Out of Hours - What A Pain

The past few days have seen me drive from the Los Angeles area up through Nebraska and into Iowa and Illinois for a delivery south of Chicago, followed by a pick-up in Gary, Indiana (which was much more urban ghetto than The Music Man would have us believe).

After picking up our load in Gary, we drove through down-town Chicago just as an ugly blizzard blew in. I was in the center lane, taking it easy, as another car came blowing past on my left. I started signaling and checking my mirror to the right so I could move over into the slow lane just as Mike starts freaking out. The guy passing me to the left had just lost control of his vehicle, and was spinning around in front of me. Suddenly, all the training they gave me in class started flooding my mind: What to do in an emergency: 1) Don’t slam on the brakes; 2) Don’t swerve; 3) Sometimes the best thing to do is run over the car in front of you, in order to protect the other cars around and behind you.

My right hand side was clear, so I started moving, but Mike was still freaking out, demanding that I slow down. So I braked. Gently. Very very gently. And continued moving over.

The other car came within about 6 feet of us before coming to a stop facing the wrong direction, back in the left-hand lane. At this point Mike made a show of explaining how we should stay in the slow lane for now. Thanks, Mike.

The snow got bad enough that we started looking for someplace to pull off for the duration, even though it meant our delivery up in Eagan, MN would end up being late. Using his Truck Stop Guide, Mike found a truck stop a few miles up the road where we’d be able to pull off. Just as we got to that exit, however, the snow stopped falling, and the roads dried up. We were back up to freeway speeds in no time.

We switched places just north of Madison, WI and I slept. Woke up again the next morning in a place called New Ulm, MN; rode up to Hutchinson where we switched places and I brought us back down. Out of Minnesota, through Iowa, into Missouri. We pulled off in a town called Nevada, MO, switched places again; and this morning I woke up in Paris, TX.

I ran out of hours just as we got to Nevada, and I won’t gain any new hours till midnight tonight (tomorrow morning, rather). Mike is out of hours now, too, and won’t gain any new ones till midnight. So we’re stuck in this ratty little truck stop that makes the worst rest area look palatial, until late tonight. Then we’ll finish running this trailer down to Dallas where we’ll sit till Monday morning, when we’ll both have a fresh 70 hours to work with.

In the mean time, it’s cold, it’s rainy, it’s wet, and apparently the city of Paris didn’t think anybody would bother walking around in this part of town so there aren’t any sidewalks. I’m glad I brought boots. Still, I’m terribly annoyed.

A Mile High

Ok, so my first night sleeping in a truck wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t overly restful, either. The first 6 hours or so were spent in a truck stop in Richfield, UT. At about 4:30 local time, Mike got up and started driving, which meant I had to move to the bottom bunk (it’s against the rules to sleep on the top bunk while the vehicle is in motion).

I was only able to get about an hour more sleep after that, and spent the rest of my down-time watching shows on the laptop, and sitting in the passenger seat till we cot to a little town in Colorado called Cameo (see below), where I moved into the driver seat and finished the drive to Denver.

I’ve always heard that Parley’s Canyon on I-80 between Salt Lake City and Park City is really hard to drive in a truck. We only drove it once in school, and mostly just to give us an idea of what we could expect from a pretty steep grade. After driving I-70 through the mountains of Colorado – both directions, eastbound with a “light load” of about 22,000 lbs, and west bond with a heavy load of 44,000 lbs – I have no fear of Parley’s Canyon. Parley’s is a short, nearly straight-shot. I-70 through CO is a winding twisting stretch of hell that somehow escaped the netherworld and inflicted itself upon the world, lying across the Continental Divide.

Advice to any other truckers who need to take that route: Don’t miss your gears.

So, as you may have gathered from the context of the above, we dropped our load in Denver and picked up a new one… and as you may have also guessed from the fact that we had to pass back the way we had come, our new load is westbound. Indeed, we’re headed back to the lovely state of California. However, we were only able to make it as far as Cameo (where we had breakfast and changed drivers yesterday). It was about 11:15 PM when we pulled in, which was just in time since (as a driver in training, Werner won’t let me drive after midnight local time, until I’ve been out for 14 days).

I got about the same amount of sleep last night as the night before, which is regretful, since I like getting 7-8 hours, not 6… but it should be ok. Most of my driving today should be in daylight. We’ll probably switch places in Richfield since it’s about 2 hours away, and I’m not legal to drive again for another 1.5 hours.

It snowed in Utah, last night. The roads are ugly, but don’t seem to be causing us any real trouble, at this point. Hopefully that doesn’t change. I really don’t want to chain up.

Now we just drove into a fog bank. Oh, come on, now, weather! Be nice!