraints weren't bad, but sitting here wrestling with the computer still wasn't a good idea. And I knew where I was going--the directions were pretty straightforward. So, off we go.

I got to the shipper in plenty of time, and checked in with the gate guard. He asked what I was doing there.

I didn't have a pickup number, so I went back to the truck and sent a message in asking for one. But after a few minutes, a niggling suspicion crept into my mind. I had told the computer to shut down, more than two hours ago. And it hadn't. What else hadn't it done?

Virtually slapping the thing hadn't worked. Time to virtually drop-kick it.

I wormed into a back corner of the truck and physically unplugged the computer.* Then I took a quick walk across the parking lot to the nearest, um, facility. Got back, plugged the computer back in, sent the message again. And picked up the phone, just to be sure.

My dispatcher said, "What are you doing there?"

Turned out the load had been cancelled.

About the time he said that, the computer beeped. Informing me that I had an email. Telling me the load had been cancelled.

So if I'd kindly drive another 120 miles, the dispatcher said, there'd be a load ready when I got there. Oh, and while I was there, would I mind bringing the shipper a few more trailers? A customer nearby had a few to spare...

As long as we understand each other.
So I apologized to the nice people and drove and drove. Got to the shipper, dropped my empty (had to sweep it out--the shipper is a neat freak), and made my way to the other place.

"You ain't taking none of our empties!" the other people said.

They said it much more politely, of course. The gate guards hadn't made the decision any more than I had. But there it was...

So I found a parking place (running bobtail gives you a few more options) and called my dispatcher. Arguing with the customer's middle management isn't part of the job description. I'd let my people talk to their people.

An hour and a half later, I'd made a fair start on catching up with my reading. But I hadn't heard anything. So I called my dispatcher again. He hadn't heard anything either. We made sympathetic griping noises at each other and I went back to my reading. And shortly after that, I got a satcom message, telling me EXACTLY which trailers to go get.

Round and round the mulberry bush
So I went back in. The security people cheerfully let me through--their people had talked to them, too And I made a quick sweep of the parking lot, looking for the two trailers I'd been told to get.

Two hours later I hadn't found either of them.

I'd driven through every parking lot on their grounds at least twice--including the sections where no outside company's trailers were supposed to be. Nothing. Not just neither of my trailers. None of our company's trailers. At all.

There was only one more place to look. Along one fence line was a long double line of trailers. As in double-parked. No way to tell what was in that back row from the main lot. And if I found either of them, I'd have to get a yard dog to move the trailer in front before I could get it. But I'd run out of other places to look. So I got out and started worming between the rows on foot.

I still couldn't find one of them. But I finally found the other.

There was a large, brightly-colored tag hanging from an air-line connector.

NOT ROADWORTHY, it said.

No kidding,, I thought.

Did I say the tag was hanging from an air-line connector? I should have said THE air-line connector. The other one had been broken off at the fitting. The front wall of the trailer behind that fitting had a dent in it, two inches deep and about three or four feet high. In the middle of the dent was a four-inch gash in the metal.

It looked as if someone had backed the corner of another trailer into it. Hard. Couldn't have been the customer, of course. I mean, just because it was impossible to move with that particular fitting missing. And nothing could have hit there as long as it was hooked to a truck. And it was tucked into an obscure corner of the yard. With other trailers lined up in front of it. Where it was almost impossible to find. Some people have nasty, suspicious minds...

By now it was night.
The dispatcher I'd been talking to all day had certainly gone home by now. So I called in and told my night dispatcher what was going on. She said "Don't waste any more time on it.** Just go get your load."

So I Went back to the shipper and found out which trailer I was supposed to take. Hooked up, brought it around to the gate, and pulled onto the scale. This shipper has its own scales, which is a good thing. If you've got a weight problem, it's always nice to find it in a place where you DON'T have to turn around and drive ten or twenty miles back to get it fixed.

Like this time.

The load was both slightly overweight and VERY nose-heavy. No way to balance it. So I took it back to the warehouse, where they could pull a few pallets off and reshuffle the rest. Then it was back to the gate to rescale.

Legal this time. Quiet sigh of relief.

By now, I had maybe half an hour of legal clock time. The nearest truck stop was at least that far away. And, given that it was the only one for a hundred miles or so, I figured its parking lot almost had to be full by now.

At that point some nice person mentioned this parking lot. Said I wouldn't get arrested for parking there, but he could get fired for telling me about it.

Which means, of course, that nobody told me anything.

So here I am, sitting in the dark watching the traffic go obliviously by a hundred feet in front of me. And making up stories.

Guess I'll stop now.

G'nite.
-----
*I'm not supposed to know how to do that, of course. So I must have imagined doing it...

**Well, all right--the language might have been a little stronger than that...

Maryland House has a Starbucks.

2011-02-13T14:02:00.000-05:00

You don't see that a lot at truck stops.

On the other hand, this place gets a lot of buses stopping. So finding the Starbucks counter without a long, long line takes patience.

Truck stops tend to have video games. The fancy truck stops have cushy couches in front of a tv. This place has neither.

On the other hand, I don't play video games. And if I don't like what's on the tv, there may not be another place to sit down in the building. A hard chair in front of a table is certainly better than nothing. And the absence of noise can be a worthwhile thing.

In an hour I go to pick up my next load. In the meantime, I have a seat, with windows. And a Starbucks, if I can get to the counter.

Not a bad trade, I guess.

Weight problems and new old maps

2011-02-12T13:53:00.001-05:00

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...

Things to be thankful for

2011-01-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

A warm New Years Day, for a start. In Alabama, anyhow.

The truck I'm on this week is the one with the bunk heater, so that's not as big a deal as it could be. But it's not nothing, even so. The bunk heater uses power, for the fans if nothing else. And the colder it is, the more power the heater pulls, if only because it runs more.

So on a cold night I expect to get up at least once, to start up the truck and recharge the batteries. This time I slept the night through.

At least until, um, another urgency woke me up.

At which point I discovered the truck stop had shut down for New Years Eve.

And wasn't going to open again for another hour.

And it was kind of urgent.

So I walked down the road a quarter-mile, to a (relatively) nearby suite hotel, where I found a sympathetic desk clerk. One who believed my tale of woe, and kindly pointed me to the lobby restrooms. As if I were a guest.

Now there's something to be grateful for.

Shippers take holidays? Who knew?

2010-12-31T14:50:00.000-05:00

As small-town truck stops go, this isn't bad.

It's a "fuel and forget," but there's a fast food place (as many of them have) and a place to sit where you can plug in your laptop (as many of them don't). And the folks are friendly.

Just as well. I'm gonna be here a while.

After dropping off my last load, I sat for an hour or two, waiting for the next load's info. After all, it was a holiday weekend. No sense in nagging my dispatcher. This turned out to be a mistake. I got to the shipper 45 minutes past the end of my pickup window.

Embarrassing, but usually not a serious problem. This time, though...

The lumberyard was silent. Nothing moved. The parking lot was empty, except for one pickup, next to the office door. One vehicle right next to the office usually means a security guard. And sure enough, here he came. "They hung on 'til quittin' time," he said. "Couldn't make the guys work over on New Year's Eve, though, could they?"

Suppose not. So when would they be opening tomorrow?

"Tomorrow? It's a holiday weekend. They'll be opening back up Tuesday morning."

(In case you missed it, this is Friday night.)

Oh, well. At least I might get to church Sunday.

And I'll have some time to think.

Let nothing you dismay...

2010-12-26T21:18:00.000-05:00

I knew I wouldn't be home for Christmas.

They offered to route me in, but I would've lost a day or two's pay. Last year I would have taken them up on it. But there isn't nearly as much reason to come home these days,* so I let it slide. Besides, they were having enough trouble getting people home who really needed to be.

So, on Christmas Eve I got up, had a hearty breakfast. I knew I had time for a hearty breakfast, since my next load could be picked up anytime in the next three or four days. And you never know when your next leisurely meal will be possible. so why not take the time?

Having enjoyed the food and the warmth, I trundled down the road to the next town and pulled into the appropriate factory.

It was closed for the holidays.

Now why did that surprise me?

No matter. This was a problem. You see, I wasn't going to be home for Christmas, but I was scheduled to be home sometime the day after. The irony of this aside, it really was important for me to get there. I've discussed the way this slip seat thing works before, so I'll just cover the relevant part now: If I don't get home on time, the next driver can't take the truck out on time. My extra time on the road cheats him out of his time on the road. Not acceptable, if I can avoid it.

So I gave my dispatcher the good news, and he set out to find me another load. No problem, right? After all, it was the holidays. And I doubt he had more than five or ten times the normal amount of trucks on his board. Piece of cake...

It only took him half a day. And I managed to get to the customer just in time to get loaded, get out, and get a safe and proper distance down the road** before I had to shut down for the night. That only left us with one problem for the morning: I couldn't take that load to its destination. It was going way past my home terminal, and not exactly in the right direction. So I took it to the nearest place where my dispatcher had a chance of finding someone else I could pass it on to.

On Christmas day. Right.

After some thought, my dispatcher asked me if I had any suggestions. I did a little math and said something like "Well, I can get it as far as Atlanta, if that's not too far out of route."

He said something like "On Christmas Day? If it gets where it's going on time, there is no such thing as 'out of route.' If you get it there sometime before midnight that's fine."

I said something like "Sounds good to me."

Then I ate.

I had been planning on that anyway. Due to one of those obscure hours things, I wasn't going to be able to drive for a couple of hours anyway. So I'd managed to borrow a company car to go to a restaurant. Then the guy in charge of the car said, "Where are you going? There won't be a restaurant open anywhere in town, you know. It's Christmas."

I felt so foolish.

Then he said, "You do know there's gonna be Christmas dinner here in an hour or so, don't you?"

What?

Turned out a driver who lived in the area was bringing dinner for any driver stranded at the terminal. And he'd be there before I could take the truck out again. So why was I looking for a Waffle House or something?

I really didn't have a good answer. So I gave him back the key and got out my Santa hat.*** Then I had some of the best turkey I've had in a good while, with fixin's to match. Thanked the kind folks, got in my truck, and started south.

And that's why I was home for Christmas after all. An hour or two of it, anyway.

The first white Christmas in Atlanta since the Nineteenth Century, I'm told.

I'll take it.

----

*Now that I don't have a wife waiting for me. That's just informational, in case there are any newcomers. We won't dwell on it...

**For reasons that take to long to explain, some loads have special rules--like how many miles you have to drive before you can stop.

**Long story. Short form: it was the only warm hat I could find when I was heading out the door this week. At least it was the right season for it...

Oh what fun it is..

2010-12-19T22:32:00.002-05:00

I'll be brief this time.

Plenty of things happened out there this past week or so, but most of them were variations on the same thing.

Driving in a winter wonderland.

That being the case, I thought I'd just toss out a few passing impressions.

Driving northward into a Kentucky that looked a lot like it did in the last entry.
The truck made three separate attempts to wander off and explore the snowy fields, but all of them were fairly halfhearted.

The third time was the only one that really stimulated the heart rate. I was trundling carefully through the night, headed for a truck stop and a good night's sleep (oh, please...), when I noticed a pickup parked halfway on the shoulder and halfway on the road. It's driver seemed to be thinking about some Good Samaritan work for the big black Chrysler that had just swapped ends and backed down a six- or eight-foot ditch. When I tried to slip around them, the truck decided that ditch looked like a nice place to spend the night.

Fortunately, as I said, it wasn't too insistent. But it made me quite glad I was taking my time and looking for trouble. I actually had time to discuss the matter.

I was also glad the warehouse where I'd just dropped a loaded trailer didn't have an empty. Straightening out in time might have been more complicated if I'd been driving a tractor-trailer...

Cold-weather fashion
I'm from far enough southward that the ladies don't put quite as much effort into nice outfits that keep them from freezing. From Indiana northward they seem to think about it more. I kept seeing neat, well-matched outfits--usually a miniskirt-length coat, a reasonably modest skirt, and tights. Most often, all three items were black, though there were variations. Warm and flattering at once.

Not very trucking-related, but it passes the time...

Washington, D. C. in the wintertime
Two hours to cover thirty miles on the Beltway. And it was a long way from rush hour.

'nuff said.

Modern conveniences
Got to a customer with twenty-odd tons of household cleaning products, and parked in an out-of-the way place while I found out which dock I'd be backing up to. Got back to my truck, put it in gear,

and listened to the wheels spin.

I had to borrow a snow shovel and a bag of salt to get out of the parking space. Most embarrassing. The truck has an anti-skid traction control system--which had apparently quit just before I got here.

There's something to be said about a gadget, made to keep you from slipping on the ice, deciding it won't work in cold weather. But I won't say it. Ladies may be reading...

* * *

Then I came home, the week a blur behind me. Two days in a place where water would't freeze if I leave it outside. Perhaps it's just as well I go back out tomorrow. I'm getting spoiled down here...

Kentucky was kind of white this week...

2010-12-04T21:20:00.000-05:00

a LITTLE tight...

2010-12-02T20:52:00.002-05:00

When I was a very small boy, I picked cotton a few times. Occasionally I'd ride to the cotton gin (Forget your hayride—sink into a trailer full of fresh cotton sometime. Now THAT's cushy!) and watch it being sold, and vacuumed out of the trailer, and run through the gin and baled. It was noisy and strange and lots of fun.

Today I took my truck to a cotton gin in the middle of nowhere. There I backed into a dock and walked past a row of strange noisy machines looking for the office. In the office I got my bills of lading and returned to the truck, walking past those noisy things again on the way.

The gin machinery looks more or less the way it did when I was far younger. I wasn't expecting that. Granted the technology is nearly 200 years old now, but I was still a bit surprised. It really hasn't changed much at all in the last 50.

They wrap the bales in plastic now. In my youth they used a sort of cloth covering, so coarse you couldn't tell whether it was more like a tow sack* or a net. That seems to be the biggest change in the last generation or so.

I recognized it all. And I'd forgotten it until today.

Especially I'd forgotten the smell. Freshly-picked cotton has a pleasant smell. Kind of like a bakery, in some ways. But not quite.

Getting there was an adventure. I've discussed the joys of GPS forever. I may have mentioned that the customer directions can be almost as much fun. Sometimes this is because they don't know what they're talking about. Other times they don't know how to get it across.

Then there are the times when they forget I'm not coming in a car.

It never occurs to most people that a road looks very different when you're in a vehicle that's 80 feet long, 8 ½ feet wide, 13 ½ feet tall, and weighs anywhere from 15 to 40 tons. Sometimes this leads them to lead you under 12-foot overpasses, or around hairpin turns, or through peaceful residential neighborhoods with watchful police officers.

In this case, it led me up a two-lane county road in which each lane was EXACTLY the width of my tractor-trailer. As in, my wheels were touching the painted stripes on both sides of the truck. And there wasn't a shoulder to speak of

And that was on the straightaways. A truck takes up more of the road on a curve.

Then, just about the time I had gotten used to watching the mailboxes skim by in mute terror, and the cars and farm tractors trying to find enough shoulder to give me a wide berth, I saw the bridge.

Ordinary looking little thing. The interesting part was the sign that said “WEIGHT LIMIT: Tractor-trailers, 27 tons.”

Empty, I weigh between fifteen and twenty tons.** No problem. But when I came out, I was going to be closer to forty.

It bore thinking on.

Fortunately, the nice lady in the gin office knew a more sensible way out. She said she didn't even give the route I'd followed to cars—at certain times of the day you spend all your time stuck behind John Deere's.

So who had given it to us? I wondered. But since it obviously hadn't been her, I didn't ask.

I thanked her politely and went back to the truck. Walking slowly. Breathing in fresh cotton.
-
*Tow is a material made from what's left over after you've turned flax into linen. It's strong, rough, and scratchy. Nobody wants to wear the stuff, but it makes a pretty good material for heavy-duty bags. Old-fashioned potato sacks or feed bags, for instance...

**I mean, the tractor, the trailer, and I. Honest, that's what I mean...

I-I-I-I'm dre-e-e-ami-i-n-n-g of a whi-i-i-te--wait a minute.

2010-11-25T23:13:00.000-05:00

And under the "scenic truck stops" heading, here's my Thanksgiving. Pennsylvania gives it a new spin.

I'd have prettier, but for some reason I didn't want to wave a camera around while driving over mountains on a two-lane road. I'm such a wimp...

Miami versa

2010-11-21T20:37:00.000-05:00

A city bus is a bad thing to have on a crowded street. But an eighteen wheeler stuck behind a city bus is worse.

Another item for my list of Less Than Profound Morning Thoughts.

It turns out I really did find the right place last night. Delivered the load this morning as soon as I could legally get out of the truck. And now I am leaving, going out the way I came in. It's much more pleasant in daylight.

Miami is not a place I like to come. As a trucker, anyway.

No offense to those who live there. (I don't want Michael Weston hunting me up to defend his family's honor.) I'm sure I'd enjoy visiting. But this isn't a visit. And for someone from my company, at least, a trip to Miami is not a fun thing.

For one thing, it's a black hole. Freight goes in, but not a lot of freight comes out. The first time I took a load to Miami, it took the load planners two days to find something for me to haul back. And, as I have said several times, if a trucker isn't moving, he isn't making money.

Then there's parking

If you're on the tollway, it might or might not be bad. I've never come into Miami on the tollway. What I can tell you is that on I-95, there are no truck stops for the first 129 miles. No rest areas for the first hundred or so.

There IS one place to park, only about 90 miles up or so. But you can get nervous, sharing a parking lot with a scale house. What if they decide to start the morning with a surprise inspection, you fall asleep thinking...

Ah, memories...
After delivering that first load in Miami I spent hours looking for a truck stop. I finally found one far to the west. Hours later my dispatcher called to ask where I was.

And how I'd gotten there. That truck didn't have propellers, did it?

Seems his tracking software used a graphic display, on a scale that usually had no trouble showing him (for instance) the town nearest where I was parked. Not this time. On his screen, I was sitting in the middle of nowhere.

Surrounded by water.

The truck stop I'd found was thirty or forty miles west of Miami. On a tiny island in the middle of the Everglades.

This time--well, I talked about that yesterday. But that's in the past.

They had a load to get me out of Florida when I came in. It's waiting for me to pick up in the morning. And it's less than ten miles from the first batch of truck stops on I-95.

I will sleep soundly tonight.

Long day

2010-11-20T23:24:00.003-05:00

Looks like a warm night. I wasn't expecting that.

I should have, I suppose. Yes, it's November. But it's also Florida. Miami, no less. And how long have I been kvetching about the cold?

(“Kvetching?” Now there's a proper Southern word. You've been in the city too long, boy...)

(Well, “complaining” quite cover it—it's more attitude than speeches. And the other common word for it (these days) isn't usable in polite company. Even my wife would have looked at me funny. And she loved dogs.)

(Cut it out, you two. These folks aren't here for a language lesson.)

Don't mind me—or myself. We talk to each other like that all the time. And about half the time it has nothing to do with what I'm thinking about.

Like right now. I'm not complaining about the weather. It's kind of nice. It's the rest of the day that has me in a little bit of a mood.

When I started out this morning, I planned to stop a little after sundown. Up in the wee hours of morning, another quick 200 miles, and then see what my employers had for me to do the rest of the weekend. Nice and simple.

