Trips 80 through 82 and COLD!

Just finished 3 trips in the coldest weather I've experienced yet in driveaway work, including going to Duluth in January.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

I figured I needed to do a trip this week since I would be going with friends to Florida next week for golf and the Busch race and would probably take the following week off. So, even though my wife and I had seen each other a total of about 2 hours in the past 2 weeks since I had been on a long trip the previous week, and she had been to a teacher workshop and family get-togethers last week, I decided to head out.

It was brutally cold for VA on Tuesday morning. I was to pick up a truck at Altec Daleville, VA for delivery to Blairstown, NJ. My wife took me by the plant on her way to work, and agreed to drive me around the rather large lot of trucks they now have to help find the truck. View the picture and you'll see that Altec has a sea of trucks (blue shading provided by my crappy camera) from which you have to find yours. We were in to the second circle of the lot when we found it. It was an IHC 4300 automatic, started OK, so she headed on and I proceeded to do the quickest pre-trip in the 6 degree weather that I've done so far.

The trip to Blairstown up I-81 and across I-78 bouncing through PA was relatively uneventful. In this weather, I have the constant worry of diesel jelling, but no problems on this trip. I arrived in the area around 4:30 PM, but dispatch was having problems figuring out how to get me out of there and to my next truck in Lancaster, PA. They finally settled on having another driver, a nice fellow from AL, take me the 120+ miles in his tow car.

We arrived in Lancaster about 8:00 PM where I was able to find my next truck at the Lancaster Resort. In checking around the place, I could see there was no use in my asking about their room prices, so I again did a very quick (non-existent) pre-trip in the cold and headed about .5 miles up the road to the Super8. The other driver and I then had a nice meal at the nearby Friendly's.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

It snowed about an inch over night and every flake stuck, so the roads were slick. Even though it was cold, I did do a fairly good pre-trip before heading out about 8:00 AM. This truck was an IHC 4300 with chipper/boom body and was headed to Scottdale, PA, close to Pittsburg, to the Penn Line company. I saw lots of wrecks on the way, but did OK myself and arrived there about 1:00 PM.

The people at Penn Line were some of the nicest, if not the nicest, that I have delivered to. They obviously have a wonderful corporate culture, were having a good time, and treated me like royalty - not a common occurance as a driver.

I had told dispatch that I needed to get on back home rather than stay out to Friday like I had originally indicated. It had snowed 4-5 inches at home and my wife was less than pleased to be there by herself and having to plow out the driveway and get her car unstuck by herself. So dispatch put me in a rental car from the Latrobe, PA airport to Richmond, VA where I would pick one up from Glen Allen to Forest, VA, a trip I've made several times.

This worked out well for me, even though it was a lot of deadheading, because I could visit my daughters who live in Richmond, plus bum a ride from the airport to Glen Allen. I arrived Richmond, after driving the 320 miles at around 8:00 PM.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Only one of my daughters was available, Caitie, but she picked me up, we had a nice breakfast at Aunt Sarah's Pancake House, and she took me to Glen Allen. I picked up a GMC 7500 with chipper/boom body. As I headed out about 11:00 AM, I noticed it was jumping out of 6th gear each time I let off the gas. I figured I'd be able to handle that for the 140 miles to Forest, but did let dispatch know about it. They told me to head back to Glen Allen and talk to them before bringing the truck on. I knew they wouldn't work on it, but I did go back, and by that time it had stopped jumping out of gear. So I told the mechanic what was going on, he shrugged his shoulders as I figured he'd do, and I headed on to Forest.

Nice sunny day to drive and I arrived there about 2:00 PM. My wife was called into duty again since she was off from school, even though she did go in to work anyway, and she came later to pick me up. She was rewarded, as was I, with a nice late lunch/early dinner at the Ruby Tuesdays restaurant in Bedford, and then I was home from a very cold trip.

I had decided while I was out that I really didn't need to be dealing with this cold of weather and icy conditions and promised myself to just stay in in the future when it's like that. I'm heading with friends to warmer climate next week to do some golfing and race watching in Florida. That should keep me out of driveaway for at least two weeks. Besides, my wife says she really wants me around more, and I'm hoping it's more than for cooking and doing the dishes and vacuuming.

Cold and Hot

My latest trips, numbers 78 and 79, involved heading from ice to colder, then from colder to hot.

Monday, January 22, 2007

I was lined up to take an IHC Paystar 5000 triple axle chassis from Daleville, VA to Duluth, MN. We'd had ice on Sunday, so I delayed a bit going over to Daleville to get on the road, waiting instead for things to clear out a bit and for it to heat up. I had done some pre-trip on the unit on Saturday. Mainly, I'd wanted to make sure the temporary flaps were securely on, which they never are, and these weren't either. But, luckily, a guy came out from the plant to check on what I was doing and said he'd take care of securing the flaps before he left for the day. I thought - right! But turned out he did a good job on them and I didn't have any trouble with them the entire 1200 miles to Duluth - a first for temporary flaps.

I had to chip the truck out of the ice, but was on the road west by about 10:00 AM. Truck drove great, with the Eaton Fuller hi-low 9-speed, especially for a chassis, except I discovered fairly quickly the heater was not heating properly - a considerable problem when you are heading north to a place like Duluth. It was putting out about 50 degree air, which ended up working OK through WV, KY, IN, IL, but didn't do too well in WI and MN.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

I made it to Indianapolis the first night and around Chicago about 11:00 AM the next. Seems IL is all toll roads. Paid all of them and made it to the small burg of Chetek, WI Tuesday night. Told my wife this was the WI version of Choteau, MT. Only place to eat was a bar, but the beer was good (the truck had already been parked) and the hamburger also. Snow and ice covered everything. I was wondering if the truck would start, or the fuel would jell, the next morning in the 6 degree weather.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Up early to find out if the truck would start and get on to Duluth. The hotel provided electric heater hookups but I didn't have a chord so didn't try that. The truck started with no problems, but I about to freeze on the way to Duluth. The inside of the side windows frosted over. Don't know what I would have done if the windshield had frozen over.

