Trials and Tribulations

Things happen occassionally that make me wonder why I decided to go into trucking. Last night a few of those things happened. It was worse than getting stuck in a small bank parking lot that took me two hours to get out of when I first started driving. I never told anyone about that except for a few close friends. Oh there were a few tight spots that I had gotten into and had to figure out how to get out of them, but I always managed to get the truck out of them without damaging any property. I always made sure I took pictures just in case I ever had to prove anything.

Last night my trouble began when I arrived at a pick up point and the guard would not release the trailer to me because the delivery destination was different than what he had on file. The trailer was supposed to be going to Chagrin Falls according to our records, but the guards records indicated it was going to Bainbridge. I had to wait for an hour and a half for that problem to be resolved.

Once resolved I was given the trailer number I was to pick up. I proceeded back to locate the trailer. I found it wedged in between two other trailers. When I say wedged, I mean wedged. The trailers were right up against the one I was supposed to pull out. I figured oh well, I can just back up under it and pull it out. What happened next was the farthest thing from my mind.

Since I could not see well enough to determine if the fifth wheel was lined up and I could not get to the jack in order to lift/lower the trailer, the king pin jumped over top of the fifth wheel plate when I backed into it. I am not sure if the puddles of water were hiding holes that were bigger than I thought, which made the king pin too high as I back under it, or if the king pin was not lined up as good as I thought it was.

This really put me in a predicament. I found the yard dogs (slang for the people who pull the trailers in/out of the docks and store them in the yard) and asked them to please move the trailers so I could get mine out. I explained the problem and asked if they could help me. All they would do was move the trailers from each side of the one I was picking up. They did suggest that I just jack the trailer up high enough to get the tractor out from under it.

This was a feat, since the jack on the trailer was not functioning properly. It was way too tight to crank and the handle was bent. I thought about it for a while and remembered what another driver had told me he had done in a similar predicament. He had put wood under the jacks in order to get them up high enough to get his tractor out.

I looked around the yard and found a couple of brick blocks that I was able to use. I retracted the jacks enough to get the blocks under the jacks and then cranked them up high enough to get my tractor out. Then I let the jacks back down to the appropriate heighth, checking every few inches of backing that the king pin was going to line up this time and seat properly.

It took me nearly an hour to get the trailer connected properly to my tractor and it proved to be a valuable lesson to me. I will never attempt to get a trailer out again that is wedged in between two others like that. I will make certain that I can see the proper alignment and seating of the king pin onto the fifth wheel plate or I will not attempt to hook up.

Now I know why it was stressed so much in training to make certain that the proper height and alignment is set up before attempting to back into the king pin.

I will also be very leary of water puddles in the future, maybe pushing a stick or something down into them to see how deep they are before I back in under a trailer.

The lots that they park the trailers on are not always blacktop. A lot of them are gravel and mud. If you are not careful, you will bring all of that mud into your truck and then you have a mess to clean up.

When I got up to the gate to check out, one of the doors was not shut completely, so I had to get the guard to remove the seal, open and shut the door again in order to get the door shut properly. Then the guard had to put a new seal onto the door.

This trailer proved to be a real pain. I had taken it to the next stop and had it unloaded. I proceeded with it to my next pickup point. They had me sweep out the trailer before they would load it. While I was sweeping out the trailer, I noticed it had a wet floor. I thought this may have been from the door not shutting tightly and all the rain had gotten into the trailer that way.

Well, the customer refused the trailer because it was leaking. So then I had to ask operations fo find me another trailer, which they did. When I arrived at the place where I was supposed to pick up the trailer, somebody else had just hooked onto it and was getting ready to take it. I advised them that the trailer had been assigned to me and after a couple of phone calls he turned the trailer over to me.

I dropped the other trailer and wrote it up as leaking.

After sitting in the dock for three hours I was finally loaded and ready to go.

Truck 4 Christmas?

When I was about 5 years old my oldest brother had come home on leave from the Navy. My dad had picked him up to take him to his mother's house. My dad and my brother's mom had divorced, so this oldest brother of mine was a step brother. I sat in the back seat while my step brother got into the front with dad. Before he got in though, he put something in the back seat, on the floor. It was close to Christmas, so he had bought a huge toy truck, a tractor with a box van for a Christmas present. I really was excited about this truck and thought he had bought it for me, but when he got out of the car at his mother's house, he took the truck with him. This really upset me and I cried. I was told that he had bought the toy truck for my cousin and it was not for me. My dad told me that he would get me one like it, but he never did. For a long time I watched for that truck to show up.

Now I drive one.

Who Do You Think You Are?

During my last trip to Savage, Maryland, which is near Baltimore, I ran across an attitude that I thought I would share in both my blogs. Some of the egos you run across are really unbelievable at times, eh?

I had pulled up to the customer's site, parked my truck, and was heading towards the receiving door. On my way in I met a fellow that I thought was driving the truck parked in front of me. I was curious about the orange box that looked like an old Schneider van trailer, so I began chatting with him to ask him about it.

Since he was walking around the vicinity of the tractor, I just assumed he was the driver of the truck. I asked him about the orange trailer and he responded with, "I guess they must have bought it from Schneider.".

My next question was, "Is that your truck?".

He laughed and replied, "No, I graduated from that.".

The thoughts that abounded in my mind. My first thought was to ask who the hell he thought he was, making a statement like that. My second thought was to ask him what he graduated to, being an a$$hole?

