OldTroubador's Blog - page 14

And so another run is about to come to a close. It has been an interesting trip, to say the least. I’ve been in three tractors, having watched my beloved Freebird II smoke a differential. I am breaking in the Freebird III. She seems a very good truck – she has the heart and soul of FB II. There have been a few improvements as far as driver comfort, but also a few changes to the computer that limit some of her capabilities. She is learning, however, how to get the job done within those parameters and is doing a fine job. She is also learning to stay between the lines; when I first got her, her steering was twitchy and she wandered all over the road. In fact, one time I sneezed and we went around a cloverleaf interchange two and a half times before I got her settled down. But she is a good truck and will be a pleasure to cruise the country with.
I was able to break bread with TruckerGirl again this trip. She is doing well and misses all her friends. And I was able to meet and dine with CelticOne – what a fabulous lady, and Mr. and Mrs. DirtyCopper. DC, the lady is too good for you – they are both wonderful folks and I look forward to seeing them all again just as soon as I can.
An explanation about the numbers this month. My final day on the road is still up in the air, therefore the * next to Run Ended and also Run Length and Total Miles. The total miles reflect what I have run so far, plus the miles from Hutchins, TX to Houston, to Orange, TX. I am hoping to get back to my neighborhood truck stop on Friday night, but that could extend to Saturday. Under Least Miles in One Day, there are two figures – the 11 + mile day refers to the morning the differential gave up the ghost in Virginia. The 112 mile day was the shortest run NOT involving a breakdown.
I have no special plans this weekend other than spending time with my daughter and relaxing. We may or may not go fishing, that has yet to be determined. I do know that we will consume chicken fried steaks – yes, I did raise her well, thank you.
Okay, by the numbers:
Run started – 28 May 2013
Run ended – 19 July 2013 *
Run length – 54 days *
Full days off – 3
Total miles – 19,579 *
Miles per day – 384 (average)
Most miles in one day – 614
Least miles in one day – 11 + ; 112
My runs carried me from Laredo, TX to Menomonie, WI and Charlotte, NC to Robbinsville, NJ. I did get into northeastern Pennsylvania one night and spent a great evening with my parents, sister, and her family. Most, about 85% of my running though was in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. I am hoping to spread that out a bit and see a few more places around the country – there is so much I haven’t seen yet, and so many places that I would like to revisit.
I still have a day or two of driving yet, so you won’t be rid of me that easily. And I may pop in to visit a couple of times during my break. Y’all be good, take care, and see you somewhere on the distant horizon.
And in honor of FINALLY getting back to the greatest state in the country:

