Just trucking along

I'm actually taking a vacation. It's been a long time since I took one. Dispatch ran me pretty good this week. I guess he was trying to wear me out! 2400 miles in 4 days. Now I can kick back and relax for the next 9 days.Yeah right!! Like other vacations, I'll have to go back to work just to get rested up from the vacation. We are planning to go camping this week. We haven't done that for a long time. Head up to northern Wisconsin and find a nice wooded site and set up camp. Then put the boat in the water and go fishing and get a little sunburn! Then it's back to camp for some drinks and relaxing. I have a feeling that I will be getting ansy by Monday. Part of me will want to be back in the truck and rolling down the highway. It's true about trucking being in your blood. I don't know what I would do if I had to give up driving.

Category: General

I have my week in from on the road and now it's time for fishing. I'll be fishing in the Two Rivers derby with my dad this weekend. Hopefully the fish will keep biting like they have been lately. We need to get some of them huge salmon and trout that are roaming around out there. We'll be heading out by 4 AM for the next 3 days. I doubt that I will sleep too well tonite. I've been on the phone driving my dad nuts all week asking how the fish are biting. I'm like a kid before Christmas, can't wait for the day to get here and drive mom and dad crazy all week! They have been catching some lunkers out on Lake Michigan this year. Alot of reports of 20 to 30 pounders. A couple like that would put us into some winnings.The only down side to this weekend is my drunken brother-in-law will be fishing with us. I wonder if my sister would miss him if he somehow fell overboard?!! He wouldn't be so bad but his favorite subject is himself. Maybe that had something to do with him losing his job recently. He supposedly has a new job now and that is all we will hear about is this new job and what his job title is. I think he could make a sewer job sound great using some off the wall title.
If we do any good fishing I might post some pictures.

Category: General

What a scorcher out there! I know for some parts of the country 90's is a cool day. But for Wisconsin this is HOT. We also have the joy of high humidity. Thank God for the nice breeze. Our AC is working mighty hard trying to keep the house cool.Went for a ride on the bike earlier and that was even warm.65 mph on the bike and just warm air hitting me. This weather is kind of rough on a fat boy like me. Been trying to get a few things done outside and sweating off a few pounds! I get to leave out on Sunday and they have me heading south. So I get to go from hot to even hotter! Thank God I don't have to fingerprint loads! Let someone else suffer in the extremely hot trailer while I sit in my hopefully cool truck.

Category: General

Woke up this morning to dense fog. Luckily I don't have to deliver until tomorrow morning in the U.P. I just stayed right where I am. Now I'm just waiting on another driver(better known as my wife!)to get unloaded and pickup her next load. Then we can run together. She had to run in the fog this morning. She said visibility was down to less than a quarter mile around Lafayette,Indiana. Here at the Flying J the visibility was about a half mile at best. The good news is it has cleared up quite a bit in the last couple of hours. This is the joy of trucking. A person can run into alot of different weather conditions in one day. Can start out needing a jacket on and have the heat on in the truck to wearing shorts and the air conditioning on full blast trying to keep the truck cool by the end of the day or vice-versa. I've already gone from needing the air on in the morning to temps near freezing at the end of the day. I guess that is part of the reason I enjoy this job. Besides being a paid tourist,we have the changes in weather and the chance to meet alot of different people when shut down because of the weather. I have met and enjoyed talking to people from many different areas and walks of life. I have talked to people from other countries(even through an interpreter once)and from many different backrounds(company owners, presidents or CEO's of companies, and numerous other walks of life). It seems that when stuck someplace because of weather, people seem to be more willing to talk to each other. I guess when there is nothing else to do you might as well make the best of it.
Time to get out of here and start making some money again. Be safe

Category: General

This working through the weekend sucks! I decided to work over the weekend and it took me awhile to remember how to log without a 34 hr reset. Luckily I ran out of hours at the house. Bad thing is I have to be rolling again by 2am. I'm not going to get too far though. I will only have 7.5 hrs to work with. Dispatch didn't like to hear that part. He was figuring I could be about 490 miles from here by 1500 tomorrow. Now he has to figure out who I can swap loads with and where. I love it when dispatch doesn't pay attention to the information that is right in front of his nose. I have to send in my hrs everyday and the computer at work keeps track of hours available for each of the drivers. Dispatch doesn't even have to do much figuring. I don't have a truck fast enough to do 490 miles in 7 hrs. The load goes to Ohio so that is 3 slow states to travel through and Chicago!
I can't complain about my miles lately. I left the house on the 4th at about noon and was back here today by noon and have about 4000 miles put on. I even spent part of Saturday at home.
I want to get some good miles in now because i want to take 4 days off next weekend. Get home on Thursday and then head out to Lake Michigan to fish in a derby for 3 days with my Dad.He's in his 70's now and I want to take advantage of things like this. We both enjoy fishing and he has his boat all rigged for great lakes fishing. I think this will be alot of fun.

Category: General

It's back to work again. I was lucky enough to have 4 days off. Tomorrow I head to Grand Rapids Michigan. Glad it is a short run. It will take awhile to get back into the swing of things. I've been so busy that I didn't get antsy and want to get rolling again. Between fishing, swimming, waterskiing, tubing, cookouts and fireworks, it didn't leave much time to think about work. Been so tired by the end of each day that I was sleeping shortly after getting home each day. When a person spends most of his or her time driving a truck and not much physical activity, these holidays can wear a peson out pretty quick. Today was the only day we didn't have anything going on. Had a doctors appointment this morning and that has been it. Just kicked back and relaxed. Yesterday was the longest day of the 4. Got up at 3 am to go salmon fishing with my Dad. We ended up with 4 good eating sized kings. After that I came home and loaded up our suv, went to my brothers to get my boat and headed to a nearby lake for a day on the water. Then it was back to my brothers house for a pool party. After we finished eating we worked on getting things set up for the fireworks. I had over $500.00 worth that I set off. By the time we finished shooting that off and cleaned everything up it was getting real late. I got home, grabbed a shower and went to to bed. The time on the alarm clock read 12:16 A.M. That's a real long day. I have been feeling totally drained all day today. I don't think I had such a busy holiday weekend since high school. And I have been out of school for almost 30 yrs! Everybody be extra careful in your travels. It bums me out when someones fun ends in tragedy.

Category: General