Well, knowing that I must treat customers with respect, regardless of how they treat me, I just politely ignored the comment and went on about checking into receiving. I did not know who this person was, nor his position within this customer's site, so I did not want to tick him off. If you get the receiving personnel upset with you, they can make your life miserable by making you wait for hours before you can get your load off your truck and/or other things to make you miserable.

When you have doctors, lawyers, pilots, computer geeks, and all other types of people driving trucks that used to work other jobs, you should never make comments like that fellow did.

The more I thought about it, not saying anything at all to him was the best response. He will go on in his life with his narrow minded way of thinking, and eventually he will make that comment to the wrong person.

What goes around comes around.

Thought I Had Seen It ALL

Until I saw a big rig driving east bound in the right hand lane of west bound I-80, about 60 miles into Pennsylvania from Ohio. I could not believe my eyes. It was about 5 in the morning and I looked over to the other side of the freeway, and there was an eighteen wheeler driving in the same direction that I was, but it was on the other side of the highway.

This made for some very interesting conversation on the CB radio as we alerted the west bound traffic to move into their "Granny Lane" so they would not hit the opposing truck in their "Hammer Lane". (The Granny Lane is the slow lane and the Hammer Lane is the passing lane.)

"How do you do that?"

"Oh my God!"

"Maybe he has a death wish?"

"The first clue you were going the wrong way would be all the headlights coming at you."

"You would think the fact that none of the signs were facing where you could read them would be a good sign too, not to mention the yellow line being on your right and not left."

"Did he make a U Turn?"

"Maybe he is a foreign driver and could not read the ramp entrance signs?"

"WHERE THE HE** IS THIS IDIOT?!"

A couple of cops entered the freeway at exit 62 heading west bound to go after the fool. I would like to have heard the conversation once they stopped the truck. I wonder what the explanation was.

If you remember, it was a truck that went onto I-71 in Kentucky in the wrong direction that killed a bus load of school children back in 1988.

I hope I never see anything like that again, but I know it will happen again, some time, some place. Hopefully, it will never happen where the vehicle going the wrong direction ends up in front of me.

Be careful out there.

Sunset

I get to see a lot of sunsets and sunrises when driving.

Wisconsin Rest Area

Wisconsin Rest Area

Signs

While traveling down the interstate I see a lot of signs like the one on the right. These are about the only hints about what city/town you are coming into down the road. Most cities don't post their names onto signs at the entrance to the city along interstates. You have to keep track of the miles and where you are in order to know what city you are entering. Sometimes they will paint their names onto their water towers.

New Hampshire State Liquor Stores at Rest Areas

During my recent trip to New Hampshire I was reminded of something I thought was rather odd that I had seen when I drove up to Maine a couple of years back to visit my sister, a State Liquor Store located at the rest area off an interstate. Not only was there a store at the rest area going north, but across the interstate going south, there was also a store at the south bound rest area. These rest areas are located at about the 30 mile marker off I-93 in New Hampshire.

I could not even imagine Ohio doing something like that, putting state liquor stores in their rest areas. I believe I had mentioned the liquor stores being in the rest areas to my sister when I had visited her, and she laughed and said, well, you know, maybe it is the most convenient location for them to place them in New Hampshire.

Truck Driving is not for Woosies/Pansies.

Truck Driving is not for Woosies/Pansies. If you are thinking about driving a truck you had better take into consideration the long hours that you will put in. The Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates the number of hours you can drive in a day as well as the number of hours you can work. Truck drivers are allowed to drive eleven of the fourteen hour workday each day. This means that they get to break down three hours across their fourteen hour day to take breaks from driving. These breaks are normally used up for refueling the truck, going to the rest room, stopping to check things that appear to have gone wrong with the truck while driving, doing enroute inspections at every stop, oh, and eating meals if you have enough time left over to do so.

The other ten hours out of your day is your break time. During this time you try to get at least five or six hours of sleep, which leaves you with four hours to do with what ever you want to. You had better want to do your trip planning during some of this four hours or you may get lost. Ten hours to shower, eat, sleep, and shit (and trip plan) is not a lot of time off at the end of the day before it starts all over again. So if you think you are going to watch a little TV, a DVD, video, or entertain yourself, you had better plan on letting go of a little sleep, shower, trip planning, eating, or forget about Mother Nature (It is not nice to forget about Mother Nature, she will catch up with you sooner or later.).

You can work up to 70 hours, which is only counting your work and drive time, before you have to get at least 34 hours off. No, 48 hours off is not guaranteed. DOT says truck drivers only need 34 hours off in order to reset their 70 hours in order to start all over. Canada is now requiring at least 48 hours off in order to reset the 70 hours. So if a truck driver is going to drive into Canada, the driver had to have at least a 48 hour break during their last break before driving into Canada.

Don't get me wrong, I love driving a truck. I am no woosie. I am 51 years old and still have a lot of years left on me. It is funny seeing some of these kids laboring to do work that is so easy for me, even though I have sat in front of a desk for the past 25 years of my life pushing paperwork and running computers. I welcome the change.

Our country is so beautiful, and the peace and quiet I get while driving down the road is so serene, it makes all of the rough times of driving a truck worth it. I do miss my Wife and our pets, but I do get to see them on a regular basis since I have started driving the dedicated account. When I drove national I was lucky to see them once every couple of weeks. Now I see them every weekend.

Only Eleven States to Go!

After today, I will have only eleven contiguous states to drive a semi-truck into. I am currently in Massachusetts and will be driving into New Hampshire today. If you count Alaska, then I have twelve states within the North American continent that I have not driven into.

The remaining states that are in white in the map on the right which I have not driven into are:

Alaska
Arizona
Idaho
Maine
Montana
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oregon
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Vermont
Washington