Midwest

My local load went alright. Had a little trouble at the first stop. It was still a little dark and I saw the sign saying "<-- receiving" but couldn't really tell if it meant the first or second driveway. Both of them were within 100' or so of each other and the sign was a few feet past the first. The first driveway had all the car parking up front. One thing to avoid in a big truck is the car entrance. You can find yourself in a bad situation if you turn into the wrong entrance. Especially if you have to back out onto a major road!

I drove past the first and went to the second. I'd look at the place on Google maps and the docks were on the side of the second entrance so I figured that had to be it. Well, I got up there and saw "Do Not Enter -- One Way!" Oops! Had to drive right on by that one too. That left me searching for somewhere to turn around.

Getting turned around is a little more complicated when you're 75' long. It's not like a car where you can whip in anywhere and do a uturn. I've been in situations before where I've literally had to drive to the next town 20 some miles away to get turned around. This time luckily about a mile down the road was an ungated dock area for some other place. I got turned around and went back. Turns out I was supposed to go in the car entrance and they have a small dirt lot at the back to park in. Then a driveway around the back side of the building to get over to the docks when you get assigned one.

The second stop went really quickly. It was to an exporter shipping stuff to Bermuda. The load was mostly cheese and a few pallets of Jell-o. When I got there the guy came out and told me to back on in and that he was happy to see me. He said they had been so bored lately. We got to talking about how the export business is dying off more and more. I was his only truck for the day. The place was pretty big. I'm sure at some point it was a rather busy place. Now it was just old and run down. It's sad to see!

On to the next load. A descent place actually. I pulled in and they had me loaded and out the gate in about 30 minutes. It was still pretty early so I knocked out about 300 miles of the 650 before shutting down. Then the last little bit went pretty quick friday morning. That put me 30 miles from my saturday afternoon appointment.

Sadly I managed to pick a truckstop with a very weak signal for internet and zero tv signal. Sitting for 24 hours with next to nothing to do is beyond boring! Thankfully Pilot usually has a $5 dvd bin. This one had a 3 for $12 going so I bought a few that I hadn't seen before. At least it was something to do while waiting around.

I got a little upset over all the northeast loads and slow loads so I asked for something going to the midwest. I halfway expected a Denver or something in that area. What I got was a 4 stop load to North Dakota. Pretty good load actually. One stop in Fargo Monday morning. Then one in Bismarck monday afternoon and two there tuesday morning. I got it picked up last night and drove about 100 miles. Just enough to clear all of the Chicago area traffic. I'm sitting around at the Wisconsin state line right now waiting on my break to be done so I can roll out again.

After that load they have me set up to deadhead 300 miles to somewhere in South Dakota for a load going to Allentown, PA. Another good load. That load came across friday afternoon. It deliver friday morning next week. That means I had a full week of loads planned on me ahead of time. I like when they do that. It's nice to know what my whole week is going to be!

I think that covers it all for today! I'm off to grab some breakfast and get ready to go.