My first hint
that that wasn't gonna happen showed up a little ways north of the Florida border. That was when I finally figured out that “Florida State Route 91” was “Florida's Turnpike.”

I've been spoiled, when it comes to toll roads. My company's good about paying tolls. Every truck I drive has little plastic boxes glued all over the windshield, all ready and eager to talk to tollbooths for me. There's New York's EZ-Pass (which also works in a bunch of other states). And here's Oklahoma's PikePass. And Florida's SunPass, right over--.

Over where?

Oops.

MOST of the trucks I've driven had a SunPass box glued on the windshield. This is one of the exceptions.

Until tonight, I hadn't realized just how much the company was paying when they sent me down a toll road. There goes my pocket money for the week. Granted, they'll reimburse me. Granted again, they actually did it tonight—my dispatcher advanced the money and put it on my fuel card. But I can't get it until the next time I fuel.*

No great hardship. But it led to another odd thing.

Fine print
As I said, I'd planned to stop fairly early. Just as it was getting dark, was the original plan. Which, given where I was, meant spending the night at one of the service plazas on the turnpike. Again, no big deal—I've done that before. But this time, I had already paid cash at the first tollbooth and taken a “we'll skin you when you get off” ticket at the second. When I pulled into the service plaza, I decided to take a look at that ticket.

It included a table of tolls, organized by vehicle size and which exit you cashed out at. That was (as I said above) enlightening enough. But then I looked at the fine print. Especially the part that said that a lost or expired ticket would result in the maximum charge being levied.

Translation (I think): If I stayed on the toll road more than twelve hours, they'd charge me as if I'd gone the whole length of the turnpike. An extra hundred and thirty miles or so.

A legal rest break is ten hours. Doesn't leave a lot of leeway.

Now I don't know for sure how they interpret that little zinger. Could be there are exceptions that would allow breaks. In fact, I think there must be. Enough of us do it, after all. And it might be something that gets taken care of automatically—if you're using a SunPass.

Better safe than sorry, I decided. So I didn't stop at a service plaza for the night. And I'll talk tomorrow about truck stops on I-95. To make a long story short, the place where I got off the Turnpike and onto I-95 was about 50 miles south of the last parking place on the Interstate.

So I kept going. All the way to the customer

Walking. It's not just for exercise anymore.
I've talked about GPS and truckers before. I've heard enough truck-stop gossip to believe my opinion is not unusual, even among those who bought their own. But my route came in from the opposite side of the city from where my directions assumed I would be. Which meant the directions the company had given me were pretty much useless.

So I followed my GPS. With GREAT caution.

About 1/4 mile from the customer, I got too nervous. I'm still not quite sure why. No matter—I was. So I parked, got out, and walked toward where the machine said to turn.

Nerves are sometimes useful. If I'd followed my GPS, I would have ended up driving in circles through the parking lots of a commuter rail station. With a 53-foot trailer. But I could see a building right where the gadget wanted me to go. All I'd have to do was shift into 18-wheel drive, barrel through that fence, and cross two hundred yards of freshly bulldozed earth.

It took me another hour, on foot, to find the actual way into the customer's parking lot—and then go back and get the truck. But I made it. With zero time to spare in driving hours OR on-duty hours.

So why would I complain about the night being comfortably warm? No reason. Better to just sleep.

And I will. So there. G'nite.
-----
*Well, I could. In theory. My fuel card can double as a Major Credit Card, so I could hit an ATM. But the typical truck stop ATM charges a transaction fee. And when the amount on the card is Just Enough...

Give me LOTS of room...

2010-11-16T19:44:00.000-05:00

It was raining this morning. Temperatures in the mid-40's. Wandering across large parking lots, in search of a bathroom, under an umbrella that was entirely too small.

But I did get awake and washed and ready to drive, eventually. Shortly afterward I was driving city streets south of Memphis, on my way to a customer that wasn't reachable by Interstate.

I don't like driving city streets. Today was an excellent, if low key, example of why.

Several blocks ahead I saw a traffic light go yellow, then red. Plenty of time. I took my foot off the accelerator, moved it to the brake pedal, and pressed gently. The truck began to slow as I felt the brakes catch.

And release.

And catch.

And release.

Less than 30 mph. Gentle braking. And still the trailer wheels were locking up on the barely-wet paving, forcing the ABS* to intervene.

It's not the first time I've had traction problems at a red light. At least twice I've ended six or eight feet into an intersection, breathing a small prayer of gratitude that nobody was coming across. A few other times I wondered if I was going to stop before I reached that tiny bumper ahead. And once I looked back and saw the back end of my trailer drifting into the next lane.**

But those times involved slush, or really heavy rain, sometimes with a nice downhill slope to make things more interesting. This time the pavement was barely wet! Granted, the trailer was empty, so the back wheels had almost no weight on them, but still.

I hate to draw a moral, but this actually scared me a tiny bit. Having a hundred yards of no traffic in front of me was a great comfort today. I'd really like that to be a routine thing.

I don't suppose you've got some space you could loan me? Or whoever's in that tractor-trailer behind you?

----

*Antiskid Braking System, of course. Just letting you know it doesn't mean something different when we way it...

**It didn't quite get there, thank goodness. Traffic started moving ahead of me again, and I could let off the brakes and pull the trailer straight in time. Scary, though...

something old

2010-11-15T19:38:00.003-05:00

Found an old post that I hadn't posted. And I posted it. Just thought you'd want to know...

Yet more odds...

2010-11-06T21:46:00.000-04:00

At a Kentucky rest stop, I found a vending machine that took credit cards.

Time passes.

*

Was passed by a car pulling a tiny little camping trailer. On the back of it, a brand name or a dealership, I'm not sure which. What I caught was the motto beneath it.

I go where I'm towed to.

When you've been driving for six hours, you are easily amused.

If you don't like the weather...

2010-11-03T21:42:00.000-04:00

I really need to watch my dashboard more.

When I got up this morning in Kentucky, it was about 50 degrees outside. An hour later, the OAT* gauge read about 45. Granted I was going north, but that seemed a little extreme.

Two hours later, I looked down again. The screen said I should watch out for ice.

Blue sky, bright sun, dry roads. Not a problem. But when did the temp get down to 34 or less? Don't know. But it was dipping below 32 as I looked at it.

Now it's bouncing around between 30 and 25. Indiana has discovered winter.

I might have to change out of my sandals.

-----
*OAT: Outside Air Temperature. Mostly an airplane-pilot term, but hey...

Quick distractions

2010-10-27T21:39:00.000-04:00

Crossing Louisiana on I-10, toward a grand bank of clouds.

And a rainbow.

Huge thing, stretching from horizon to horizon. Part of it arcing across the clear blue sky, where you can see it properly.

Other people's money?

2010-10-25T21:34:00.001-04:00

Pulled up to the fuel pumps this afternoon. Pulled out the company fuel card and started the ritual. The pump told me to see the cashier. So I did. Gave her my card and she ran it through. Then she asked me how much I wanted to put on it.

That hasn't happened before.

But hey, if there wasn't something odd I wouldn't have had to come in. So...

”$400, I guess,” I said. “It won't take that.”

She bustled around the register, while I--

Looked at the card.

It wasn't the fleet fuel card.

It was my bank card.

My bank just got assimilated (resistance is futile—STOP THAT!), and the new management had to change everything. Including, of course, a new bank card.

Which I had in my wallet for the first time today.

It didn't look anything like MY card. Granted, it didn't look like my fleet card, either. But it did NOT-look like my bank card.

Which was almost enough to make me buy three or four hundred dollars worth of diesel fuel out of my own pocket. The company wouldn't have minded, I suspect, but...

I hurriedly explained matters to the lady, and she was nice enough to cancel the transaction, and the company ended up footing the bill. But it could have been embarrassing.

Not to mention expensive.

Odds and ends, redux. (No pun intended, see below...)

2010-10-24T21:28:00.000-04:00

Beyond blind spots
Pulled out into an intersection this morning, and nearly got t-boned.

I don't understand it. I LOOKED to my right. How did I miss a RED pickup?!

Puzzling and scary...

The hazards aren't all obvious
Sad sight in a rest area. As I pulled into a parking space and shut down, I looked to my left. And in the empty space beside me I saw a pair of pants and a pair of skivvies.

Lying in the parking lot

Stained brown

Sometimes you don't get parked in time, and that's all there is to it.. I shook my head sadly, and walked a little faster.

But where was Gina Lolabrigida?

2010-10-22T19:28:00.002-04:00

This morning I started my work week on foot.

This is not unusual.

Oh, the truck was there. And in reasonably good shape. But there wasn't a trailer attached. The people running the yard frown on leaving the tractor and the trailer hooked up unless you brought it in and you're taking it out. “How we gonna move that thing if you don't show up?” they say, or words to that effect. And I can't say I blame them.

So I gave the truck a quick once-over, checked my load assignment, and set out to find my trailer.

On foot.

This turned out to be a good thing.

When I found it, I found five others. Each with trucks attached. All trying to pull out of nearby parking spaces, at the same time. In different directions.

It looked like one of those Fifties comedies with an intersection full of Italian taxi drivers—none of whom will back up to let the others move. With lots of yelling in a foreign language.

Except our guys weren't yelling—even in English. They were professionals.

And they were actually making progress in getting past each other. Slowly.

I watched this for a minute or two. Then I went back to my truck and spent a few more minutes on my pre-trip inspection.

What the heck? I had the time...

He won't bite...

2010-10-15T20:45:00.000-04:00

The plains of southern Texas aren't as flat as western Kansas.

I don't think.

It's been a while since I was in that part of Kansas. Over forty years. But I the sheer flatness got to me way back then, and this hasn't pushed it out of my mind.

It's flat enough, though. I'm still not really used to looking out there and seeing clear to a horizon. And there are a fair number of places here where I can do it. Not new, but still a little attention-getting.

Having a dog sniff my trailer, now. That was new.

The Border officer was polite and cursory. What was I carrying, was I driving solo, was I a U. S. citizen. Willing to take my word for it. I suspect he would have perked up a bit if the dog had, though...

Which made me think of the extra security precautions I had to put up with, leaving the terminal this morning. Including the small but vital part that had been removed from my trailer. Which I could only get by proving I was supposed to take that trailer out.

Took me a while to figure out what I supposed to do. But I did, eventually. And I got the Bills of Lading and the part at the same time, from Security.

Told my mother-in-law last night I wasn't in any real danger down here. Starting to wonder.

uh, hello?

2010-10-14T20:35:00.000-04:00

I'm in Texas, and Mexico is just down the road a piece. I hope to have a load headed back east tomorrow.

My mother-in-law was distressed when he learned where I was. She'd been watching news stories about someone who'd decided to jet-ski on the wrong body of water, and been mistaken for law enforcement by some drug lord's overly-watchful minion.

I told her not to worry. I wouldn't be likely to die in quite so embarrassing a fashion.

Losing the terminal was embarrassing enough.

After two days of hard driving, I arrived at the customer's warehouse and parked. I'd just started to relax and maybe nap a bit (always a good idea) when I got a message from my dispatcher, asking if I'd had my trailer inspected.

Huh?

Oh, yeah.

I'm on the Mexican border, and judging by where I'm delivering this trailer, it'll be going on south without me. Which means it has to be inspected, so any questions of its safety and/or condition are settled beforehand. I should have taken the trailer to our terminal to be checked out before I came here.

So I look up the address of the local terminal on my satcom. And sure enough, there it is. Not terribly far off. I can even get the GPS to guide me there.

Which means I only missed the turnoff twice. Well we've discussed this GPS before...

Finally, though, I pulled into a sort-of familiar lot. I've been down here a couple of times, and I recognized the dusty gravel lot and the old trailer that passes for an office/lounge.

No Company sign.

There hadn't been one at the street, either. One reason I'd missed the turn.

And none of the trucks had a paint job to match mine.

Uh-oh.

The two Hispanic gentlemen in the office trailer were gentlemen indeed. One of them politely informed me that their company had bought this lot some time back. He didn't know where I was supposed to go now, but I was welcome to use their phone...

The other gentleman looked things up on the computer. This address was still in the phone directory, he said. But he himself knew where our new terminal was, and gave me careful directions.

Half an hour later, my trailer was being given a once-over at a terminal much larger and better set-up than our old one. An approving piece of paper to take back to the customer, and I was off. An hour or two later I was back to sample the pleasures of the new digs.

Nicely enough appointed. Not new. I suppose the Company found a place the economy had cast adrift. No complaints—I'll probably have to overnight here, and the facilities are certainly an improvement on the gravel lot and the trailer.

Be nice if they had a working coke machine, though...

Vanity

2010-10-12T20:32:00.000-04:00

Passed a huge RV with a small SUV wagging its tail behind. Nothing unusual. Except the dinghy's license plate:

IN TOW

Smiled a bit. Then pulled up even with the land yacht's back bumper. Looked down.

LVN TWN

I like it.

D-r-u-u-u-g-s

2010-10-02T20:24:00.000-04:00

I've starting packing sweatshirts.

The time of year has become obvious now. I wore long sleeves most of the day. I expect no difficulty sleeping in the truck cab tonight.

Once the truck was fixed, the bosses apparently decided to make up for lost time. I've done 500 miles today, up through the Carolina's and across Virginia. Not a problem—that's what they pay me for. The problem came from a slightly unexpected direction.

Late this morning (or was it early afternoon?) I started to lose focus. As if I hadn't had enough sleep. And the way that works for me it's scary. With half a day's driving still ahead of me, it was scarier still. So I decided on a drastic measure.

I've been carrying a few of those “five-hour energy”-type shooters* around with me, just in case. I've never used one before—rest has always seemed a much more useful way of not feeling tired. But today a test run seemed called for.

Hmm. Secret Mixture of Beneficial Herbs, uh-huh. Caffeine, yeah. Vitamins, mm-hm.

Vitamin B12. FIFTY TIMES the RDA.

O-kayyy.**

Well, watching the road signs fuzz out would be a lot scarier. I haven't gotten there yet, but it's coming. I can tell. So...

It tastes like cough syrup. No surprise—it's about that consistency. At least it doesn't have the kind of aftertaste you get from cough syrup that works. A few sips of water took care of what little problem I had with it.

I took the stuff at a rest area, after taking care of...other business. Getting out of the truck and walking around usually wakes me up for a little while, so it's kind of hard to tell if it's working. As much Mountain Dew(tm) as I often toss off in a day, the caffeine rush won't be noticeable. So it's kind of hard to tell if it's working.

Half an hour down the road I haven't started to worry about fuzzy traffic. Even a little. Given the usual pattern,that's a good sign.

Two hours, and I feel a little sleepy. Only a little, though. About the consistency of a soft-drink's worth of caffeine wearing off. Still not getting vague or out of focus. A few minutes more and it's gone. Or I don't notice it, anyway.

An hour or two later, it's back, but still mild. If I'd been depending on Dew's(tm) I'd have had to stop at least once for a refill, by now. Maybe more.

An hour or two after that, I was parked, and still more or less alert. At no point did I fear for my life, or for all the innocent people surrounding my semi. That's a good bit better than I'd been expecting around lunchtime. I can't say too much based on just one try, but apparently the stuff worked, more or less. I stayed awake and quite functional. And as of this writing, I haven't “crashed.” Nor am I particularly wired.

Which is a good thing. I still prefer the old-fashioned way.

G'nite.

- - - - -
*Not the brand-name you see on TV. I'm cheap—Big Lots(tm) specials look very effective to me...

**Turns out this brand's conservative. 5-Hour Energy(tm) has over eighty...

Hurry up and...

2010-10-01T20:06:00.001-04:00

Well, I was SUPPOSED to drive all day today...

They told me last night which truck I'd have this morning. And that I already had a load. And that it was hot.

Oh yeah, and that it was already late.

No pressure, right?

So I packed for the week and got as much sleep as the remaining night would allow. Then I got up, dressed hurriedly, waved goodbye to my landlady (schoolteacher hours are much like truck-driver hours), and blinked and yawned my way through the thirty rapid miles to the terminal. There I made a tour of the yard, looking for the tractor assigned to me for the week.

At length I found it. And the sticker on the driver's-side mirror.

“DRIVING THIS TRUCK BEFORE IT IS REPAIRED IS A VIOLATION OF DOT REGULATIONS,” it said. More or less. There was a lot more legalese in the actual text.

A visit to the shop seemed called for.
When I entered, the guy at the counter looked up and laughed. Maybe I was wrong, but I thought I caught an edge of hysteria.

Every bay in his garage was full. The fellow talking to him was explaining in great detail about how inconvenient the sticker on his truck was. Another fellow was haranguing the lady next to him about the sticker on his trailer. A third driver was waiting his turn. He saw me and said, “You, too?”

I decided to make my inquiry as brief and painless as possible. There wasn't a lot the shop guy could say just yet, anyhow.

Having gotten my “I don't know how long” from the man at the desk, I strolled back out onto the yard and pulled out the cell. As I worked my way through the voicemail jungle to my dispatcher, I counted six other trucks in the parking lot with the same sticker. And more than a dozen trailers. Besides the (six? eight? ten?) trucks already in the shop's repair bays.

Looked like I was gonna be here a while.

The rumor mill's explanation
was that we'd just gotten a new shop manager. According to one of the more experienced drivers, every new manager feels he has to prove he's on the ball. So he orders a sweep of the yard, red-tagging every truck and trailer that isn't up to DOT spec. This is the shop's job, of course, but when they find a couple of dozen problem vehicles at once, well...

No complaints from me. In theory, at least. The problems they found on my truck were real, and at least one was serious. Better they find it than a DOT inspector two hundred miles from the nearest terminal. Sitting around in the drivers' lounge watching bad TV shows beats the heck out of sitting in an out-of-service truck at a weigh station, waiting for the mechanic and contemplating the fine you just got slapped with.

But it's still a lousy way to spend a day.

Further plot complications
They got my truck in the shop while I was out getting lunch. It was out by four. Time to find my trailer, hook up, and go.

No trailer.

I couldn't find it on the yard. It wasn't in the shop. And the last time Security checked the yard, they hadn't seen it either. It took us another hour to confirm that the load had been transferred to another truck.

My dispatcher had (quite sensibly) decided he couldn't wait for my truck to get out of the shop before sending off a hot load that was already late. And in the chaos of the day, neither I nor the outbound-truck controller had gotten the message. When I did finally get in touch, he explained everything, and told me to just knock off for the day. I hadn't gotten any sleep, so I couldn't drive tonight anyway. He'd make sure I had a load in the morning.

So I shambled out to the car, ran a couple of errands I'd been too frazzled to run last night, and headed back to the house.

Just as I was starting up the front stairs, my landlady pulled into the drive, got out of her car, and looked confusion at me.

“It's a long story,” I said.

Bad news, good news

2010-09-27T10:29:00.001-04:00

A quick note before I start packing.

I'm parked in my home terminal, after two long days of driving. My load is due for delivery late tonight, about three hours from here. I'm not scheduled to go home until tomorrow.

I'm going anyhow.

You may recall me talking about the legal limits on my driving hours. The daily limits are frequently a pain in the neck. The weekly limits are usually not a problem.

This week, however...

It would take me at least three hours to get this load to its destination. I have seven hours left for the week. And the week doesn't legally end for two more days.

