Oct 10… Sat… Recalculating!

My morning started early… 5:00 a.m. to be exact and I was awaken by this familiar woman’s voice that kept repeating… “Recalculating, recalculating!” I knew what had happened.

We spent the night at a service center in NJ last night on the NJ Turnpike. We were, according to the GPS, only 2.5 miles away from our pick-up, but that route was going through this small town, etc. Being we were on the turnpike there are only so many exits and we would have had to go about 15 miles out of route to stay on “big” roads. I thought we had decided we would take the longer route because of the bigger roads. I went to sleep and was resting comfortably when I kept hearing the GPS this morning. I knew that Trapper had decided to take the shortest route. Yee ha…. we were sightseeing again!

As I made my way to the front passenger seat, he showed me where we were on the map and told me what he’d done. (I already knew that part, right?) I’m trying to match streets with the map and keep coming up with nothing. Then we cross over the turnpike and realize we had gone the wrong way. It’s one thing to be lost in a car but it’s a whole different thing being lost in a truck with a 53′ trailer to get turned around in the middle of NJ, in the dark, with it drizzling rain. I don’t do mornings well either.

I was awake now! I located us via the GPS and found us on the map. Several of the roads were weight limited so it was like a mini obstacle course, needless to say. We did make our appointment time with 10 minutes to spare!

I’m going to have to give him his own advice when I’m travelling alone…. stay on the big roads! I will give him credit though… he can make a u-turn in this truck that I would have trouble making in a car!

The rest of our 600 mile day went fine. We stopped in OH for the night… 2100 more miles to go!

The Truck Parking Problem & One Driver’s Solution

We all face it. Every single day of our lives out here on the road, you plan your trip around where you can park. In states such as Virginia, who have closed 1/2 of their rest areas, you could easily run out of hours on your 11 or 14 trying to find somewhere to stop. At one point there are 122 miles between rest areas in Virginia.

But, there is hope for us all. His name is LeRoy and he is determined to give us all some pertinent information we need. We met LeRoy tonight in NJ at a service center. We run for the same company and he walked over to the truck and introduced himself.

Long story short, he is compiling the ultimate parking guide. He has places in this book that we all have only dreamed of. He’s got places in FL… on the beach and close by. He has deals with certain truck stops for discounts on coffee or showers. He has free wi-fi spots listed and the list goes on.

The guide is not yet published but check out his website at http://www.parkmyrig.com/ and you can sign a list of people to be notified once he gets it complete.

The book will retail for $29.80 but if you’d like to contribute to his masterpiece with information on rest areas or truck stops on your routes, he will provide you with a discount on the book. (If you email him, through his website, include as much information regarding the stop as you can… exit number, rest area open/closed/truck parking, and number of spaces (if available).

Check it out! I saw an example of what he’s compiling and it would greatly help us all out! Thanks everyone!

Fri… Oct 9… If you Wish really hard….

Friday morning started with us being beeped at 6:00 a.m. with a load assignment to pick up 36 miles away and deliver in Newark, NJ at 6:30 pm. Can you say traffic?

We made our pick up and were making our way to Newark when we were beeped again. The trucking gods must be on our side… our preplan is from Castlebury, NJ to Los Angeles, CA! Oh yeah…. this is what trucking is all about.

My excitement for today was getting to see NYC from the other side of the bay, but I don’t care, I got to see it and now I can mark that off my bucket list. My bucket list is getting smaller and smaller!

For tonight we’re sitting 2 miles from our pick up at 6:00 am and I’m ready to get this cross country trip underway.

It’s been a tough week… who said being a professional passenger was easy?

Thurs…Oct 8…. Our Patience is Wearing Thin

Ok, that’s right…. both of us are only holding up for the other one at this point.

We left our hotel this morning, our parts are in at the Kenworth dealership, yippee… well not so quick.

We loaded up all our belongings (including the stuff out of the fridge) and headed back over to the Kenworth place. We arrived at 1:00 pm today.

My day has been spent playing on the computer and talking to other drivers. We have struck conversations regarding everything from hunting to truck driving. I’ve also been researching going back to school… online of course. My daughter would love that! My brain needs activity, we’ll see how it all pans out.

