Trucking Ramblings...

It was quite an uneventful week. I was supposed to run from Paris to Jonesboro AR all week, delivering one Sunday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. I started early on Sunday with a water leak and an overloaded tank. I am legal for 80,000 pounds, just like all 5 axle class 8 combinations. With 3/4 of a tank of fuel I weighed 81,500. I had to blow some product back into the star 2 bin at the mill. I freakin hate the star bins. It is about a 300 for push and had several 90 degree elbows and lots of horizontal line. I asked a guy that has been working for us forever and he told be that that product should flow at 250-300 lbs per minute. So I hooked up to the pipe, cranked it to 15 psi and let er rip. We contract for 48,000 pounds so i was going to take off 3,000 and figured that would take 10 minutes. I ended up running about 500 pounds a minute putting my net at 46,200 and gross around 75,000. Cool, I get a light load. I delivered the first one and made it back to Mt Vernon IL before I was out of hours and cussing at my tracking device. I took off the next morning for home, fully prepared to turn and burn back to Arkansas. My goal was to try getting far enough ahead that I delivered my Saturday load on Friday. I got back to town and the mill was down for repairs. So much for getting ahead! I took Monday off and went down again on Tuesday, delivered it and got back to Mt Vernon. I was thinking that I could still get the Saturday load delivered on Friday... if everything worked out right and I kept that left door shut. I was doing 615 miles a day and stopping an hour short of my allotted driving time. It could be done. Wednesday, I got home and found that the rest of the Jonesboro loads had been canceled and I was going West, to Kearney, Nebraska. I haven't been on that run since my first week at PTI. Don't ask me how I remember this. I just do. The change of scenery was nice. I get to Cedar Rapids enough that I can tell you about where every bump is between here and Iowa City. West of I380 is a different story. I actually had to get out my truck stop directory to figure out where I was going to shut down on the way out. Anyone that says Iowa is flat apparently hasn't been there. West of Des Moines are some rolling hills that make the ol' Georgia Overdrive work quite well. I delivered Thursday in Kearney, Ne and picked up a load of seed corn in Waco, Ne, bound for Plainfield, In. I left Waco heading east and put Slimer's nose in the wind. Slimer is the name of my truck, by the way. I had to make good time if I wanted to hit my daily mileage goal. Coming through Omaha I saw something that I have somehow overlooked every time I have been through there, Kenefick Park. Something big and orange, lit up against the evening sky caught my eye. Its was a UP locomotive. Then I saw something gray and round. I twist my neck just a little bit farther... Is it a Challenger? HELL NO THATS A BIG BOY!! A 4-8-8-4 ALCO steamer, the biggest baddest coal burning hoss to run U.P. tracks. I almost broke my neck looking at it! Now what is that Diesel? It looked rather large. I googled it later and found that it is also a rare breed, what U.P. called a Centennial or a Big Jack. Its an EMD DDA40X, The longest and most powerful Diesel Locomotive ever built. I'm going to have to get up to that park some time and see if I can crawl around on those dudes!



I made it a little more than half way across Iowa for a total of 624 miles and beat my daily goal. Friday was my screw off day. The way I see it, I ran pretty good this week with the exception of Monday where I spent most of the day at the house. I ran over 600 miles every day this week at an average of between 62 and 64 miles an hour. Although nothing compared to what I used to do when I could run the way I wanted to with no consequences as long as I didn't crash, it's still pretty good. In a governed and satellite tracked truck you have to keep moving fairly consistantly if you want to make this kind of miles. Friday was boring except for my stop at the Walcott TA and Iowa 80 chrome shop. .



If I had a million dollars, I could walk in that place and probably come out broke. After a short (for me) visit there I headed home to think about what good stuff I was going to cook this weekend... Stay tuned for those recipes