This edition of the blog will combine the last two weeks of my travels.
Week 1
With the American Thanksgiving happening at the end of the week and having been warned by other drivers, I was expecting it to be a short week. The first trip of the week saw me picking up east of Montreal and heading down to central PA. I had been to this client before and I knew what to expect and that was to wait. Apparently this is very normal at this client due to the lack of loading dock doors and the high volume of products that are shipped out of this location. Luckily this time, my wait was not as long as the previous time nor how long it took for them to load me.
With the product on board, it was time to head to the border crossing at Alexandria Bay,NY. Like the time before with this client, there was an issue with the customs broker but instead of getting it cleared up in a timely manner, I ended sleeping over night right next to the Duty Free. It is not just this client that there have been issues with this one particular customs broker and every time I see them as the broker in the load profile I become filled with dread. I spoke with a number of people in the company as I was beginning to wonder if it was just me this was happening to, but apparently not. I cannot imagine the number of hours of lost productivity due to the poor performance of this customs broker.
When I woke up in the morning at the border and pulled back the curtain, what did I see but snow. Yuck!!! It continued to snow for about an hour after I made my way across the border so I finally got my first experience with driving in the snow. Though it was not a lot of snow, it was enough to get me used to driving in those conditions but I expect that there will be a lot worse days ahead this coming winter. Other than the little bit of snow, the day turned out to be very nice. I arrived at the off load location and once again, I had a hell of a time backing up straight onto the dock. What the hell!!! Finally after getting on the dock, the truck was off loaded quickly and I made by way to the next customer to pick up a load. Well at that location, I had to drop my empty trailer in the yard at the customer and it was an angle back parking job. I completed the task without so much as a correction one-way or the other. I must be over steering or over thinking these straight back ups.
With the trailer dropped, I went into see the dispatcher as I was picking up a LTL (less than load) shipment from another carrier. I was advised that the load was not ready and would most likely not be ready until morning. I managed to find a quiet place to park for the night at this very busy terminal. In the morning, I got my paperwork and started back toward Toronto. It was a beautiful day and the scenery through this part of PA was every nice to see. Given that this was an LTL shipment, it meant that I had to do some extra work at the border. This was my first time going through this procedure and it was a good learning experience. It took about 90 minutes to get all the customs paperwork completed before I could continue on my way. I arrived at the carrier in Toronto around 9pm and was assigned a dock to drop the trailer. When I saw the dock where I had to drop the trailer, a wave of panic came over me. The dock I was assigned had a trailer on each side of it and had very little room to swing in front of it. Well, I guess the shunt truck driver for that yard must have seen the worried look on my face as I was standing there trying to figure out how I was going to get the trailer in there without hitting anything and took pity on me. He told me to drop my trailer and that he would put it on the dock for. That was a load off of my mind and I was extremely grateful to him for doing that for me.
It was off to the Mississauga terminal to sleep for the night and hopefully, there would be a load for me to take east in the morning. Sure enough there was a load that was going to Cornwall once I had the trailer loaded. The trailer for this load was going to be a tai-axle trailer load and it was my first time hauling this type of trailer. At the customer, the backing up was a little harder than I thought as the trip-axle trailer had more bite than a tandem axle trailer so it turned harder. It took a couple of tries but I got it on the door. This was also going to be the heaviest load I have hauled at 56,000 lbs and I could certainly feel it when driving down the road. Thankfully the roads from the GTA to Cornwall are pretty much flat so I did not have a lot of slow downs going up hills.
I ended up dropping the load at our Prescott terminal, as I was unable to make the delivery time to the customer due to traffic delays along the way. When I arrived at the terminal, you would have thought it was the weekend with so many trucks parked in the yard. I guess what I was told was true that the American Thanksgiving shut down really does bring things to a dead stop in the truck industry. I waited around until 10 a.m the next morning to see if there was any other loads available but nothing was moving out and the parking lot was filling up with trucks coming back from the U.S so I decided to head home for an early weekend. Even though it was a short week, I still managed to get in some good miles.
Week 2
With the previous week being a short one, I decided that I would head out on Sunday for my first run of the week and it was going to be my longest run to date. I picked up a load in Kingston, ON and was head to central South Carolina, a total 978 miles. This was going to be a two-drop load with the first drop in Vinton, VA and then onto Lugoff, SC for the final drop. The appointment for the first drop was not until Tuesday morning so I had a lot of time to get there. The first day I only 250 miles before calling it a day at a truck stop in PA. The next day, I drove to within 15 minutes of the client so I could get there for the 7 a.m drop off before the traffic got bad. The yard was very tight but once again I was able to put the trailer on the dock with little effort. The people at this location were super friendly offering me coffee and donuts while I waited but I declined as I had just had my breakfast and did not need the extra calories. It did not take them long to empty half the trailer and I was on my way to South Carolina.
This part of the country was very pretty and really enjoyed the drive. It was still pretty much fall type of weather with a lot of the trees still having the leaves on them. I passed by many little towns and hamlets that looked like so many of the post cards you see. By the time I got to the client in Logoff, the temperature was at 16c and humid. I had already taken off my long sleeve shirt and put on a golf shirt my this time. At the client, I had to wait as there was a line up of trucks waiting to off load but I did not care too much as it allowed me to have my lunch and eat it at one of the picnic tables they had there. When my turn came to off load I proceeded to the dock to once again screw up a straight back docking. By the time I got the trailer on the dock, I was ready to quit. How could such an easy maneuver be so hard? Once they of loaded me at this location, it was up the hill to their other location to get loaded for a back haul to Kingston.