The Kenworth place has been telling us all day that we’d be out of here today sometime. For the first 6 hours we set here, no one was working on the truck. This is ridiculous.

About 9:00 pm I decided to walk out into the shop and get up in my truck/home. I scavaged some plates, bread, and rice. The meat for dinner is already in the refrigerator. (I have over taken thier break room refrigerator trying to keep food frozen.) Dinner will be prepared tonight in the break room of Kenworth. Hope they don’t mind.

For now, it’s 10:40 pm and they close at midnight. Our truck is still in parts. Let’s hope these guys get it in gear. We’ve driven 776 miles this week. You do the math! Send money please… Carlisle, PA!

Tues/Wed… Oct 6,7… Stuck in Carlisle, Pa…. Where?

We delivered our load safely on Tuesday afternoon and received our preplan to go to New Cumberland, PA. I happened to look at the qualcomm and realized we weren’t suppose to be there until Wed afternoon. We ran this same load last week and it picked up on Tuesday. What the heck!

So here we were a whole day early. We tried to get off the load but our dispatcher was less than cooperative and we decided to leave it as is. After all, we were headed to Jacksonville, FL!

In the meantime Trapper notices we have a rear seal leaking on the back right drive. (That’s the last wheel on the right side of the cab.) There was a Kenworth place 2 miles from the truck stop so off to Kenworth we go to get this quick fix…. um…. fixed.

As fate and the “bingo” system Kenworth has, our quick fix has turned into 2 days in a motel in Carlisle, Pa. The bingo system is a bonus system Kenworth has that pays the technicians for finding problems with the truck that the driver did not notice. In our case it was a recall item. Lucky us.

Our refrigerator was full of frozen food that I prepared before leaving home Sunday. It makes my life easier out here so I fix a ton of stuff to take with us. We had to find a hotel, call and get it approved from the company, have Kenworth call the company to get them to verify where we were, get off our load, get the stuff out of the truck, hope the hotel had a fridge in the room, and wait on the shuttle. Boy what a day Tuesday was.

Wednesday rolled around and only one part showed up. We are waiting on yet, another part. Thank goodness for wireless internet and delivery pizza and chinese food! I am running out of Diet Mt. Dew. The closest store is a mile away and it’s cold here, so walking is out of the question. I will suffer through it and survive… Trapper may not survive my withdrawals though!

Hopefully, the other part will arrive tomorrow and we can move our gypsy selves back to our truck! It’s funny when you have everything in that truck and then have to suddenly abandon it, just how out of place you become!

PS – Can someone tell me where the spell check went. I can’t find it on here.

Mon… Oct 5… In Case of Emergency

A couple of weeks ago we were sitting at Petro and an ambulance comes through the parking lot. A few minutes later, the ambulance workers were loading a fellow driver into the back of the ambulance.

As I type this post, we are sitting on I-81 in Virginia. You can see from the picture, we are sitting completely still as other drivers are outside their vehicles. The CB is reporting a car on fire.

As the traffic started moving, we soon realized it was a big truck that caught fire.

This is when I started thinking we needed an “in case of emergency” plan.

We never heard how this accident occurred but the we did hear that the driver was ok. The cab was totally burned. The last picture shows a picture of what was left of the cab.

Being that I have no idea how to operate this truck, what would I do if something happened to Trapper while we are out here? What if he couldn’t drive, collapsed during driving, or if any thing happened to him? Would my instincts take over and my adrenaline get us stopped or off the road safely?

There are days that I couldn’t tell you, on a moments notice, what state I am in, much less the mile marker, interstate number, or exit number.

If I were able to get us stopped and 911 called… what do I do next? Of course, I would go with Trapper, but then I’d have to deal with the truck.

Who would I call about the truck? And depending on the circumstances, would I really care about the truck? Trapper says I would have to deal with it, regardless.

This would mean another truck coming and getting the load and then I would have to take all our stuff out of our truck, get a rental car, get a hotel, and eventually get us home as best I could. We could be hundreds of miles from home.

