Week 37 and 38: Kitty Foams at the Mouth
The delivery to Cleveland, Tennessee went fine on Monday and I was back in Scottsboro before noon for three more days off. As always, home time seemed to be over as soon as it started. I find it necessary to devote an entire day preparing to go back on the road. Between doing laundry, buying groceries and getting the truck cleaned and loaded for another stint out, the last day of home time is largely devoted to work.
We picked up our first load in Scottsboro on Friday slated for delivery to Niantic, Connecticut, a village in the town of East Lyme, Connecticut. We spent the night at the Petro in Knoxville. The first day on the road after home time often seems a bit surreal.
I got up at 3am and got a shower in the Petro, where I performed a "Ten-dollar Workout" with my resistance bands. I drove all the way to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania where we spent the night at Pharo’s Truck Stop. I pondered as to why parking was so plentiful there until I heard the unmistakable sound of race cars zooming in close proximity. A stock car track lay beyond a hill across the road, and the cacophony of a competition was in full force. Fortunately, the melee subsided before bedtime.
On Sunday, I decided to take I-95 through New York City rather than going around on the bypass. Since it was Sunday, I hoped the traffic wouldn’t be as bad. Some of the low bridges in the Bronx caused my sphincter to pucker, but we made it through the Big Apple without incident.
We spent the night at a service plaza near Madison, Connecticut. Kitty had begun sneezing before we left Scottsboro, and the episodes seemed to be worsening. On the advice of my veterinarian, I crushed up half a Benadryl tablet and sprinkled it on her food. After a couple of bites, Kitty sprang from her bowl as if a rattlesnake had leaped from it. She began moaning and hissing while foam flowed from her mouth. Clearly, Kitty did not like the taste of Benadryl. As a peace offering, I pinched up some of my smoked turkey for her after the poignant display. Her trust, however, was suspended, and it was almost two hours before she mustered the courage to eat it. On that night, Kitty slept in the front of the truck…I guess I can’t blame her.
Located on Long Island Sound, Niantic Bay is popular for swimming, boating, and fishing. On Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons, the Niantic Bay Yacht Club organizes sailboat races, and multi-colored sails fill the Bay.[46]
There were no visible sailboats when we rolled into Niantic on Tuesday morning before the sun had risen. I assumed that we were delivering to a CVS distribution center, so I did a double take when I saw a small CVS pharmacy in a tiny plaza. Where was I going to put a 53-foot van at a small pharmacy?
No one was there when we arrived, so I parked alongside a bank to wait. When an employee arrived, he admitted that the 53-foot trailer was a surprise. Despite the logistical problems, we devised a plan and made the delivery. Afterward, we picked up our next load in Norwich, Connecticut.
Norwich is home to one of the most infamous figures of the American Revolution—Benedict Arnold. Kitty was slowly beginning to view me as less of a traitor because of the Benadryl episode, but she still cast a wary eye in my direction from time to time.
This load delivered to Ft. Wayne, Indiana with a stop-off in Baraboo, Wisconsin. I’d have to run like the wind to make both deliveries on time, so I resolved to drive as far as legally possible. It should not have surprised me when I accidentally pulled into the truck wash entrance at a Connecticut truck stop, and had to wait half an hour to get out. We made it to Carroll, Pennsylvania for the night, and Kitty’s trust in me seemed finally restored.
The next day was a long day of driving that ended at the company terminal in Ottawa, Illinois. I had forgotten how small the terminal there was, and I was fortunate to get the last available parking space.
When returning to my truck after getting a shower in the terminal, a man in an RV pulled in with the desire to purchase fuel. He was utterly bewildered when I explained that he was in a private truck terminal. Despite the rumbling red Freightliners filling the yard, he remained unconvinced. Feeling no further obligation to provide additional evidence, I directed him to the nearest public fueling facility. He left—but he never managed to shed his mask of confusion.
I reluctantly arose at 1:45am to go to Baraboo, Wisconsin. Also known as Circus City, Baraboo is home to Circus World Museum, the former headquarters of the Ringling Brothers Circus.[47] It is now the largest library of circus information in the United States.