For a normal OTR driver this would be no big deal. Deliver the load, find a truck stop (the nicest one you can), and park for 34 hours. Bingo—whole new week.

I am no longer a normal OTR driver. Tomorrow this truck is supposed to start a whole new week, with a different.driver. Which means tomorrow it has to be back HERE.

Three hours there. Three hours back. One hour to unload, drive to the next customer, get loaded, and get back on the road to this terminal.

The Company would not be pleased if this truck were stuck for a day and a half a hundred miles from its new driver.

So I'm going home. They dare not send me out before the next guy gets here. I've done too much driving. I've had too busy a week. I've had too much paying work.

I should have this problem more often...

There's always something

2010-09-24T20:54:00.000-04:00

My wife would have loved this.

She loved animals. She would take her dog with her anywhere she went, given a choice. And she loved gadgets.

A rest-area water fountain with a built-in fountain for your pet? How could she resist?

I can see her now, grinning from ear to ear and saying “Awwwwww!” And running back to the car to get the dog and let him enjoy it.

The things you see just driving.

The things they remind you of.

I spent the morning in a fog.
Literally. Hundreds of miles driving through the mist. South from Pennsylvania and into Virginia. Through the Shenandoah Valley, where the fog finally lifted, bringing blue skies and the smell of silage everywhere.

At least I hope it was silage. That would have been an awful lot of fresh manure.

And then over the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Tennessee. Where the fun stuff happened.

The fun stuff
Ahead I saw a sign, telling me there was a weigh station ahead. Happens all the time, of course, especially when you've just crossed a state line. I moved into the right lane, where the station's electronics could query my PrePass* transponder. And I kept driving, waiting for the little beep and the green light.

Different beep. And a red light.

Still not unusual. They do random weight checks. Just drive across their GOOD scales, slowly. I knew I was legal, so it was no big deal.

So I pulled onto their scales. And they told me to set the brakes and bring my papers in.

Joy.

So I set my brakes and brought in my log. And my license. And my truck registration. And my bills of lading. The gentlemen looked them over quickly and asked for a few more things. After I'd parked my truck.

Gulp.

There are a lot of rules that cover the operation of commercial vehicles. I won't say it's not possible to comply with all of them, but—well, you know how your shoulders tense when you see a patrol car by the side of the road. Even if you're doing the speed limit and everything looks fine. “There's always SOMETHING,” you think.

Double for us.

If they want to look closely...

And sure enough. My personal papers (license, medical certificate,** etc.) were all in order. My bills of lading, likewise. The trailer was properly registered, and the inspection dates were in order. Ditto for the truck.

Except...

The Company changed insurance companies several months ago. They'd sent out memo after memo, telling us to get the new insurance card. I had done so. On at least three different trucks. I hadn't been in this one until this week. But by now, surely every tractor in the fleet had the new card, right?

Not this one.

Trouble.

And then there was the fellow looking at my log book. Checking it against his computer. Big Brother hasn't taken over the trucking industry completely, but there are things they can check.

I hadn't faked my hours. I wasn't worried. Much.

Until he turned and pointed at a page from the beginning of the week. And said, “See this date? You don't have any entries for the next three or four days.”

Uh-ohhhhh.

I looked at the book while he looked over my shoulder. And eventually I figured it out. I'd written down the wrong date on the first sheet for the week. I showed him where I'd made the mistake, and where the paperwork was that filled the gap. After some dubious looks, he decided he believed me.

Not that that got me off the hook. Falsifying Federal documents? If you do it on purpose, screwing up a log can put you in prison. Even doing it by mistake is good for a hefty fine. Not to mention their shutting you down until they decide you're legal. And if they were in the mood, it was a perfect excuse for them to carefully inspect the truck itself—and shut you down, fine you, or both, if they found ANYTHING wrong.

For some reason, they decided not to do that today. I don't know why. Maybe because I didn't talk back or try to dance around anything. I'd even written up that after-hours drive from yesterday (boy, wasn't THAT a nice thing to have them looking at?).

In the end, they wrote me up for not having proof of insurance. If the company sends them a copy of the card, they won't have to pay a fine. They gave me a written warning about driving after hours yesterday, but they didn't fine me. They let the date mistake slide. And they didn't take the truck apart.

I thanked them politely and walked back to the truck on wobbly knees. Half an hour later I parked for the night. Suddenly I didn't really feel like pushing my luck, for some reason.
-----
*PrePass(tm)
is a service that lets you pass weigh stations under certain conditions. Basically, a state that has a contract with the company will install weight sensors in the road just up from a weigh station. A trucking company that has a contract with the company will install a little transponder gadget in every truck's windshield. If the weight looks good, the weigh station's computer will frequently make a note in its log and tell you to keep going.
But not always. Sometimes your weight is close enough to the limit the computer says “double check.” Or the crew decides its your turn for a random sampling. Like today...

**Yeah, I have to have one. With me. All the time. Just like a pilot.

Lovely day. Visually, anyhow.

2010-09-23T19:14:00.000-04:00

Color has come to northern Pennsylvania.

See for yourself.

The pictures were taken from the parking lot of a hardware store in a middle-of-the-mountains town in PA. This is the kind of thing they see just stepping out the front door. Part of me would be afraid to live up here. I'd hate to take that kind of view for granted.

As it is, I earned that view.

I'm such a fine fellow...
Last night I got a call in the darkness, summoning me to a humanitarian effort the next morning. One of our other drivers had had a death in the family and needed to get home in a hurry. Would I trade loads with him, seeing as how the load I was hauling was headed much closer to where he lived than the one he currently had?

Knowing something about being trapped days away from your loved ones, I would've had a hard time laughing that one off.

So I drove north instead of south the next morning, hurrying toward a truck stop I'd been to several times. When I got there I called my dispatcher and got his cell number. (My own cell actually worked where we were supposed to meet, for a wonder.)

He told me where he was. I went there and couldn't see him.

He described the trucks pulling out of the spaces around him. I looked, and they weren't there.

I got a nasty suspicion, and asked him one more question.

He told me which truck stop he was in. I was in the one ten miles over.

Same chain, same city, different highway.

Sigh.

Earning the view
Well, I did get there eventually. And got the new load. And headed north into Pennsylvania instead of south into Tennessee.

And it was beautiful.

Up the Susquehanna River valley, and then up and over the Appalachians of central Pennsylvania. I wish I had pictures. As you can see, I do have a camera now. But I don't wave it around while I'm driving. Darn it.

At length I followed a two-lane into a little town that sat in the middle of a blank spot on my road atlas. Two twisty highways, a dot on the map with a name, and that's it. The GPS gave me a little more information, but kept trying to get me to follow ONE-lane roads to cut the corners.

Computers. Bah.

At the intersection, my directions said, go straight. Make a hard left onto THAT narrow street. Make a hard right onto the NEXT narrow street. It'll be right there on the right.

The hard left was HARD. The trailer wheels cleared the corner by about six inches. Not a good sign—right turns are much worse in a tractor-trailer than lefts, as I think I've mentioned.

Sure enough, the right turn was impossible to make neatly. No matter what I tried, I could see I would catch the wheels on that white-painted curb at the corner. And so I did.

The curb was both taller and squarer than it looked. I did some damage to one of the trailer tires—not enough to make it unsafe, but enough to affect my language. Then I carefully pulled into a small-town hardware store parking lot, wondering how I was going to get back out.

The owner of the store was waiting for me. Wondering why I'd come in that way.

Turns out there's another way in. That doesn't involve any right turns. Or tall sharp curbs. And only one tiny side street, not two.

He's been telling people about it for decades. And every single company still uses the other set of directions.

The town had been talking about putting “no trucks” signs up on that street for twenty years. They were still talking about it.

Sigh.

I did a pretty good job, he said. About the least damage he's seen anybody take coming in from there. The worst? He remembered the fellow who'd come in with a heavily loaded trailer in the dead of night, and apparently hadn't slowed down much when he took the last corner. That tall sharp curve had blown every tire on the right side of his trailer, then hooked a rim and pulled the wheel assembly loose from the trailer. It sat in his parking lot for two or three days before a crew came out and got the wheels reattached.

I feel a little better.

Scenery is where you find it.
As they got their forklift out of the corner and started pulling bundles out of the trailer, I wandered into the store, and out into the parking lot. The store was nice enough, but what was around it was lovely. There was a valley with a little stream right behind their little warehouse. Walk over to the back door and lean a little. Beautiful.

And looking up from the parking lot—well, go back up top and look again.

I sat in that lot for a couple of hours before I had both an empty trailer and instructions on where to go next. No hardship.

They do it with mirrors
At length, the old fellow who owns the store helped me get the rig out of his parking lot without running over anyone. This time I took the route HE suggested. And it was good.

Got one good scare, though.

I got to the end of his little street and prepared to turn right onto the highway. I looked to my left and saw a car coming around a curve.

Then it disappeared.

So did the highway.

The yellow lines were gone. I could still see asphalt, but neither the paint nor the trees were there anymore.

Before I could panic completely the car reappeared. Right in front of me, passing casually before my windshield. I still didn't know where it had gone, but at least I knew I wasn't losing my sanity. So I looked anxiously out my left window again.

After several seconds I realized I was looking at a different road. Unpainted. With neatly cut lawns lining it, instead of trees.

I was looking at the road behind me.

My mirror was blocking the whole highway, and the street in the mirror was exactly where the highway would have been. And it looked right.

It looked right. If I hadn't seen that car disappear, I would have pulled out happily. And God knows what would have happened.

Shivering a little, I looked to the right. And as my eyes focused, the town disappeared.

Exactly the same way. Apparently my right-side mirror was blocking the entire road THAT way. And the reflection of the street behind me looked just as right on that side.

Neither view really looked right, of course. But they were close enough to something you could expect to see that I had to consciously TELL myself I wasn't really looking “out the window.”

Suddenly those magician's tricks started to sound a lot more believable.

And the stories I'd heard about truckers who'd pulled out in front of speeding cars they never saw seemed a lot more believable, too.

I spent the next thirty seconds or so rocking frantically back and forth, looking for angles where I could see the real road, past my mirrors. I finally satisfied myself that nothing was coming and pulled out.

But I must have looked awful strange, if anyone was around to see me.

The problem with “scenic"
I had to go back the way I came. And it was still beautiful.

And I was behind schedule. And I didn't dare go much past tourist speed. Not on those roads.

I got to my next pickup late. And by the time I got my load, I was past my legal hours.

The customer didn't care. Truckers are a security risk, don't y'know. So they politely told me to get off their property.

On the other hand, they did tell me where I could go to park for the night. And it only took a few minutes to get there. And the DOT does understand that sometimes you can't just park where your hours run out. So I carefully wrote down in my logbook what I'd done and why. In theory, I shouldn't get in too much trouble about it. It's the guys who ignore the rules and/or try to lie their way around them that get the heavy end of the hammer. Or so I'm told.

I hope so.

But that's for another day. Right now we sleep.

G'nite.

Oh, yeah. Random note.
Passed a small business this afternoon, with an interesting name.

Curl Up and Dye

Wonder what they do there...

Just call me Chester

2010-09-15T19:57:00.000-04:00

It really is fall up here.

The color is starting to show in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Not so much in Maryland, but hey...

More to the point, I was almost chilly when I got up yesterday morning. And it was late afternoon before I bothered to turn on the air conditioning. In a tractor-trailer, that's fairly cool.

I dropped a load in Maryland yesterday, in the early afternoon. I was scheduled to pick up another load from the same customer this morning. At 1:00 am.

I'm not going to run the early-morning thing into the ground again. Let's just say I wasn't celebrating.

I did drop by the shipping office as I was dropping off my load, just in case they'd gotten ahead of schedule. They hadn't. After all, the seasons are changing. All their stores were looking for their fall lines. So the warehouse was up to its ears in shipping orders.

1:00 am it is. Sigh.

So I spent the afternoon trying to sleep. With mixed success. I was drowsing and waking up all day and a fair part of the evening, but when I got up around midnight, I was at least semi-coherent.

Drove the mile or so to the customer, hooked to the trailer, connected the air and electrical lines, walked around checking the tires and lights and such, and cranked up the landing gear. Then I walked around the truck and trailer again. I don't know why.

Got around to the right side and something bothered me. A second glance cleared that up, though.

The landing gear was down.

I walked the rest of the way around the rig and back to the crank. I could have sworn I'd cranked it up. I've forgotten to once or twice (it's either noisy or otherwise embarrassing), but I thought I remembered it this time. Forty or so turns on that crank will leave an ache in your shoulders you can feel for a few minutes afterward. And I thought I still felt it.

I did. The gear was up on this side.

I went back. Still down over there.

I spent a few minutes seeing if it was something obvious (the mechanism is somewhat simple). It wasn't. So I called my breakdown department. They said they'd send somebody over.

I told the warehouse people why I was blocking their lot and waited.

The mechanic eventually showed up, looked the situation over, and decided it needed more equipment to fix than he had on his truck. So he took right leg off the trailer altogether. Since it's hard to sleep with an air impact wrench going right below your head, I watched him work. Then I got rolling to the customer—only two hours late.

I made it to the consignee barely in time. Fortunately it was a live unload, so I didn't have to unhook.

When I was done, I went to a proper shop and handed over my gimpy trailer. They traded me a new one for it, and I headed for a truck stop.

Not much choice. By that time I was pretty much out of hours for the day.

And now I sit in the gathering dark and wait for morning.

But at least it won't be one o'clock in the morning.

And my trailer will stand on its own feet.

Progress, right?

Adventures in scheduling redux

2010-09-13T21:52:00.000-04:00

Summer is fading.

I slept comfortably last night. That's worth mentioning, though perhaps not for much longer (this year, anyway). The truck was quite livably cool. Judging by the faint chill next to the open vents by the sleeper bunk, there was a reason for that.

Sure enough. I figured out last year that the truck is only really comfortable when it's in the 50's or 60's outside. And it felt like the 60's out there.

Kentucky is starting to become fallish.

Driving north, I started to see little traces of yellow in the Ohio trees. Not much yet, but a sign of the times. Pretty soon I'll have to get the warmer clothes out of storage.

* * *

I had to speak firmly to my dispatcher last night.

The company had assigned me a load to pick up after I delivered this one. I sat down and did the math for once. And realized that I could only make the delivery on time if

this customer took me early, and
absolutely nothing went wrong.

The slightest delay, and I would be in trouble with the law. Those pesky rest breaks, y'know.

Sometimes this is not too bad a thing—many customers are fairly easygoing. This one is not. So rather than risk the company paying penalties, I declined the assignment.

Part of my job is backstopping the load planners. Sometimes I manage it. Doesn't always make me popular. Fortunately, I've had reasonable people for dispatchers, so far.

* * *

Good thing I was stubborn.

I got to the customer an hour early. They found me a dock door an hour late.

Then I sat in the dock for another two and a half.

I got out of there an hour after I was supposed to be at the next customer.

I was glad I'd turned down that load. Might as well be pleased about something...

* * *

There was a truck stop just down the road from where I dropped. I got there just in time to snag the last parking space. An hour later I got a new load assignment. Which picked up a couple of hours ago. Of course.

Suspecting that everybody had gone home by now, I asked my dispatcher whether I should (throw away the last parking place in town and) see if anyone was home. They said yes.

Sigh.

So I went over there. And everybody had gone home.

Everybody. Emptiest parking lot I've ever seen.

So I wormed my way back out and got on the Interstate. The little book said there was a truck stop two exits down.

And there was.

And it had two or three empty spaces left.

So I parked. With fifteen minutes to spare.

Well, I did get a parking place. And I know how to find that place tomorrow. The route in is not intuitively obvious. I'm glad to have seen it with light, while fully awake. Makes predawn maneuvers a little more certain.

Okay. I'll take it.

Odds and ends and trademarks galore

2010-09-12T21:40:00.001-04:00

Lime Crush(tm). Interesting.

When I was a little boy (oh, so long ago!), Orange Crush(tm) was a staple. I didn't see Grape Crush(tm) til much later (that's what Nehi(tm) was for...). I've seen a few other flavors since. But Lime Crush(tm)? I was almost afraid to ask.

Not bad, actually. In fact, it joins a very limited (I can't actually think of another one just now) category that I actually look for: a non-caffeinated competitor to Mountain Dew(tm). I don't drink that stuff to stay awake, y'know. It just has more—substance, or something—than, say, 7-Up(tm) or Sprite(tm). And so does this.

One of the nice things about driving an eighteen-wheeler is variety. You're never sure what they'll sell in the next truck stop...

* * *

I'm in a different truck again this week. The oldest one I've had in a few months now.

I may like it better.

I mean, it doesn't use Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel fuel. Which means I can actually get fuel for it. The Company's Fuel Department has occasionally had to be a tiny bit creative in the recent past.

And it doesn't have the Wonderful New Environmentally Aware Pollution Control systems. Like the Particulate Filter system that burns extra fuel cleaning itself periodically (and was directly responsible for my involuntary Labor Day vacation last week).

And the cab electronics are downright primitive. Which means they work more than half the time.

What's not to like?

Oh, well. It's old enough to have its own problems, I guess. We'll see.

* * *

Speaking of modern technology...
I pulled into a customer's warehouse the other day, and the guard asked me to slide my tandems back.

I believe I've mentioned the weight distribution thing before, and how we move the trailer wheels back and forth to balance the load between tractor and trailer. Well, the way you do that is to lock the brakes on the trailer wheels, and then disconnect them from the trailer itself. This involves a mighty yank on a handle hidden under the back of the trailer. By thus straining your back, you retract a set of pins that, up until now, were locking together a set of sliding rails connecting the bed of the trailer with its wheels. Once they're retracted, you can use the tractor to shove the trailer back and forth until the wheels are where you want them. Then you pop that handle back into its slot, and the pins lock the trailer to the wheels again.

This is handy for us, but the customers often want the wheels all the way back. It cuts down on those charming incidents where a forklift drives off the dock and into the trailer and the trailer dips under the weight. Nothing like feeling the floor beneath you drop a foot while you're half on it and half off, don't y'know?

Dockworkers. No sense of humor.

But I try to be nice to the people who give me a job. So I strolled to the back of the trailer and reached under to give the handle a mighty yank.

No handle.

I spent a good five minutes (or so it seemed) looking all over the underside of that trailer. All I could find was an odd-looking thing that looked like a steel sewing spool in a steel frame. With air lines running to something back behind the sliders.

Could it be?

Cautiously I reached into the framework and fiddled. Eventually I hooked the ridge of the “spool” with two fingers and gently pulled.

With a soft hiss, the slider pins slid out of sight.

I blinked. And pushed the plunger back in.

Hiss. And the pins slid into place again.

Power sliders. Neat.

I pulled the plunger out again (Two fingers! Hey, I'm Superman!) and strolled back up to the cab. That's when I noticed the fence in front of me. I probably wouldn't run into it adjusting the tandems, but why take a chance? So I unlocked the trailer brakes and moved the whole semi back ten feet or so. Then I locked the trailer brakes and started to pull the trailer forward over its wheels.

Nothing moved.

This can be noisy if you're surprised enough. Fortunately I'm the cautious sort. The semi just quivered and complained as it tried to pull the Immovable Object. So I got out and headed back. I'd been in enough modern cars to suspect what the problem was.

Sure enough. The pins had quietly returned to the locked position.

