The news that we were taking a load up to Maine got me excited that we would be adding a few more states to our 'been there' list. But we were not prepared for the weather up there.
But first let me start with ...
The day before yesterday I drove the whole length of Pennsylvania, from West to East. Since Schneider did not want us taking the toll road, our trip consisted of all US and PA hwys. Non-interstate driving is exhausting. You have more curves, hills, and most of all, lots of turns and stops and gos through towns. But I got the load delivered on time in New Jersey, then headed back to PA to pick up our next load, which is the load that had to go up to Maine.
We had time to get the load delivered on time and my copilot wasn't feeling very good so we stopped for the night and slept. He took some nyquil but still did not feel very good the next day, so I drove again. Got us up through the George Washington Bridge and beyond into Maine.
It was sunny when we reached Maine, but chilly. Once I got to the drop location, a Walmart distribution center, the sun had started to set and it was now a blistering 27 degrees with a huge wind factor. When we had left our home in Lehigh Acres, Florida, we thought we wouldn't be seeing anymore cold weather. I had left my hoodie behind, and had packed shorts and capris. Thankfully, though, I had packed one pair of jeans and we still had our jackets. But our jackets are thin fleece and more appropriate for 58 degree weather.
My Panamanian copilot was not having any of it. That and he still wasn't feeling better. So I had to drop the trailer and pick up the empty by myself. I was doing ok, but then I hooked up to a defective trailer and had to start over. By this time I was a frozen popsicle and in a bad mood. But I got disconnected and mozied on over to another trailer and got hooked up to it. All the while coming in and out of the truck to warm up. I was almost done when I lost one of my gloves, I had set it down on the steps of the truck and the wind had blown it away. At this point it was over an hour into the process so copilot helped me to try and locate the glove. We almost left, then came back to look for it again, and success! Those gloves are oily and smell like diesel but dangit I paid a lot of money for them!
On to the next location to pick up our next load and it's full night and probably minus something. Then I found out that I couldn't slide my tandems, the pull out handle had something in the way not allowing the handle to be pulled. So sorry to the company but I definitely wasn't going to tell them about it, I parked that thing anyway! (I did, however, send a notice to Schneider telling them about it...)
The next job I had to do was connect to the loaded trailer, and when I pulled up behind it I noticed it was super high. I had to lower it. Not a problem in warm weather! But in my haste to get out of the cold, I couldn't get the handle in low gear, and it was not budging in high gear because it was a heavy load. The wind was blowing hard right through my jacket, and even though I had a hat on I didn't have a scarf so the wind blew right down my neck. I was miserable.
After 2 attempts I sat in the driver seat about ready to cry. But instead I said a little prayer asking for a little more patience and the ability to get the handle in low gear to be able to get the job done.
So I sat there, quiet, digging down deep, and then it suddenly hit me... I look over at copilot and he's comfy warm but not wearing his jacket... 'hey. let me borrow your jacket' I say. I take mine off, put his on, then put mine back on over it. Then I looked around for something I could use as a scarf... the bed sheet! It was perfect! It's made from the same material as t-shirts, soft and warm. I wrapped that thing around my neck, made a knot, then pulled it up over my hat. When I went out again I was warm enough to calmly put the handle in lower gear and get the trailer lowered. Success!
Later we pulled up the their scale, it was one of those 1-axle at a time dealios. We were overweight! This was the first time this ever happened to us. 'Move the tandem towards the trouble' is the motto, so we did this. First we were on the 14th hole, then we tried the 12th hole, still overweight, finally I put it in the 8th hole and we were ok except that the front axle was still over by 60 pounds. When the weight came up on the scale I looked over at copilot sitting in the passenger seat and said 'well I guess you have to get out so we can be legal' I was only kidding but when he got back into the sleeper berth, the weight went down to 12,000 pounds exactly!
We saw that we had enough time to deliver this load that we could stop the truck for the night again. By the time I drove 40 miles up the road to a service plaza I was exhausted. We both slept 10 hours straight and thankfully, he was feeling better in the morning and was able to drive to give me a break.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Starting this blogging thing
I've decided to start a blog about my trucking adventures because all this wonderful stuff is happening and I know in a few years or even a few months I will probably forget most of it. I named my blog Girl Trucker Au Contraire because au contraire means, on the contrary, and that's exactly how I feel: the most unlikeliest trucker ever! But I do take my job seriously and I do try to be safe in everything I do. (but if you ever see my truck running down the road, you might want to keep a wide berth hahaha!!)
I must give a fair warning however that I really don't know how to blog. I've even already messed up because this was supposed to be my first post, but now it's like the 3rd post.