I was beating myself up pretty good at this point for screwing up the docking at the lower location that I figured that I would do the same at this location. Well, again the docking at this location was an angle back up and I did it with ease so I was feeling pretty good. By the time I was loaded, I did not have a lot of time left on my clock so I decided to head to the nearest truck stop to weigh the load and grab a shower. When I got on the scale I found out that I was over weight on the tandem axle on the trailer. Try as I might with adjusting the tandems, I could not get the load legal so I had to go back to the client to get them to rework the load so it was legal. By the time they got that done, I was out of time and had to sleep in their yard for the night, which meant no shower.
The next morning I headed back to the scale to weigh the load and it was legal thankfully but there was no parking available at the truck stop so that meant I could not get a shower there. I pulled up all the truck stops along my route for Kingston where I could stop to grab a shower and there was one an hour away. It still being very early in the morning I was hoping there would be parking at this location and there was. It felt so good to have a nice hot shower, the first in two days, well three really. Feeling refreshed it was time to hit the road again towards Kingston. It was another warm day and I was again wearing a short sleeve shirt and loving it. Again, I loved the drive through the area and it would be a very nice area to visit or vacation in the future. I managed to put almost 600 miles behind be before calling it a day at a rest area in northern PA, unfortunately the rest area was located right on the busy I-81 so I had to contend with noise for most of the night which meant a not so great sleep.
I was up very early the next morning to finish the trip to Kingston. Once in Kingston it took me a little bit to locate the client and when I did I could not believe the loading dock area. I had not encounter one like this before so I stood in the area for a good 10 minutes to figure how I was going to get on the dock. Once I had a plan in place I entered the yard and before I knew it, I was on the dock. It seems the harder the dock; the easier it is for me to park the damn thing. I was pretty proud of myself and thought that if I could park a trailer here, I could do it anywhere.
Off loaded I headed back to Prescott to hook onto another load going into New Jersey. Getting to New Jersey was interesting as you can go through a number of states before actually getting to New Jersey itself. It was another unseasonablely warm December day and I was again wearing short sleeves. By the time I got to the client, it was lunchtime and everyone was on their break so I got my break as well and enjoyed another lunch sitting on a picnic table. Who would have thought that you could still eat outside at this time of year? The load I had was very bulky so that meant it would not take long to off load. By this time I was looking forward to getting home for the weekend. Once off loaded, I had to wait an hour before I got my reload instructions. According to the GPS, it would take me an hour and 45 minutes to reach the client and I had two hours and 30 minutes on my clock so it was doable. I set off and put the hammer down but it was a late Friday afternoon and in no time I was confronted with heavy traffic. I started to consider not trying to make it to the client on the day but wait until the next morning but I pressed on. By the time I reached the client, I had just 15 minutes on the clock and I was hoping that I could drop the trailer and hook onto the load trailer, sleep the night and leave very early the next morning. Well, the client did not allow drivers to sleep on their property so I went looking for a place to park in the industrial park. I went down one street and before I knew it, I came face to face with an 11 foot 6 inch bridge (trailer height is 13 feet 6 inches) so locked up the brakes and was able to pull into a parking lot to turn around. Whew, that was close and the warning sign was not that far from the bridge.
That disaster diverted I was able to find a pull off in the area to park for the night. When I plugged in parking areas into the GPS, it did not show anything in the area. Once I was parked, I checked an app that I had on my phone and not more than 500 feet from me was a truck stop with all the services. Having no time left on my clock, I could not move. Oh well, live and learn, use all the resources I have as not one resource has all the info it seems.
It would appear that my effort to get to the client would have been in vain as the load was not actually ready until the next day at noon any ways. In the morning, I walked to the truck stop to use the washroom and to grab something to eat as my food supply was done. At exactly noon I was in the client yard hooking onto the loaded trailer and after pre-tripping it, I was on my way north. Another beautiful sunny day and I choose a route back to the Toronto area that I had not been on before. I am glad I did as the route followed a river and for the most part, it was very flat. The day just flew by and before I knew it I was back in the GTA by mid evening. It took me a few times down the client road before I could the entrance to the yard and when I got to the security gate the guard told me to drop the trailer in any open spot. What he should have said was to drop it in the only spot that was available. The yard was extremely tight and I could not swing around to back out. After several attempts to turn myself around to maybe request to put the trailer on a dock, I gave up, as it was not going to happen. I made a number of attempts to put the trailer in the only spot available where I was in the yard but the area was so tight I thought I was going to hit something.
At this point of the evening I was ready to call it a night and I was going to ask the guard if I could drop the trailer where it was and have the yard shunter move it in the morning. Well I was half way to the guard shack and I said to myself, I have a lot of time and I am not going to let this yard beat me so back I went. I was going to make this a learning experience and take my time. Well, it took me 30 minutes and I do not know how many times I got out of the truck to look at the situation but I finally got it in the hole. I actually did a little dance, as I was so proud of myself for not giving in. I unhooked from the trailer and headed to the Mississauga terminal for the night.
In the morning dispatch was able to find me something to get me back to Prescott. I really do appreciate the effort our dispatchers make to get us home in a timely manner and they are a great bunch to work with. It was an empty trailer that needed some work done to stop it from leaking so it was almost as if I was bobtailing home.
It was the longest time for me to be out on the road but at times it did not feel that long. In the end, I had the best weeks for miles traveling over 3300 miles in 7 days. It was good to be home but I plan to head out again on Tuesday after just over 36 hours home. At Kriska, if you work 7 days straight, you can take 3 days off. Well, as the old saying goes, you make hay when the sun is shining and that is my plan as there will most likely be a post Christmas slow down so I am going to get in the miles while I can.
Sorry there are no pictures this week but I will make an effort to put up some next week.
Until next time…..keep the blue side up.
P.S Sorry for any errors, spelling mistakes, etc, as I did not have a lot of time to proof read.
OTR Duane 