Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Southbound again, and I got a shower in. Both reasons to celebrate.

In the "puzzlement" category, I was sitting in a chair facing the Shipping Department window at a warehouse this morning, and the shipping clerk was making faces at me. I have no idea whether she was playing with me, hitting on me, dissing me, or obliviously making faces at nothing. And of course I will never know.

I meet a lot of people for the first and only time these days. Seeing someone twice is becoming a rarity. Within certain limits, I actually enjoy that. But I suspect it would drive some people crazy. And it bothers me, sometimes.

Like the job in general, apparently. On all three counts.

I'm kind of unusual as truckers go, apparently. Most of the drivers I meet claim either to love this job or hate it. Utterly. They never want to do anything else, or else they're about to find a real job and they'll never go near a truck again, DO YOU HEAR ME??!

Me? There are parts of this life I like. Solitude. Scenery. New places and new people every day. And so on.

Other parts I could easily do without. Leaving my wife in solitude. Passing beautiful places and never stopping to see them. Not talking to friends and family for weeks at a time.

For me, it more or less balances it out. I'm okay with the job. And I would cheerfully do something else if the opportunity arose. Other drivers seem to find that odd. The middle of the road is little traveled out here--at least from what I've seen.

Too much thinking

Last night was windy and rainy, with a low of 55.* Today it was overcast, with occasional snow flurries, high of 26.*

400 miles can do a lot.

I've talked about crossing a front before, but it's still a weird feeling. Keeping the heavy coat in arm's reach all the time is a habit I still work at. And hiding in the warehouse until you're unloaded because they won't let you idle the truck still jars, too.

This particular warehouse didn't have a break room, but at least it had a place to sit down. With vending machines nearby. Also a TV, though that's not an attraction for me. This one was a little less painful than some--it was tuned to Telemundo, so I had no idea what was going on most of the time. That makes it less annoying, somehow.

Then the news came on. (I hope the anchor was using her real name. "Maria Celeste" would be a bit over the top even for an actress, in my unenlightened opinion.) And one of the stories included a clip that needed no commentary. Some driver had a camera looking out the windshield (I hope it was a police car) when an SUV just ahead of him suddenly swerved into oncoming traffic (why I don't know). The tractor trailer he was charging ran clear off the road trying to avoid a head-on collision, and almost succeeded. Instead of squashing itself on the semi's bumper, the SUV sideswiped the trailer.

The car scraped along for about half the length of the trailer, grinding every bit of sheet metal off the driver's side, before it caught a corner on something and went spinning back into the middle of the road. The car behind the semi swerved wildly, dodging the tumbling SUV. Which put it right in front of our roving camera crew.

All of a sudden the view out the windshield got real hard to interpret. Everything seemed to be jumping around. Then the clip ended. And they started the clip over again, with different commentary.

I've never seen anything that spectacular. I have seen a few things that were probably as bad or worse, but so far I've always been passing by AFTER it happened. The crash I wrote about here was pretty mild, as they went. This is more like what I'm talking about. (I've seen at least one other truck that completely gone...) I haven't mentioned the time I passed a semi that had apparently left the road, crossed about a hundred yards of grassy right-of-way, and driven straight into an embankment. The dust was still rising around it. Two or three other trucks had apparently been right behind it--they were stopped on the shoulder, and their drivers had bailed out and were running to see if anyone was still alive.

The only time I've actually seen something that bad happen predated my trucking career. I was walking down a street when, a few hundred yards ahead of me, someone stepped out in front of a delivery truck. An instant later he went flying back into the grass.

Like a rag doll.

I've read dozens of stories where someone used that simile. It got to be such a cliche. Then I saw the real thing, and that's exactly what it looked like. Nothing spectacular. Any self-respecting action-flick director would have been embarrassed.

And then the driver got out came back, and had promptly got hysterical. Yelling, waving his arms around, tearing his hair. Melodrama. He'd never make the Oscars.

The truck crammed into that embankment didn't explode properly, either. Odd, how reality makes such bad theater.

Somebody's going to think I'm trying to be cute here. I'm not. Just the opposite, I think. I'm not sure what I'm trying to be.

There's something in my head that I can't bring out properly. Something about how real life and real death aren't spectacular or dramatic. How maybe both drama and spectacle are ways of hiding from the real. How no movie crash, with all its fire and noise and thunderous background music, has ever done to me what that flat, undramatic news clip and those flat, undramatic sights along the road have done. Made me watch the road more carefully, fear for myself and those around me, realize just how easy it would be to die, or kill someone in that other lane.