Well, I have spent the last couple of years telling you how much fun truck driving is – all the beauty that I see, the points of interest, the little gems I find as I drive along. Here is how things really work. But first, a few explanations.
LOG BOOKS – According to the law, once I start my work day, I am allowed to be on duty for 14 hours, then I have to take a 10 hour break. Even if I am stuck on a loading dock for eight hours, I still have to abide by the 14 hour rule. Of those 14 hours, I am allowed to drive for 11 of them. So the important numbers are 14, 11, 10.
WEIGHT – I am allowed to carry no more than 80,000 pounds gross vehicular weight. And that has to be divided as follows – 12,000 on the steer axle, 34,000 on the two drive axles, and 34,000 on the two trailer axles. Now the trailer axles will slide to shift the weight forward or backward. They are held into place by four pins that slide through holes in the bottom frame rails of the truck. A lever attached to a cam, which is attached to a shaft, is lifted and locked in place to release the pins, then lowered and locked to place the pins back. A spring helps keep the pins pushed through the holes and also, by just lowering the lever, actually pushes the pins into place when the holes and pins line up.
PAY PERIOD – My pay period runs from 0001 Tuesday morning to 2400 Monday night. Any loads delivered during that time span go on that paycheck. I get paid by the mile.
Before we begin the sojourn through my personal hell, I have one other thing I need to explain. Our company has a few divisions, one is regional, one is dedicated customer runs, and one is over the road. I am in the over the road division – I am supposed to carry the freight all over the country. But since I returned to the road at the end of May, a check of my log books has shown that about 85% of my loads have originated or terminated in the Midwest – Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy driving through those states, just not every day. I have made brief trips into Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee. But for an old Southern boy like me to spend this much time up north – I really need to be in places where, at breakfast, the waitress puts down a big bowl of grits first then asks, “Honey, what will y’all be having this mornin’?” I miss the wide open plains of Wyoming and Nebraska, the endless corn and wheat fields of Kansas and Iowa, the Rocky Mountains and the deserts of the Southwest. And yes, I miss my southern, country fried way of living too.
On Monday of last week, I picked up a load in Hamilton Township, NJ at 1130. It had to deliver in South Boston, VA on Tuesday at 2200 (10 pm) and the run was only 395 miles. I spent the night 40 miles north of Richmond, VA and most of Tuesday. That afternoon, I left the truck stop drove the three hours to South Boston and parked there for a couple of hours. An early delivery would be counted by the customer as a failure and result in a fine against USA Truck (seriously). I rolled into the customer on time, backed to the dock and was unloaded. I went back to the truck stop for my 10-hour break. When I awoke, I went about a mile and a half to do my pick up for the day. The load was supposed to be ready at 0300; I arrived at 0930 expecting to drop my empty, hook the loaded one and go. It was not ready. I was finally loaded at 3 PM and left for Denver, PA, a total run of 351 miles. I would basically follow the same route north as I did south. North of Richmond, there are a number of truck stops crowding one exit and then nothing until I reach Baltimore. At the hour I left, the Baltimore truck stops would be full, so I planned on stopping north of Richmond, where I had been the day before. The weather went bad though, and rush hour was at full strength, so I shut down about 45 miles south of where I had planned. I had it figured – a 10-hour break, hit the road, beat the morning rush in Washington, DC and most of it in Baltimore. Well. First of all, I should have only logged two hours driving for the day but just before I went to bed, I changed it to three hours, thinking I had made an error initially. That pushed my start time back an hour. Then, I overslept by an hour. Full blown panic mode set in and I was gone in 15 minutes. Unfortunately, so had all the other people who commute from Richmond to Washington (more about THAT some other time). And of course, there was an accident that shut down I95 for a time. I got clear of that, ran hard to Baltimore and right into the middle of their rush hour. Needless to say, I was an hour and a half late for my appointment.
Four hours after bumping their dock, I was empty and headed to my next pick up in Hanover, PA. Hanover is an old, south central Pennsylvania town – many of the buildings are registered landmarks. The town was built in the late 1700’s. It is home to at least five potato chip and pretzel baking companies and I was going to pick up at one of them. I have got to tell you, the town smells wonderful, by the way. That pick up went well and I was on my way to Plainfield, IN. I spent the night in Carlisle, PA, just before my log book ran out for the day. I got up the next morning and drove to Spiceland, IN to spend the night before driving the last hour to my delivery. The delivery went well and I drove to Lebanon, IN to pick up a load for St. James, MO. The way my schedule was for Saturday, I was supposed to deliver in Plainfield, drive to Lebanon and pick up, drive to St. James to deliver, then drive to Edwardsville, IL, north and east of St. Louis to do another pickup, then I could shut down. But, there is always a but, things unraveled quickly in Lebanon. When I picked up the trailer I was supposed to take to Missouri, I scaled it at a truck stop next door and the drive axles were >4000 pounds overweight. I slid the axles as far as I could, re-weighed the truck and the axles were still >2000 pounds over. At this point, I was sweating and cursing a blue streak because the spring that was supposed to push the pins into place was bad. That meant I had to line up the pins with the locking holes and manually push the pins into place. Not as easy as it sounds because the pins are about two inches in diameter and the holes are about two and a half inches. So every time I had to make an adjustment, I had to get everything lined up as close as I could from the driver’s seat, walk to the back to see how far out of line I was, then had to ease the truck either ¾ of an inch forward or backward to get things to line up exactly. And usually, I missed the line up by an inch in either direction, of course. Anyway, after all this, I went back to the customer and explained the problem. I was assigned a dock where I waited. And waited. Finally a forklift started unloading my truck to reload it properly. After two hours, I was released and weighed the truck again. The drive axles were still 150 pounds over, so back I went to get re-reloaded. Anyway, after spending eight hours total at the customer, and weighing the truck two more times, I was finally legal to leave Lebanon. I only got as far as Troy, IL – about 25 miles east of St. Louis – before I had to shut down for the night.
I got out of bed this morning and hit the road hard. I made the delivery in St. James, ran like the wind to Edwardsville and picked up there. That went well too, thankfully. Unfortunately, because of all the trouble in Lebanon, I had been playing catch up and had not been able to shut down close enough to any deliveries – I have been accruing extra driving time against my log. The load from Edwardsville was supposed to deliver in London, KY on Sunday afternoon, but my log book ran out of driving time again and again, I am two hours short of my destination. I will deliver this load early in the morning and then drive to Somerset, KY to pick up a load for Plano, IL to deliver on Tuesday morning. The problem with that load? I am supposed to be in Orange, TX on Thursday morning for five days off of relaxing and visiting my daughter. Plano, IL to Orange, TX by Wednesday night – I don’t see that happening in this lifetime.
To wrap it up, I only gained about 2200 miles this week for my paycheck. I usually get 2500-2700, so I am coming up short a little bit. I will get reimbursed for the five scale tickets I bought on Saturday, but still.
So, my fine friends, that is the trucking business. And that is why most of my blogs refer more to the good days, the sights, the smells, the wonders that I see. The little gifts I am given along the way. I try real hard not to dwell on weeks like this – but it sure does make it hard to be polite on the highway. Anyway, see you out there where the highway meets the sky and remember, be kind to the truckers out there – their weeks may have been like this too.

