Back at It

Well, greetings from the road. After spending some well deserved time at home, I'm back in 'da truck trying to make a buck or two. Many thanks to Mom and Dad for coming to pick me up in PA, it was an enjoyable ride home. Now that I'm "commuting" to work, I hope to take advantage of some back roads I've been dying to check out on the way home, It's hard to putter the back roads when driving 70' long and 13' 6" high!

Linda and I went camping for a three days. We went to a campsite in Old Orchard Beach, which is about 15 minutes from our home, but it felt like a million miles away. Yes it rained, but we were prepared, and stayed very dry. Like all Maine weather, just wait a minute and it will change. The rain passed through very quickly.

It was nice to break up the routine for a couple days. I had forgotten how much I enjoy camping. Both of us were in need of some decompression after my last disaster of a run. We both agreed that this needs to be done more often. We have tossed around the idea of a small pop-up camper being a good upgrade from the tent, but time (read: money) will tell. Until then we have a very nice 6 man tent setup, which is perfect for two people!

Finding my wall...and hitting it

Writing is an art, no doubt about it. One either continues to write and gets better, or one doesn't write, and watches the skill atrophy. I remember watching an interview on TV with Billy Joel saying he practiced songwriting and playing the piano every single day, just to keep getting better. I, for one, believe he has succeeded and will probably continue to improve.

Looking at my last few posts I notice my writing has kinda sucked for a while. My life balance has been a little out of kilter lately, drive...call Linda...sleep...drive...call Linda...sleep...etc, and everything else has suffered, including the writing of the BLOG.

I have been on the road for ten straight weeks this time. My last time home was only three days, which obviously means I drove for four days that week. The fatigue is settling in, along with the homesickness, I'm getting a little cranky, and am beginning to make little mistakes that have added up to blowing my quarterly bonus. So much for the extra money I could have really used...

I lived in Utah for four years about a decade ago. I stayed until I felt in my heart of hearts it was time to go home. It was a fun place to live, but it wasn't home. After ten weeks on the road those same feelings are creeping back into me. I've been away for too long.

It's hard when the biggest reason for being out here is to make the bonus check bigger gets out of balance with the reality that (1) One can only do so much before One needs a break, and (2) I'm not eighteen anymore, and the time between those needed breaks seems to be increasing...

I have successfully defeated my whole purpose for being out here this long.

Back to the balance thing. Lesson learned, I guess... I'm getting myself reset to a three week out, five days at home after this run. It involves my leaving my tractor in Carlisle, PA and driving home, which I bet is the biggest commute to work you have ever heard of, but it increases my home time, which I guess has been the whole point of this post, is becoming more important to me that chasing the elusive "more money". As I have just proven to myself, again, to much of anything is self-defeating.

Hey! Look! an update!!

I'm still chugging along out here, I made my delivery from Washington state to Michigan on time (2200 miles! $$$), this should make for a 4000 mile paycheck this week. Let the good times roll.

I have learned the hard way that five weeks on the road, then three days at home, then another five weeks on the road is not good for my disposition. I am working on doing my three week runs again wit five days at home. Five days is enough time to get home, pass out for a day, do something for a couple days, then spend a day getting ready to hit the road again. Three days compresses this schedule into a mad dash with no "me" time and that is unacceptable.

Funny story time, as you may recall, I swapped trucks a couple months ago and left my remote controls for my TV and DVD player in the old truck. I figured "old orange" would be left to rust in peace in PA, and I could just pick them up next time I ran through the OC, well I haven't been back to PA since I picked up the new truck so I had basically written off my remotes, bummer...
Fast forward to last week, I'm in our drop lot in Seattle WA, and look to my left, there is my old truck! with a couple of guys in it! I couldn't help but walk up to them and ask if they found my remotes in there, and if they still had them, Yep, they had both of them!

What are the odds that I would see my old truck on the opposite coast, and that the new drivers would still have my remotes! Good thing it was a nice day, I probably would have been struck by lightning next!

Anyhoo, time for bed, I'm off to WI tomorrow with a bunch of car parts.

Iowa isn't all underwater

Well, It's been so long that it would be impractical to give you the last month and a half, so let's try and work from the not so distant past and go from there. I am at an I-80 rest area near Victor Iowa where I am bedded down for the night, man I love rest areas with a web connection! It is safe to say from my run through Iowa today that the state is not all drowning, it has been a blue sky day from Illinois to Des Moines where I delivered 45,000lbs of synthetic rubber to the Firestone plant this afternoon. Next stop, Washington state.

I have been to two OC's in the last six weeks on the road, so connections to the Internet have been non existent, My adventures in NYC and Virginia Beach will have to be updated at another time, but I have been logging some really good miles out here, and that is the whole point of this kind of job. The home time thing is really getting to me lately, and I doubt that this is going away any time soon. I've been home for three days in the last seven weeks, and that is just not enough time out of this tin can.

Another "Trick my Truck" I saw in our West Memphis OC last month

Pretty run through Arizona last month.

They make this stuff in Texas across from the Ocean Spray cranberry plant, love this stuff!

I'm beginning to realize my BLOG posts aren't as long and witty as they were about six months ago, nor are they as frequent, for this I apologize. For as much of the country that I have seen, and am quite comfortable running in now, I am being dispatched in new directions away from my "normal" routes. This is good because it pushes my boundaries, and I always think that is a good thing, but it is requiring more time to trip plan, and more brain power to put it all together without driving off the road, there's not as much left of me at the end of the day right now. Oh yeah, and something about a bad economy that has really tightened up my delivery times not leaving as much fluffy times for things like this.

That's a shame because I like blogging, and keeping a record of the big 'ole world out here, ao I will keep trying to bang the keys whenever possible!

See ya on the highway!

Pointed towards Colorado...that's west

Just a quickie update before I hit the hay. I decided to splurge for the 4.95 that the truckstop charges for a day on Internet connection to get a few things done online. I'm in Omaha Nebraska for the night, and the weather is overcast and windy. This is not one of those places I like to stay put in what with it being part of tornado alley and all, so I will be glad to push out of here in the morning.
Today marks my one week in the new truck. I have logged a little over 3,000 miles this week, and still like it. I have found some things that bother me, but nothing is perfect, and I will adjust to my new surroundings. Funny how things we call discomforts at first just become no big deal over time!
Schneider doesn't have much of a presence in the Midwest, so my next few days will be truckstop days. I'm fine with that, but Pilots are my preferred choice due to keeping the truck fueled (I really dig Sapp Bros. but they are few and far between) and there aren't as many Pilots out west. This can make fuel a bigger part of the driving equation, miss a fuel stop and it could be two hundred miles to the next one! I, for one don't feel like "pushing the pumpkin" anywhere...
No new cool pictures yet, I really have been keeping super busy. For those in the know, I have not taken a 34hr restart in the last 22 days, and I have been dancing on the edge of my 70hrs for a while now, but I haven't been over it. I have a great relationship with my dispatch team, and they have given me just as many miles as I can legally run. Nice to see some good paychecks again. You know...for that October wedding! :)