More philosophy than trucking, I know. Sorry 'bout that. But another thing about this job--you end up thinking too much sometimes.
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*That's degrees Fahrenheit, just so you know...

It was so cold...

One of the many things that can go wrong with a tractor trailer: the brakes (and several other systems) are powered by compressed air. The air comes from the outside world, of course. And that outside air tends to have moisture in it.

It's not uncommon for that moisture to collect in the bottom of the air tanks. If it stays there, you have to worry about it getting into the air lines and blocking valves or actuators at just the wrong times.

So every once in a while you try to get that water out of those air tanks. The truck usually has an "air dryer" to keep the moisture under control, but you don't trust it too much. So you open the little purge valve at the bottom of each tank and let the 100psi air blast out, bringing any water in the bottom of the tank with it. Usually only a teaspoon or so comes out, but that teaspoon of water really Shouldn't Be There, so you smile and nod and tell yourself you haven't wasted your time.

Today I got out of the truck and pulled the wire to open the valve on one of the air tanks. It hissed, and spat, and hissed and spat some more. Then spitting ceased and the hissing steadied down. I smiled and nodded and let go of the cable.

The valve continued to hiss. It wasn't supposed to do that. And if it kept hissing, I wouldn't be able to drive. Air is way too important, on one of these vehicles.

So I reached under the truck and fiddled. I twisted and pulled and pushed and yanked. My fingers started getting numb. Then the valve spit out a piece of ice the size of a BB. And the hissing changed and stopped.

I think I'll let the truck run more tonight. Heat can be a good thing.

Trailersong

Twisty roads through beautiful hill country can be about as frustrating as icy roads through fairyland. Not quite as dangerous, but just about as frustrating.

Same problems. Lovely things to see--a road you mustn't take your eyes off of.

US 231 south of Murfreesboro is beautiful, though--if you're a passenger. Or driving something a bit more manageable.

Twas warm, though. Had to go to short sleeves in the afternoon. Which is, I suppose, why they sent me back north this evening.

Ah. Variety.

Ah, and the wind. Pushing me all over the road when I was driving, playing mournful tunes on the bumper when I was stopped.

Have I mentioned that before? The bumper on the back of a semi-trailer is usually made of heavy steel with a square cross-section and a bunch of holes at top and bottom (to lighten it, I think). When the wind picks up enough, it acts like a pan-pipe. Or a bottle when you blow across the top. A low, mournful hooting, a little like a Japanese flute (shakuhachi fans will probably lynch me for that comparison, but...).

It can be strange, in a parking lot on a windy day, listening to the trailers play melancholy tunes to one another.

Aeolian flutes. Always something new and odd.

Adventures in nourishment

Had something like a hot meal tonight.

Last time I was at Big Lots, I found a 12-volt "coffeepot" at a (for me) barely affordable price. It takes half an hour to heat three cups of water, but it does heat them. And one of its accessories is a little stand, to let you heat baby bottles or the like.

So. The baby-bottle stand, a bag of ready-made seasoned rice (chicken-flavored, in this case--I would name brands, but who knows what might grace the Big Lots shelves next week?), two "tuna-can" size cans of chicken, and voila! It was almost like having dinner!

A couple of companies sell 12-volt cooking gear at truck stops. Most of the items seem kind of silly (a pizza oven on a truck?), but one has always intrigued me--a lunch-box-looking thing halfway between a slow-cooker and an oven. Put together your casserole or pot roast or whatever, put it in the box (in an aluminum-foil tray or an oven bag), and drive for a few hours. It'll be cooked when you park.

(Or drop in a can of soup and drive an hour or so. More realistic for the likes of me)

I still don't have the cash for one of those. But this experiment worked so well...

And oatmeal in the morning! Lovely!

Adventures in refreshment

The oddest things pop up as you're driving. Pop, in this case.

When I was a boy, I had several "favorite" soft drinks. But near the top of the list was something called "Sun Drop." A tart citrus drink, with more flavor to it than 7-up*, (and a caffeine kick, not that a three-year-old would notice that). It's no longer available (that I know of) in West Tennessee (where I lived then), and it's hard to find in Georgia (where I live now), but I grab a bottle whenever I'm in the right truck stops.