Aside from initially backing into the wrong dock, the Baraboo delivery went well. Afterward, I received a message from the company Safety Department to call them the next time I was at a terminal. I called them immediately to find out what it was about, but they refused to tell me until I was at a terminal. The cloak and dagger dialogue worried me. Was I in trouble? I did not need this black cloud hanging over my head.
The confusing request remained in the forefront of my mind after delivering to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I called Brian and told him about the cryptic message from Safety.
“Piss test!” he immediately replied.
I heaved a sigh of relief, wishing I’d called him earlier.
The level of my worry suggested that the prospect of not being on the road upset me. Perhaps I liked being on the road… a little, at least.
We picked up the next load in Lima, Ohio, which delivered to Pineville, Louisiana. We spent the night just outside of Louisville, Kentucky.
Saturday was a long driving day that ended in Winona, Mississippi. Winona is known as "The Crossroads of North Mississippi" because of its central location at the intersection of Highways 51 and 82. The economy of Winona got a boost in May of 2005 with the addition of Pilot Travel Centers. The major truck stop chain purchased the High Point Truck and Travel Center, previously owned by NFL player Kent Hull of the Buffalo Bills. The plaza opened completely in August of 2005, just a few days before Hurricane Katrina.[48]
The past two weeks had sailed along with relative ease, but the coming week would provide me with my most embarrassing moment as a truck driver.
Week 39: Roadside Emergency
After delivering to Pineville, I got no subsequent load offering, so I parked on the side of the road next to the Procter & Gamble plant to spend the night. The truck leaned heavily to the starboard side, so I’m lucky that I sleep with my head on the port side. Sleep proved to be a challenge anyway. It was raining heavily and due to the starboard list of the truck, water leaked into the condo window and dripped onto my lower bunk. After enduring the Chinese water torture for a minute, I climbed up and stuffed paper towels into the leaking area. Unfortunately, that particular Band-Aid only helped for a little while.
I woke up at 7am after a restless night, and finally got a load offering from Lake Charles, Louisiana to Natrium, West Virginia. Natrium was not even on the map but, luckily, my Streets and Trips software found it. This was my first time hauling a hazardous materials load. The sodium hydroxide I picked up in Lake Charles was considered a corrosive. A hazardous materials load required special paperwork, a special license endorsement, and placards to be posted on all four sides of the trailer.
Before we left Pineville, I encountered a unique dilemma. I was in desperate need to empty my bowels, and there was absolutely nowhere to do it. With no other options, I climbed in the back, pulled the Naugahyde curtain for privacy, and did what I had to do in a Wal-Mart bag. After securely tying the offending package, I disposed of it in a ditch beside the truck. There were no trash barrels around, and I certainly wasn’t going to ride around with a bag of human waste in the cab.
I felt guilty about littering Louisiana with a bag of shit, but I got back to the business of finishing my trip plan. As I sat in the driver’s seat pecking away at my calculator, a pickup truck pulled ahead of me and stopped. A man with a burlap bag emerged from the vehicle and proceeded to pick up trash alongside the road. I realized, with horror, that he would soon make his way to my "gift."
I considered driving away, but my trip plan wasn’t complete, so I
just sat there squirming. While he couldn’t have known I left the offending bag, it was sitting right next to my truck and it was, no doubt, still warm—he’d certainly be entitled to a suspicion!
I cringed as he approached the bag. He picked it up by the handles and, as he curiously inspected the mysterious contents, he crinkled his nose demurely—then knowingly. As he held the bag with a look of disgust, he slowly gazed in my direction. I immediately turned my attention to the map in my lap. I did not have the nerve to meet his indicting look. I would have been perfectly content for a crevasse to open in the earth and swallow me up. Despite my cowardice to return his look, I sincerely attempted a telepathic transmission of, “Sorry, dude.”
