Short Circuit

After I dropped my trailer in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma I was given orders to bobtail south to Ardmore, Oklahoma for a Circuit City load heading to Colorado. Three stops, all in the Denver metro area.

I spent yesterday getting to Denver through increasingly hairy road conditions. The load was only 12,000 pounds so my truck was skittish on the ice and snow. About 20 miles from Denver it got really, really nasty with ice built up on the roadway and I slowly made my way in to the Flying J truck stop on the east side of town for the night. Parking was a nightmare with the lot almost completely full and some drivers working hard at displaying their lack of backing skills.


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This morning I made two of the drops and I'm currently at the third and final. The guys at the second stop asked if I was back-hauling their returns to Ardmore, but I wasn't told anything about that. The trip sheet I got from Circuit City implies that I will be visiting all three stores again today then heading back to Ardmore but orders From On High haven't been received to that effect.

My truck is a certifiable mess at the moment. I must have knocked off 200 pounds of ice and snow including huge amounts on the mud flaps. Each must have had at least 30-40 pounds hanging from them.

After a full eleven hours of driving we have... a cluster

I arrived at my consignee in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma right at the bitter end of my legal work day last night, 15 minutes before my appointment time. The food warehouse I delivered at is so huge, I saw it more than a mile away. As I glanced at my GPS for the distance to my next turn (on to the street next to the warehouse) it showed 1.3 miles and even at that distance I could tell that was one big-ass building.

Upon arrival I bring the paperwork into the guard shack where they punch in the proper codes to look up the order. It turns out, according to their system, this load was supposed to deliver two days ago. This despite the fact I picked it up last night, thus clearly paradoxical. The guards begrudgingly issued me a truck pass and showed me where in the lot I could park (wayyyyyy in the back along with the other appointmentless unfortunates) and they would "try to work me in."

I quickly parked and went to bed for some much needed rest. I had been driving for much of the past twelve hours with one break to fuel and one other short break for personal stuff. Okay, it was to grab a DQ Blizzard, I admit it.

The phone goes off at 0430 with the news: they just weren't able to work me in. Since this place takes deliveries only at night (then ships out during the day) I would have to wait until tomorrow night for another chance. Lovely.

I puttered over to a nearby truck stop and went to bed to finish my sleepy time.

This morning I'm told to just drop off the trailer there and bobtail out. Wish they had mentioned this idea last night. So, I trudge back to the guards who helpfully point out that my reefer tank is at just under 3/4ths and that isn't "full", technically, so I need to fix that before I can drop the trailer. I trudge back and forth to the nearest fuel stop and eventually they relent and let me drop the trailer.

Reflections

I belatedly realized that yesterday was my second anniversary in the trucking business. On December 1, 2006 I found myself in a small Kenworth T-600 truck with a stranger named Rich in Joplin, Missouri and the weather was atrocious. It was snowing and plenty icy, and as we made our way out to California with a heavy load of boxes we saw dozens of cars and four big rigs off the road in various positions. It was so bad he drove all the way to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma before the weather cleared up enough to let the new kid try driving.

After two weeks of adventure, and just under 7,500 miles of driving, I got my first truck assigned to me at CFI's Lancaster, Texas yard. Here is a picture of both of our trucks, with Rich standing next to his:



Where he is standing covers up his front fender, which ordinarily looks like this:



Each star represents a year of service with the company.

For one reason or another, I was Rich's last student driver and last I heard he drives over the entire 48 states instead of mostly the southwest region he used to.

Happy trails, man.

Garlic bread and the Bong

I finished the journey to Kenosha, Wisconsin this morning in sub-zero temps and snow showers. I'm glad I didn't decide to push on last night to try to arrive then take my break, given road conditions. It seems that every other pickup truck in the state of Wisconsin has a snow plow attachment up front, and for good reason.

There were several potential routes to take to the consignee but I settled on the shortest, even though it went over several state highways. I noted as part of my trip planning that near the end I would be passing through the Bong state recreation area.



Upon arrival I was told to cool my heels in a nearby parking area and "it will probably be a while." I beeped dispatch over the QualComm to keep them updated and was given a preplan to load out of nearby Oak Creek, Wisconsin at noon. The plant took their sweet time, and the back into the assigned door was a chore (what is it with these backs of late?) but I departed around 1130 and made it to my next appointment right at noon. It helped that the shipper for this next load was at a location I remember having passed back when I worked at CFI.

It turns out that Joseph Campione foods manufactures garlic bread, Texas toast and other yummies for many private labels and apparently business is good: the workers I talked to mentioned they were adding a whole new building soon to keep up with demand. The entire facility smelled of buttery garlic to high heaven; dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Yet there was a snag, as there so often is in this business. A good portion of the 9,400 pound load wasn't yet produced so my noon appointment was pushed back to 2000. I spent eight hours chilling out at the nearby truck stop before returning to find the order ready to go, staged on the dock and everything. I was in and out in fifteen minutes and some, uh, promotional samples somehow appeared in my truck fridge. Thanks guys.