Years later, after Sun Drop had disappeared from the stores of my youth, I discovered a substitute. Something called "Mountain Dew."** Sweeter than Sun Drop, but otherwise very like it. Now there were two.***

And just today I've discovered a new addition to the list. It's called "Ski." ("Taste the wake," the can says.) Sweeter than Sun Drop, tarter than Mountain Dew. A worthy addition to the citrus-with-a-kick brigade.

I've never seen it before, so I don't know how widespread it is. I found it in Illinois. Is it available elsewhere? Anybody?
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*The only other citrus drink available at the time. Yes, this was before Sprite. Yes, I'm that old...
**Also in the ancient days, when their ads still made hillbilly jokes.
***Yeah, I know about Mello Yello. I try not to think about it. Tastes like medicine...

Catching up--mostly weather

It's Valentine's Day, and I'm in Kentucky. My wife is in Georgia. Do you see a problem here?

Fortunately I had a little foresight. I got her a little something while I was on the road last week, and gave it to her before I left (truck stops tend to have a fair selection of charming things in stock this time of year--they know what we really need out here...). And I did manage to get a phone call in before bedtime. So she knows I didn't forget. I may live.

Kentucky was nicer to drive through today than it was the last time I passed this way. Here is a "lost entry" from the last time I was here.
*****
(This post was originally written on 1/28.)
A picture-postcard morning.

It started snowing while I was asleep. Looks like there might be an inch on the ground now. Soft and fresh, crunching beneath my feet when I went up to the truck-stop store for my morning necessaries.*

It is SO pretty. I haven't seen snow like this since--I can't remember. Living and growing up in the South has certain shortcomings.

And it's still coming down. And I just might enjoy a lot more of it.

Somebody in the truck-stop store was saying the State Police are chasing people off the Interstate due to road conditions. Especially on a ten-mile stretch of it just south of--guess where.

I may talk about winter driving skills later on. When I've actually done some.
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*They used to call (ahem) sanitary facilities that, a long time ago. Sometimes I'm too literary for my own good.
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(From a little later the same day)
It's not fun driving through such beauty.

Looks like 6-12 inches of snow through much of Indiana. Vistas of white that make me wish I were an artist.

I'm not an artist. I'm a truck driver.

Which means my eyes are glued to the dirty ice, in ruts and slush piles, that covers the road in front of me. Or scanning warily for changes in the road ahead or the traffic around me. All this, and I can't look at it.
=====
...and a little later...
Half-plowed roads are weird. And frustrating. You come up to a car or truck that's just poking along. You swing out to pass.

You slow down.

The passing lane, you see, is in worse shape than the one you were in. If you're lucky, you might still be going a little faster than the guy in front of you. And if you're lucky, you might actually see where the left lane actually is.

Sigh.
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...and a little while after that...
Looks like Kentucky got hit both ways.

I step carefully as I move toward the restrooms at the Welcome Center on the Indiana-Kentucky border, soft slushy snow crunching beneath my feet.

Yes, I know that sounds contradictory. It bothers me, too.

So I look around at the trees, and see marvelous sculptures all around me. Every tree glitters, every twig sheathed in crystal, sparkling in the gray light.

Uh oh.

Suddenly the fairyland aspect of the hills for the last few dozen miles makes more sense. I am surrounded by the marks of that most beautiful of ugly things.

Ice storm.

Apparently this part of the country received a nice dose of freezing rain before the snow started. The ground is beautiful and white. The trees glitter in their clear sheaths of ice. For someone looking at it from a distance, it's wonderful.

I've been in the middle of them. Among the broken trees, and the downed power lines. I don't envy the people who live here. I'm just glad somebody got the roads more or less clear before I came through. Selfish of me...
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...and later still...
I'm back in the South.

I can tell. I just turned the engine off.

My truck's outside-air-temperature gauge rose something like ten degrees in an hour after I crossed the Tennessee border. It was above 40 crossing into Georgia. For someone who hasn't seen temperatures above 20 in a week, this is heady stuff.

I expect to sleep tonight with the truck turned off. And live. First time it's been silent for more than fifteen minutes this week.

(I mentioned the diesel-Jello problem, didn't I? Freezing to death is a disturbing thought, but trying to move a load with a jellied engine isn't too comforting either...)

Ah, well. Restarted the truck, warmed up the sleeper. Now to bed. Maybe more thought tomorrow.

G'night.
*****
All that was about two weeks ago.

Today it was springlike and pleasant, except for the miles and miles of road lined with broken-down trees. Branches littering the ground. Trunks partly split by major limbs breaking off. At least one tree that uprooted itself as it fell.

The ice storm certainly made its mark.