After all, I had unlocked the trailer brakes. And pulling a trailer with the tandems free to slide is a Bad Thing.* So the trailer had thoughtfully saved me from myself.

Sigh.

* * *

Some time later I was on the Interstate, idly watching the traffic around me. Making a hobby out of a survival reflex can be a useful habit. And sometimes it brings you odd and interesting sights.

Like the guy on the Harley(tm), with handlebars taller than he was. Black t-shirt and BDU pants. Black pseudo-Nazi helmet. Cruising down the exit ramp toward the traffic backing up before the stoplight.

The bike was steering itself. The fellow on it was sitting back, his arms crossed in front of him, his head bowed in concentration.

Texting.

-----

*Really, it is—you can rip the wheels right off the trailer if things go just the right kind of wrong...

Technical difficulties

2010-09-10T19:48:00.001-04:00

My friends have seen a fair bit of me this past week.

I didn't expect to spend Labor Day weekend at home. I was definitely scheduled to be on the truck. And I started that way. Really.

My first run was an extremely short one. I suspect it was mainly meant to get me an empty trailer for the next load. I moseyed over to the customer, parked the rig, got my instructions from the customer, and backed the trailer into the appropriate dock.

I had to stop three times. To take the truck out of gear and race the engine for three or four minutes.

I've discussed before how the brakes work on a tractor-trailer. And how they don't work if you don't have enough compressed air. And how you can't move the truck if the air pressure gets low enough. When the diesel has to be turning at highway speeds just to keep the air tanks full, it's time to get somebody to look at it.

I gave my dispatcher the bad news and headed for the terminal. There the mechanics looked it over for a while, fixed a few leaks—and then decided the leaks were just hiding the problem. The tractor was going to need a new air compressor.

This is not a minor repair.

Joy.

And then they sprang the zinger on me.

Modern trucks (and this was almost as modern a truck as I've been allowed to drive) labor under the burden of some pretty fancy anti-pollution gear. Some of the very newest ones require you to add nasty chemicals to the exhaust system every so often. This one wasn't that new. But it did have an expensive and annoying feature from the last round of environmental correctness.

One of the still-earlier pollution-control “improvements” involved running exhaust gas into the engine again, to reduce some emission or other. One of the “minor” side effects of this is to increase the amount of soot generated by the engine. So, having caused a problem, the government cheerfully made it the engine manufacturers' problem to fix it. The most common “solution” (like most “solutions,” it creates a bunch of problems itself) is a “Diesel Particulate Filter,” that traps the soot before it gets out the exhaust pipe. A filter that starts clogging up after a while.

To deal with the “clogging up” part of the problem, they add an “afterburner” of sorts, to burn up the soot and clean the filter every so often. But eventually you have to take the filter off the truck and either clean it properly or replace it.

The truck I was driving was way overdue for a filter checkup.

And the company's shop didn't have the equipment to do it.

Not their fault. I gather the manufacturers and their dealerships are almost the only places that do. But it meant that the air compressor was not the biggest problem. One way or another, my truck was going to the dealer.

On the second day of my work week.

It was still there when the next driver was due to take over.

I'm lucky. As I've mentioned a few times before, I'm on a program that includes a sort of weekly “retainer.” An ordinary over-the-road driver in my position wouldn't have gotten paid for this week at all (well, a few bucks for the local run, but that's all...). It did happen to me a couple of years ago, when I was still OTR myself—and I was badly worried about my next rent check. Not this time.

Instead, I was able to attend an event I'd already written off, and meet some people I hadn't seen in years.

What I didn't do was get this entry onto the blog before I started out. Thus the post-dated entry.

I won't say it won't happen again. But I am embarrassed.

The days are a blur (part 3)

2010-08-25T22:36:00.001-04:00

(NOTE: This will make more sense if you read Part 1 and Part 2 first.

Oh, are you back already? Good...)

Hmph. Must've still been sleepy.

Before I went to bed last night, I figured what the best starting time would be to get this load to its destination. Too late, and I'd (obviously) get there too late. Too early and I'd still be half-asleep when I started driving.

As it was, I think I underestimated the slowness of 4-lane non-Interstates again. I barely got the load there on time.

But I did get it there on time. So I won't complain.

Then I got my next load assignment. And for once this week the annoying delays weren't my fault. Just the ordinary fun stuff—the customer had all the time in the world. Just ask him.

I barely got to the truck stop before my hours ran out. But I did. And now I'm sitting here watching the world get dark (if you read Part 1, yeah, we're finally back to that.). Right now the brightest thing in the world is the headlights of the truck backing into a parking space opposite me.

They're about six inches away from my front fender.

(Some truck stops like to maximize their parking lot capacity. This often makes for interesting times backing in...)

Ah. No bumps, no scraped paint. He got into the slot and shut down. Dark and relaxing once again.

I've got some miles ahead of me tomorrow, but the schedule isn't as near-impossible as it has been the last few days. And I'll be awake, right? I've learned my lesson.

(So why are you sitting there typing after bedtime, boy?)

Umm.

G'nite.

The days are a blur (part 2)

2010-08-24T21:14:00.001-04:00

(Note: This entry might not make as much sense if you haven't read yesterday's. Go ahead if you haven't. I'll wait...)

The bad beginning

02:00. Groan.

My alarm clock woke me.* My satcom didn't. The significance of that didn't register on me at first. That was the first strong indication that I hadn't gotten enough sleep.

I bustled blearily around the sleeper for a few minutes, eventually getting dressed enough to drive. It was about then I realized that I had no load information. No customer name. No address. No route.

Why, I wondered.

A quick look at the satcom showed no new messages since the good news last night. Odd. The dispatcher knew I'd accepted the load. Why hadn't he sent instructions?

Or had he?

With a sense of mounting dread I rebooted the truck computer. After the usual three to five minutes, it came fully online. And beeped. And started scrolling up useful messages.

And I'd only lost about an hour.

That was my first miscalculation.

The long and winding road, that leads me--to where?

The second became obvious within minutes, when I compared the truck's GPS-driven estimates of my ETA with my own quick-and-dirty figures from last night. The computer had me getting there a lot slower. Why? I wondered.

Because I'd been planning a trip to the wrong city.

I was going to have to cross a portion of Alabama on “ordinary” four-lane roads. Once I crossed into Georgia, though—well, Lake City, GA, is just south of Atlanta. And in Georgia, all Interstates lead to Atlanta. I was golden.

Except I wasn't going to Lake City, GA.

I was going to Lake Park, GA.

Lake Park, GA, is nowhere near Atlanta. It's over by Valdosta. Another direction altogether. And about sixty miles further than I'd figured on.

And there are no Interstates crossing South Georgia.

Sixty extra miles, and almost all of it on highways that were noticeably slower than the Interstates I'd been counting on. Well, at least I knew what the problem was.

The rest of the morning was a blur. Mostly a dark blur. Only a few things stand out at this point.

One was a deer. A buck. Nice rack—nothing the record books would be interested in, but nice. If I were a hunter I would have drooled a bit. As it was, I smiled a little.

Not much. The reason I remember the buck is that he didn't really register in my mind until I was well past him. I saw him clearly, but I didn't SEE him. The corner of my eye made a note, and eventually the brain got it. And absently filed it. Keeping the truck going was taking far too much attention.

The other thing I remember is the moment when it sank in that the non-Interstate was slowing me down a bit more than I'd estimated.

Translation: I was going to be late.

I spent the next hour or so looking for a place with two important things:

a parking lot big enough for this monster, and
a phone that worked, so I could warn my dispatcher I wasn't going to make the delivery on time.

Perhaps it says something about my work ethic that it was only after I found such a place and parked that I realized a bathroom would also be nice.

Fortunately, they had one.

And so on...

Daylight came at last. And so did my destination. I dropped the load (late, but they at least knew that was coming), headed to my next stop, and picked up another load. Then I drove another long stretch of non-Interstate four-lanes toward the only truck stop I could reach in the time I had left.

I drove right past it, as it turns out.

Well, actually I sat on the highway beside it. In the right-turn lane at the stoplight, looking at the parking lot on my left. Then the light turned green and I made the right turn I had to make.

It took me about fifteen minutes to get turned around and get back. At which point I was within fifteen minutes of being unable to legally drive. I HATE cutting it that close.

Oh, well. At least I'll get enough sleep tonight.

(continued tomorrow)
****
*It didn't once—and I got the only “no excuse” service failure in my glorious career because of it. I've been more paranoid about settings and batteries since then...

The days are a blur (part 1)

2010-08-23T17:07:00.002-04:00

Dusk isn't always colorful.

When I was a little boy, there was a soap opera called THE EDGE OF NIGHT. I never watched it (or any other soap opera), but I would usually try to be around the TV when it first came on. I liked the theme music (the organ in the background was cheesy, but I loved the piano piece that floated over it). And I found the opening visual fascinating

It was a cityscape at dusk, gradually shading into night. Watching the buildings gray and fade as the lights in the windows came into prominence. The sky gradually going away. Sorta. There had to be some time-lapse or something, to make it fit into a TV opening sequence (do I remember the clouds streaking by, or am I reading that back into it?), but that just made it accessible to a three-year-old's attention span.

And the fact that it was in black-and-white didn't hurt it at all. If there'd been color, it would've likely been pastels of red and orange all over the place (soap-opera's didn't tend to the subtle). And I might have thought that a distraction. It was the gradual changes in shading and contrast that I found endlessly watchable.

Tonight's kind of like that, without the skyscrapers. Sky-blue fading into gray and thence to black. Everything below it gradually losing definition and color as the shadows change (not always deepening).

It takes longer, of course. This is reality. But then, I'm a bit older. I actually do have an attention span, these days. Sometimes.

It's MonTueWednesday, August 23-25. At least the month didn't drift. I think.

What can I say? It's been interesting...

My own fault, I have to admit. My work week was supposed to start on Sunday, but they didn't have a load for me Sunday. Weekends are often slow. So I had plenty of rest going into my load Monday, right?

Wrong. Computer binge. Five hours of sleep. Slow blinking all day.

Well, at least I got the load to where it was going. Got myself empty and headed for the nearest truck stop, where I had a quick meal and sat around reading the rest of the evening. Nice way to end the day.

At least until I got the message from my dispatcher. Seems he had a load for me the next morning. And I wouldn't have any trouble picking it up.

If I started rolling at 3 am.

This was not a problem, legally speaking. I'd shut down around 5, so getting up at 3 was perfectly all right.

Right?

Go back over my description of how I spent the evening. Did you happen to notice the word “sleep” anywhere in there?

If I'd been rudely awakened when the satcom beeped, I might have been all right. It would have meant I'd taken a nap as soon as I parked. But why would I do that? Nobody was going to need me before 5 or 6 am, right?

Right.

So there I was, just getting ready for bed, and here came the good news. And what do I tell my dispatcher? “Sorry, boss. Can't do it. I spent too much time surfing the Net last night and too much time reading STAR WARS books today.”?

So I said “Sure, no prob,” and went to bed.

Five hours sleep last night.

No more than five tonight.

Three o'clock in the morning.

Sigh.

(continued “tomorrow”)

I keep seeing things like that out here.

2010-08-13T20:09:00.001-04:00

I am secure but not comfortable.

I'm trying to be a good boy about keeping this laptop safe (the last one got stolen out of my truck a year or two ago, for those of you who came in late). At the moment, I have the lock cable wrapped around a rung of bunk ladder. Reasonably secure, but a bit of a stretch when I'm sitting in the front seat.

And I pretty much have to sit in the front seat at the moment. It's cooled down fairly quickly tonight, but only outside. If I'm not next to an open window I am a puddle. I should be in bed, but not yet. Let it get cool enough to breathe in here first.

I did about 600 miles today. Not an epic journey, but a good bit of driving. With half a legal hour to go, I found a truck stop and parked for the night. As occasionally happens, there were some stores and restaurants within walking distance. More surprising, there was something to see, too. Closed, of course...

When I first saw the building from the highway I thought it belonged to a community college with delusions of grandeur. I mean, come on! A featureless concrete dome painted white, like a cue ball on a kicking tee? It looked like that, too--the building is earth-bermed, and has a roofline with one of those complicated sets of non-functional angles that architects periodically fall in love with. And the dome is MORE than a hemisphere. A white globe in a nest of white angular lines.

Something Significant Is Housed Here, it was designed to say. I doubted it, but what the heck.

I parked the truck and sauntered across the bridge to the other side of the Interstate, past the Bob Evans (temptation is everywhere...), and took a casual glance across the over-sized lawn at--a parked jet fighter? In chase-plane colors? From the early 60's from the shape. It kind of resembled a Douglas F4D, though I'm no expert.

Hmmm.

Then I saw the fellow with the kids in the empty lot closer to the building. Of course it was empty--at this hour the place had to be closed. But the lot wasn't QUITE empty. He was taking pictures of his kids as they poked around--

--an Apollo Command Module.

And there was a Gemini capsule sitting right behind it.

The interest level rose a bit. I trudged across the lawn and the empty lot.

As I drew closer, it was obvious that the Apollo, at least, was a mockup. No biggie--only somebody with an unlimited budget leaves the real thing out in the rain. It didn't take long to figure out the Gemini was a mockup, too. And right about that time I got an angle on the big sign.

I was in Wapakoneta, Ohio. And this was the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum.

Oh.

Maybe there's Something Significant in there after all.

According to the sign, Gemini 8 is. That's the one Armstrong flew, in the pre-Apollo days. And I don't doubt there's a bunch of other stuff.

It at least explains the architecture. Still more Show For Show's Sake than I like, but they really did have something they thought was worth making Stand Out. And it does look kind of spacey. In a good kind of way, I mean.

Maybe someday I'll show up here when it's still open. Or get rich enough to come back in a car.

Oh, yeah. The fighter. It was an F5D, not an F4D. According to the plaque, Douglas only built four of them (I think I'm remembering that right), and this was the only one left. Neil Armstrong had flown it in the early sixties when it was set up as a simulator of sorts. They were testing flight profiles for the Dyna-Soar, NASA's first step toward a functional winged spaceship. Call it the grandfather of the Space Shuttle. (The Dyna-Soar never actually flew, but it got the engineers thinking in a particular direction...)

Lazy days

2010-08-08T11:27:00.002-04:00

Someday I'll have to figure out how to rig a hammock in a parking lot.

The evening was pleasantly cool, but I woke up twice in a sweat. The first time I ran the truck long enough to cool it down. And to recharge the battery--I'd been running the fan in the sleeper (didn't do much good).

The second time, I said heck with it and got up.

I've talked about the joys of sleeping in a metal-and-fiberglass tent before, so I won't belabor it. But it still surprises me sometimes, when I go to bed on a 70-degree night and wake up in a Turkish bath.

Glad I don't work for Truckbert.

The day promises to be well and truly hot. And not very exciting. I'm due for home time tomorrow, and I ended up getting back to town a day early. Which means they can't send me very far and still get me back in time for the next driver to take the rig. And for some reason people don't ship huge amounts of freight on a Sunday anyway. So in all likelihood I'll sit around all day, looking for places that are fairly cool and quiet,* and checking the truck every so often for a satcom message telling me my dispatcher has worked a miracle and found me something to do.

Someone might suggest I go home--it's close enough. But technically I'm still on duty. They MIGHT find a load I can take a hundred miles, with a load over there I can bring back. And if they do I need to prove I'm willing to earn my keep. At least until tomorrow.

I've talked to several drivers who were waiting for their trucks to get out of the shop. Breakdown pay is rather nominal. And on a Sunday, I'm not the only one waiting for a little action. But (due to some oddities about the division I work for) I am the only one here right now who's paid for days when they can't find me a load.

So I sweat a bit and fight boredom. It could be worse.

-----
*qt's Law of TV-Lounge Selection: your ability to deal with the show everybody else is watching is inversely proportional to your ability to do something else instead.
(In other words, if you have to go out and do something, one of the four shows you actually like will of course be on. If it's 95 outside and there isn't another chair in the truck stop, the entertainment in the TV lounge will be unbearable and impossible to ignore.)

Long day

2010-08-04T21:32:00.001-04:00

Part the first
Detroit's rush hour isn't too bad from the south. I wasn't expecting that.

That 700 miles I mentioned in the last post turned out to be more like 800. And it included an extra stop on the way--the guy who came out to fix my trailer tire didn't have the equipment to replace the mudflap. By the time I got to a stopping place last night I had about four hours to make a run that would take exactly four hours.

If nothing went wrong.

Like traffic. Near the center of a large city at eight in the morning.

I pulled a couple of tricks to get here early enough to make a morning delivery. All strictly legal, mind you, but still, I was pushing things a bit. Other things slowed me down, so it's a good thing I took the precaution.

But there was no traffic to speak of. In a city the size of Detroit. Weird.

Now the southbound lanes looked like what I'd expected to run into. I guess I just don't know who lives where and goes whither.

No complaints, though.

Part the second
Got to the customer on time. The parking lot was overcrowded, but I did eventually manage to drop my trailer and hook an empty for the next run.

With a missing mudflap.

I hope this isn't a trend. Sitting at garages is not a good way to make money when you're paid by the mile.

Conclusion
Ice cream bars are messy.

Yeah, I know. Not a great revelation. Call it a truth that's come back to me.

I'm at your basic El Cheapo Deluxe fast-food table in a convenience store. A floor fan sits beside it, buffeting me gently (Dyson's Air Multiplier isn't likely to trickle this far down for a while...).

The fan is there because the store isn't air conditioned. Looking around, I suspect this is normal. The only vents I see are on what looks like a commercial-grade gas (or oil?) heater near the ceiling in one corner. The building itself is an open-plan steel prefab. Looking at the window, I gather it's double-walled, so I can hope the place is at least insulated. But I'll bet Ohio winters are still a bear.

It's warmer in here than outside--if outside includes shade and a breeze. Which it does, at times and in spots. But shade, a breeze, and a place to sit down--that's a much rarer combination.

So here I sit, sweating just a little, chasing the flies off every few seconds, and generally feeling as if I'd returned to one of those old general stores of my (very early) childhood. They're more pleasant to remember than to return to, but am I complaining?

Actually, no.

When I pulled in here, I was concerned. Which is a euphemism for "wondering how doomed I was." Getting that mudflap fixed in Detroit didn't take too long. But the trick I used to get the load to the customer on time this morning involved taking a legally required nap this afternoon. When I left Toledo, Ohio, I had about three hours of driving time left to me, and I knew of two truck stops on my route. One was nearby, the other a good hundred and fifty miles further on.

I wanted to make some miles tonight (rather like my fond hope in the previous post), but 150 miles in three hours on two-lanes was a bad bet. So I looked for the stop nearby.

It was a few miles north of here. On the Ohio Turnpike.

Not next to the Turnpike. On it. In one of the service plazas. And I had been explicitly told not to give the company's money to the trolls.

So what to do? Drive nervously into the gathering darkness, looking for a place to hide?

Well, any better ideas?

So I drove nervously into the gathering darkness, until I saw a little place with the sky-high overhangs that mark a set of truck-diesel pumps. No parking lot. But if they dealt with semi's, I thought, they might know who in the area would tolerate one parking for the night.

I found a corner where I could park my eighteen-wheeler without blocking the pumps and went inside. When the lady finished with her customer, I asked her where around here I could shut down for ten hours.

"Where're you now?"

I pointed.

