Old guy new to trucking

Turn the corner week – no pun intended

This was a very full week with a lot of learning and starting – just starting – to get somewhat comfortable with the truck in most situations. Several glitches and dealing with delays and apparently normal holdups. Also learning how to best manage clock time to figure out when best to stop for breaks, showers, and 10 hour breaks for sleep. Pulled my first all nighter in many years.

We got an evening start on Monday due to my trainer having to meet the technician to fix the Smartdrive camera. This is the system used to record front facing and driver facing video when triggered by an event like sudden stops, swerves, a collision, or other erratic moves. First load was cardboard from Richmond to Delaware. The trip up was uneventful, but the next pickup was Carlisle, PA, and the route took us a long way across curvy, hilly two lane state roads in hard rain at night. No fun. This was the all nighter. We did the pickup and turned in about daybreak.

We rolled Tuesday afternoon for Plainfield, CT and headed to MA for another load. We had a mechanical issue while at the customer location Wednesday morning. The company road service was impressive. The truck was there within an hour and had us out in under thirty minutes with a new set of air hoses. The late start and worst possible traffic through the Bronx put us back to Richmond for our drop around 21:00. No empty trailers so bobtailed (my first time) to the terminal. I got to sleep at home with just enough time to say goodbye to my better half Thursday morning and head out.

We had to bobtail to a customer location to pick up an empty trailer then pick up another cardboard load to head to NJ. At least keeping Amazon in cardboard so they can keep sending stuff to someone at my house – not saying who, but it’s not me nor the dog nor the cat. The trip to NJ was miserable. Traffic on I 95 from NoVa and around I 495 was stop and go at best. We escaped and went east across the Bay Bridge. Oh boy! Did I mention that high bridges creep me out to the big time? I’m talking sweating palms and high anxiety, and that’s in a car! I’ve jumped out of airplanes for fun but HATE high bridges. Glad to get over. Hopefully not again anytime soon.

Quick trip to the pick up in PA Friday morning for a scheduled 11:00 live load. Should have been looking good for home by late afternoon. Or not. It was a very difficult backup to a dock without enough room to straighten the tractor in front of the trailer. Getting square and up against the dock with the tractor at an angle was challenging even with coaching. Finally got out of there about 14:00, which would have put us right in the worst of it from north of Baltimore, around DC, and through NoVa. We opted to add miles to miss that. Headed west on PA Turnpike. That wouldn’t have been too bad we’re it not for winds 20 – 25 with gusts over 30. This was really challenging. Between the wind, bumpy surface, curves at full speed, and heavy traffic it was a tough couple of hours. From there, I 81 to I 66 to US 17 to I 95 and home was fairly easy going and I realized I was finally starting to relax and drive, even in continued heavy traffic. The intended late afternoon arrival became 21:00, but a solid trip from a learning perspective.

So another week as a trainee in the books. Nearly 1700 miles in the now dreaded northeast. I’m over half way through training now and it will be fine with me if I never drive north of the Mason – Dixon when I’m finished. On the plus side I really do think if you can drive up there you can handle driving anywhere. And with March just days away the odds are only getting better that I won’t face driving in winter weather until later this year when I will have a lot of miles under my belt.

More later.