Two People and a Truck

[written Wednesday, March 1]

The problem with the Amish is that they don’t answer their telephones.

I’ve been running east this week. Monday I was in Waukesha, WI and today in Morris, IL. For both trips I went to Nucor Steel near Kankakee, IL to pick up steel to bring back to the (real) Midwest -- anybody with any common sense knows the Midwest starts at the Mississippi River! Today I picked up a load for the Amish in Kalona, IA.

There is a contact telephone number and I’m told it’s a payphone somewhere, but no one’s answering it today. So tomorrow morning I’ll drive in blind and hope I can get unloaded. Since they're Amish, I’m curious how they’re going to get the rebar off my truck. Draft horse? Or will they hire a foreigner to run the fork life? Time will tell.

[written Thursday, March 2]

Well, Cephas and his dad, Tobias (and no, I’m not making the names up), did indeed have a forklift. It was a very old Ford that had metal wheels instead of rubber. But I bet if you took the hydraulics apart you’d find some rubber rings to seal the oil in.

Category: General

A couple weeks ago, at the Cyclone Truck Stop in Ames, IA, some guy ordered a side of cottage cheese with gravy on it. When the waitress brought it to the table, she and the diner talked about weird stuff people put on cottage cheese. The waitress claimed that she didn't find the gravy strange. She then said, with obvious disdain in her voice, I've even seen people put french dressing on their cottage cheese. BTW, I put french dressing on my cottage cheese.

After I thought about gravy on the cottage cheese, I decided it wasn't as weird as I initially thought. If one used mushroom gravy it would create a sort of truck stop version of beef stroganoff. This would be especially good for truck stops because instead of curdling the sour cream, the cottage cheese would be pre-curdled. (In case you don't cook, the art of good stroganof is mixing in the sour cream without curdling it.)

Last night I was eating at the J in Des Moines and some guy was putting fruit cocktail on his cottage cheese. At first I thought it was a bit weird, but after thinking about it, decided that it wouldn't be a bad combination.

So, after careful consideration, I have concluded that cottage cheese is nearly perfect truck stop food. First, it mixes with just about anything. (I'm not sure I'd recommend mixing cottage cheese with your butterscotch jello, but I won't condemn you if you choose to do that.) Second, it's pre-curdled, so it's hard to screw up a recipe when you use cottage cheese. Third, it may not be Muenster or queso fresco, but it's pretty darn exotic for a truck stop buffet (it ranks right up their with green jello and shredded carrots) and can turn an ordinary dining experience into something extraordinary!

Category: General

Today I've got two disconnected and inconsequential observations.

On Wednesday I made two deliveries: one to a Lowes store and the other to Builder's Supply in Omaha, one of Omaha's largest lumber retailers. It took a couple of hours to get unloaded at the Lowe's store, primarily because the forklift driver was inexperienced. He had to line everything up perfectly and move slow. He finally got the job done. The forklift driver at Builder's Supply, on the other hand, was screaming (as were the other dozen or so that were also busy loading and unloading this and that). He had unloaded so many trucks that he didn't have to think twice. He was unloading 16' siding--a tricky proposition--and had me finished in less than a half hour. When I was in high school I drove a forklift at my job. I unloaded a truck maybe once a week. I fell into the really slow category. I really appreciate a good forklift driver now.

The truck stop I stop at most frequently is Wings in Avoca, Iowa--It's the first truck accessible food from Ft Dodge driving south. Yesterday the service was terrrible. The two waitresses were high school kids from Avoca. Right after I ordered, Mike came in. Over the course of the meal I learned that Mike was a wrestling star. The two waitresses really fawned over him, ignoring the customers in the process. Sort of makes me miss the surly truck stop waitresses I've come to love.

Category: General

Today I dropped a load in Rochester, MN. It's a divided road and the only way to get into the parking lot is from the north. Of course I came into town from the south, so I found myself on the wrong side of a busy road. Since it was a divided four lane road there was enough room to make a u-turn to get into the southbound lane, so I went up to the next turn spot and prepared to do just that. Of course the traffic was just heavy enough that I couldn't find a long enough break to get in.

Just then a man walking his dog stops by the truck and asks if I would like him to stop traffic on the one lane. I said yes, and with his help I got turned around in a jiffy with only a few cars having to stop while I made the turn.

So, there are still a few nice people in the world.