A little bit of background about us: I was born and raised in Alaska, joined the Air Force, lved in North Dakota and then Omaha, Nebraska where I met my Panamanian, Manuel. I had a secure but boring desk job at PayPal. He was a new-construction house painter but we saw the bottom falling on that career so we decided to take a couple of dump trucks to his country. When that didn't work out we shipped one back to Florida, and within a year decided to dump the whole dump truck business haha. Anyway, the logical step up from there was to truck driving, so we got ourselves enrolled in a driving school, Ptec in St. Petersburg, and from there got hired by Schneider National. We are probably the most un-truck driver type of people you will ever meet. Daily things happen to us to prove this, and this is why I've started this blog :)
This is the truck the company gave us, a brand new 2012 Freightliner Cascadia:
I must give a fair warning however that I really don't know how to blog. I've even already messed up because this was supposed to be my first post, but now it's like the 3rd post.
A little bit of background about us: I was born and raised in Alaska, joined the Air Force, lved in North Dakota and then Omaha, Nebraska where I met my Panamanian, Manuel. I had a secure but boring desk job at PayPal. He was a new-construction house painter but we saw the bottom falling on that career so we decided to take a couple of dump trucks to his country. When that didn't work out we shipped one back to Florida, and within a year decided to dump the whole dump truck business haha. Anyway, the logical step up from there was to truck driving, so we got ourselves enrolled in a driving school, Ptec in St. Petersburg, and from there got hired by Schneider National. We are probably the most un-truck driver type of people you will ever meet. Daily things happen to us to prove this, and this is why I've started this blog :)
This is the truck the company gave us, a brand new 2012 Freightliner Cascadia:
Thursday, March 22, 2012
What weigh station officer??
The night before last night (I think) I got woken up twice.
The first time was due to my copilot not being able to find the customer to pick up our load. We were in Everett, Washington, just north and east of Seattle. The directions were not very clear and both GPS' sent him down the wrong road. So he went around the block, and with my help we found the place. I stayed up to do all the paperwork associated with picking up a load, off we went and back to the sleeper I went.
A few hours later I was woken up again. Copilot had pulled over to the side of the road and had woken me up. "I just saw a sign that said traction tires recommended, what does that mean?" I was up in a flash. "Are we on I-90 right before Snoqualmie pass?" I asked. He didn't know, but I knew. I immediately grabbed the cell phone and called 511. I had just listened to the message saying chains were being required on all vehicles over Snoqualmie when copilot announced "yes we're on I-90". At least he tries! But before I could tell him what I wanted us to do he had put the truck in gear and was heading down the road. He's always been very impatient. No matter tho, we just had to go up a few miles to turn around. I decided we would go to the TA to find out more information, and to possible wait it out. As we pulled in to exit 34, there were trucks lining both sides of the exit. "We might not be able to find parking" I said. We pull in to the truck stop and see an empty spot, but it's on his blind side so he has to find a place to turn around. But as we pull forward we found another empty spot, this one we just needed to pull in, bonus!! Not only that but it was super close to the entrance so I didn't have to walk very far to use the restroom. I love how God takes care of us even for the small things!
After getting back to the truck I turned on my computer and went to the Washington state road conditions website, and again confirmed that they were requiring chains. Later I will have to tell the story of the first time we ran into this same situation, at this exact same location. We are not chaining-up type people. So we both decided to go to sleep and hope that the chains-in-affect would be released later in the day. It was almost 6 am by this time. At 9 am I woke up and called information and they did indeed lift the chain requirement, so I grabbed my coffee and off we went.
The view over Snoqualmie pass is one of my favorites. And today the pine trees were topped with almost a foot of fluffy white snow. It was amazing and this is one of the reasons why I love my job.
Later that same day, which was yesterday March 21st, I was driving over a mountain pass in Idaho, just past Couer d' Alene, when it started snowing... no wait, let me tell the truth, it had started snowing around Spokane, Washington, but once I started going up the mountain, the snow started to fall pretty heavily. I kept an eye on the signs that says "chains required when flashing" but they never did flash. But me and the trucks in front of me and behind me took it easy up, and then down, going about 25 mph the whole way. Once I was down and the roads got better I breathed easier. Copilot slept through the whole thing.