And again I saw them out in force--the modern heralds of weather-related disaster. Convoys of tree-surgeon trucks, five and ten and twenty at a time, with saws and cranes and cherry-pickers, ready to pull trees from unfortunate locations or re-string power cables (utility trucks look a lot like tree-surgeon trucks from across an interstate).

At one point a pickup with a closed trailer passed me, followed by another with a four-wheeler ATV in the bed. Both had the logo of a disaster aid group based out of South Carolina. A fair distance from Kentucky, that.

Hard times.

Adventures in logistics

(This post was dated 2/7. Just so you know.)

Isn't it nice we're having weather?

The temperature rose something like twenty degrees today. Of course I was moving south, and I probably crossed a front in the process, but still...

I had to pick up an empty this morning. And apparently there wasn't one within sixty miles. At least that's how far they sent me. To a warehouse that was locked up for the weekend--safe and secure behind its high fences and firmly closed gates, not to open again until tomorrow midnight. Not useful.

So I drove another ten miles or so, to a yard that had ONE empty trailer of ours. Another hour who knows what I would've found.

As trailer hunts go, though, that wasn't too bad. I've spent most of a day before, wandering a city and poking into lots the dispatcher SWEARS have empties available. At least I save the next guy a stop. Sometimes. If he has the same dispatcher.

Tomorrow I'll start late--because the customer wants the load late. And I'd really like time to find a parking place before it's against the law to be driving. So I ought to get a good night's sleep tonight, at least.

Hope you do too.

GPS update

(This entry was originally dated 2/6/09. I'll get back to dating these things properly eventually. Honest.)

Awhile back I talked about the GPS system on our trucks. At the time one of my complaints was that I couldn't pick my own destinations.

Well, now I can. Another driver showed me how to do it, so I could find my way to a shop for repairs before the police asked me why I didn't have taillights.

Turns out she'd figured it out on her own. Nobody told her how to do it either. We are so well trained.

My other objections to the gadget still apply. But fair's fair.

Who's who? Really?

(originally dated 02/05/09. I'll get back to getting the dates straight.)

Snow is pretty, when the roads are dry.

I've spent the last two days driving by it, which is much more pleasant than driving through it. Then you don't really see it--your eyes are mostly glued to the road. And to the equally scared (or otherwise messed-up) drivers all around you. You flick your eyes around and say "Pretty. Now has that car fishtailed into my lane yet?"

But the snow was done when I got here. The truck-stop parking lot was fun, and so was the warehouse lot. But the roads were OK.

Waited a while--on both ends--for the receiving department to get organized. Half a dozen drivers were sitting around waiting with me. Anyone who left could expect to get called up to the window while he was gone (good way to end up at the back of the line). So we sat talking.

I usually don't get involved in these bull sessions. Politics will always come up, sooner rather than later, and I really don't like crossfires. But this time there wasn't much else to do, and nowhere to go. I vaguely remember saying something at one point about the difference between money and power (as in CEO's vs politicians, I think). Oooh. Profound.

A couple of hours later I was wandering the store aisles at the truck stop a mile down the road, waiting for my next assignment, and somebody came over and mentioned what I'd said. "I knew then you weren't an ordinary trucker."

Ordinary trucker? Someone else wandered over to join the conversation. One of us was an ex-programmer. Another had a marketing degree. And the third was an electronics expert who was qualified to get a deep-sea captain's certification.

So which one of us was the ordinary trucker?

Louis L'Amour used to say there was no telling who you might find holed up in a line shack back in the day. The cowpuncher in the upper bunk might be a disbarred lawyer. The fellow across the room might be an out-of-work mining engineer or a black sheep from a proper Boston family. You never knew.

I begin to believe him.

Apologies for the gap...

A week or two ago, I spent a day or two waiting for a chance to deliver a load. Waiting, in this case, meant spending a lot of time wandering from truck to truck stop and back again, in temperatures that varied between zero and twenty. Mild compared to a week or two before, but still noticeable.

When you're that cold, you sometimes forget things. Like locking the door as you get out of the truck. I suspect you already see where this is going.

Short form, somebody stole my laptop.

Which means that until I get noticeably richer my blogging will be done with pen and ink, and I will get to relearn the "type from notes" skill my high school teacher tried to drill into me.*

Sorry for the gap. I will try to make up for it.

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*Long long ago. Back when pushing on a key moved a lever that moved a lever that moved a lever that moved a piece of metal up to strike an inked ribbon. By pure finger power. Ask your parents...