After this embarrassing experience, we set out for Lake Charles. Lake Charles is the major cultural and educational center in Acadiana.[49] Acadiana is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Cajun population. Of the sixty-four parishes that make up Louisiana, twenty-two of them make up Acadiana.[50]
Because this was a hazardous materials load, I was required to watch a training film in Lake Charles before I picked up the load. Afterward, a black cloud of love bugs on I-10 bombarded my truck. I stopped at a truck stop to clean my windshield that was, ironically, Love’s. The bugs were still as thick as fog as I walked across the parking lot to the store. I probably inhaled no less than two love bugs on my perilous trek, and I dug another out of my ear as I entered the store to escape the onslaught.
The manager of Love’s watched from behind the fuel desk as I brushed the last of the bugs from my clothing.
“Hey man,” I said, “I know this is Love’s, but you’ve got to find a better way to advertise!”
“I’m gonna use that,” he laughed.
The swarm of bugs eventually thinned, and we continued our journey. I was pulled in for a DOT inspection at a weigh station before I got out of Louisiana, but the officer found no violations. I continued on to the Mississippi Welcome Center on I-55 to spend the night.
Next day, it rained all the way through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. We spent the night in Sonora, Kentucky, about 40 miles south of Louisville.
The rain continued on Wednesday all the way into Natrium. I had no trouble finding Natrium, but finding the correct gate at the PPG plant there was a different story. I had to do an awkward turn-around in a small parking lot after turning into the wrong entrance.
Natrium is just outside of Moundsville, West Virginia. Moundsville is the hometown of one of my old Navy buddies. He used to poke fun at his suburban hometown, but it seemed like a quaint, cozy little town to me. Moundsville is also the birthplace of Frank De Vol, an actor and composer who is probably best known for his composition of the theme song for The Brady Bunch.[51]
After delivering in Natrium, I went to the TA in nearby Wheeling to spend the night. I broke my credo and ate at the buffet on that evening. I promised myself not to do it again, lest I live up to the acronym: Big Ugly Fat Fuckers Eating Together.
Next morning, we picked up the next load in Triadelphia, West Virginia, which delivered to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. We made it to the Columbus, Ohio terminal for the night where I got my truck serviced and enjoyed a badly needed shower. I hoped to get on a homeward path after delivering in Wisconsin. Winter was rapidly approaching and driving in the northern states promised to be harrowing.
I stopped at a truck stop on the way to Prairie du Chien where I picked up a brochure for the Spam Museum. Yes, there actually is a Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. I wouldn’t mind visiting, but I’d probably opt for a tee shirt instead of the meat-like product.
Later, I encountered an Amish family tooling along in a horse-drawn carriage on the opposite side of the road. The Amish populations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana are well known, but Wisconsin is quickly becoming the state with the fourth highest Amish population. As populations and land prices increase in the eastern states, there is more motivation for families to move to less expensive, open areas of land.[52]
After delivering to Cabela’s in Prairie du Chien, we got our next load assignment: from Clinton, Iowa to Fairburn, Georgia…then home.
Week 40: Georgia Chicken Coop
When we arrived at the shipper in Clinton, my assigned pre-loaded trailer was not in the yard. Someone, apparently, had fouled up my paperwork. With this being Sunday, no Shipping employees were there to correct it. Fortunately, a woman named Sherry had came in on her off day and was kind enough to address the problem. It took about an hour and a half, but Sherry corrected the gaffe and I was on my way. Encountering kind and generous people like that almost made me forget about the abundance of assholes I had to deal with on a daily basis…almost!
I went sixty miles before I found a truck stop with scales and, to my dismay, I saw that I was five thousand pounds heavy on the rear tandems. The standard procedure is to go back to the shipper for them to reload it when the weight is excessively out of proportion. However, I knew that no loading crew was working at the shipper on Sunday, and going back would ensure that I’d be stuck there until Monday. I managed to make the weight legal by sliding the tandems back. Disengaging the tandem-locking pin and leaving the trailer tire brakes engaged while pulling the truck forward accomplishes this. This causes the trailer to slide forward while the tires sit in place, thereby adjusting the weight distribution in relation to the axles.
