Home Time
After waiting for what seemed an eternity, I finally got to leave Bedford, PA with an empty trailer towards my next work assignment. I was dispatched to pick up a load of paper rolls in McCoole, MD to take home and relay with another driver. I was super happy to be rolling homeward and blessed with such beautiful weather for the trip.
Once I'd acquired my load, I was finally and truly home bound. I stopped to scale at the relatively new Pilot on I-68 in Maryland where I found I was good to go weight wise. I grabbed a couple of corn dogs and scarfed them down before making the rest of the trip west and south. The trip was slow going with a gross weight of 77,900 lbs. but it was fine by me since the day was so lovely. Crystal blue skies with awesome puffy white clouds. It was swell.
I jammed out to the XM radio, switching between "The Pulse" and "Lithium" when the mood struck for current vs. retro tunage. Life was good...
When I got close to the end of I-68 in Morgantown, WV an "urgent" message came across the Qualcomm. There is an LED screen on my dash that will display up to 25 characters of a message that comes across the Qualcomm, which is always just a teaser because you never get enough info to make a determination about what the message is really about. I pressed the button to clear it so I didn't have to stare at the partial cryptic message all the way to the next rest area. But the whole time I was driving I found myself wondering what the message was about. The screen simply read, "Urgent, relay driver w".
Finally pulling into a rest area I put the truck in park and hopped back into the sleeper to grab my Qualcomm and see what was up. I had concocted a scenario in my own mind that the relay driver wasn't going to make it and that I would have to take the load to Tennessee myself before going home. Of course, I found relief when I read "Urgent, relay driver wants to discuss relay with you, his name is JAKE and his number is 123-456-7890." (names and numbers changed to protect the innocent lol)
I grabbed my cel and dialed the number. The driver was concerned about meeting me for the relay since he was sitting about two hours north of the relay site on a 34 hour restart. He was mostly concerned that he might get in trouble for not meeting me face to face or that he'd be holding me up for my home time by not being able to meet me when I got there.
I assured him he could arrive whenever he liked and that I would already be at home enjoying my time off. The load wasn't considered high value and the relay site was a "secure and trusted" location where I had already been instructed to just drop and go home. I think he must've been a relatively new driver and was just afraid that the was either being "set up for failure" or was just afraid he might get in trouble for not being there to meet me when I arrived.
After calming his nerves about it and answering his questions about the relay site and the load, I hung up and got back on the road. I made it to the relay site around 7:30pm and found that the parking lot was already quite full. There was a couple of spaces available in an area that was notably difficult to get into with the flow of traffic into the facility. I was lucky, however, that there was little traffic coming in when I'd arrived and was able to get backed into a spot with ease. Although, the guy that was parked on the passenger side of the spot I was backing into had his hand at the ready on his air horn should I get too close to his rig, which made me laugh.
After I'd put the rig into the spot and got out to unhook everything he applauded me from his drivers' seat and said he was impressed that I didn't have any trouble getting it in. I thanked him and let him know that I was "a trained professional", laughing and smiling as he did the same.
Once I'd gotten unhooked I booked it home to Charleston and was finally home! So far I've done a whole big bunch of not much. Yesterday we did ride up with my sweeties brother to visit their grandpa who is in the hospital recovering from hip surgery. Once back in town, I headed up to the truck stop to take some stuff out of Trucky in preparation for my vacation later this month. I've had all sorts of crap I've been meaning to get out and bring home, winter survival stuff mostly, for months and just hadn't taken the time to do it. So I did it last night. Now when I park Trucky for my week off later on I won't have nearly as much crap to clean out and haul home. Which will be nice.
I didn't realize how much stuff I'd accumulated over the past nearly two years. It's insane. And most of the stuff I took out was stuff I'd never touched since I put it in there. Like I said, mostly winter survival stuff like MRE's, extra sheets and blankets, insulated coveralls, candles, emergency stuffs for extreme winter scenarios.
Now when I do clean out for vacation I will just have my clothes, my cooler, my food stuffs and my cleaning items like sprays and a vacuum, my tools and some books and such.
I can't wait for vacation. This will be the first whole week I've taken off since I have been doing this trucking thing. I've been reluctant to do so up until now because I didn't want to risk losing Trucky. Company policy is that when you take more than 5 days off in a row you have to park at one of our terminals and clean out the truck of all personal effects. This way if there is a driver in need of a truck, they can reassign it to them. Or if there is a driver in need of a loaner, you don't risk getting you're stuff stolen while they "borrow it".
I've always been upset by this because I'm pretty installed in Trucky and had a lot of crap I'd have to clean out. Plus, Trucky and I have been together through it all so far and I'd hate to lose him to someone else. Getting a new truck might sound like a good thing, but since I'd get someone else's used and abused truck it might be like getting back Trucky before all of the maintenance had been done to him.
But I've come to terms with the possibility that I might end up with a way cooler truck, maybe one in better condition... or that Trucky might still be there waiting for me patiently when I return from vacation. Either way, I'll win and while the risk of losing Trucky to someone else sucks, it's worth it for a one week paid vacay in the mountains of North Carolina!