Something else happened yesterday that just adds to my adventures in trucking. Copilot had woken up after only sleeping a few hours (later he would sleep more). I was driving the boring part of I-90, which is after Snoqualmie but before Spokane, when suddenly ahead of me I see 3 trucks start to pull off. I see a sign that says "Restaurant" and I think to myself, wow must be a good restaurant. One other truck did not pull off. I didn't see much of anything else because I was concentrating on not hitting these trucks in front of me as they had started to slow down to get off the exit. But then something funny happened - copilot just happened to look out his window at where the trucks had pulled off, and he sees a uniformed officer waving his arms! "Hey I think that was a weigh station!" he says. "And that officer is waving his arms saying we were supposed to pull off there! You better pull over!" So pull over I did, and put my flashers on. We were discussing what should be our next move - walk back there with my cdl and registration? drive up to the next exit and turn around? - when the officer came up behind us in a van thingy with flashing lights. He walks up to the passenger door and Manuel rolls down his window. I tell him I'm sorry I missed the weigh station but that my gps didn't tell me, and my EZpass didn't flash anything either. He kinda laughs and says "So you missed those 2 signs?" DUH. Yup I sure did! He looked at my license and registration and lets me off with a verbal warning. *PHEW* And the first thing I can think of is my trainer at PTEC, Al, drilling into our heads "YOU HAVE TO READ THE SIGNS!" Lesson learned, I wont let that happen to me again!
The first time was due to my copilot not being able to find the customer to pick up our load. We were in Everett, Washington, just north and east of Seattle. The directions were not very clear and both GPS' sent him down the wrong road. So he went around the block, and with my help we found the place. I stayed up to do all the paperwork associated with picking up a load, off we went and back to the sleeper I went.
A few hours later I was woken up again. Copilot had pulled over to the side of the road and had woken me up. "I just saw a sign that said traction tires recommended, what does that mean?" I was up in a flash. "Are we on I-90 right before Snoqualmie pass?" I asked. He didn't know, but I knew. I immediately grabbed the cell phone and called 511. I had just listened to the message saying chains were being required on all vehicles over Snoqualmie when copilot announced "yes we're on I-90". At least he tries! But before I could tell him what I wanted us to do he had put the truck in gear and was heading down the road. He's always been very impatient. No matter tho, we just had to go up a few miles to turn around. I decided we would go to the TA to find out more information, and to possible wait it out. As we pulled in to exit 34, there were trucks lining both sides of the exit. "We might not be able to find parking" I said. We pull in to the truck stop and see an empty spot, but it's on his blind side so he has to find a place to turn around. But as we pull forward we found another empty spot, this one we just needed to pull in, bonus!! Not only that but it was super close to the entrance so I didn't have to walk very far to use the restroom. I love how God takes care of us even for the small things!
After getting back to the truck I turned on my computer and went to the Washington state road conditions website, and again confirmed that they were requiring chains. Later I will have to tell the story of the first time we ran into this same situation, at this exact same location. We are not chaining-up type people. So we both decided to go to sleep and hope that the chains-in-affect would be released later in the day. It was almost 6 am by this time. At 9 am I woke up and called information and they did indeed lift the chain requirement, so I grabbed my coffee and off we went.
The view over Snoqualmie pass is one of my favorites. And today the pine trees were topped with almost a foot of fluffy white snow. It was amazing and this is one of the reasons why I love my job.
Later that same day, which was yesterday March 21st, I was driving over a mountain pass in Idaho, just past Couer d' Alene, when it started snowing... no wait, let me tell the truth, it had started snowing around Spokane, Washington, but once I started going up the mountain, the snow started to fall pretty heavily. I kept an eye on the signs that says "chains required when flashing" but they never did flash. But me and the trucks in front of me and behind me took it easy up, and then down, going about 25 mph the whole way. Once I was down and the roads got better I breathed easier. Copilot slept through the whole thing.
Something else happened yesterday that just adds to my adventures in trucking. Copilot had woken up after only sleeping a few hours (later he would sleep more). I was driving the boring part of I-90, which is after Snoqualmie but before Spokane, when suddenly ahead of me I see 3 trucks start to pull off. I see a sign that says "Restaurant" and I think to myself, wow must be a good restaurant. One other truck did not pull off. I didn't see much of anything else because I was concentrating on not hitting these trucks in front of me as they had started to slow down to get off the exit. But then something funny happened - copilot just happened to look out his window at where the trucks had pulled off, and he sees a uniformed officer waving his arms! "Hey I think that was a weigh station!" he says. "And that officer is waving his arms saying we were supposed to pull off there! You better pull over!" So pull over I did, and put my flashers on. We were discussing what should be our next move - walk back there with my cdl and registration? drive up to the next exit and turn around? - when the officer came up behind us in a van thingy with flashing lights. He walks up to the passenger door and Manuel rolls down his window. I tell him I'm sorry I missed the weigh station but that my gps didn't tell me, and my EZpass didn't flash anything either. He kinda laughs and says "So you missed those 2 signs?" DUH. Yup I sure did! He looked at my license and registration and lets me off with a verbal warning. *PHEW* And the first thing I can think of is my trainer at PTEC, Al, drilling into our heads "YOU HAVE TO READ THE SIGNS!" Lesson learned, I wont let that happen to me again!
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