Today I’m in Breezewood, PA. I stopped at the Petro:2 Stopping Center for the evening. Actually it was like 1400 CST when I stopped, but I am running low on hours and thought I’d conserve some for tomorrow and Sunday in case I need some buffer.
I’ve been braving the snow and ice for a little over a week now and am headed to the Midwest for more of the same. I just hope they have things cleared up by the time I get there. I had a delivery up in Mass on Monday morning. The roads were okay going in, but an overnight ice storm gave everything a slick coat. I spent about 40 minutes at the consignee doing a tight three point turn and blind side backing combination on a solid layer of ice. The forklift driver was sympathetic to my situation and did what he could to assist me.
I was then dispatched to RI to drop off my empty at a Conway terminal and then I headed down to Newark, NJ bobtail to pick up an empty from a Fedex terminal. That’s a lot of miles with no freight. I spent the night in New Jersey last night across the river from NYC. It was about 2100 local as I came down from RI, so traffic had abated and the GW was flowing at above the speed limit. The city looked beautiful, but Jersey was a hell hole and of course there was no parking.
I was short on hours upon arrival in NJ, but managed to get my current load which is about 1250 miles. I needed this load because this pay period has been abysmal. I’ve been dispatched 3 times to cart empties around and 2 times to bobtail to pick up empties. I’m thinking that freight is a bit scarce and my fellow drivers at the Molly Pitcher service plaza on the Jersey turnpike thought so as well this morning.
Tomorrow I plan to get up early and get in a full day of driving and then drive as much as my hours will allow on Sunday. With any luck that will put me within spitting distance of my delivery point. If not then I’ll have to wait until after midnight when I pick up more hours and drive the rest of the way in early Monday morning. I could really use a 34 hour restart about right now because I’m burning up hours as fast as I gain them back.
