Saturday, May 28, 2022

 I left a half-hour after sunrise this morning.  My plan from yesterday worked.  I had no traffic issues through Chattanooga or Nashville.  Very nice uneventful day on the road.  Drove to the TA truck stop in Troy, Illinois.  That is just outside of St. Louis.  I'll be here until Tuesday morning because of the holiday. 

Friday, May 27, 2022

 I left a half-hour before sunrise this morning.  Had about 10 to 15 miles of slow-and-go traffic just south of Atlanta.  Then some more bumper to bumper traffic going around Atlanta and a little more just north of Atlanta.  Continued on to the TA truck stop in Cartersville, Georgia for the night.  Didn't go any farther today because Chattanooga was a parking lot.  I decided to go through there in the morning when there is less traffic, hopefully.

Thursday, May 26, 2022

 I left the yard at about 4:30 this morning and drove to Ocala and delivered the telehandler.  My next load was 7 miles away.  Went there and loaded a John Deere 624K Wheel Loader that is going to Fenton, Missouri. 

I left there and drove back to the Daily yard in Jacksonville.  Had to have some work done on my trailer.  While there ran a few errands.  The terminal manager asked me if I could go over to the Port of Jacksonville and assist another Daily driver.  He had a large forklift on his trailer and didn't know how to get it off.  I went there.  It was a bit of a workout. Had to put a couple pins in to attach the hydraulic ram to the lift part so it could move.  That took a bit of time and energy.  Those things are heavy!!!  Anyway, we got it done and I took the forklift off the trailer and parked it for him.  He was very grateful because he didn't know how to do any of that.  It is going overseas and all the instrumentation on the machine was in a foreign language.  Had to figure out how to run the machine with no help.  It was a good thing I knew what to do and how to do it.

The green arrow (you may have to enlarge the photo to see it) in the photo below points to the pin (one on each side) that had to be put in.

Then went back to the yard.  My trailer is done so I'll be leaving a half-hour before sunrise tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

 As soon as my 10 hours were up I left.  That was at 1 AM EDT.  About an hour north of Charlotte, NC on I-77 traffic was backed up and not moving when a semi truck  caught fire.  I got to the stopped traffic shortly after it happened. The cops had the Interstate shut down.  The fire trucks were arriving at the same time as I came to a stop.  I was only about 2/10 mile from it but couldn't see anything because of all the stopped traffic ahead of me. I heard one of the tires explode. We sat there not moving for just about 30 minutes.  Once that was over I continued on.  Made it to the Daily terminal in Jacksonville, FL for the night.  504 miles today.  I'll deliver in the morning.   I'm tired!!!   Good night.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

 Left this morning at 2 AM EDT.  Drove to McConnellsburg, PA, and got there at 6:45 AM.  Got all set up to load and they told me that my machine was not ready and wouldn't be ready until Thursday, the 26th.  I had to wait until 8 AM for my people to get to work to find out if they had anything else available from here, or somewhere else to go.  It wasn't until about 8:15 that I got my answer.  Fortunately, they had another machine from there going to Ocala, Florida that I could take.  I loaded it, a Caterpillar TL 1255 Telehandler.

I left there and drove to the Flying J truck stop in Ft. Chiswell, Virginia.  Another 638 miles in the books for today.  Going to sleep soon.  Getting started again very early tomorrow morning.

So far for the year, I'm the 10th highest mileage truck out of approximately 250 Daily trucks.

Monday, May 23, 2022

 I left this morning at sunrise.  Drove the rest of the way to Kingston, NY.  The worst part of the trip was the last 35 miles.  It was on windy 2 lane roads in NY state.  But I made it and delivered the crane thing.  My next load is back in McConnellsburg, PA.  I started off that way but stopped for the night at a service plaza on I-87 in Modena, NY.  I'll start again when my 10 hours are up.