"That'll be fine."

No complaints. None.

Changing times, OR, "When I was a boy..."

2010-08-02T22:03:00.000-04:00

(All right. So the updates are still a work in progress.

(What can I say? I got the laptop to the truck just fine. I just forgot the power supply. So these didn't get out until I got back home. Again.

(So sorry. I'll try to do better...)

If I keep telling you how warm it is tonight, you're going to get bored. So I won't.

I'm in a gravel parking lot behind a small truck stop in the Deep South. And it's almost cool enough to sleep now. Actually, it must be--I woke up rather rudely when the repair guy showed up.

Today's pickup was a drop and hook, with 700 miles or so to put behind me afterwards and about a day and a half to do it in. I was planning to put in two or three hours of driving tonight so I could relax a *little* tomorrow.

That was before I examined the new trailer.

One tire was flat. And a mudflap was missing. Believe it or not, those two problems are about equally important (mudflaps are considered safety equipment, and the DOT will not look kindly on you if you run without one). But of course the tire was a bit more, shall we say, immediate. Driving any distance with only seven tires bearing the weight was not in the cards.

So I moved my tractor-trailer gently to the nearest place I could politely park it and reported the problem. On my satcom. It's efficient and convenient, but it has some of the same problems as a telegraph did, back when there were telegraphs.

Think texting.

Now think of serious technical discussions while texting.

After several messages back and forth--about the problem, and whether I needed repair immediately, and when I'd be leaving in the morning, etc.--the dispatcher decided she wasn't getting enough detail. So she tried to call me.

Or so I presume. I got a satcom asking me to answer my phone.

I haven't had the money for a proper cell contract in a year or two. Now that my wife is no longer with us, I have been carrying her cell on the road; but it's one of those "unlimited calling as long as you stay in the metro area" phones. The company's been branching out lately, letting you use the phone in any metropolitan area that the company serves; and that's made it usable in a surprising number of places. But this was not a metropolitan area. Not by a long shot.

So I sent back an email explaining that my phone had no reception here, and if she'd give me her extension I'd call her.

She sent back a phone number. A LOCAL number.

In a very different area code.

You know you're in 2010 when everyone simply assumes you don't have to pay for long distance...

B. J. and the Beep

2010-07-26T20:54:00.003-04:00

There's a man on four-foot stilts poking around in the ceiling.

I have no idea what the problem is, but it feels as if half the truck stop is under construction. The fellow on the stilts is just the obvious part. More background noise than I'd hoped for, but what the heck.

B. J. is in Mississippi at the moment. At least that's where he called me from. He'd just read an email his employers had sent him.

“About the idling thing?*” I asked.

“Yeah. They finally made up their minds which gadget to roll out. Took 'em long enough.”

“Well, they had several ways to go.”

“That's what the email was about. They went through all the choices, good and bad points, why they liked the one they picked.”

This sounded interesting. Truckbert Logistics* likes to brag about their technology. Their trucks are pretty close to the state of the art. I'd been wondering what they were going to do about idling.

“So what'd they pick? That fuel-cell system?”

“Naw. They said it didn't have a track record. They wanted something reliable.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. But you said they didn't like the APU's with motors. That nobody could use them in California, and they were afraid soon you couldn't use them anywhere.”

“That's right. The ruled out the motors pretty early.”

“Hm. That leaves the battery-powered APU's.”

“Nope. They only last ten-twelve hours. Not enough for a restart** without firing up the truck every once in a while. Which kind of misses the point, the company thinks.”

“Uhhh...”

“No APU's. Said they weren't cost-effective. Too many of our trucks are team or slip-seat. They wouldn't use the units enough to make it worth the money.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I'm a slip-seat driver. My schedule can't be too different from your slip-seaters. And I can assure you, I spend as much time parked as the next guy.”

“Not as many restarts, though. And yeah, I know that don't add up to that many extra hours. I'm just quotin' em.”

Another thought popped up. “Uh, B. J., how many of your trucks are team operations?”

“Less than half, that's for sure. And a lot of the rest of us use their trucks when they've put enough miles on 'em.”

“Then--”

“Don't ask me. That's what they say.”

I sighed. “All right. So what are they rolling out? Bunk heaters?”

“Nope. They only help in the winter. Too much money, not enough benefit.”

“Electric blankets? Fans? Window screens?”

“Too easy to steal. You know what a bunch of thieves we are.”

“Then what are they doing?”

“Adding a new program to the satcom. You idle the truck long enough, it beeps at you. You don't shut down, they start docking your pay.”

I closed my eyes and took a breath. “Ingenious,” I said.

“Let's hear it for technology,” he agreed.

- - - - -
*Truckbert Logistics is a fictional entity. It is in no way meant to resemble any real corporation—especially the one B. J. works for.

**I mentioned the concept of a restart here. It's in the footnotes there, too.

A day full of little things

2010-07-24T20:35:00.002-04:00

From a seat eight feet in the air, butterflies are no longer quite so anonymous.

In a car, you hardly see them. They're just flickers as they come up to the windshield, get caught in the bow wave of compressed air you're pushing in front of you, and go flying helplessly over the top of the car.

Or not.

From my seat, I can see them thirty or forty yards ahead, working their way across the highway. Getting tossed around by the wakes of passing cars like a feather in a dust devil, then recovering and flapping laboriously on. If you're not careful you'll find yourself cheering them on.

Don't. Enough of them lose to get you down if you let it.

The things that pass through your mind when you've got this much time for it...

* * *

Pulled into a rest stop in West Virginia, took care of the immediate problem, and came back out to the truck. Parked just past it were a pickup truck, a car, and three vans. Judging by the logos on the vans, they were presumably a church group on an outing.

All three vans were enthusiastically window-painted (with that colorful stuff they sell for the job now that white shoe polish is out of style). The one in the center had a logo just odd enough to catch my eye.

HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS
HAKUNA MATATA

Hmm.

A closer look showed me another window with a title: “SIMBA VAN”.

Ah.

And the one in front was the “RUDOLPH VAN,” with snowflakes all over and a red pointy furry cap painted on the back window.

In back was the “STITCH VAN.”

I wonder what the age group was...

* * *

The Maryland Welcome Center on I-68 Eastbound is closed at the moment, but the rest of the rest area is still usable.

It's on the side of a small mountain (or a big hill, depending on how you look at it). There are three parking lots terraced upward from the Interstate: one for cars; one for cars pulling trailers, RV's, etc.; and one for tractor-trailers. Long steep stairways link each one to the one above it. The restrooms, vending areas, Welcome Center (when it's open), etc. are at the top.

Guess where the lot for semi's is.

Oh, well. I needed the exercise. And the refreshment prices in Maryland rest areas are noticeably better than they are in West Virginia.

Oh, and the view! The valley spread out in front of you, forest and field and a fair-sized lake. There's even a fair-sized shade tree to stand under while you admire it. I cheerfully took advantage of that. (Actually there were two, but the other had a picnic table under it. Which was occupied. No need to be rude...)

Walking back down, I noticed they'd put a couple of portapotties down on the truckers' level, for those of us who weren't up to the climb. Thoughtful of them. I didn't notice them until I got back, of course.

Just as well. It was nice.

* * *

Had my first blowout today.

Just driving down the road, minding my own business, and something went “boom!” behind me. I looked back hurriedly and saw a huge strip of tire tread bouncing out from under the trailer. Many flapping noises, but the trailer didn't swerve or try to pull me around, so I drifted over to the shoulder and slowed down as fast as I could.

The shoulder was about as wide as the rig. If I stopped, I (and whoever they sent to fix the flat) would have about six inches on either side of the trailer. Since what would be six inches away on one side would be 65-mph traffic, I found I wasn't thrilled with that position. So, emergency lights flashing, I crept up the shoulder at about 15 mph, looking for a wide spot to park.

I found it about a mile up the road, just before the next exit. The margin for moving around was a good two feet here. Maybe more. So I got on the satcom and told the company where I was and what had happened. Then I sat for two hours waiting for a repair truck. And the tech spent another hour or so replacing the tire.

Not very exciting. Only one tire had blown, and the other one in that pair had held the weight until I found a good stopping place. It had happened within ten miles of a repair shop my company deals with already, so no fuss there. And there were minimal complications (when that much rubber goes flying off that fast, ugly things can sometimes happen).

No complaints. In a situation like that, boring is good.

* * *

Somebody in the next room is trying to sell a python. Sounds like a good stopping place.

G'nite.

I, Trucker

2010-07-22T20:26:00.001-04:00

I have a laptop again. Some of you may be pleased to know* that I'll be updating this blog a little more regularly now. At least until somebody steals THIS computer...

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a rest area in the hills of East Tennessee. Not observing the weather. It's too dark. They didn't have a truck or a load ready for me until fairly late. So I ran until nightfall and parked in the first place I found.

Since that's not too exciting, I think I'll talk about what I did yesterday, during my home time. Don't worry, it's actually relevant. Honest.

As you may recall, when we last saw our hero he was engaged in moving out of his house, following the death of his wife. This process was interrupted several times by silly mundane considerations like trying to earn a living, so it didn't get completely finished until yesterday.

The last trip involved moving a few pretty heavy items. Heavy enough that wheels and a ramp seemed to be called for. So I went to the U-Haul(tm) place and got the smallest truck they had with a ramp. Then my new landlady and another friend helped me load the last few odds and ends of my previous life into the truck. My friend took the car, my landlady joined me in the truck, and we started the trek to the Place of Storage.

On the way, a car cut sharply in front of us. Missed the bumper by a good two feet. My landlady flinched.

Then another one swung in in front of us and hit the brakes. My landlady jumped, then muttered something—I think about his probable ancestry.**

After the fourth or fifth time, she just glared.

And it occurred to me. As it had earlier that day in the car, when someone had come across three lanes of traffic to settle in front of my radiator, then decided this wasn't really his exit and swung back left, then changed his mind again and swooped past me toward the off-ramp. The other friend was with me that time, and made a fairly mild remark about the driver's attention span.

And I'd nodded politely, with no particular emotion.

It's become that routine. I've come to EXPECT people to act as if the huge speeding hunks of metal that surround them were incapable of hurting them. To assume that my lightning reflexes, placed continuously at their service, will preserve them from anything that might come of their latest whim.

I read a book once that was set in Isaac Asimov's “I, Robot” universe. That imaginary future is full of robots, each programmed with three Laws of Robotics. The first of those Laws is

A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm.

On a world where these machines have been serving mankind for centuries, we have a scene in which our hero stands on a sidewalk and watches people casually crossing the street—often directly in front of delivery vans, heavy freight trucks, etc. After all, all the vehicles are driven by robots, right? And a robot cannot allow a human to come to harm, right? He'll get out of my way...

Apparently there are a lot of people out there who treat all their fellow drivers exactly like that. And especially the ones driving the really big, dangerous things.

This evening, in heavy rush-hour traffic, I saw the yellow stripe on the green exit sign ahead. The lane I was in was about to become exit-only. I slowed slightly, letting the tractor-trailer beside of me pull ahead, and hit my left-turn blinker.

About ten seconds later, as I carefully began my move to the next lane, the car behind me accelerated. About four feet before he would have impaled himself on the corner of my trailer he slowed back down.

And then he threw up his hands in disgust*** and started (I presume) telling his wife what an ^$$#@!% I am. Didn't I know I was supposed to let him by?

A trucker may not harm a real human, or, by inaction, allow a real human to come to harm.
- - - - -
*If you're not pleased, please don't tell me...
**Fairly mild, I believe, and more concerned with intelligence than reproductive habits...
***Both of them. The car was driving itself for about two seconds.

Eat fresh

2010-07-17T21:26:00.000-04:00

Had to drive all night last night, but I got enough sleep during the day yesterday to survive it. And the scenery was nice, while I could see it—they had a long detour in place on the Interstate I was supposed to take for the first part of the trip.

I've done worse.

This morning I actually managed to sleep with the engine off. Didn't have to start conditioning the air until after lunch.

Lunch was interesting all by itself. Subway(tm) has a presence in a lot of truck stops, and most of the time they're pretty much what you expect from a Subway(tm). Today, though, I saw something a bit different.

The food was pretty much standard.

But the service...

The lady in front of me ordered a foot-long sub, went through the whole down-the-line condiments thing, got to the register—and then found out that not all foot-longs are $5, except during special promos.* She started to raise a stink--

--and the manager cut her off, by simply picking up the sandwich, dumping it in the trash, and inviting her to start over. No muss, no fuss, no arguments.

I got to the head of the line, and found they'd put spicy mustard on my sub instead of adding bell peppers. I didn't get to finish the sentence—he'd already gently lifted off the cheese, mustard and all, and sent it to join the lady's sandwich. Five seconds later my sandwich was the way I wanted it.

(Now I'm irritated. I'm typing this from my notes a week later, and I'm not sure where this truck stop was. Oh, well. If I figure it out, I'll update this soon. That kind of service is worth talking about.)

I learned a bit more about Subway(tm) than I wanted to, though. The lady's second choice was a cold-cut sub. Hold the bologna. Except apparently Subway(tm) makes a special meat for their cold-cut sub. It has all three cold cuts integrated into it.

Bologna, salami, and (what's the other one?)? All blended together in one slice of, um, something?

The lady declined. I meditated on how good it was not to like cold cuts...

- - - - -
*She said they always are in Myrtle Beach, where she lives. Interesting if true.

Rain capes and wrong doors

2010-07-16T21:30:00.002-04:00

I woke up this afternoon, just in time for the thunderstorm.

Had to drive all night last night. But I had enough warning to take precautions. Didn't fall asleep once. Saved that for this morning.

This time of year, in daylight, I've gradually lost some of my shame when it comes to idling while I sleep. Good thing, too. As it is, I woke up just as the sky went dark and the air got cool enough to let me shut off the engine. Minutes later the bottom fell out of the sky.

And then nature called.

And nature, of course, could only be answered in that building across the parking lot.

Before I started this trip, I went by a local army surplus store. My army poncho was starting to feel damp on the inside, and I thought I'd get another one if the price was right. Instead I found one of those “manager's special” shelves where they put the oddball stuff they run across somewhere for almost nothing and then sell for “real cheap.” In this case, they had Swiss Army surplus “ponchos.”

Only these were Europeans. Which meant the “poncho” was actually a cloak.

I like cloaks. One of my favorite cold-weather items is another surplus-special—a Yugoslavian Army ski-trooper's cloak, solid wool and heavy enough to make you think you're wearing armor. My biggest problem with it is that Atlanta's seldom cold enough to justify wearing it.

This rain cape would be useful a lot more of the time. And it was five bucks. I got one. And now it was time to test it.

It passed. It was waterproof,* it didn't get in the way much, and you could toss it back with a nice dramatic flourish when you stepped in the door. Swiss camo looks just different enough that you can claim it's a fashion statement. And getting back in the truck is actually easier.

I don't like raincoats, as a rule. They're too much trouble to put on and take off in a tight space. Ponchos are better for that, I've found; but they are still kind of clumsy climbing in. But a cloak is open in the front, not the sides. That same flourish that looks dramatic coming into the room can clear the front of the cloak and let you grab the handles to climb—while your back is still dry. And when you get up to the seat, you flip one snap and finish taking it off in one motion. You still have to find a place to let it drip, but nothing's perfect.

I think I'll have to get a couple more of these, while they're still in the bargain bin.

* * *

Went back to sleep for a while. Then nature called again. Not quite so loud this time, but then it wasn't raining. So I slowly crossed the parking lot, turned to the right, and went through a familiar-looking door. For some reason I no longer recall, I decided to wash my hands first.

Good call.

Just as I was pulling out the paper towels, a lady walked into the room. My first reaction was “Doesn't the cleaning crew knock?” Then I noticed she was as confused as I was. Just as she started to ask me a question, I looked around and noticed something missing.

In just about any large men's bathroom, there are, ah, certain items of furniture lining one or more walls.

Not this time.

I left with as much dignity as haste allowed.

- - - - -
*Don't say “of course.” I've had one poncho where the plastic simply didn't get applied to a strip about two inches wide, the whole length of the garment Ripstop nylon is not waterproof by itself. My left shoulder was not appreciative...

Keeping cool

2010-07-12T21:21:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting in the truck stop, sipping a “Thirst Freeze” and feeling virtuous.

It's ninety-plus outside, and has been for most of the day. I've been idling the truck more than I feel comfortable doing.* Even at night it's been too hot to sleep out there without it. But still I don't like it.

Today I asked one of the nice ladies at the convenience store if there was a mall or something I could flee to in a tractor-trailer. She said yes, there was one fairly close, and gave me detailed directions. To the back side, where the parking lots were usually pretty empty. “I've never heard of a trucker being run out of there,” she said.

Comforting.

I followed her directions, and found them good. This is always a pleasant surprise. Doing what she said dumped me into a large empty lot near one of the anchor stores. Empty enough that I didn't have to worry as I maneuvered this huge clumsy thing into a row of ten or twelve empty parking spaces and shut it down.

As I locked up and started for the mall proper, a security guard happened by. On a scooter. Three-wheeler, with a platform for the driver to stand on as she drove it. Apparently the Segway has generated some competition. This thing was bigger and a bit clumsier, but for patrolling parking lots it would be just as good. And, I suspect, a lot cheaper.**

I stopped her and asked if it would be ok to park here. No sense taking chances.

She said no problem, as long as it wasn't for an extended period.

“What's an 'extended period'?” I asked.

“Oh, well—overnight, for instance.”

I assured her I'd be out before dark and went on my merry way. Much reassured.

I wandered the mall. I skimmed the satellite centers. I found a bookstore!

Heaven.

And I did remember to get out of there before sundown. And got back to the truck stop before it filled up. Had a wonderful time, and used less fuel than I would have sitting in an idling truck all day.

And now I'm hiding from the heat a little longer, in the truck stop. Soon I will go to bed. And maybe by midnight or one I'll be able to sleep without running the truck any more.

Frozen cherry limeade, anyone?

- - - - -
*Emotionally, that is. I'd be a puddle in the cab if I hadn't been idling, but it bothers me.
**They had a guard on a real Segway inside, so things aren't as grim for the fad as I make it sound...

Personal hygiene tip 244

2010-07-11T21:16:00.002-04:00

Goop(tm) is not the world's best shampoo.

For those of you who didn't grow up around a mechanic, Goop(tm) is a heavy-duty waterless hand cleaner used to take grease, motor oil, etc., off skin that's been too close to heavy machinery. It does its work well. It's said to work well as a spot-treatment for your clothes, too. And if your spot is a grease spot, I'd be surprised if it didn't.

As a shampoo and body wash, though...

For one thing, there are no suds. This actually matters, because I use the suds as a “finished” indicator.

Lather, rinse, repeat.
When the lather comes up big time, stop repeating.

Goop(tm) could cause infinite loops.

And it's not really made to deal with ordinary dirt and grime, though it does handle them fairly well. My hair is pretty oily, but still—this isn't what it's for.

And it doesn't rinse off as quickly and tracelessly as soap. At least, I didn't think so.

What can I say? It was all I had this morning.

I've talked about cleanliness on the road before. Not much has changed. But one thing I didn't mention earlier: Truck-stop showers cost, on the average, about $10—or a 50- to 75-gallon fill-up. Kind of steep, but they include all the amenities. Sort of. As in, the truck stop supplies the soap and towels.