My weight was legal now, but the rear tandems were all the way to the back. According to what I’d learned in orientation, Georgia’s "bridge law" states that tandems cannot exceed 40 feet. Mine were way beyond that.
I called Brian and he said that if I weren't going to wait at the shipper, he’d recommend sliding them forward again before I got to Georgia. This would make me overweight in the rear again, but an overweight ticket costed less than an "over bridge" ticket. Besides, I only had to cross one weigh station in Georgia, and there was a good chance it would be closed. I considered the risk versus sitting idle at the shipper until Monday, and I decided to roll the dice.
After spending the night in Effingham, Illinois, I crossed two weigh stations in Illinois, one in Kentucky, and one in Tennessee. I had no problem at any of them. They didn’t care about my bridge length as long as the weight was legal. I only needed to dodge one more bullet.
Just before I crossed the Georgia state line, I stopped and slid my tandems forward as Brian suggested. As I approached the Georgia weigh station, I prayed for it to be closed. "Chicken coop" is a slang term used by truckers to describe a weigh station. My heart sank when I saw the Open light brightly illuminated and watched the big rigs ahead of me herd into the chicken coop like lemmings. I knew my fate was sealed as I pulled onto the exit ramp.
When I rolled over the scales, an authoritative voice on the intercom boomed for me to bring all my paperwork inside. I gathered my license, medical card, log book, permits, and bills of lading for the load before I began a slow and deliberate death march toward the DOT building. As I entered, I watched the pudgy Georgia DOT officer lick his chops; this was the preamble to a devilishly good time for him.
I got an overweight ticket, and it doubled the rotund officer’s delight when he told me the Georgia bridge law was now defunct.
“If you had just left your tandems alone,” he guffawed, “you would have been fine.”
As his face flushed with laughter, the loose skin beneath his jaw waddled like a chicken’s neck. I attempted to contain my seething as I accepted the ticket from the pudgy little pullet, and got on my way.
I called Brian back to tell him what happened, and he was in shock. The Georgia bridge law was still on the books, and the company did not notify drivers of a change. Brian kept apologizing for giving me bad advice, but I told him not to worry about it—it wasn’t his fault. I chose to roll the dice…and I lost.
Along with my newly acquired ticket, Kitty and I rolled into the Marietta terminal or, as it is affectionately referred to by some drivers, “The Prison.” A te
n-foot chain-link fence encloses the Marietta terminal, and tire spikes just past the fuel islands prevent drivers from backing out once they’re in. To get out, the driver must swipe his fuel card in a scanner to open the rear gate. Half the time, the scanner doesn’t work and the driver is trapped…hence, The Prison.
While at the terminal, I had a tire replaced and used the opportunity to go inside and meet my terminal manager, Dick, for the first time. On the phone, Dick’s voice boomed in a rich and authoritative baritone. In person, Dick was a little old, hunchbacked man with thick glasses and coffee-tinged halitosis. This was going to severely disrupt my fantasies of punching him in the kisser.
We would spend the night at the terminal and deliver to Fairburn early in the morning. I hated searching for a place that I’d never been before in the darkness of night, but it often happened . The rain continued to fall from the gloomy gray skies, serving as a testament to the way this run had gone.
We left at 3am the next morning, and the Qualcomm directions sent me down a dirt road in Fairburn. I had to do a precarious turn-around in a motel parking lot, but I finally found the Purina plant, made the delivery, and set out for home in the pouring rain. We arrived in Scottsboro for three days of home time and, as usual, it seemed to end before it had started.
I reluctantly left on Friday to pick up a load in Guin, Alabama that delivered to Madison Heights, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The dock at the 3M plant in Guin was impossible. Ditches, other trucks and trailers, and a vast array of junk blocked my potential maneuvering space. I tried every conceivable angle to get into the dock to no avail. The shipper finally moved one of the trucks that blocked me, and then I docked with no problem. I was drenched in sweat when the merciful sound of the air brakes signaled the end of my ordeal. This was a nightmarish way to begin a road trip. After loading, we spent the night at a little truck stop just up the road in Hamilton, Alabama.
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