The drive in to Duluth, across the bridge crossing the tip of Lake Superior, was interesting, with the lake frozen and huge cargo ships dry-docked and/or frozen into the lake. The Altec plant where I was to deliver and pick up the next truck was within a half mile of the MN boarder. So I got to add WI and MN to my driveaway map, but I've only seen a half mile of MN.

The guy at receiving for Altec was on break and wouldn't check the chassis in until his break was over, so I went out and found the truck that I was to take to FL rather than wait on him. It was an IHC 7300, 4-wheel drive, automatic, digger derrick. Looked good, and also started up nicely in the very cold weather, which I was then freezing in. The check-in guy decided by then to quit reading his paper and come on out and accept the chassis. I was back on my way by about 11:00 AM - and hopefully headed to warmer climates.

Unfortunately, that's when the real troubles for this trip began. About 10 miles back into WI, when I reached 60 mph for the first time, the speedometer started fluctuating and the engine started surging and jumping. I initially figured it was a fuel problem, so I stopped at a place that ended up being a bar, where a very helpful guy sold me half a gallon of anti-jell to put in that he had. That didn't resolve the problem. As I got 100 or so miles down the road, I called dispatch to let them know the truck wasn't running right, and I didn't want to nurse it like that for the 1700 mile trip to Moore Haven, FL. We found an International dealer in Eau Claire, WI and they could check it right away.

What appeared to be a very knowledgeable mechanic put the truck on the computer. They found a few fault codes, did a few things, said they didn't really find anything but that it was testing OK, and I headed out about 3:30 PM very confident it was fixed. Unfortunately, as soon as I got up to speed it started doing the same thing and I turned around and took it back in. By this time, second shift was on duty, and the kid assigned this time was definitely clueless. He finally called International technical support, who seemed even more clueless, one thing lead to another, and at 7:30 PM I decided to just go ahead and drive it as is. Made it further south to Mauston, WI, just north of Madison for the night.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Truck started, again, well in the very cold weather, and I was heading to warmer, although still snow-covered weather in IL. At the first toll booth, I heard air leaking when I had the brakes on, and at the first gas stop I did an air brake test. It failed miserably, so I knew I was going to have to go see another International dealer. The closest one was in Normal, IL about 50 more miles away. I made it there about noon. They quickly discovered that two brake lines had only been finger tightened (good quality assurance International) and fixed the problem in about 10 minutes. On the surging problem, they didn't have time to check, but said they'd started hearing of this type of problem on the new Internationals and that nobody knew how to fix it. Also, the mechanic in Eau Claire had pointed out a hydrolic line leak which I told dispatch about. Dispatch checked and found that I would need to divert to the Indianapolis Altec plant to have it checked, and that couldn't happen until 6:00 AM the next morning.

The more I thought about it, I realized that, due to my bad back, I had not gotten under the truck to check out the oil puddle the mechanics had pointed out, and I was beginning to doubt whether I really had a leak. But I was now committed to Indianapolis, so I headed east arriving about 5:30 PM. Further delay in reaching the warm and heading home.

Friday, January 26, 2007

I had the truck in bright and early at 6:00 AM and the Altec guys started checking it right away. They checked everything for over an hour, found no leak, but did find some sort of electrical problem. So, basically, I'd wasted that part of the trip, but headed on south down I-65 towards FL. This would take me through Nashville about lunch time, so I called my son, who lives there, to see if we could meet up for a quick lunch.

The lunch idea worked, and I was in Nashville about 1:00 PM. About the time we were walking in front of a good looking, very busy, barbeque restaurant, dispatch called to tell me they couldn't get me out of Moore Haven on Saturday and their backup plan was for me to get to Orlando Sanford airport, stage the truck there, and catch a plane at 4:25 PM. That meant I had to get 700 miles under my belt by then and I knew I'd be running out of hours for today and with the 10 hours off requirement I'd be running close on making the plane. But, if I could, the long trip would be over and I'd be able to get home in a more reasonable time. So, we had to forego lunch, and I, regretably, had to leave my son early and head on south.

Drove like a bat out of hell through Chattanooga, and on down I-75, hitting Atlanta at a wonderful hour - 6:00 PM. But made it through and stayed the night about 120 miles north of the GA/FL border.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

I had driven until after 9:00 PM the night before, so was legally supposed to not start out until after 7:00 AM, but I fudged just a bit and was on the road shortly after 6:00 AM. Definitely wanted to make that plane.

Got through all the weight and inspection station entering FL and was in the Orlando area, and really warm, 75 degree, weather by noon. I don't generally like FL, with its hot weather, crazy drivers, and congestion, but really appreciated it more this time.

Was at the little Sanford airport by about 12:00 PM, staged and in the terminal early. Left plenty of time to get the plane, lunch, and some relaxing for the first time all week. Had been a hectic week with close to 3,000 miles of truck driving.

The plane was on time, and about the only direct flight to Roanoke from anywhere except a hub. I was back in Roanoke by 6:00 PM. My wife picked me up, we hit The Tavern downtown on the market for supper, and I was home. Three thousand miles is a healthy week of truck driving, and I was ready to be home for a while. Still trying to figure out how to get back into retirement. Haven't been doing too well lately on that.