After going home for my home time last week, I took only one day off after three weeks out because I knew I was going to be picking up Pocahontas to ride with me for the next month. We left out on Weds. and relayed a load from another driver in Columbus, OH going to Costco in Monroe Twp., NJ. It's about an eight hour ride from Columbus so we arrived late that night. Our appointment was for 0900 Thursday morning. We parked out in the street outside the gate. The signs said no parking but it was an industrial area and there were trucks lined up all down the street so it was not a big deal, nobody bothered us about it. I went in shortly after 0800 and got unloaded, they give you a pager when you go in the gate, and when they are finished unloading the pager starts vibrating and you take it back to the guard house and they hand you your paperwork. Very cool system, first time I've ever seen that. They also unloaded the load of meat free of charge, which is also rare.
Next the load planner sent me down the road to Trenton to load for TX, but the load wasn't delivering for five days. So I ran down and picked it up and took it to the drop yard that we have near Keasbey, NJ. We then went to pick up a load of Arizona iced tea from Maplewood, NJ. This place is no fun at all, it's a suburb of Newark. When you get off the exit and go to the light to turn right, it is impossible to do in a big truck. You have to take up both sides of the road to swing wide and drive into the oncoming turn lane forcing cars to back up and you still run over the sidewalk and nearly take out the light pole. Luckily the exit route is much easier getting back on the interstate. But once we got past that turn it wasn't too bad getting in and picking up the load.
That load was going to Rome,NY for Friday morning. So we headed across I80 and up I380 and I81 in PA and into NY. Since it's pretty much the same distance as running up the NY turnpike, and this way it saves the company a lot of toll money. We stopped off at the Pilot Travel Center in Binghamton, NY for fuel and a shower. We got one shower but when we went to get in we found out that shower had NO hot water, it was freezing! So we had to get dried and dressed all over again and request a new shower, which worked out good because then we got the handicap shower, which is much larger than a normal shower. This works out better when you have two people in the same shower.
We arrived in Rome and stayed at a truck stop ten miles from the dollar general warehouse. We stayed up for awhile playing with our new Blackberry phones, which we really like! I got mine free with an upgrade and Amanda's came free with the purchase of mine. We got the storm. I like the touch screen, but Amanda has more trouble with them because of her nails. Anyway, we got up and headed to our delivery which is next to an old air base, so it was pretty cool.
After we left there we ran down the thruway to Syracuse and got our trailer washed out and then headed to Rochester to pick up our next load bound for Windsor, CO. A Kodak load from one plant to another, we do a lot of those. We drove over to Erie, PA and fueled up at the Pilot and headed on into Ohio. We went through Cleveland where the people out driving were insane, weaving in and out of all lanes and speeding. Somehow we got through there without a scratch though and parked for the night at one of the plazas just east of Toledo. Next day we headed out across IN, IL and IA and parked for the night at a truck stop just west of Des Moines.
Sunday we took off and went across IA and NE and stopped at the Wal-Mart in Lexington because they have lots of truck parking. We stocked up on groceries and got some new blankets and pillows for the sleeper to match the truck, so it looks pretty neat.
We then headed on westward and stopped off at the Bosselman in Big Springs, NE to fuel up and then took I76 into CO and across Hwy 14 to Windsor, arriving at our destination about 0200. I took my 10 hour break at the plant and then we went into Denver and my buddy John came and picked us up from my company terminal and we went to his house for a labor day BBQ where we all stuffed on ribs and corn and strawberry shortcake.Tthis was the first time my wife got to meet his wife and their three young daughters. John took us back to our truck later and we made another run to Wal-mart to pick up a few items we forgot then headed back to Kodak to pick up our next load to Baltimore, MD which we are waiting on now.
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