Over the Road Driving
A Typical Day
Up at 3:30am to see snow and sleet had been coming down for a few hours while I slept at a truck stop in Eastern Ohio.
I made a quick breakfast in the truck with my coffee maker and micro waved oatmeal before hitting the road towards Louisville, Kentucky.
Arriving on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio just a little ahead of commuter traffic I spotted several small accidents where cars had skidded off the highway as I headed South on the 270 By-Pass.
Dark and foggy with the snow continuing I made my way to Cincinnati just in time for full rush hour mode and could barely make out the River as I crossed over into Kentucky surrounded by “Four Wheeler’s.”
There was a small traffic back up on the way to Louisville due to an accident but the snow was finally letting up and the sun came out as I began trying to find my delivery address in Louisville. I ended up wasting about an hour by missing a turn and going over the Mississippi River into Indiana.
I finally arrived at the right location and had to drive around the block to get situated properly to back into a very difficult and narrow loading dock, while traffic waited for me.
Once unloaded which went quickly, (it was large rolls of paper from a mill in Maine), I had to head 3 hours back to Ohio just North of Cincinnati to pick up a previously loaded trailer full of beer located in a “drop yard” just down the street from the brewery.
Dropping my empty trailer and then hooking up to the loaded one did not go smoothly. The loaded trailer was too low for me to get under, and the ice did not help my traction. I had to get out into the wind chilled 15 degrees and crank up the 44,000 pound trailer, while I was standing on ice, just enough so that I could get my 5th wheel and tractor under it. (It’s at times like this, that I wonder how all my other high school buddies are enjoying their retirement lives at age 71.)
Then I climb up into the trailer to secure the load (cases of beer) from toppling over or sliding around, and then do my outside walk around inspection before climbing back into the warm cab. I take note of just how many driving hours I have left, (2) and then start the drive towards New Jersey.
I have to time it perfectly so that I arrive at either a truck stop or a service plaza before my time is up for the day. After passing thru one truck stop that no spots left. I managed to find another one just up I-71 that had a space for me to back into.
I pull the curtains and sign out of my electronic log book which shows 10.45 hours of driving, 547 miles, with a total of 13.30 hours on duty.
