On Being a Sick Truck Driver

I've made a few small posts about this already, and I don't want to come across as whiny, but it really does suck being sick on a truck.

I mean, it's not even really a bad cold, just stuffy head, sniffles, and aches, but oh, the things I take for granted when I'm sick at home.

One thing I like to do for a cold is drink tea and/or orange juice. Well, on a truck there is no readily available bathroom, so fluids intake is problematic.

Another thing is a good night's rest, and in general just lazing about. I've been lucky so far, since Collin has felt better and I needed to reset my hours, anyway. Except that trying to rest on a moving truck is not easy, or restful. Especially here in the east after a crappy winter has roads that were already bad, have been torn up even worse.

Even though we spent one night in a hotel, where I got to dip in the hot tub, I still woke up this morning feeling like I'd been in a sparing match with Hugh Jackman. (Think 'Real Steel')

I thought I'd at least be able to get some writing done, but my attention span is only equal to about 15 minutes. 20 on a good streak. Like I'm already losing interest in writing this....

It may just be the cold, but I also feel like I have no nerve for driving in this east coast hustle and traffic. Usually I'm able to just let Collin drive, but I've spent the last two days holding on to the OS handle and hollering at other drivers to stay in their lanes. Not like me at all!

The good part is that Collin and I have been chatting while I ride shotgun, which we don't seem to get to do, much. (I know, you'd think working together 24/7 we'd have said it all....) We've hatched a plan to pay off the house by 2016, so maybe we can go back to working local and hang up the Ball & Chain and our OTR miles in favor of a nice, simple life at home....

Sounds really good about now.

I know I'll be better in a day or so, but I hope we remember our incentive to pay down the house, so we can get this stage, this means to an end, behind us.

We can figure out what exactly the 'end' is later.

Okay. It's hot here in Miami, and we're waiting on the side of the road for our next load, and my attention is falling on napping more than writing this blog.

Thanks for reading! There will be more, later. ♡♥♡♥♡

On Being a Truck Driver Who Writes

(Or: On Being Tired and Out of Touch)

So I've been on the road for three weeks, now, and we have been back and forth across the USA -- not quite coast to coast.

Let's see: Mill City, OR to Sisseton, SD to Watertown, SD to Mason City, IA to Faribault MN to Seattle, WA to Ferndale, WA to Clearfield, UT to Spanish Fork, UT to Blaine, MN to Stewartville, MN to Spokane, WA to Swedesboro, NJ to Fonda, NY to Chino, CA.... Well, we'll deliver in Chino tomorrow morning. You get the picture.

That's over 13,000 (yes thousand!) miles.

I won't say I'd forgotten how tiring non-stop travel can be. But I had forgotten the reality of feeling that tired.

But it is funny because I've actually written more out here than I expected I would. Feels like more than I wrote all winter. Almost. I think the reason for that is because I can't get online at a moment's whim like I could at home. So when I'm not driving or sleeping, when I crank up the laptop, there's really not much else to do except write. Not much signal across Montana and South Dakota, never mind Wyoming. At least not a quality signal that doesn't have me pulling out my hair.

Oh, there is the never-ending receipts that have to be entered in the computer, and the husband who wants to implement a 5 year plan so we can go back to being local, which requires budgeting, which I can geek out on for hours.

But I'm getting the writing done, too. Plus, there's not much to do other than think of plot lines and conflicts and back story while driving. Inspiration is surprisingly abundant while I'm watching what little traffic is out there in Big Sky Country.

And you know what? The Google Keep app has pretty good voice recognition quality, so I can dictate notes into my phone hands free, at least well enough to know what idea I was trying to impart.

So, surprisingly, it is working. Which is what I should be doing now. Except I wanted to update folks on what it is like out here.

Brokedown in Utah (Again)

Not saying I'd rather be elsewhere, but the people at Larry's Towing in Provo Utah are very nice. If we have to break down in this part of the country, this is a much better solution than Mountain West Volvo.

So, what happened? you wonder. We had just gotten loaded in Spanish Fork and were heading up Highway 189 when we heard a clang like a spring breaking, and then a rattle that slowed down as we did. We got safely pulled over and looked for the problem. Turns out the cap came off a u-joint. We didn't lose the driveline entirely, but we were stuck.

The folks at Larry's Towing came and brought us back to Provo last night, and have it apart. There is no damage, we just need a new u-joint. It is taking a little longer than anticipated, but we hope to be on the road soon.