Thanks, man-walking-your-dog. I appreciatea the help.

Category: General

I make a lot of runs into Minnesota. I'm typically up there a couple of times a week. Over the course of a couple of months I'm discovering where the good and bad routes are. One would think that U.S. highways would typically be good choices. Oddly enough, they're often not.

The most direct route into the Minnesota lake country, for me, is U.S. 71. But that highway was built many years ago. It's not elevated above the farmland around it. As a result, even when the weather's good, snow tends to blow across the highway, creating a lot of slick and hazardous spots. U.S. 14, running east and west is not much better.

On the other hand, SR (that is, state road) 15, which runs south out of St. Cloud is an excellent highway that is almost always better maintained than U.S. 71. When I can reroute a bit to the east, that is a far better route.

Of course, using mapping software designed for cars in a truck is not too smart an idea, but DeLorme's Street Atlas and MapQuest can provide some nice trip planning short cuts when figuring out where to go. Both Street Atlas and MapQuest (and I'm told MS Streets and Trips does the same thing) act like SR 60 doesn't even exist. There is a major highway that runs kitty corner through Iowa and Minnesota that connects I-29 at Sioux City to the Twin Cities. From LeMars, IA to Mankato, MN, this is called SR 60. South of LeMars it's listed as US71 and north of Mankato its listed as US169, but it's the major through route. Almost all of it is 65 mph divided highway. It bypasses several of the towns along the route, so it's also efficient.

MapQuest does us SR 60 through Iowa, but then routes you either on the interstate, all the way over to Albert Lea and up, or up US 71 and across. Street Atlas prefers the interstate all the way, travelling west (and north) to Sioux Falls, then all the way across I90 and up I35 at Albert Lea. If you're not going directly into the cities, but into some town a bit to the west, the routes add dozens of miles to the trip, take longer, and put you on some really treacherous roads.

Too bad they can't renumber the roads so that the good roads can have good numbers and the direct routes can be consistently marked as direct routes. Oh well. I'm sure that's not going to happen, so I'll continue driving by trial and error.

Category: General

[Posted Wed evening at a rest area outside Omaha.]

I'm sitting in Kansas City waiting for my trailer to get loaded. I figured it would be a fairly quick turn around because I got backed into the loading bay well before 9:00 a.m., but these are big city union guys, so it's now almost 1:00 p.m. and I'm still waiting. The load only goes just north of DesMoines and it looked like I could do two drops in a single day--that's like an extra day's pay at the end of the week, but that's out of the question now.

On the bright side, I finished one essay and started another essay for my web site and I got this note done for the blog. Now all I need is an internet connection to upload this.

I was listening to NOAA's weather radio this morning and they said that Kansas City temps have been above normal every day since Dec. 22. It's a record. The month of January has been 15 degrees warmer than normal. That's a lot!

I've been in an ice storm and a snow storm this January in Kansas City, so it's not like it's the tropics or anything, but it looks like it's going to hit 60 today and I can live with that.

Category: General

After my post of a couple weeks ago VaqueroMuerto recommended a Chinese restaurant in Forrest City, AR. Since I mostly drive the upper Midwest I'll probably never make it there, but I appreciate the recommendation. But I do enjoy how the local culture affects the restaurant fair. The post VaqueroMuerto was responding to talked about Crawdads on a Chinese Buffet in Gilmer, TX. The other night I was watching Texas fumble and stumble through the first quarter of the Rose Bowl against SoCal while eating rhubarb pie in Bimdidji, Minnesota. I love rhubarb pie and was surprised to see it on the menu in January. My policy is to not eat dessert on the road, but I make an exception for rhubarb pie.

Crawdads in Texas, rhubarb pie in Minnesota, organic coffee in a Massachusetts McDonalds, and Dorothy Lynch salad dressing in Nebraska and Iowa. That's what makes trucking so great!!

Category: General

I wrote this post last week, but this is the first chance I've had to upload it.

I've waited to post anything about this until everything was settled. Back on Dec. 23 I tipped a fully loaded trailer over. It was loaded with sheet rock. The customer refused the load because it was damaged, so the accident cost the company a bundle.