This is one I wrote years ago. I would sit on the front porch in the evening with a cup of coffee and a notebook. And if the Muse was with me, I would have something to write. This is one of my favorites, I am glad I was able to save this one (yeah, the same disc that was corrupted years ago).

The night sounds are muted
Reflecting the light of town
White and orange are the lowering clouds
Clouds bringing the promise of rain
Rain which, a few years ago, was welcome
And a salvation
But now seems a curse
Shall we see the sun again?

The night sounds are muted
The quiet rent by a horn the
Warning blast of a train announcing
To those of us still awake its presence
Its arrival at each crossroad
The thrumming of the diesels growing louder
And louder still as throttle is added
A solo song sung by pistons, the sound
Of steel wheel on steel rail singing back up

The night sounds are muted
The night time is dark
Light spills out of windows pointing
The way to trouble? Illness? Loneliness?
What’s happening around the lights behind the curtains?
Here a mother nurses a sick child, there
A couple sits across from each other
In tired sullenness – the fight gone, but the pain lingering
Down the street, a family talks long into the night
A happy reunion

The night sounds are muted
Parakeets and finches fussing each other
Over some imagined slight
The bubbler and the pump gurgling burbling in
The fish tank. The noise is background music to the silent movie which is the life of these fish
Silently mouthing their lines
The only other sound is the pencil scratching
This paper, laying down these simple words

The night sounds are muted.

Parked at a loading dock in a small town western New Jersey town, I saw through the scrub trees a small pond. Actually, that description is generous, for nowhere was its depth more than a few inches. It served mainly as a storm water collection site. Algae and water moss grew plentifully in the muddy water with a few clumps of grass growing here and there. The side facing me was edged with small trees whose type I could not determine while maples, oaks, and pines ringed the rest of the pond.
Except for the flora, I thought the pond sterile and devoid of life, at first. Then I noticed a turtle, its shell exposed in the shallow water, plodding along. Its head was down in the water, feasting on all the greenery the pond provided. Occasionally, the terrapin would lift its head, greens hanging from its mouth, much like a child forking in too much spaghetti. As soon as that mouthful was slurped down, at a turtle’s pace of course, it would again bury its head into nature’s salad bar. It continued this way the whole time I watched, leaving behind it a path cleared of the plant life it found so tasty.
A quick movement on the opposing bank caught my eye. A frog was hopping across the mud flat. Soon, two or three others joined it. I watched as they eased into the water, then swam sedately to stake out places of ambush. When they paused, the water barely covered their feet and rumps. Soon, other frogs revealed themselves to me as they made towering acrobatic leaps to snare flying morsels for their breakfast. They would fall back into the water with a splash, then ease their way back to the launch pad, soon to repeat their gymnastic dining. Occasionally, one would vocalize, almost as if to brag on its exploits.
The space above the water too had come to life. Dozens, if not hundreds, of dragonflies flitted hither and yon. The easiest to spot were those whose abdomens were a powder blue, so light in color as to appear white. Other species were there too, some rust brown, others black, all about three or four inches long. The first to arrive had commandeered hunting areas of a few cubic feet in extant. As others arrived, they tried to encroach and poach in property already claimed; they were chased off by the claimants, which carried them into the territory of others. Soon, swarms of dragonflies were chasing each other across the pond, while others soon arrived to take up the abandoned parcels. Everything would settle down, until the dragonflies returned to their original positions, only to find their “property” usurped. The result was another furball across the face of the pond.
In the brush directly in front of me, pairs of goldfinches had awakened. They would rocket out of the branches, the males brilliant as their bright yellow bodies caught the sun, the females more drab. They would go off, presumably to find seeds, then come back to their perches, the partners then off on their own quest. In the tall trees across the way, blue jays were chasing each other through the branches like fighter planes, twisting and weaving, all the while screeching avian obscenities at each other. Other birds, unidentifiable to me, also hopped and darted amongst the branches, their songs a counterpoint to the rumble of traffic in the background.
And through it all, the turtle plodded placidly through the mud, happily vacuuming up the plant life, unconcerned with the cacophony and chaos that surrounded him.