These are things you don’t want to think about, but these two incidents have made me stop and think about the what if. Especially since I am only a passenger with no license or know how in operating this vehicle.

Regardless of who you are or what you do for a living… but especially truck drivers…. you should have a back up plan for emergencies.

Fri… Oct 2… Can You Say Dropped Ball?

What’s a driver to do? We arrived at our destination this morning. Our directions were quite simple… no name on building, long gray building across from Maryland’s chicken…. ok so you’re in a strange town, small town at that, looking for a long gray nameless building… in the dark!

We arrived at 7:30 am and our delivery time was 8:00 am. We back up to the dock and Trapper gets out and rings the bell at the door. No answer. No problem, we’re early right?

8:15 am rolls around and after Trapper does a quick inspection of the property, there is absolutely no one here. We decide it’s just a warehouse and decided to call the number on the bill of lading. That information has to correct, right?

No answer at the first number, so I googled the name of the place and found a couple of more phone numbers. We call those, no answer…. we finally called our dispatcher who in turn called the Laredo terminal (where this load originated).

The Laredo terminal calls us and explains they can’t get anyone on the phone either… for us to sit tight. Ok… we’re sitting….

Two hours later, two and a half hours since this started… our qualcomm goes off and we are headed to the Atlanta, GA drop yard. Turns out the place we are trying to deliver is…. (wait for it)….. CLOSED on Fridays! LOL

As I type we are sitting in Atlanta waiting on our next load.

Thurs… Oct 1… 566 miles!

It’s 12:30 a.m. Georgia time and we’re sitting in Carnesville, GA. Today was actually pretty good for me… doesn’t seem like it was a 566 mile day, but then again 177 of them were left behind me, while I slept! Makes the day go faster!

We deliver at 8:00 a.m. in Toccoa, GA and then onto Marion, NC for an afternoon delivery.

I’ve been playing around with various things on blogger tonight… the blog may be in line for another face lift. One day I will get it like I want it!

Until tomorrow!

Double Take!

This is on the back of a flat bed! Look closely… it’s a Tonka dump truck!!!

Sun-Wed Sept 27-30…. Stuck in Reverse

I admit it… I love Texas… I’ve mentioned this before in several posts, but it has been awhile.

You don’t have to wonder what state you are in… as soon as you cross the Texas border and you see the mile marker (873) you know you are in TX… not to mention the old saying that everything is bigger in Texas. They are proud!

I belive this sense of American Pride is the reason that Fox News gets the representatives from Texas when they want a real “kick butt” response or commentary on a particular subject.

Check out this star at the welcome center. Do you doubt what state this is?

Sunday we made our delivery in Sealy, TX at the Wal-Mart Dist Center. We left the distribution center without a trailer which always causes problems. The qualcomm doesn’t except your empty call without a trailer number and they don’t put you on the board. You are a little in limbo.

Monday morning rolled around and we still did not have a load assignment, so Trapper made the decision that it was time to get a motel room and reset our hours. We were, obviously 24 hours into a 34 hour reset, so why not.

It was a wonderful break from the truck. Being off the road for so long, for both of us, getting back into the routine has been a little challenging. For me, all I want to do is sleep. We’re managing nicely though.

Wal-Mart finally had an empty trailer for us and Tuesday morning we were back in business. We were dispatched to Houston, TX to pick-up a load from the “waste management” place. I was dreading this load…. you never know what you’re going to be dragging across this country.

This 43,000 lbs of paper (aka trash) is going to Laredo, TX and then onto Mexico for processing. This company will eventually make huge rolls of paper and other paper products out of this recycled paper.

We arrived at the Laredo terminal around 8:00 pm on Tuesday night. At midnight the qualcomm went off to alert us that we were taking a load to Toccoa, GA and we had to be there by Friday at 8:00 am. At 1:00 am we were finding our trailer, setting the map and the gps.

It’s Wednesday night now… we are stopped at Hammond, LA…. we were just here a few days ago. I feel like I’m stuck in reverse! Tomorrow will take us through the rest of LA, AL, and onto GA. Another load delivered safely and on time!