This morning, I was at one of our terminals. They supply a shower. Period.

I knew that, and I'd brought along a towel. It wasn't until I'd stripped and turned on the water that I noticed that the soap box in my toiletries kit was empty. I haven't needed my own soap in months. If I hadn't packed the Goop(tm) in the toiletries bag—just so I'd know where it was—I'd still be grumpy and itchy.

As it is, I'm just grumpy.

This, that, and the other

2010-07-10T21:11:00.002-04:00

This
The vagaries of manufacturing. Last night I showed up at a plant to pick up a load. They'd gotten about half of it done and were revamping the production line to make the rest. (Just-in-time manufacturing is a wonderful thing on both ends...) The changeover was a fairly quick procedure. I should have my load in another hour or so.

A half-hour later, the forklift driver came out to ask how much my truck could legally haul. Seems he'd looked at the load list he had and added up the weights. It came to about 50,000 pounds. That sounded a bit off to him.

Uh, yeah. I've never hauled more than about 46,000. And I was at the ragged edge of legality then. 43,000-45,000 is as much as you can reliably load. Anything much over that is a crap shoot.

I told him that and he said “Thought so.” Then he went back inside.

Five or six hours later, he came back out. The production line changeover hadn't gone as smoothly as they expected. It had taken them this long to admit it wasn't gonna happen tonight. So they guessed I could just take what I already had.

By then I was so far past my legal driving limit it wasn't funny. Slowly and carefully I crawled out the gate and parked on a piece of shoulder they leave open for just such unfortunates.* And then I went to sleep.

That
Woke up this morning and wended my way back toward the Interstate. A half mile down the road I topped the hill and saw a beautiful white cloud below me.

The fog bank looked like cotton candy, or that stuff they use nowadays to stuff pillows and soft toys. Somehow insubstantial and solid at the same time. I would have loved to sit on the hilltop and look at it. Driving down into it was another matter.

But duty calls. So I continued over the hilltop, descended into the grayness—and out of it in seconds. It was much “shallower” than I'd expected. Like driving through the ghost of a huge loaf of French bread.

Through it and out, and down the road I went.

The other
Barreling into the city** this afternoon I suddenly realized a pigeon had merged with the traffic.

Don't ask me why, but that bird had settled into the stream of cars, about two cars up from me. It changed lanes two or three times before it had an attack of good sense and went for altitude.

The stuff I read when I was a kid was right. Pigeons can fly at sixty or so.

- - - - -
*I count my blessings. A lot of companies won't do anything of the sort.
**--at a legal speed, of course—but anything over twenty is barreling along in this thing. Feels like it, anyway...

Blink and you'll miss it.

2010-07-08T21:05:00.002-04:00

Too hot to sleep again. And I'm tired of maudlin. So I'm sitting by the window, blessing the slowly cooling breeze. And thinking. And writing. And I hear a noise and look up.

And there is a man on a horse, coming through the truck-stop parking lot at a nice clip.

He's riding English-style, very straight in the saddle, both hands on the reins. The sound of the hooves says “trot,” but the rider isn't bouncing.* Which means (to my limited horse-savvy) racking horse or walking horse. I've been to a few horse shows. I've seen rackers, but never a walker. So I can't say which this one is. Just that it isn't a generic horse.

And if it's a show horse, it isn't practicing for a show just now. No high-stepping, nothing ostentatious arch of the neck. It's just moving along. Fairly quickly, too.

I read once that the rack, like the walking horse's stride, was for covering ground while not shaking the rider to pieces. That both types were originally prized for long-distance travel in relative comfort. Kind of the Gold Wing's of their day. Seeing these two, I believe it.

He rode right through the middle of the parking lot and right out the other side. Never came back through. There isn't a road out of the lot on that side, but then my idea of a road has changed since I started driving these barges. Maybe there's a path or something he knows about.

I wonder what the story is, there. But not very hard. Too hot to think about it.

- - - - -

*Oh, I beg your pardon. He isn't “posting.”

B. J. and the Secretary

2010-07-05T20:43:00.002-04:00

B. J. and I were picking up at the same location tonight. Our appointments were set for about four hours before their shipping department opened, so we had plenty of time to talk.

“Second time this week,” he said.

I stared thoughtfully at a tiny light in the sky. Evening star, obviously. Jupiter or Venus? “Waiting for somebody to show up, you mean? I hope you had somebody to talk to.”

“Oh, yeah. And she was a lot better lookin' than you. Long tall blonde. Skinnier than I usually go for, but we was just talking anyhow.”

If I were a woman I'd be miffed. As it was I was just mildly envious. “Anything interesting?”

“Just the usual. How's the freight, what're your bosses doin' to you, you know. She didn't show me pictures of her kid, but she let me pet her dog.”

“Friendly one, eh?”

“Oh, yeah. Noisy, though. And it's a pit bull, so it still keeps the riffraff away.”

“Friendly pit bull? Well, I've heard most of them are, if you don't train them the other way.”

“Yep.” He grinned. “Her bosses don't know that, though. The critter's a purebred, but her vet put 'mixed' on the papers so she could keep it on the truck. 'No aggressive breeds,' the rule says.”

I shook my head. Further comment seemed unnecessary.

“She was a little surprised I wasn't doing any better than I was,” he said. “Thought my dispatcher must not be doin' his job. Then she found out I was driving legal. That explained it, far as she was concerned.”

“She doctors her logs?” I tried to sound surprised. It wasn't easy.

“More than some, less than others,” he said. “If you drove one mile under the speed limit eleven hours a day, you could drive the miles she logs. She don't keep extra logbooks tucked away in corners, but she don't write her hours up 'til after she's done for the day, either. Sometimes for two or three.”

“Do you ever feel like a freak, talking to people at the truck stops, B. J.?”

“All the time. When I hired on with Truckbert* they put us through a week of orientation. And they spent half a day explainin' exactly how to fill out a logbook. And how the only good way to fill 'em out was honest and legal and above-board, and how they wouldn't stand for any fudging at all.

“Then I got on the truck with my trainer, and the first thing he showed me was how to fudge my logbook. Figured that was more important than if I could back into a dock. Said I'd figure that out, but if I couldn't take a load because I didn't have the hours, I wouldn't get enough miles to live on.”

“I never learned that.” I said blandly.

“Sure you didn't. To do him credit, he didn't teach me to out-and-out cheat. He wouldn't run more than the legal hours in a day. But he wouldn't log any hours he didn't have to, either. What he was doin' was getting as much driving in between restarts** as he could.

“So I did my logs the way he told me to. It was his truck, after all. And when I got back to the terminal, the safety guy looked 'em over and give me the evil eye. Said, 'You do know, don't you, that to get this many miles in this many hours you'd have to average better than sixty? Including two-lanes, side streets, and parking lots?' And I said, 'Yessir.'

“And then he looked at my trainer and asked him about some little details where I didn't have the carbon paper in the right place when I signed 'em.”

I grunted. “As always, should you or any of your I. M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions,” I quoted.

“You got it. And then the tape self-destructed. Good luck, Jim.” One of the reasons I like talking to B. J.-- he actually catches some of those obscure references I toss around.

“But you don't cheat yourself, now that you're on you own, right?”

“Pretty much, no. Might be why I'm always close to broke, I don't know. Got to admire Truckbert, though. They pretty much got their behinds covered, no matter what I do.”

“Mm-hmm. If you try to stretch things and you get caught, it's all your fault. They told you not to.”

“Yep. Even made me sign a paper saying they'd told me not to. And if my dispatcher gets ill with me for bein' honest, he does it on the phone. No paper trail.”

“Nice.”

“Ain't it? Anyway, the blonde I was talking to? She said she was on a dedicated run, making fair money. But the way her route's laid out, she can't make the miles they expect her to on the hours she's got. Looks good on paper, but you just can't drive that fast. Sixty-plus in the parking lots and through the red lights. So if she didn't doctor her logs she couldn't get the loads delivered. And her dispatchers and her load planners, they've got to know that. Makes you wonder.”

“Does it?” I still couldn't figure out if that star was Venus or Jupiter. Silly thing to be wondering about anyhow.

“Not really. But it makes me sound a little less cynical.”

About that time the shipping department opened, and we went back to work.
- - - - -
*Truckbert Logistics is not the real name of the company B. J. works for. But you figured that out already, didn't you?

**To oversimplify things a bit, the driving rules limit three things: the time you spend behind the wheel, the length of your total “workday,” and the number of hours you work in a “work week.” Once you've hit your limit on any of these, you have to shut down until you're legal again.
A “restart” involves shutting down for 34 hours. At the end of those 34 hours, your weekly “clock” is reset to zero.
If you're out for more than a couple of weeks, and you're getting enough work to make it worth the trip, you can be sure you'll have to do a restart at least once. But the less often you have to, the more driving you'll do...

Simpler is better? redux

2010-06-19T19:09:00.000-04:00

Should be safe to sleep in another hour. Especially if I run the a/c for a little while first.

Sundown. Backlit sky. Cooler breezes starting to move. Thus my optimism.

I'm sitting at the smokers' bench outside the truck stop. Otherwise deserted, fortunately. It would be cooler inside the building, but a choice between a Martin Lawrence movie and country Muzak isn't really a choice at all.

I'm less than a hundred miles from my home terminal, but a combination of a flat trailer tire and a storm far to the north has seen to it I dare not go the rest of the way. (The storm knocked out the computers at the company HQ, making it impossible for me to get certain paperwork done. Without the paperwork, I could not drive. So I sat for half the afternoon, after sitting at a tire shop for half the morning. Sigh.) If I had kept going, I might have made it in before my hours ran out. Or I might have had a company official logging my arrival, just late enough to be in violation of Federal Law (insert ominous music).

What can I say? I'm chicken.

A few other interesting things have happened this week,* but most of them were interesting only to me. Or inadvisable to talk about. So, noting how much this opening is like the one for June 14, I will make a similar observation to match.

Not so maudlin, this time. Honest.

When I first found out I was alone again, I thought about just moving into a truck. Apparently there are a fair number of truckers who do just that. Save on rent, save on all kinds of other living expenses. See the world, with occasional breaks where you actually have the time to get out and see pieces of it.

I've changed my mind.

I've talked about running into truckers who just wanted to talk early on. But this week I've had to work not to turn into one of them.

In that older post, I said that I'm basically solitary. And I think it's mostly true. But apparently I'm less so than I thought. Part of the reason I came out here was to keep from climbing the walls in there. Because things were bothering me. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about them.

I still don't have anyone to talk to about those things. And I've calmed down enough I don't really need to now. But it has occurred to me that I don't really have much of anyone to talk about the fun things with either. Not any more. The blog helps, but--well, maybe I'm old-fashioned. Typing isn't the same.

For the past few weeks, one of my taglines has been something like: "What does it matter how often I come home now? There's no home to come back to." But I've found out that doesn't work for me. One week has been enough to make it clear.

I don't socialize much. And I like my time alone. But apparently there are limits.

A friend talked me into finding a small place to sleep in (and keep some of my stuff) when I'm here. Guess I'll be using it more than I thought.

Who'd've thunk it?

-----
*(One of them will be back-dated once I'm at a computer where I can stick a picture in...)

Simpler is better?

2010-06-14T20:21:00.001-04:00

It's too hot to sleep in the truck just yet.

Not too bad outside, but we've discussed the "fiberglass tent with no open windows" thing before. Oh, well. Eventually it'll be livable.

The show on in the TV lounge here is one I've seen before, and I didn't much like it the first time. I shorted myself on sleep last night, so I'm not up to a session with the flutes. So I sit here.

Used to, when things got this quiet, I had a fallback. Something I needed to do and sometimes resented. Not any more.

Time to call home.

No need.

New fact about trucking. It's not for a broke man with a sick wife.

I knew that going in. I didn't want to do this, because I didn't want to leave her alone that much. But at a certain point I kind of ran out of choices. So I got my CDL and hired on to a company that sent me away for three weeks at a time. A few months later I managed to get that down to seven days out of every ten.

It was still too much.

It's a good job, in its way. I actually still enjoy it. But if you decide to try it, think about what you'll be leaving and going back to.

Bachelor? You may well be deliriously happy out here.

Got a big family? Might not be too bad. A bunch of people to come back to, and to watch out for what you leave behind.

In between, there's a lot of room for worry and frustration. And pain.

I'll get over it. Everyone tells me so. And meanwhile my life has become, in some odd ways, simpler. But right now, there isn't a home for me to call.

And it's still too hot to sleep.

It's not always the truck

2010-06-09T18:57:00.000-04:00

A quick follow up to the previous post.

They got the trailer fixed at about three thirty in the morning. I got it to the first stop on my schedule just before I ran out of hours. While the customer's warehouse people were pulling their share of the load off my rig, I spoke to the manager. As I had feared, there wasn't a place to park the truck on their property.

The driving rules allow you to drive after your hours are up, if you have to look for a safe place to park. But it's not a loophole you want to use too often. Not that I had a choice this time.

Fifteen minutes later, I parked the truck and crashed.

Um, let me rephrase that.

I parked the truck and immediately went to sleep.

Four hours later somebody pounded on the door.

It was a driver from the customer's own transport company. He'd come to take my trailer and make the rest of my stops. He'd been looking for me for about an hour. Seems I'd forgotten to tell anybody WHERE I was stopping to rest.

Not good. If I hadn't been thinking any straighter than that, it was a good thing I HAD shut down when I did.

He left, and I crashed again (see above). Spent most of the day sleeping, eating, or thinking about eating or sleeping. That evening my dispatcher found me another load.

He sent me to pick up an empty trailer around 6:00pm. I found one and returned to the truck stop, a little grumpy. Having a good night's sleep was one thing, but the load didn't pick up until midnight tomorrow!

Muttering, I turned in again.

Around midnight, the night dispatcher called to see if I'd picked up the load yet.

I'd lost track of the date.

There is a reason I try not to drive at night. Daytime sleep just doesn't seem to to do the job for me. But there I was. And I did have hours.

So I got him to make sure the customer would still be there. Learning that they were still open, I got there as quick as I could. Picked up the load around two. By now I couldn't take a break and still get the load to my relief driver in a reasonable time. So I drove all night again.

Got to the terminal. Got my stuff out of the truck. Had a friend pick me up, and we ran a few errands. Errands that didn't require much thought.

Typed this. And I think that's all I'm gonna do today.

G'nite...

Sympathy for a Luddite

2010-06-07T22:19:00.001-04:00

There's a noisy engine to my left. The passenger's-side window is open, in hopes of a breeze. Luckily, there aren't any bugs out tonight.

It's ten o-clock at night. I should be in bed. Instead, I'm in limbo. A cell on speakerphone plays faint Muzak withing arm's reach. On the other end (or so I'm told) someone from Breakdown will someday pick up. We'll see.

After three weeks of funeral arrangements, frantic preparations to move, and trying to adjust to the hole in my life where "home" used to be, I returned to the road today. Or tried to. There wasn't a whole lot of choice--"paid leave" isn't a word in OTR trucking. So I got to a sorta stopping point in my moving prep and went out to the terminal.

They'd assigned me a new truck--to me, anyway. The newest truck I've ever driven, with the fancy new EPA-approved engine and the even fancier electronics. I spent an hour or more wrestling all my stuff into it, and another half-hour figuring out how to set all the dashboard screens to work so I could read them properly.

At that point the dispatcher assigned me a load--that was scheduled for pickup two hours ago. Time travel is not one of the functions they've added to the new trucks yet. Oh, well. But they knew that when they assigned me. So I started the monster up and pulled out of the terminal.

I barely made it past the gate.

One of the features on this marvelous new truck was an automatic transmission. Very nice. But about fifty feet from the terminal, I noticed it wasn't shifting past Fourth. On a ten-speed transmission. And the gearshift indicator was flashing error messages. Most distressing.

Fortunately, I was bobtailing. With no trailer, finding a place to turn around was relatively easy. Getting the fifty feet back to the terminal was merely slow. When I told the mechanics what it was doing, they cussed and told me to park it. Apparently it had already been in the shop for exactly this problem. And the manufacturer had SAID they'd fixed it...

(By the way, don't read this as a tirade against automatics. They seem to be nice enough, and they're REAL handy in heavy traffic. And they seldom screw up, I'm told. But when they do screw up, it's not a quick fix. Or so I'm told.)

I told my dispatcher what happened. He probably muttered a bit, but he assigned me another truck. Feeling a bit paranoid at this point, I did a careful walkaround before moving my stuff. Good thing, too. The bumper was messed up. I spoke to the mechanics again. They cussed some more and sent someone out to look at it. He looked, and then cussed a good bit more. Apparently this was not something they could jerry-rig a quick fix for. And it was actually a safety issue--they couldn't let it out of the yard like this.

So I told my dispatcher what happened. He DID cuss this time. And found me a third truck.

A careful inspection, and then a weary time moving all my stuff into the new truck (at least it was only the second time--let's hear it for paranoia). And off I went, arriving at the customer only six hours late for the pickup.

Fortunately, the trailer was already loaded. I hooked up, connected the air and electric lines, and inspected the trailer.

One of the running lights was missing.

I suppose, strictly speaking, this might not seem to be a big deal. But the various state DOT's don't grade safety equipment on a curve. And this was happening right at the beginning of their annual safety drive--what is sometimes called "DOT rectal exam week."

Some other time of the year, I might get off with a warning. Might. Not this week. Someone with a badge looks at that trailer tonight, I could be in big trouble.

So I call Breakdown. And wait for a reply. The wheels of God, etc. Eventually, they tell me that, since the terminal shop is closed for the night, I'll have to run about twenty miles to a certain truck stop, there to have the light replaced.

So, off I go to the truck stop garage. Fill out the papers. And call breakdown for authorization. Which is where I am now. Waiting to see whether the shop can get the trailer fixed before I run out of hours.

Ah, someone just picked up. I'll be driving all night after all.

A little more catching up

2010-05-29T23:36:00.001-04:00

05/11/2010

Further catching up

2010-05-28T22:11:00.003-04:00

A few more back entries.

4/25/10
4/30/10
5/2/10

Things you don't plan for

2010-05-27T21:54:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the long gap here. My last post was dated May 6, as you may know. (Any posts between then and now were me filling in from my notes.) And that one was itself a filler of sorts--the last post before that was April 14.

Most of that gap was entirely my own fault--I was spending a lot of my home time running in circles when I could have been at my computer. But I'm not going to take the blame for the latest delay.

It's a long story. The short form is: When I got back from my last run I learned that my wife had died while I was gone. Since then I've been dealing with funeral arrangements, preparations to move out of my present lodgings (our former lodgings), and all the other confusing and distracting things that accompany a complete change in how one's world works.

I'm going to try to fill in some of the gaps from the last week or three as I find time. In a week or so I hope to be on the road again (I need the money...) Meanwhile, I think I'll go back and try to figure out what I'm doing tomorrow.

Talk to you later.

p.s.
Before I found my bed I put in a couple of those updates:

04/21/2010
04/23/2010

Maybe more later. Tomorrow kind of later...

Could have been noisy

2010-05-11T20:17:00.002-04:00

The "driver's lounge" at the old factory today belonged in a movie. From the thirties. And I might should have been carrying a torch.

Gloom. Emptiness. I would say it felt like a scene from a ghost town, but I've been in abandoned houses. Neglect is more disturbing.