Many large cranes are broken down into major sub-assemblies and loaded onto flatbed or drop deck trailers for transport to a new job site or back to the yard for maintenance. I was walking across a truck stop parking lot one evening and as I passed the fuel island, there was a flatbed there with one set of the tracks on its deck. I found the driver, who was washing his windshield and told him that thieves had stolen his crane and all they left behind was one set of tracks.
The way he talked to me after that, he should have spent more time washing out his mouth, instead of cleaning bugs off his glass.
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Last fall, during college football season, I made a delivery in Ohio. I called the young man unloading my truck over and said, “What is a Buckeye?” He said, “It’s some kind of nut”. I said, “I know that, but what exactly is a buckeye”.
The conversation sort of died after that.
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One way we communicate with our dispatchers is with a Qualcomm system (another instance of a brand name becoming a generic name for a type of product). It consists of a satellite dome and a keyboard. Messages are typed in the truck and bounced off a satellite back to the office and vice versa. It is also used to track the trucks to see where they are and if they are moving.
I told you all that to relate this story. In my first year with USA Truck, I was sent to pick up a load in Ticonderoga, NY. This town is located in upstate New York along Lake Champlain; it is very isolated. I arrived at my customer on a Saturday morning and sent a message back saying that I had arrived. Some time later, I received a message back asking if I was truly there, for the satellite showed I was still 58 miles away. It being a Saturday, my regular dispatcher wasn’t in – I don’t think it would have mattered. Anyway, I sent a note back saying that I had hooked up with a hootchie kootchie doll from a club the night before and had just kicked her out of the truck and was on my way; I sent the note so I wouldn’t get in trouble for being late for the pick-up. I got no reply – until Monday morning at about 0735 (my dispatcher gets into the office at 0730). My dispatcher? Yeah, she didn’t find it near as funny as I did.
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My best joke almost turned out to be my undoing. I arrived at a customer and checked in at the guard shack. The guard I was talking with – there were two in the shack – told me how to get around the complex and which dock to back my trailer into. “It’ll be easy”, he said. I said, “Maybe for a real trucker. I hijacked this truck a day ago and, before I gagged the driver and threw him in the back of someone’s empty trailer, he asked if I could finish this run for him so he could get credit for it and therefore paid. I figured out how to get this xxxxx down the highway, but I don’t think I can back it up. Do you have someone who could do that for me? Then when I am empty, I am headed for Mexico.” The next words out of my mouth were pleas to them to NOT call 911. After ten minutes of checking my license and company ID, they called my dispatcher to verify my employment history.
Nuff said.

Many thanks to Mrs and Mr DC for stopping by this evening. They are very funny, warm, wonderful folks and I hope you get a chance to meet them soon. Trust me when I say, I appreciated the company and the pleasure was all mine

She is so pretty, she can even make me look good


I get to meet all the pretty ladies


The happy couple themselves

Declaration of Independence

[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]

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The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.


He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

When I look at the stars, I wonder if you are looking at them too
As the man in the moon gazes down, do you see me smiling at you
When I look at a sunset, can you see it through my eyes
Can you feel the spring breeze, hear the songbirds’ cries
Though miles and time separate us, we’re never truly apart
You ride with me forever, snuggled safe and warm in my heart

Seen on the back of a milk tanker:

Everything I Have, I Owe to Udders
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Seen on the approach to a state highway exit ramp in Missouri:

Permitted Loads NOT Allowed

Really?
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Seen in a construction zone in Pennsylvania; many such zones have signs marking the location of overhead high voltage wires, underground wires and pipelines and such, but this took the cake:

Bridge Ahead

If your construction people cannot see a bridge right there, do you really want them operating heavy equipment?
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Seen on an electronic billboard in my parents’ town, outside of a medical center:

Certified Dementia Practitioners

How does one become certified for this? Do you take a test and answer “I forget” to every question?
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And last but not least, a billboard just south of Dallas on I35E, advertising an adult toy store:

There is a picture of a cucumber on the billboard with the tag line:
STOP VEGETABLE ABUSE!!!! Come to Sara’s Secret
for the best selection in adult toys!!!!