I finally made it back to the yard today. I delivered my load in Green Bay yesterday, picked up a truck in Oshkosh, ran it to the yard, and then spent the night there. This was yesterday. This morning I put  my truck in the shop for rooutine service, and used another truck to make ppick ups at three locations for a load I was told I would be hauling to TN. The load was a bunch of stuff and took a great deal of work to load and secure. By the time I got it back to the yard they told me th...

I was enjoying a few cold ones at the bar next door to my motel. I was having a pretty good time talking with my fellow drivers and some locals while wacthing first a baseball game and then some racing on the tv. We were all having a good time and pretty much just cutting up, telling jokes and lies. Of course I was knitting too, as is my way. At one point this guy came in, a fellow driver, and sat down at the bar a couple stools down from me. He seemed ok at first. After a bit, in the mids...

The car show ended and everyone has packed up and hit the road. Finally a vacancy at the motel. Just in time too. It's quite warm here today, predicting a high of 91 with plenty of sunshine. As the APU is out on my truck and it's against the law to idle the truck to keep cool, a room is welcome right now. It gets amazingly hot inside a truck sitting out in the sun. I've checked in and am enjoying a bit of relaxation. I'll probably wander over to the bar for a couple of cold ones after I get a...

I delivered the combine at the port in Baltimore on Thursday. It was pretty much an all day deal just getting the damn thing off my trailer but I finally was empty. I wasn't at all surprised when I was told to go to the truck stop and wait. I expected that. I headed down to the TA in Jessup, MD as it was the closest place I was likely to find a place to park. Jessup. is a shithole and always has been, every trucker who has run the East coast knows this. It's a great place to get robbed, shot,...

I delivered a snow broom truck to the airport in Denver Monday morning. I sat at the truck stop in Denver from Monday morning until today (Thursday) waiting for a reload. Very boring place. This morning I was sitting in the truck stop drinking my coffee and checked my phone. Two voice mails. I never even heard it ring. It was dispatch who had finally found me a load out of there. It was a military truck, an APC, heading to WY. Well, better than nothing. I ran down to Ft Carson and pick...

I finally got a call from dispatch this afternoon. "I finally found you a load, but you're not going to like it." Uh oh. "Yeah, ok, go ahead". She told me I had to go to Ft Bragg, NC and pick up a military load. Ok so far. It's going to New Jersey. Ah, there's the hook. Short run and probably not paying all that much for having sat for almost four days. Oh well, better than nothing. I moved the truck from the truck stop in Manning, SC to a different truck stop in Latta, SC which puts...

When I pulled into this hotel I parked next to a bus pulling a trailer. It had dark tinted windows and looked pretty much like every band tour bus I had ever seen. I just assumed it was some band on tour but didn't know it for sure. I just went out of my room to visit the drink machine and saw a young guy coming out of the bus carrying a guitar. I knew it! It's some band on tour. I didn't recognize the guy so have no idea what band it may be. When I got down to the drink machine the kid wa...

I'm spending the weekend in Manning, SC, not because I want to but because they couldn't find me a load out of here. I got a room for tonight and visited the Mexican joint close to the motel. The bartender is a very nice Mexican lady and she seemed really interested in my knitting. She told me she doesn't know how to knit so I told her she could learn on KH, just like I did. I think she really wants to learn. Her English is far better than my Spanish, but not perfect. We managed to cha...

The state police, particularly the commercial vehicle enforcement division, is using a "checklist" interview to determine if, in the officer's opinion, a trucker is too fatigued to be driving. This checklist is not based upon any scientific or medical criteria at all, and was put together by the head of the department. The cop basically interviews the driver, without actually telling the driver he/she is being interviewed or evaluated, and asks a series of questions and makes certain observat...

After all of the delays, including snowstorms, high winds, and having to stop and have a muffler replaced on my truck, I finallly delivered the 7 ton military truck in N Charleston yesterday. It was raining like crazy the whole time I was unchaining the truck, detaching the front deck, and then reattaching after the guy drove the truck off the trailer. I was soaked to the skin but just kept reminding myself "At least it isn't snowing". It was a bit chilly for SC but still a lot warmer than wh...

I got my load picked up in SLC and waited out the weather. I would normally have headed out on I-80 but the weather didn't look goog that way at all so first thing in the morning on Friday I went south on I-15 and cut across US 6 to "The Devil's Highway" which is old route 666. They changed the designation of 666 to 491 a few years ago because a lot the superstiotious types refused to run "The Devil's Highway" just because of the number. Idtiots. Most of us who have been out here a long time ...

I stayed the night here in Salt Lake City and some snow moved in over night. I had thought it was all over and was supposed to be warming up. That'll teach me to think I guess. Right now the big pass heading east out of SLC is requiring tire chains, as is the first 40 miles or so in WY. Company policy is that we don't chain up, better to just wait, and I agree with that. If conditions are so bad as to require chains it's better to just park and wait. This time of year can be so unpredictab...

I finally delivered the airfield snow blower truck in Salt Lake City this morning. I've managed to finish the body of the sweater now and have started one of the sleeves. I hope to have the thing finished before too much longer. I had started it right before my mother passed away in December and after that I just didn't bother to work on it for a while, so now it seems like I've been working on it forever. This morning I got caught in a smaller snowstorm as I crossed from WY into UT, but ...

Monday I delivered the oversized load, a piece of construction equipment, in Paris, AR. When I had called to check in Monday morning the dispatcher told me he had a reload lined up for me, a milirary 5 ton truck coming out of Ft Chaffee going to MN. That was cool as I was delivering only a short distance from Ft Chaffee. When I unloaded the construction equipment and called in he said that the load had fallen through and to just find a truck stop and hole up until he found something. Damn the...

It's been a while since I've been able to blog. The last time I blogged I was waiting out a snowstorm in NY. I picked up a load in PA and ran it to WI with a stop in IL. I then loaded up an airport crash truck and hauled it down to Mesa, AZ. I am now on my way vack out of Mesa. The weather is pretty typical for this time of year. I'v gone from pretty warm to snowstorm. I'm spending the night in Amarillo and it's snowing here. Such is the way it is this time of year. I spent some time...