But it had a restroom. With a working, effective ventilator. I can forgive a lot, for that.

My load was wastepaper, packed all the way to the back of the trailer. Not very dense--I think it was rigid packing material. When I checked in, they gave me a three-foot chain. Heavy chain, with a big hook on each end. Numbered, so they'd know whom to accuse if I ran off with it.

I asked what it was for. They told me. I raised an eyebrow, but it did make sense. So I took the chain, got back in the truck, and threaded my way through the complex to find my dock. Once there, I lined up with the door, locked the brakes, and went around the back to open the trailer.

But before I actually undid the "bolts," I hooked that chain up. One end hooked to the padlock hasp on each door. So if the load had shifted and was leaning on the doors, they couldn't fly open and let the pallets fall out.

Fibber McGee's closet has been around for so long that people my age don't know who Fibber McGee is. They've even done a variation on it in Star Trek. It's funny. As long as the closet is full of aluminum cookware or tribbles. When it's 1,000 lb bales, the joke loses something.

My load was fine, so I took the chain off and backed on in. But things could have been different. And this company had thought about it.

I think I'll forgive them for the lousy driver's lounge.

Downhill all the way

2010-05-06T21:41:00.000-04:00

(Apologies for the gap--things at home have been interesting. I'll try to fill in next week...)

The weather has been beautiful today. Blue skies, dry roads. Passing through Nashville on the Interstates, you'd never suspect all the flooding.

The flooding's there, apparently. My mother-in-law lives 20 or 30 miles east of here. One of her neighbors had a wheelbarrow float into his barnyard. My father lives about another hour or two east of her. He spent the night with my brother because he couldn't get to his house without a boat.* But apparently the Interstates are on high ground. I haven't even been inconvenienced.

Under the circumstances I would feel silly complaining about much of anything. So I'll just toss off the most exciting thing that happened today.

Between Nashville and Chattanooga I had my first real taste of the good old days of trucking. Monteagle. Three or four miles of 6% grade. With no engine brake.

I've discussed jake brakes before. And I may have mentioned how much easier they make mountain driving.** But much of that was theoretical. My training included a few steep downhills, but no mountains. And in two years with this company, I've always had the engine brakes working when I was way up there. Being scared on a long downhill was something that happened to other truckers.

That is no longer the case.

Here's a point I may not have made clear before. You've probably taken a car down a steep grade before. A bit interesting, perhaps, but not that scary. Then again, stopping at a red light isn't all that scary for you either. Just take your foot off the gas and you start to slow down.

That's because of the way a gasoline engine works. Your accelerator doesn't just control how much fuel gets into the cylinders--it controls how much air gets in, too. Take your foot off the gas, and all of a sudden the engine is trying to breathe through a straw. Which means turning the engine becomes hard work.

Well, a diesel engine (for reasons that would take a while to explain) never restricts the air coming into the cylinders. When you let off the accelerator, all you cut off is the fuel. Slowing down in a diesel truck isn't quite like coasting, but it's close.

The various engine brake systems basically try to make a diesel pretend it's a gas engine. One way or another, they make the engine work at moving air in and out. Work, as in "use up energy." Energy that would otherwise speed the truck up.

If you don't have a working engine brake, a 77,000-pound tractor-trailer on a 5-6% downhill slope 4 miles long is scarier than I thought it was.

I took the slope at about half the speed I usually do. I was careful with the (regular) brakes, using the techniques they taught me back in CDL school to keep them from overheating. And still I could smell overheated linings. And I had to stop twice because I'd used up all the air in my air brake system.

This was not fun.

But I got down. And I made it the rest of the way to Atlanta. And now I'm at home, feeling dreadfully pleased to be alive.

My fellow truckers are unimpressed. A few more trips like and I might be too. Not yet, though...
-----
*The house was ok--there just wasn't a road from him to his house...

**Oh, yeah. I did.

Avoiding boredom

2010-05-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

Illinois is dry and pleasant. Nashville was not. Heavy rain. And apparently a history of it.

I came around a curve on the Interstate and saw a nice little pond covering ALL of the left lane. Several inches deep. At least.

Brake hard. Let go. Brake hard. LET GO!!!

Hit the puddle.

Laugh at yourself for calling it that. If you have time.

Feel the truck rise off the asphalt as the water roars beneath you. Feel it start to drift and yaw.

Steer gently. Hope you still have some rubber on the road.

Stay off the brake! The only thing worse than the excessive speed* would be a wheel locking up just at this moment.

I lost about 20 mph in less than a hundred feet. And about ten pounds. Then the wheels found solid something or other. Real steering. Slow acceleration. A gentle shift to a center lane--suddenly the crown of the road seemed like a good place to be.

***

Climbed out of Tennessee, crossed Kentucky. The rain faded, the roads dried.

And then the construction. Traffic slowed.

And abruptly stopped.

I was hanging back, but not (as it turns out) nearly enough. I hit the brakes, but not really hard enough. And came to a stop about 3 feet from the car in front.

I would have gotten stopped sooner, but there was another 18-wheeler right behind me. And I mean right behind me. I kept easing up on the brakes to give him the opportunity not to rear-end me.

When I came to a stop (three feet from the car in front of me, if you recall) I looked behind me. I couldn't see the tractor trailer behind me at all. But I could see its shadow. He was closer to my bumper than I was to the four-wheeler.

And I'm sure a good heart attack was had by all.

-----
*It wasn't excessive two seconds ago...

Distracted driving: Not exactly a trucking story...

2010-04-30T21:34:00.001-04:00

I'm at home right now. So it's hard to come up with good trucking stories in the present tense. But a trucker does drive, even at home. So...

We've had a little bit of a rat problem at the house lately. And the wife doesn't like killing the cute little things. So I set a live trap when I'm home. And when it catches something, I take it to some properly deserted place, far far away.

I was engaged in this pleasant task today, driving sedately through town (and out the other side) toward an empty lot which will remain nameless, when I had to make a quick stop at a red light. A block or two later, I heard a rustling in the back. Looking back, I see the clutter in the seat. And the trap.

Empty.

As best I can tell, the trap rolled over when I hit the brakes. And when it's on its side, the mechanism that keeps the trap doors shut doesn't engage any more. I actually figured that out at the time, but it was kind of a background thing. I wasn't really thinking about trap mechanisms just then.

I was thinking about driving with a live rat rummaging around in my floorboard.

Things worked out. I even managed to pass a police officer looking fairly nonchalant. He didn't look at me twice, anyway.

Being a truck driver has given me a certain amount of practice driving safely while distracted. Did it help? I don't know. It didn't hurt, anyway...

Sunday go to meeting

2010-04-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

I may make it to church again.

Got my load info late last night. It doesn't pick up until tomorrow. So I have too much time again.

Shower. Shave. Leisurely breakfast. Then an equally leisurely run to a truck stop near the shipper. I've got over a thousand miles to cover before Wednesday morning, so no sense in delaying the first 50. But that's all the miles I CAN make today.

That being the case, I asked someone at the truck stop last night. He said he knew of one church within walking distance. If you call a mile or better "walking distance." I do, so I've got somewhere to go this morning.

***

Attended Mass at the Catholic church that two different people told me was the only church I could theoretically reach on foot. Nice enough place. Pretty young lady in white, all ready for her First Communion, with her family fussing over her the way you might expect. She took it well.

Took another route back. Passed a Baptist church on the way. A little more my style. And I think it was closer. Sigh.

But no matter. I did get to church. No complaints.

***

Got back to the rig, drove the 40-50 miles to a large truck stop within striking distance of my pickup tomorrow. Walked through the beginnings of rain to the main building. Where I found three earnest men and two earnest boys in the main corridor. All in suits.

I ended up being the entire congregation for the service they'd come to hold in the TV lounge. The earnest boys teamed up to make sure I had a Bible and a hymnbook. The youngest and most earnest of the men preached the sermon. Burger King as a metaphor for the lure of the world. ("Have It Your Way" and pay the penalty later...)

I'm not laughing, by the way. He didn't do a bad job of making his point. Just giving you an idea of what you can see when you're out here.

All in all, a fairly restful day--as a trucker's day goes. Which, of course, means it wasn't an especially profitable one. But I can handle that once in a while.

Drop and...and...and...

2010-04-23T22:13:00.000-04:00

There are days when I almost understand what drives a painter crazy.

Northbound through the Appalachians, and there's color. So much of it. Too many shades I don't have names for.

And that's just the greens.

The afternoon sun changes things. Shadows change the texture of the hills. The trees seem to pop out of the hillsides as if I were driving a ViewMaster(tm).

Remember ViewMaster's(tm)? The binocular-looking 3-D picture viewers? If so, did you ever notice how even the photos of real places gave you the uneasy feeling you were looking at models? 3-D was their big selling point, so they emphasized it. They spaced their cameras much further apart than your eyes could ever be. Everything was TOO three-dimensional, as if you were a giant, or the mountain was made of plastic and six inches tall.

Mountain sunsets in spring can have the same effect sometimes. Spooky.

Nice relaxing day. Unfortunately. I got to my destination early in the afternoon, dropped the loaded trailer--and discovered they had no empties. And no idea when they'd get one. There were at least two other trucks from my company parked out front waiting for one. Joy.

So I told my dispatcher. He canceled my next load. Hard to load a trailer I don't have. And I sat.

Three hours later, he found me another load. Right where I was. They didn't have any empties, but they did have loaded trailers going elsewhere. So back I went, past the gate and into the huge parking lot. There I found the trailer I'd been assigned. Hooked up, pulled out--and nearly ran over a nice elderly couple driving aimlessly through the secured trailer lot.

There they were, sitting in their middle-aged Chrysler, neatly dressed, rigidly erect, driving solemnly in circles like an American Gothic car commercial. I braked just in time. I don't think they noticed.

A hundred or so yards down, two yard dogs blocked their path, and one of the drivers got out to ask what they needed.

By the time they got back to the gate I was on my way out. I never did find out what they needed. Or how they got past the gate guards...

Trucks haul a lot of things

2010-04-21T22:07:00.000-04:00

Three examples...

***

On a South Carolina Interstate, I passed a flatbed stacked with palmetto trees. The tops were cut off and the roots bagged,the trunks stacked like logs on the trailer.

I presume they're meant for planting somewhere. I hope they're hardy things.

***

At a truck stop I looked across the street and saw a car hauler full of Geek Squad patrol cars. A dozen or so PT Cruisers, all ready to go rescue poor computer owners like me.

***

In the evening I parked in another truck stop's parking lot, about three slots down from a yacht.

Sloop or cutter. Not new, but in good shape. Fin keel, but not a modern one.

The Aquila, out of Baltimore.

***

Not deep, but hey...

Wisdom for the day

2010-04-14T19:24:00.001-04:00

This one will be mercifully short.

Lovely day, across Tennessee and Kentucky. Mountains and hills, bare trees but dogwoods in full flower. Then plains with some kind of purple-flowered tree, lining the road. Then Indiana, hills becoming plains and the ever-growing windmill forest.

Now I'm stopped, an hour from Chicago and over six hundred miles from where I started. I'll be up before four in the morning if I'm to make my delivery on time (the new and improved “on time,” that is—I just found out what it is).

I'm wiped. But rational.

So. I'm waiting for a shower. When they have one I'll take it and then fall down.

Meanwhile, here's a little something I saw on the back of a passing truck. Maybe a company motto.

(Rough quote)

A professional driver is one who stays out of trouble, and helps the other driver do the same.

Made me sit up and watch my driving for a good hour. Maybe more.

2010-04-13T19:53:00.001-04:00

The rest area/Welcome Center in Clearbranch, Tennessee, is kind of nice, once you get used to the smell.

It's very new. The mortised, squared logs are still sharp at the edges. The stone walls are likewise pristine. You can still see the gridlines in the recently-sodded grass around it.

Inside, the newness is even more obvious. Everything's spotless and shiny and fresh. The rocking chairs have not been sat in enough to start molding themselves to the average human bottom. They haven't even started losing their varnish yet. I was almost afraid I wasn't supposed to sit in them. The fireplace they were arranged around had obviously never seen a fire.

The view is impressive, too. This stretch of mountaintop Interstate is still trying to decide if it's spring, but the mountains are lovely. Of course, it's hard to find an ugly piece of scenery in the Appalachians, but still.

Didn't see a lot wildflowers yet. Might not have noticed anyway. The nose wouldn't at any rate. The truck parking area has a perfume all its own.

Overheated brakes.

Don't know whether people push their trucks too hard or if jake brakes are still too new, but even at this hour the sharp aroma of hot brake linings lends a certain sharp edge to the evening experience. As soon as one set cools down the next truck gratefully comes to a stop and adds its own contribution.

It could be worse. It was, for at least one driver. A flatbed I passed half an hour ago, on a downhill slop, riding my jakes for all they were worth. I looked back in my mirror a little later and saw him. And the huge cloud of smoke that followed him. One of my neighbors here at the rest area says he passed him shortly after I did. Rolled down the window to tell him how bad his brakes were.

“I know!” was the answer. My neighbor said the driver looked terrified.

I don't blame him.

I-40 on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee is an interesting drive anyway. But you can't make it now. Last year a major rockslide blocked the whole thing, right around the border. They're still trying to clear it. Meanwhile, you detour up I-26 into southern Virginia, then back down I-81 to Knoxville. Not as many curves, but more hills.

And more miles. When I told my boss I could make it to Chicago by tomorrow night, I didn't take those hills into account. Nor did I (or my boss) consider the size of that detour.

Hope they aren't going to be too disappointed.

Another of my neighbors has a very different brake problem. His trailer brakes locked up and he can't get them to release. He's driving a car hauler, on its way to an auto show in Pigeon Forge, if his trailer will ever roll.

His cargo?

A late-sixties Ford Falcon.
A 1930 Ford Tudor coupe.
A 1940 Ford two-door sedan.
And three Mustangs. Two of them are Mach 1's.

All of them properly “improved,” of course. He had quite an audience for a while, until it got too dark to take pictures and ogle.

And suck in your gut a little...

2010-04-12T19:54:00.000-04:00

South Georgia. Green with splashes of white—the dogwoods are out in force.

Spent much of the day on two-lanes, past pecan plantations and other big flat farms, or passing through tree-lined passages that sometimes seemed tunnel-like.

Rounded a curve at one point and saw a police car at the crest of the next hill, all blue and flashing. A line of cars backed up in front of him. A tractor-trailer pulling clear off the road behind them.

The driver of the semi got out and waved at me. I stopped well short, in case he was telling me I'd have to pull some fancy maneuver. He came over, and I learned I was right. He said he thought the police car was escorting a wide load. That's why he'd pulled off onto the shoulder, to make room for whatever was coming.

Sounded good to me. So I pulled off the road, too.

The shoulder was wide and grassy and solid. You don't see that very often, on back-country two-lanes. The usual foot of crumbly gravel next to the two-foot drainage ditch could have been bad. It occurred to me that the police car may have stopped everybody here because of that. I hope so—always nice when somebody does something sensible.

Then I didn't have to wonder about some of this. Here it came.

It was a double-wide modular house. Or maybe triple-wide. Whatever it was, it took up the whole highway. Literally. A man was walking in front of the semi-tractor, waving it left and right, as the rig slowly weaved to avoid the mailboxes.

Then it stopped to let us by.

I suppose it would be a lot easier for us to slip by the house than for the driver and his flagman to try and slip by us. But I was even more grateful, as I crawled along, for that wide grass shoulder and the near absence of a ditch.

That was the exciting part of the day. All I really needed, anyway.

A day in the life

2010-04-06T19:43:00.001-04:00

My first 90-degree day for the year.

In South Carolina it's all flowers and full spring greenery. Pretty driving.

I could have been in a better mood for it. My satcom had flaked out while I was sitting in the terminal waiting for my load assignment. By the time I'd figured out it wasn't sending or receiving messages and wasn't telling me anything was wrong, it was too late to get to the shipper. And the shipper and my employer didn't get together quite soon enough to let me know the wouldn't load me late. So I was harried as I drove down here and disappointed when I arrived.

And hot. Let's not forget hot.

There weren't any pay phones within walking distance of the only truck stop in the area. That's getting more and more common. But a nice fellow at the Waffle House down the street loaned me his cell, so my wife knows I'm alive.

Kind of embarrassing. I mentioned that I didn't have money for a cell phone contract. He thought I meant I didn't have money at all, and offered to buy me a meal. Turned out he was a trucker himself, home for a few days and knew what it was like to be days from home with no cash.

Free food is good, but false pretenses do something to the taste. So I corrected the impression. He still insisted on buying me a cup of coffee. And he and his wife and I talked awhile. Trucker stuff, you know—which companies are worth driving for, lousy roads we have known, the latest brilliant ideas in motor vehicle regulation, etc.

At one point he said something about how we should just stop driving for a week, and let the country see what they were risking. I said I doubted it would ever happen—if the independent truckers were able to act collectively to that extent, they'd already be in a union. The lack of organizers is one of the things they like about this job, I opined.

Deep stuff. You know.

At length his wife took the car home, he bobtailed his tractor behind her, and I walked back up the hill to my overly-warm truck. The truck stop didn't have a place to sit inside, so I went to bed nice and early and tried to read myself to sleep. Didn't work.

So I wrote this. Now let's try it again.

Hey, Andy! Where'd that tree come from?

2010-04-05T19:29:00.001-04:00

Spring is still working on Pennsylvania, but down in Virginia it's getting out-and-out green.

It's almost there in PA—so much red tinting it looks like fall through, uh, those amber-tinted driving glasses that don't have a major brand name. But cross the Alleghenies, and the temperature goes up ten degrees and the green is everywhere. The trees still LOOK bare, but the green tint has taken over from the red. The hills know what color they are now.

I'm on a stretch of US-220 that's gone full-house limited access. Signs proclaim it the “future I-73 corridor.” This section could lacks only the name change. But it's a 40-mile roller-coaster ride, even now. I find myself thinking of what driving through these, um, hills when it was all two-lane.

Remembering an episode of Andy Griffith, of all things. As I recall, the Sheriff's office somehow got hold of a motorcycle with sidecar, and Barney got massively excited. He started running a speed trap at the bottom of a steep hill just outside Mayberry, ticketing every trucker that broke the speed limit getting a running start to climb it. Within a week everyone in town was spending their nights awake, listening to roaring diesels, as an endless string of backed-up 18-wheelers took turns climbing that hill at a walking pace in low gear. Andy finally had to take steps.

As a kid, I didn't really understand the problem...

At about that point in my musings, traffic slowed to a stop in front of me. The Future I-73 Corridor had become a parking lot.

Not as bad as some. A tree had fallen across the highway, blocking both lanes. If I had to sit in a highway going nowhere, it was kind of nice not to wonder if anyone was dead up there.

About half an hour later they'd cut the top of the tree out and opened the left lane. By that time it was too late to legally get to the terminal I was bound for. So I found a truck stop (was surprised by it, actually. Another three seconds and I would have missed the turn) and settled in.

Nothing deep here. Just driving and musing and resting. Think I'll concentrate on that last part now.

G'nite.

Quiet Sunday

2010-04-04T18:28:00.003-04:00

For some reason nobody felt like loading my truck on Easter Sunday. So I went to church.