Larry's crew are upfront and thorough, so we are more than willing to take the time to fix it right now, rather than having the same problem down the road because they didn't notice a small part that was ready to fail.

Starting Out Again

So, we kick off another year of trucking with a resounding thud.

Since I last blogged here, we changed our system so that I take a few months off in the winter, which does a lot toward preventing the need to save our marriage. See, things slow down enough in the winter that we would just be butting heads and going stir crazy.

But come April it is time for me to get back on the truck.

So last night (after pushing like crazy to get everything packed into the new truck, which has much less storage) we headed up to Vancouver Washington to pick up a load of brewing vats headed for Fargo North Dakota. Now, the vats themselves would fit on our trailer, but not with the ladder hooks and braces -- it was too big!

So we drove up here for nothing.

We had breakfast at the Cascade Grill at the Jubitz Truck Stop and have been sitting here pretty much all day. All the alternative loads haven't offered any good pay, but it looks like we're going to take some lumber out of Mill City headed for somewhere in eastern South Dakota.

Hopefully once we get off the left coast will get back to where there is good paying freight.

Reely Spooly

Drove to Malvern, Arkansas to pick up 5 reels of cable bound for Oregon. Four to be delivered in Prineville, one to be delivered to Portland. An opportunity to go home and put the truck into the shop for some pressing work that needs to be done.

It took better than 3 hours of waiting before we could get our reels loaded, but we got them chained down - again we have the 'one chain short' issue we will have to remedy when we get home. Because of the lateness of our departure, and the Prineville customer not being ready, we won't deliver until Thursday after lunch there, and in Portland on Friday morning. We should be home Friday afternoon.
 
After a crazy night of driving over the Blue Mountains in a pretty significant snowstorm, and then winding our way past John Day on Hwy 26, we arrived in Prineville about four hours later than we planned, but still three hours ahead of schedule. It was good that we had pushed on, given how slow the going was once we got into Oregon.

Delivered four reels to PacificCorp in Prineville, OR to a job site that turned out to be a new data center for facebook. It took a while for them to be ready for us, since it had recently rained and made the unloading area a soggy mess. They had to spread more gravel and grade it in order for us to get in without getting stuck.

While we were waiting, we happened to be sitting across the street from a place that makes custom tarps. They happened to have a set of nine foot tarps in yellow that a customer had failed to purchase after ordering, so we got them on sale. A nice case of being in the right place at the right time.

After we got unloaded, we drove over Mt. Hood in minimal snowfall, and spent the night near a mill in Boring, Oregon, before heading in to Portland to deliver the last reel to General Electric on SE 17th.

On the way home we crossed the Woodburn Scales and got pulled in for a random level one DOT inspection, which we passed, including the logbooks. A good thing for our SMS score.

We were home by noon. Ah!

Tight Fit

Drove to Barbour's Cut Terminal in LaPorte, Texas to pick up 4 tractors bound for Sulphur Springs, Texas. It was an interesting production, since we had to find and load our particular tractors ourselves.  I thought the guy was joking at first, but it was indeed up to us. We had to find our four out of about 30 blue tractors on the dock by looking at serial numbers, then get them loaded. The ramp they had available was a good foot shy of the height of the trailer, but we were able to climb them up with only a little difficulty.

Collin did all the loading, but I did get to drive one of the tractors up to the ramp. That was fun! We almost couldn't fit all four on the trailer. It was a very close fit, maybe an inch between tractors, and the front one's tires overhung the front of the trailer, and the back ones overhung the back. Chaining them down was a chore, too. Collin had to climb around under the tractors fussing with the chains, plus we were one chain short of doing a truly appropriate job, and had to use a strap in place of a chain on one axle. But we got it done.

Looks Like We Got Ourselves a Convoy

Loaded out at Sabre Galvanizing in Alvarado, Texas on the 14th, with a load of galvanized I beams bound for a solar project near Santa Margarita, California that wasn't going to deliver until Tuesday due to the MLK day holiday. We took our time to get to Buttonwillow, where we needed to meet the convoy. The road up to the site is very winding, and they had to shut the road down to opposing traffic while the convoy goes up. It was quite a drive. We couldn't leave until the convoy left, they were telling us it would be 3:00pm, which screwed us up for a partial load we were going to take to get us out to Terminal Island for a load on Wednesday.

Once we got down from the site, we spent the night up on top of the Grapevine, since we didn't want to go down into Long Beach until the morning.