This is day 7 of a very long first week on my own. Overall a really good week but with a few bad luck hits and the current one not over yet as I am in the second hour of waiting for a live load with no reasonable idea of how much longer to wait.

But to recap my rookie travels:

After completing my road test and getting my truck set up last Monday there was no load available until late Tuesday afternoon. It was a high security load so non-stop from just south of Richmond to our terminal in central NC. I got another load to pick up the next morning in Charlotte. I spent the night on an off-ramp very near the pickup. Other than the fact that the shipper pointed me to the wrong area of the lot and then had no idea where the load was it went fine. That was the first time sink of the week. That load went to just outside of Greenville, NC, and then on to New Bern. No drop spots were available on the whole huge yard and a yard jockey pointed me to a spot between two dock doors. It was tight and difficult with not enough turn radius. Picked up the load to go to near Tampa and spent another night on an off-ramp of I-95 near Dunn, NC. The run to Tampa took all my clock Thursday and I spent the night at the destination facility, doing an 8/2 split before rolling for Albany, GA to pick up a load to take to Publix in Jax. I spent that night at a Love’s with a hot meal and a long hot shower. 

I had never driven up I-75 through the western part of Florida before. Beautiful country. Weird billboards. One was for a Port-o-John company. That seems like a strange place to advertise such a product – “Hey, Marge, I hadn’t thought of it but we could use one of those in the backyard! Write down that phone number”. Another was for a wig retailer boasting over 1000 wigs. A third of the billboard was a photo of the owner; a man with close-cropped hair that didn’t look like it could be a wig. Not much about the products, but a big smile!

On the road as soon as my clock allowed to deliver in Jax. In and out at Publix in short order but then things headed downhill. The only load headed north wasn’t to deliver until Monday morning so I got to take my 34 hour reset at a Pilot in Bowman, SC. I slept 10 hours – about a record for me. Saw the first two electrical storms on the way north. Happy Spring!

Although spending the weekend on the road and in a truck stop is not my idea of fun, at least I passed the time all day Sunday without going nuts. It rained most of the day but got out for a good walk late in the afternoon. Between my iPad, a good book, online church and playing guitar (glad I brought it) the day went fairly quickly. At least I am on my own now. That would have been a lousy day if sharing the truck with my trainer (or anyone else except my sweetie).

So this morning I delivered the adult beverages in Columbia and headed here to Gafney, SC, where I have now been sitting for 3 hours waiting to be loaded. I am worried I will run out of 14 hour clock just short of home. It will probably come down to the rush hour traffic through Charlotte. Need a fuel stop, too.

So by the time I get home I will have logged almost 2700 miles and 6 loads for the 7 day period. Whew! It’s been a whirlwind.

Well, make it day 8. The load ended up taking over 4 hours and a wrong turn from the detour back to I-85 cost me more time. I ran out of clock and had to spend the night at the Virginia Welcome Center. Home first thing this morning. I put the truck in the shop to get a few things fixed. Just home now in late morning.

Welcome to trucking.

More next week.