They also pointed out that there was a thin ribbon of blood left on the floor of the trailer on one side from my previous load. Since the reefer hadn't been above freezing for days it was essentially a vampire popsicle and was quickly disposed of with a paper towel and 409.

Now the fun part: this load was scheduled to be in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at 2100 tomorrow night. At 870 miles, there was no way to run it legally in one day, necessitating a 10-hour break somewhere in the middle. The truck stop I was waiting at before loading was packed and the spot I left had vanished moments after I split. So, even though I was tired and the schedule opposite my norm, I carefully made my way out to I-94 southbound to run through Chicago, ending my driving hours around 0100 this morning.


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Winter Wonderland

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This is the route I've traveled during the past two days.

This morning I informed weekend dispatch that I was in Omaha with full hours to run, which I'm sure made his day. Almost immediately I was sent over to a small local meatpacking plant we haul from to grab a preloaded trailer and take it to tiny Kenosha, Wisconsin. This particular shipper has a very tight lot and finding a spot for my trailer required some creativity and patience. Oh, and a callous disregard for just about everything you learn when you begin backing in a truck.

Our trusty fueling software system informed me that my half tanks were sufficient for the 480ish mile run, which is true. It is also true that I don't like ending up at a consignee very low on fuel, and even more true that I don't like running low during winter. It knew something I didn't, though, since when I scaled it out I didn't have enough spare weight left over to fill my tanks.

I compromised by stopping briefly in Des Moines, Iowa to take on 50 gallons which should be enough to see me out of the Wisconsin / Illinois area before I need to fuel again.

Weather today was a brutal wintery mix. It never quite climbed up past freezing and there were patches of moderate-to-heavy snowfall for most of Iowa and all of Illinois. The wind was coming out of the east for most of my journey, which is damned strange, and the fuel economy was terrible.

On a normal sunny day I would have knocked out 480 miles with no problem. Today, after enduring numerous traffic jams, sketchy roads and annoying drivers I ended at Rochelle, Illinois where I made a second don't-try-this-at-home blindside back into a spot right up front near the building (and more importantly, rest rooms). This consignee takes deliveries from 0500 to 1200 tomorrow and I was hoping to be there overnight and get unloaded first thing. Now it is looking like arriving around 1000 or so which will probably screw up my next run.

Stupid weather.

The Butterball Turkey hotline

Years ago on the series West Wing there was an episode which involved the Butterball Turkey hotline. I've never called it (I assume it exists), but at just after midnight this morning my cell phone went off with a call from our night dispatch.

"But I'm on time off!" I protested.

Apparently, the Butterball plant in Carthage, Missouri was shutting down for the weekend but they were willing to stay a bit late if I could bring them an empty trailer for a load planned out on Sunday. My plan was to come back on Sunday but I wasn't about to get up out of bed, drive to my truck, drive my truck an hour down the road, drop off my empty, then bobtail back an hour then drive back to the house because someone at HQ messed things up.

Later in the morning, at a decent hour, I phoned in and spoke with my dispatcher. Mixup, blah blah blah, thought you were coming back today, blah blah blah. Okay, now what?

It turns out we are very short handed (trucked?) in Omaha this weekend so my orders were to deadhead all the way back up there and let dispatch know when I would be available.

Option 1: Stick to my original schedule, leaving early on Sunday morning and arriving in Omaha around noon with about four hours to drive for the rest of the day.

Option 2: Leave mid-afternoon on Saturday, arriving in Omaha that night then having eleven full hours to drive for all of Sunday.

I went back and forth for a while but finally the money side of my brain won out and I got packed up and moved back into the truck. About seven hours later after driving through snow and ice (not the funnest thing when you are hauling an empty trailer) I arrived safely in Omaha, Nebraska and shut down for the night.

Start me up

I made the drop in Lincoln first thing in the morning then headed to Omaha to put my truck in the shop over at the Volvo dealer. My clutch has been steadily worsening in the past few weeks and they put it back to original spec.

The mechanic also managed to leave his remote starter attached to my starter so at some point as I was going down the road later it dropped off. Ooops.

I was assigned the usual Council Bluffs, Iowa to Carthage, Missouri go-home load but before that I had to give away my trailer to another guy going to the same shipper for the same reason. I eventually hooked up with a different trailer, got it cleaned then drove across the river to exchange it with the loaded one. 44,500 gross weight for the cargo, ugh. I was able to scale it, though so I took off heading south.


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Traffic in Kansas City was very busy but I managed to get through eventually. I was going to be an hour or so late on the delivery, but our crack customer service department had phoned ahead and AmeriCold was, um, cool with that. By cool I mean they gave me a door right away then ignored the cargo for two hours, but it is AmeriCold after all.

Finally the box was empty and I departed for home. I'm due back on Sunday but I might push that out another day or two.

Stay tuned.