While I slept in this morning--that was nice! It rained the entire night as well as the morning. From what I heard on the radio, at least one tornado funnel cloud was spotted or touched down somewhere in Virginia.
After speaking with my wife, checking my e-mail, and working on my web sites, it was finally time to deliver the load. I got there one-half early and then proceeded to wait over 2-hours to get unloaded. Then it took over an hour for me to get my next load assignment (don't ya think the load planners and my dispatcher would have figured that out ahead of time? They had almost 24-hours to think about it.)
I pulled the empty trailer around 175 miles to pick up my next load. This turned out to be a "live load." In other words, I waited to be loaded (and there were three trailers in front of me). After the company inspected my trailer to make sure it was clean and there were no leaky spots, I parked the truck and waited for the go-ahead to proceed to the warehouse to be loaded. That was 5-miles away. Once loaded, I backtracked 5-miles to get my paperwork. Only then was I truly off and running to the truck stop approximately 2 and one-half hours away.
This load will actually take another driver home. The load is bound for the Atlanta area. However, I will be meeting another driver in the middle of North Carolina where we will swap trailers. I will take his load to Michigan. Should be fun to do a trailer swap provided I can find the spot where we are supposed to meet at. One of the roads is on the map. The other intersecting road is not. I'll just have to keep a sharp eye out for the right road!
The drive this evening would have been a great drive during daylight as the route wound through the West Virginia and Virginia mountains. But driving at night isn't all that bad either--especially if there is a full moon. Tonight, there was a 1/4-sized moon that was the biggest I think I've ever seen. Neat!
I arrived at the truckstop, fueled and parked. It was midnight. (Oh, another thank you to the trucker who guided me into a tight spot. It was a blind-side back and I would have eventually got it but he helped me get the rig there much quicker.)
miles driven = 350
PostScript: I finally figured out my monthly miles for December. It was a very slight improvement over the month of November. In November (30-days) I drove an average of 1,560 miles-per-week. In December (31-days) I drove an average of 1,811 miles-per-week. That's a whopping 251-mile improvement on a weekly basis. Hmm...at this rate, it will take me a very long time to reach my goal of a minimum of 2,500 miles-per-week. Hmm...I will need to do some serious evaluation of how things are going if the average weekly miles I drive does not drastically improve in January. Stay tuned....
PostScript2: My wife's dad had a mild heart attack. He also has a touch of pneumonia. He's doing good all things considered and will be released from the hospital Sunday. That's certainly good news!
7:23:22 PM
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