Since the majority of our deliveries are to lumber yards and sheet rock wholesalers, the company encourages drivers to arrive at the delivery point the night before so we can get unloaded first thing in the morning. That means a whole lot of driving in the dark on backroads and commercial district streets. That's pertinent because I was turning from one narrow road on to another narrow road with no street lighting on the corner and a very steep and deep barrow pit. The load was extra wide (9') so I couldn't see my trailer lights. The next thing I know the trailer was laying on its side in the ditch. Fortunately I was going about 10 mph so no one was hurt.

That's the bad news. The good news is that while there is a police report, I didn't get a ticket. The company has also been very supportive so I still have a job. I had a meeting with the safety committee and had to do a driving test. They've got me on a bit of short leash for a month or so, but no other consequences. Neither the trailer nor tractor received significant damage, so I was able to drive them home without any problem.

A friend of mine backed into a hole about a month ago. That accident ruined two tires and tore up the back of a trailer. It happened at night also. He's been talking to other drivers and he claims that nearly everyone he's talked to has had similar incidents. I find that bizarre and a bit hard to believe, but maybe that's what happens when companies encourage their drivers to poke around poorly lighted commercial districts in the dead of night.

I'll conclude with a soccer mom story. The first person on the scene of an accident was a 30-something mom with her son in a mini van. After making sure no one was hurt and there was no emergency she began to explain to me that I needed to go one mile further down the road. "Instead of turning here, you need to take the truck down to the next road. That will get you to where you want to go."

Now remember, the trailer is laying on its side in the barrow pit and the tractor is sitting at a precarious angle with the left side drive axels up in the air. Given the scene I thought it was about the most bimbo-ish bit of advice I ever heard. Oh well.

Since I strapped it correctly, the sheetrock didn't fall off and it took three tow trucks to tip the thing back on its wheels. The accident occurred at 7:30 p.m. and by 2:00 a.m. I was rolling again. woohoo!!

Category: General

I've certainly not kept up with this blog as I intended, but working for this flat bedding company isn't quite what I expected either. I've only been home for a few brief hours at a time since Thanksgiving and have only been home for about five days total since I started in late October. Since I'm only in truck stops to fuel I never have internet access either, so keeping up with the web has been impossible.

This company--and after talking to other flat bedders, I believe this is pretty true of flat bed companies in general--flagrantly ignore log book rules. If you're not willing to work 70 to 90 hours a week (when you can only work 60 legally, then you're going to run into problems. I refuse falsify my log book, and as a result I run out of hours before the end of the week and get stuck out on the road, not getting home until late Saturday night if at all. (We begin again on Sunday afternoon.) It's a price I'm willing to pay in order to not be involved in criminal activity, but I know I'm the exception rather than the rule.

What I particulaly "love" about the situation is how they can communicate that this is unwritten company policy while being completely committed to the actual rules on paper. If a driver gets caught by the DOT with a logbook violation the company will be properly horrified at said driver and the terrible driver will be disciplined appropriately. Meanwhile, what they teach in training and through their dispatchers is how to get away with falsifying your log book.

I think my dispatcher is beginning to figure out that I'm not kidding when I say I'm not willing to falsify my log book, and as a result, I expect things to get better, but if it doesn't, so be it.

Anyway, that's the reason I haven't posted in a long time. Other than that, being out on the road is great. I love the lifestyle and the sort of work that it is. I'm not sure how long my body can take flat bedding because it is hard work, but for now I'm certainly happy with my decision.

It's trivial, I know, but one of the more memorable items of the last six weeks was stopping at a Chinese Buffet in downtown Gilmer, TX. They had crawdads on the menu. (I never thought of crawdads as Chinese before!) That sort of cultural blending and uniqueness is one of the many things that makes being out on the road so great.

Who knows when I'll actually get back to Sioux City long enough to fire up the computer, so until next time, happy travels.

Category: General

I finished training just before Thanksgiving and I get my own truck on Monday. Training went okay. My trainer had a violent temper and was always in an extreme hurry, so I didn't dare take any time to do anything relaxing, such as doing a blog entry. But that chapter's done and now we'll see if I can make it out on the road on my own.

Most of training was spent in the midwest but we made two long trips. We took a load of gypsum roofing to Connecticut and brought back a load of hardwood from Massachusets to Kansas City. After that we took a load down to San Antonio and brought a load of steel back from Houston.

For the next several weeks I assume they'll keep me close to home until I get some experience under my belt. Now that I'm by myself I'll also be able to take my computer with me, so I should be able to report in more frequently.

Category: General