A kind soul at the truck stop pointed toward the nearest town last night. So this morning I cashed in a shower, put on the most presentable clothes I had in the truck (don't ask), and walked about--half a mile? A mile?--to find a place to worship.

Not my denomination, but when you're walking through a completely new town looking for a church door, it doesn't pay to be too picky.

Little church. Nice people. Lovely weather. No complaint.

*****

Walked back out after lunch. Coming out the first time, I saw a building I daydreamed a little about. A squat, two-story stone house with a pagoda roof. The lower floor was tall, the upper floor all windows.

From the look of it, it had once been the railroad equivalent of a control tower. Now it was a ruin, the wood slowly rotting away while the stone shell sat there. I found myself imagining spending boatloads of money to move it somewhere and put in an interior. On a hilltop, maybe, with that wall of windows (three walls, actually—only the back wall was more or less solid) looking over some valley.

An office and a living room, maybe. I read something once that advocated putting day space upstairs and sleeping quarters on the ground floor (for fire escape if nothing else). This building would be perfect for that.

Since I couldn't buy it from the railroad, I just came back with a sketchbook. No great work of art, but it was a nice quiet way to spend a bit of afternoon.

Someone at the church had said he had a relative who'd tried to talk the railroad out of it. They weren't interested. Too bad.

* * *

After I finished playing artist I got a bit closer. Then I understood.

It would be a truly luxurious 1-bedroom cottage. But it was built in 1918. In reinforced concrete, cast in place. If I were to buy it, I'd probably have to hire a Green Lantern to move it.

But what a bachelor pad...

* * *

And thence to a playground. Little kids running all over the slide doing stupid things and laughing like idiots. One older girl on her bike very much on her dignity. I wonder what she'd have been doing without witnesses.

Ah. Youth.

And it's downhill from there...

2010-04-03T20:43:00.000-04:00

So. You're coming down a hill. Your speed builds a bit, and you don't always notice it. Not until the car in front of you gets closer. Quickly.

You tap the brake, trying to keep your distance—the last second is not the time to even things out. You glance at the speedo. 5 mph over. Not that bad. So why are you closing so fast?

You look around. The fellow up there must have let off the gas for a reason, right? And that's when you see the police car.

Oops.

5 mph over on a downhill slope isn't a big deal. But if he wants to make it one he can. And you did slow down. Sign of guilt, right?

Sure enough, he pulls out of the median and swings in behind you.

This is a big thing. A commercial driver lives or dies by his record. With the company. With the police. You've gotten two tickets in the past two years, and you've spent close to a thousand on legal fees and such, keeping your DMV record more or less intact. There really isn't a minor ticket if you're a trucker.

Well, nothing for it. Here he comes.

And there he goes.

The lights come on three cars ahead. Apparently somebody was paying less attention than you were.

You can breathe now.

I said you can breathe now!

That's better.

Roller coasters ain't what they used to be

2010-04-03T20:37:00.001-04:00

The red glaze is still on the mountains.

At this point the painter's done a bit of daubing--there's more texture. Individual trees with an almost-invisible color that just suggests the shape to come. As if the artist was playing with a cotton ball.

From the Arkansas flood plains through the hills and plateaus of Kentucky yesterday, and over the West Virginia mountains today. And I do mean "over."

One does see the country, at least.

I don't remember taking this stretch of Interstate before. The really interesting part was the 13-mile stretch of 6% downhill grade.* Occasional level spots, but mostly downhill.

That's more of a slope than it sounds. When I was young, the trip down would have involved a slow, careful, crawling pace and the sharp smell of overheated brakes. Even if the load was fairly light, like this one. The runaway truck ramps would be a source of gratitude even if you didn't have to use them this time.

Now? I dropped two gears and flipped two switches. One activated the jake brakes. The other set my cruise control at 45.

Then I just sat there. Every time the speed got close to 50, the cruise control engaged the jake. When the speed dropped a bit, it turned the jake off.

I never touched the brakes at all. I didn't have to.

"Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas" was based on a real incident. Not funny to the people involved. And not that atypical at the time, I understand. I've been taught how to avoid that kind of accident, and how to deal with it if the brakes do overheat and fail. But I've never even been close to having to deal with it for real.

Spoiled, we are.

-----
*For those who don't drive jeeps or 18-wheelers, a "percent" in this context means the percentage of a 1/1 slope. On a 1% grade, for every 100 feet you drive, you've gone downhill a foot. A 100% grade would be a 45-degree downhill slope.

When you ____, you make an _ out of _ and __.

2010-04-01T19:23:00.001-04:00

What a difference two weeks can make.

Last time I took I40 through Arkansas, the trees were still almost winter-dead. Just that faint glaze of color (mostly red) that says the buds are starting to swell.

Now the trees are definitely alive. An occasional burst of white punctuates a vista that seems to still be deciding what color spring will be. Looks like green is winning out as usual, but the other colors are still making their claims. We'll see how it comes out.

Had to run the air conditioner today. Last week I needed a jacket and hat still. The times they are a'changing.

I brought 45,000 pounds of something-or-other into Arkansas. It almost got stopped before I left Georgia.

Scaling a load costs money. The people who have truck scales charge you to use them. As a general rule, expect to spend $9, plus another dollar each time you have to try again. My company reimburses me when the load is heavy enough, but if your bank account's thin it's still scary.

The load started out in North Carolina somewhere. Before I got it, it had passed weigh stations in three states. Obviously it was all right on that score.

Obviously. But overweight fines are scarier than scale tickets. So after a bit of dithering, I went to a truck stop and scaled the load.

The drive wheels were about 400 pounds over. With the fuel tanks only half full.

This, I thought, was bad. I'd looked the trailer over before I took it, and I'd taken a quick glance at the wheel position. Looked like the tandems were all the way forward already. And if the previous driver hadn't scaled the load, then the wheels probably would be all the way forward.*

But what the heck. I went back and looked again.

And lo! The wheels were almost all the way back. I had three holes** to play with! I was saved!

I still didn't have enough leeway to fuel. But I could get to the customer, if I was careful. I could live with that.

Just goes to show you--oh. I already put that in the title.

-----
*The further back the wheels, the more weight on the trailer and the less on the trucks drive wheels. And the longer the wheelbase. And the harder to get the rig around corners...

**The holes the locking pins mate with. Moving the locking pins one hole will (as a rough rule of thumb) move about 250 pounds from the trailer wheels to the tractor's drive wheels.

A light in the darkness

2010-03-26T20:58:00.004-04:00

It snowed last night.

Found a tiny bit on the truck hood when I got up this morning. A tiny bit--if I'd waited for daylight I might not have seen it. But snow. End of March. Almost in Kentucky.

Mine was the only truck I saw it on. I suspect I'm the only one who hadn't idled the truck during the night At 39 degrees I might have, if I'd wanted to sleep longer...

But I went my merry way instead. Got slowed down a bit about halfway to Tennessee. Nothing on my side of the road, but northbound traffic on the Interstate was blocked. All lanes.

A tractor-trailer was lying across the road.

On its side.

Burning.

The trailer was almost gone--the top of it, anyway. The tractor was still recognizable, its nose pressed against the rock wall, its wheels dangling in the air. A silhouette in the steady ball of flame that surrounded it.

Just like in the movies.

I only remember seeing the lights from one emergency vehicle. Don't know what it was except that it wasn't a police car. I didn't look for details. Just crawled on past until the road cleared ahead of me and went on.

Hoping the driver got out.

Trying not to imagine if he didn't.

(3/27)
I'm sitting in a rundown gravel parking lot outside a factory that's notorious for taking all night to get around to loading you. I haven't been able to call my wife in two days (long story). Might not tonight, either.

I was starting to get annoyed with the situation. So I sat down to update the journal. And wrote the above.

I think I'll stop complaining. For now.

Oh, yeah. That place.

2010-03-25T20:53:00.000-04:00

Last time I was here it was snowing and miserable. Today it's raining and miserable.

On the other hand, it's still daylight out, and I found a pull-through parking space. Any time I'm not backing into a slot in the dark is a good end to a drive. Especially if it's not snowing.

I have now reached the point of pulling into truck stops and saying "oh, yeah. I remember this parking lot." There are some factories that fit in the same category.

Not to say the whole country is my back yard, mind you. I saw a bit more variety back when I was spending three and four weeks out here at a time, though even then I never got farther west than Texas. Now that I'm only out seven or eight days at once, I tend to get into ruts.

Illinois, New Jersey, and (oddly enough) Arkansas have started feeling kind of homelike lately. The Carolina's are pretty comfortable, too. Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Virginia's see a fair bit of me, along with Pennsylvania--but mostly because they're on the way to those other places.

I've gotten to where I casually speculate on how many new windmills I'll see as I pass through Indiana. Or if they've moved that dumpster that made backing into a certain dock so interesting. It's almost comforting.

Odd how one's neighborhood can grow.

Deep thoughts

2010-03-24T19:49:00.000-04:00

Spring in Michigan. Still looks like winter. Doesn't sound like it, though. Or feel like it.

The truck stop here has no phone. My wife may not know I'm still alive until lunchtime tomorrow.

Nothing within walking distance worth walking to.

But the hog trucks have left the parking lot. So all's right with the world.

Some days that's as profound as it gets.

Road hog, beep beep...

2010-03-23T21:06:00.000-04:00

700 miles today. Nearly 11 hours. On a day like this things can run together a bit. One thing did stand out, though.

A guy pulling a utility trailer up passed me about lunchtime. He swung back into the right lane about 100 feet ahead of me--and promptly slowed down about 3 mph.

It pretty short order (immediately, in fact) I started getting nervous about the tailgating potential. So I swung into the left lane myself.

He promptly sped up.

In about thirty seconds he was a safe distance ahead of me. And the traffic was building up behind me. So I swung back into the right lane behind him.

He promptly slowed back down.

I gritted my teeth for a minute or two, and then swung out again. And he sped up again.

Three or four cars I swung back in. And he slowed down.

And so on.

I would have been happier if I'd thought he was doing it on purpose. But I suspected he just wasn't watching his speed. When I pulled out to pass he'd suddenly notice he'd slowed down. Then he'd speed up just enough to keep ahead. And as soon as I was behind him again, he'd let his mind wander once more.

Less than fun. And for all I could tell, slowing down would just slow him down too. Sigh.

At length I tried to pass one more time. He pulled away from me again. But this time he kept his speed up. I watched until he was a good six seconds way, and then pulled back in. And this time he stayed a safe distance ahead.

So I pulled back into the right lane. And let the cars pass me in large numbers.

One driver gave me the finger as he went by. Of course. It's always our fault.

Careful drivers on every side

2010-03-16T20:32:00.000-04:00

And here I thought it was spring.

The temperature dropped ten degrees from one side of Arkansas to the other. It was still in the 50's, though, so I shouldn't complain.

At one point I got slowed down a bit. Two cars had scattered pieces of each other across both lanes of the interstate. An ambulance on the scene, both cars on the side, debris everywhere.

One car appeared to have spun out, its driver's side door smashed in. The driver looked to be conscious, though.

The other seemed to have hit a tree. Maybe it had just stopped short of one, though—with the bushes surrounding it I couldn't tell for sure.

As I moved carefully past on the shoulder, two cars cut in front of me.

For the want of a nail...

2010-03-15T19:51:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I did a little sketching.

Nothing impressive—a small landscape study. Tiny, really. But it's more than I've done in a while. I don't get much practice in. I usually don't have time.

This weekend I had plenty.

(warning: boring explanations ahead)

The load on the back wheels of a semi-tractor can vary from less than 10,000 lbs to some 34,000.* That's a lot of variation. So, many modern trucks have an air spring system that automatically adjusts itself to keep the suspension more or less balanced. Part of that system involves keeping the load divided evenly between the two drive axles. That part of the job is handled by a gadget about the size of my palm, called a leveling valve. When it stops working properly, Bad Things Happen.

As I drove down the road the other day, I started noticing a familiar obnoxious noise. A roaring sound that seemed to come from the transmission, every time I let off the gas (or the governor did the same). It was familiar because I've had a truck do this to me before. The leveling valve was over-inflating the air springs.

This had several effects on the truck. The two most obvious ones were:

The tractor-trailer had the kind of ride you'd expect from something with absolutely no give in the suspension. Ever hear of a small wagon called a buckboard? How about a primitive bicycle called a boneshaker? But perhaps I exaggerate.
The over-inflation of the bags messed up the weight distribution between the drive axles. It fact, it tried to lift one set off the ground. I don't thing it succeeded, but it did throw them out of line vertically. And that threw the drive shaft out of alignment. Thus all the noise. The fact that it also put strain on the entire drive train is just a bonus...

Obviously I needed to get the valve replaced. Unfortunately, by the time I could get in touch with the Breakdown Dept., the weekend had come upon us. And the company shops didn't have that part. They'd have to get it from the manufacturer. And this manufacturer's service centers don't open on the weekend.

The first fellow I talked to in Breakdown (on Friday night) told me to try a few tricks to get the valve working. I spent the next day trying them. The helped a bit. For a while. Then, about halfway through Saturday I was back where I started.

The fellow I spoke to Saturday told me to call back when I knew where I'd be on Monday. Then they would figure out where I could take the truck to get it fixed. Made sense. So I started east, shutting down that night in Atoka, Oklahoma.

Sometime that night I got an idea where I would be going next. So I called Breakdown and told the third guy I'd talked to about the problem and where I'd be Monday. He said, “Who told you to keep driving the truck in that condition? You STAY RIGHT THERE!”

Then he called the manufacturer's service department. Who called a local shop. Who sent a man in a service truck.

Who arrived late that night. And confirmed that I needed a new leveling valve. And that he didn't have one.

Sigh.

So someone came out yesterday and took my trailer on to its destination. And I sat here all day.

This morning I learned that the nearest service center that had a leveling valve in stock was in Oklahoma City. So the service truck went to get it. A hundred and twenty miles. Each way.

Sigh again.

So I sat most of the day today. I wandered around the Wal-Mart. I drew a picture. I reread both the books I brought with me this trip. I did other things I no longer remember.

And about dinnertime the man in the service truck returned. Half an hour later the truck was fixed. Soon after that I got a new load assignment and started north. I could have driven all night, but I don't like to do that. And I might have had trouble timing my pickup. So I found a truck stop at the Arkansas border and took my break.

A hundred miles or so, in two days. Because of a valve the size of my palm. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. I'll try to figure it out in the morning.
-----
*This assumes, of course, a legally loaded truck. Careless loading or a special permit can result in more weight back there.

You know you're in a small town when--

2010-03-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

-you walk in the front door of the Wal-Mart and you can see the back wall.

--you are crossing the parking lot of said Wal-Mart and you walk past a pickup truck with a trailer. And in the back of the trailer are three dogs. And a horse. Saddled, bridled, ready to ride. Lariat hung on the saddle. Three more hanging on hooks in the trailer walls.

--you wander past a restaurant and look at the fliers taped to the window. And you wonder. What's a hog baying? You're invited to one next week.

I'm sitting in a truck stop parking lot, looking across the highway at cattle grazing on rolling hills. This is Atoka, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation. After reviewing the other things I saw before I settled down for the evening, I have come to the conclusion that I'm probably in a small town.

Believe it or not, this is not sarcastic. I live in Atlanta, and I'm comfortable there. But I grew up in a town like this. In Tennessee. It's almost like coming home.

Except for the hog baying. Not sure what to make of that...

What you do on a Friday night

2010-03-12T08:04:00.003-05:00

The Pilot* in Benton, AR is within walking distance of a shopping center. This is a rare gift.

Not a mall. That's a really rare gift. But a Target and a Best Buy and a Petco and a few other stores. That's enough. Window shopping is as good a way to pass the time as many.

I've mentioned the difference between seeing the world and visiting it. It's a good thing window-shopping and people-watching can entertain me.

I don't bring my guitar—my wife gave it to me. At first I feared rough handling. Now I fear theft. Even with my present financial status, laptops are more expendable than expensive gifts from your wife.

Laptops are pretty common among truckers these days. And a lot of truck stops have wi-fi (though it's usually not free. Not yet, anyway.) WORLD OF WARCRAFT and its rivals take up a fair bit of truck-stop bandwidth. I usually write, myself. Each to his own.

Then there's satellite radio, of course. Just about any kind of music you care to name, anywhere you want. Or sports. Or talk. Or almost anything else. My trainer liked old-time radio plays. Me, too—sometimes I write them. But weird as it may seem, I don't often listen to them as I drive. Or music. Or much of anything else. I prefer to concentrate on my driving. Or on my listening. Both at once? No, thanks.

So I read. I write. I people-watch. I window-shop. And I probably think too much.

I certainly talk too much. I think I'll stop now. G'nite.
-----
*A truck stop chain. It qualifies as a “fuel-and-forget” type, but there are a lot of them, and they're usually pretty well run.

GPS: A small correction

2010-03-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

Okay. So some GPS's are pretty neat.

I've discussed slip-seating. And how one of the disadvantages is that you're not in any one truck long enough to live in it. Well, one of the minor advantages is that sometimes you find things you can use, left by the last guy. Not food or clothing, of course, but sometimes something useful.

In this case, the last driver left his GPS stuck to the windshield. And it's not like I can leave the load somewhere and search the city for him. So I figured out how to work it. And I pay more attention to locking the door when I get out of the truck.

This one isn't perfect for truckers. For one thing, it wasn't made for semi's. There's been a bit of scandal lately about truck drivers mindlessly following GPS routing's under low bridges and through residential neighborhoods, etc. The units that know better are kind of pricey. This isn't one of them.

Then there's the display. Four inches across, maybe. A bit squintworthy anyway, even in a car. But a semi-tractor's cab is kind of big. Which means a GPS that's suction-cupped to the windshield is pretty far away. Not always fun to read.

But the display, tiny as it is, is still easier to follow at a glance than the one built into the truck's computer. And the controls make more sense. And it actually has controls—the one in the satcom is programmed by the company, and you don't have a say in where it tells you to go.

And the 3-D display actually works. It's amazing what a real refresh rate does for the view. The moving map really moves. You can tell what's coming.

Ah, but it's not mine. Perhaps just as well. It's like a TV in a sports bar, dragging your eyes away from your food or even your girl. Even if you don't care about sports. Maybe not too bad a thing in a bar. But when what you start ignoring is the road and the traffic, the consequences can go well beyond missing out on a second date.

Guess my feelings are still mixed.

Odds and ends

2010-02-04T19:27:00.001-05:00

There is a brewery next door to Busch Gardens. Guess whose.

For some reason I was surprised. It had occurred to me that the park had something to do with THAT family, but I had never really thought about it. And it hadn't crossed my mind that they might advertise the fact quite that blatantly. Oh, well...

I could see the roller coaster as I pulled into the truck entrance. I drove right by the front gate on the way out. Yet another neat place I couldn't stop and visit. Sigh.

The trailer had a half-flat tire. A quick stop at the truck stop to use the air hose, and we're on our way. Let's hear it for pre-trip inspections. Again.

Drove past Pedro's South of the Border again. Two I-wanna-stop-and-I-can't's in the same day. First time for Pedro's since I actually wrote that post. If they hadn't both been (almost certainly) closed for the season, I'd be more upset.

As it is, it's been a reasonably pleasant day. No great insights this time (assuming there ever are), but no real complaints either.

I'll take it.