Toasty!

Made it to Laredo today. Needless to say it is HOT here, at least it is for me. Having been in Canada less than a week ago, it is quite a change. Not sure where I go from here, but at least I know it will be northeast, I can't go any further south.

In a perfect world, I will be home on Thursday, but the odds are it will be Friday or Saturday at this point. After three weeks out here, I'm ready to be home for a while!

Rolling Thunder

July 27, 2007

Well, this was another interesting day. I have been given a great run, I’m headed from Detroit to Texas. This is around 1200 miles, as I’ve said before, I get paid by the mile so this is a good thing.

I left Detroit early this morning, and all was going well until I got to I-69 south in Indiana, north of Indianapolis. Chatter on the CB was that there had been a bad accident ahead, two motor homes had collided and one of them had rolled on its side in the median. I-69 south was closed. I pull out my handy truck stop guide and find a place to pull over and try to wait it out in a restaurant, not sitting bumper to bumper on a freeway.

I’m feeling awful clever at this point, I’m also listening on the CB to some truckers talking about a detour around this accident. I look up the detour on my atlas and it is a legitimate truck route. You guessed it I went for the detour.

This would have worked out fine, route 13 south to route 36 south to the Indy beltway. 15 miles and I am back on track. That’s when I came upon a house fire than had rt 36 closed. The house was on one side of the road, and the hydrant was on the other side, so the fire dept had to close a four-lane road down to run the water hoses across it.

Eventually, after about 30 minutes of watching this house burn down, a long line of trucks had collected behind me. It would be safe to say I wasn’t the only one listening to this “shortcut” on the CB!

A cop came over and got us all backed up and turned down a different route. Things would normally be OK at this point, but I-70 is closed in Indianapolis, and there is a NASCAR race in town this weekend. Traffic is a nightmare and the 465 beltway was bumper to bumper. Grrrrrrr…

I got to the closest rest area, and called it a day. Only a 269 mile day, but a day.

Did I mentioned this all happened in the pouring rain?

I need a nap.

Back in the States

July 26

Spent the last few days in Canada, I'm in Detroit now. Delivered a load of car parts to a warehouse here. I know, it's hard to believe there are car parts in Michigan, but honestly, there are a whole bunch of them!

While I was at the Toronto Operating Center, the Schneider ride for pride showed up. This is the truck I mentioned in a previous post. I got a good look at it, and the paint job is fantastic. They were letting people drive it around the lot, but I was on a really tight schedule, and the line was long, so I settled for a good look around the outside.

This is the seventh truck done to memorialize American soldiers. It travels the country (and Canada!) going to car shows and events for veterans. It is a big hit wherever it goes.

Time to find a shower and something to eat. I will be heading towards home soon, should be there by next Thursday. I always like that feeling. Three weeks on the road is a long time.

Don't Tailgate!

Catsup tastes better in Canada...

July 24, 2007

Hello from Ontario Canada. Yep, I’m back in Canada without losing anything at the border.

This was a really cool delivery, I think. It was a big load of titanium. It was very heavy and very expensive! This is a perfect example of why I don’t say where I’m going or what I’m carrying until after the load is done. Some things don’t need to be broadcast on the web or anyone to read.

Anyhoo, I haven’t introduced my sidekick in my travels, Edith. Edith is my Garmin GPS unit. When it comes to trip planning, keeping track of left sided exits, and making this job a lot less stressful, Edith is da bomb! OK, so you’re thinking “Why Edith?” First of all naming my talking GPS makes more sense if you think of Wilson from the movie Castaway. We all need to talk to somebody. Secondly, the first two names to come to my mind were Edith and Ethel, Edith stuck for no particular reason. More on Edith later…

If all goes to plan, I should be back in the States by Thursday.

Roll On!

hello..hello?? any internet out there?

Boy, finding internet on the road can be a challenge. I have been creating blog entries in Word for the last few days, and have finially found a somewhat stable (and free!) connection. I'll use this for now.

Currently I'm in Ohio. Just dropped a load of water I picked up in TN two days ago. Water is HEAVY! My maximum weight is 80,000 pounds, or 40 tons, when I fueled up, and put this thing on a scale, it was 79,600 pounds.

This can be tricky to get down the road legally. If you have ever looked under the trailer part of a semi, you will see where the rear wheels, called the tandems, can slide forward and back and lock in place with four round pins. Sliding the tandems not only makes this thing managable in, say, New York City, because it shortens the turning radius, but it also shifts the weight around so you don't overload an axle. On a light load this in not rally important, but when the legal weight limit is staring you in the face, one wants to make sure things are set right, or risk a fine from the DOT.

I made it to Wintersville OH with no trouble. Beautifull day here, and I'm glad to have a bunch of miles under my belt early on in the week just in case the wheels fall off driving for the rest of the week.

Time for a new week

July 19

This was a better day then yesterday, I got my load completed at 6am this morning, and hit the road for northern Ohio. It rained like crazy, but traffic was light, and I trucked right along (pun intended…) There is an O.C., or Operating Center, for Schneider in Seville, which is where I am now. Almost all of he O.C.’s have free Internet access; I have learned tonight that Seville does not! So you will have to wait yet another day for my updates! I’m sure you are all gathering around the computer for the fireside blog…

When I got here, they did offer me a free meal. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I had a nice Salisbury steak with green beans and mashed potatoes. It may not sound that exciting, but to sit at a table, and use utensils is a small luxury on the road!