Once I'd acquired my load, I was finally and truly home bound. I stopped to scale at the relatively new Pilot on I-68 in Maryland where I found I was good to go weight wise. I grabbed a couple of corn dogs and scarfed them down before making the rest of the trip west and south. The trip was slow going with a gross weight of 77,900 lbs. but it was fine by me since the day was so lovely. Crystal blue skies with awesome puffy white clouds. It was swell.
I jammed out to the XM radio, switching between "The Pulse" and "Lithium" when the mood struck for current vs. retro tunage. Life was good...
When I got close to the end of I-68 in Morgantown, WV an "urgent" message came across the Qualcomm. There is an LED screen on my dash that will display up to 25 characters of a message that comes across the Qualcomm, which is always just a teaser because you never get enough info to make a determination about what the message is really about. I pressed the button to clear it so I didn't have to stare at the partial cryptic message all the way to the next rest area. But the whole time I was driving I found myself wondering what the message was about. The screen simply read, "Urgent, relay driver w".
Finally pulling into a rest area I put the truck in park and hopped back into the sleeper to grab my Qualcomm and see what was up. I had concocted a scenario in my own mind that the relay driver wasn't going to make it and that I would have to take the load to Tennessee myself before going home. Of course, I found relief when I read "Urgent, relay driver wants to discuss relay with you, his name is JAKE and his number is 123-456-7890." (names and numbers changed to protect the innocent lol)
I grabbed my cel and dialed the number. The driver was concerned about meeting me for the relay since he was sitting about two hours north of the relay site on a 34 hour restart. He was mostly concerned that he might get in trouble for not meeting me face to face or that he'd be holding me up for my home time by not being able to meet me when I got there.
I assured him he could arrive whenever he liked and that I would already be at home enjoying my time off. The load wasn't considered high value and the relay site was a "secure and trusted" location where I had already been instructed to just drop and go home. I think he must've been a relatively new driver and was just afraid that the was either being "set up for failure" or was just afraid he might get in trouble for not being there to meet me when I arrived.
After calming his nerves about it and answering his questions about the relay site and the load, I hung up and got back on the road. I made it to the relay site around 7:30pm and found that the parking lot was already quite full. There was a couple of spaces available in an area that was notably difficult to get into with the flow of traffic into the facility. I was lucky, however, that there was little traffic coming in when I'd arrived and was able to get backed into a spot with ease. Although, the guy that was parked on the passenger side of the spot I was backing into had his hand at the ready on his air horn should I get too close to his rig, which made me laugh.
After I'd put the rig into the spot and got out to unhook everything he applauded me from his drivers' seat and said he was impressed that I didn't have any trouble getting it in. I thanked him and let him know that I was "a trained professional", laughing and smiling as he did the same.
Once I'd gotten unhooked I booked it home to Charleston and was finally home! So far I've done a whole big bunch of not much. Yesterday we did ride up with my sweeties brother to visit their grandpa who is in the hospital recovering from hip surgery. Once back in town, I headed up to the truck stop to take some stuff out of Trucky in preparation for my vacation later this month. I've had all sorts of crap I've been meaning to get out and bring home, winter survival stuff mostly, for months and just hadn't taken the time to do it. So I did it last night. Now when I park Trucky for my week off later on I won't have nearly as much crap to clean out and haul home. Which will be nice.
I didn't realize how much stuff I'd accumulated over the past nearly two years. It's insane. And most of the stuff I took out was stuff I'd never touched since I put it in there. Like I said, mostly winter survival stuff like MRE's, extra sheets and blankets, insulated coveralls, candles, emergency stuffs for extreme winter scenarios.
Now when I do clean out for vacation I will just have my clothes, my cooler, my food stuffs and my cleaning items like sprays and a vacuum, my tools and some books and such.
I can't wait for vacation. This will be the first whole week I've taken off since I have been doing this trucking thing. I've been reluctant to do so up until now because I didn't want to risk losing Trucky. Company policy is that when you take more than 5 days off in a row you have to park at one of our terminals and clean out the truck of all personal effects. This way if there is a driver in need of a truck, they can reassign it to them. Or if there is a driver in need of a loaner, you don't risk getting you're stuff stolen while they "borrow it".
I've always been upset by this because I'm pretty installed in Trucky and had a lot of crap I'd have to clean out. Plus, Trucky and I have been together through it all so far and I'd hate to lose him to someone else. Getting a new truck might sound like a good thing, but since I'd get someone else's used and abused truck it might be like getting back Trucky before all of the maintenance had been done to him.
But I've come to terms with the possibility that I might end up with a way cooler truck, maybe one in better condition... or that Trucky might still be there waiting for me patiently when I return from vacation. Either way, I'll win and while the risk of losing Trucky to someone else sucks, it's worth it for a one week paid vacay in the mountains of North Carolina!
Comments
I got behind on your blog but am caught up now. I was shocked to read about the sneaky beer company. I'm glad it worked out in your favor. Any other outcome would have been unjustified! Enjoy your time at home. You SO deserve it!
Wags & wiggles,
Bijou