I think I’m finally getting my schedule, the delivery schedules, and my sleep schedule back in sync again. This is harder than it sounds. The DOT will only let truck drivers work a fixed number of hours per day, and within a fixed amount of time to work it in, so if you get yourself into a night driving situation, you can get stuck there for a week or two. I for one would rather drive during the day, and sleep at night. My problem lately has been needing to get up at 4am to start my day. Most people who know me are laughing out loud at that thought. Maybe they are thinking being on the road with me at 5am is not such a good idea too!


I’m off to Kentucky tomorrow once I get loaded in Ohio, OK OK, get the TRAILER loaded that is…
Keeping the round side down across America!

Best Laid Plans...

July 18, 2007

Today was a shining example of a bad day in trucking. I got underway about 9am this morning to make a two hour drive to my first stop. Today’s load was a little complicated, I stopped at a warehouse in one town to pick up half my load, then at another warehouse in another town to pick up the other half.

I’m southeast of Philly for the first stop, a location I don’t have very good maps for, and of course I get lost, and late for my pickup. I was only 15 minutes late, that’s an easy mistake to make up for. In all honesty, just finding a place to turn this thing around can take that long!

So I get loaded, and head to my next pickup location a few towns over, again I get lost but a little worse this time. I call the customer, get directions and get there 15 minutes ahead of my pickup time, or so I think…

It’s quarter till three, I am behind two other trucks loading, and the parking lot is a nightmare, gotta back down the whole lot, through employee parking, and two loading zones for two other companies that share this lot. I get backed up to the door at 3:10, and the pimply faced loading “dude” says he is done for the day, the loading crew goes home at three. He doesn’t have a drivers license, so he has to catch a ride with one of his buddies. I can feel that deer in the headlights feeling coming over me. I’m backed up to the dock, the four pallets I’m picking up are ten feet from the door, and this kid won’t load them, he walks away… I am quite capable of loading these things myself, but it would be useless to do without any paperwork.

Long story short, I’m now stuck at this loading dock till 6am for the morning crew to finish loading me. Calling my dispatcher, I find that I needed to be there no later than 3pm, which I was, and I had talked to the shipping manager before 3pm when I got there, and I did exactly as I was told…

The “Hotel Freightliner” will be at a local mall parking lot for the night.


Some days just don’t work right no matter how hard you try. This is my sixth day in a row of not having things go right. Can’t quite get the mojo in sync with the rest of the world. I’ve only run about 1,000 miles this week. I usually run around 3,000. When you get paid by the mile, this is obviously a slow week.

I’m looking on the bright side though, I’m headed to Ohio, where there is good freight to move long distances, my tractor has had all it’s maintenance done, and I’m ready to rumble. We shall see how Ohio treats me.

Maintenance Day

I'm back in PA today, getting a "PM", or a preventative maintenance service done on my truck. Just like your car, one has to keep these things running well, only my oil changes come every 20,000 miles. The service department takes the truck for as long as they need, so I am in a hotel room in Carlisle waiting for he OK to hit the road.



Was in Ohio for the last two days dropping off my NYC load, and picking up some paper to bring to Breinigsville PA. Next stop...back to Ohio by the 18th to move some hardware!



Ohio is commonly known as SLO-HIO in the trucking world. max speed is 55mph for trucks. This is a painfully slow state to drive across, big and flat for the most part. Cars are going about 70 in the passing lane, so the speed differential makes it hard for a big truck to get in the passing lane and pass gram and gramps who are out for a 45mph Sunday drive. This usually causes a quarter mile clog on the highway behind said passing truck. The great thing is that Ohio is big, wide open space, a wonderful place to drive big things.



Heading west on I-70 the other day, I passed a huge car cruise going East. It must have been the HOT ROD power tour or something like it. There must have been 500 old cars heading towards PA. Included in the cruise was the Schneider Ride for Pride, a veteran memorial truck that cruises the country for PR, and also pulls freight just like the rest of the fleet.



http://www.wfrv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7a075d8d-3fae-4a1b-ae19-e1250fb2a46f



As I said above, I was headed west and all of this was heading east, so getting a picture of any of this was out of the question. Oh well, maybe next time. Of course, as I was heading east on I-70, I passed Dale Jr.'s nextell fleet, and the Budweiser Clydesdale's heading west!

See you on the road

Already forgetting my Password...

Here it is Sat. the 14th, a sunny day in PA. Thank god... I loaded in Brooklyn N.Y. yesterday. As I'm sure some people know, driving a car in Brooklyn is hard enough. Driving something almost 70 feet long, and over 13 feet high in there is a nightmare. I had to pick up a load of clothing at what I'm sure is some kind of sweat shop.

All these little trucks are darting in and out of this place, and here comes big orange! ready to clog up a whole city street for what turned into a three hour loading. The drivers in New York were patient and pleasant, as only people from New York can be.

This is my first load in NYC. Hopefully my last for a while!

You will have to excuse the photo quality, I am using my phone to take them. maybe I will step it up in the future.

Yep, that's my big 'ole nose poking out in the street!

This is a good idea...really...

Well, my sister has been bloging for a while, and the idea seems simple enough, sooo, here we go. I drive an 18 wheeler around the country for a living. "Freedom of the open road" is more like freedom to get stuck in every rush hour jam in anywhere USA, but I digress, this is the kind of job many people think about doing, but know nothing about. I'm going to try to shed some light on how this lifestyle works for the next year.
Currently I have been over the road for two months. I'm beginning to understand how this all works, so come share in my (mis) adventures. "Life is a Highway!"