Chapter 4 in the Adventures of Connie Queen of the Big Rigs…
Hurry up!
by Connie Graham
Oh man. I thought this morning’s CF was over. But noooooooo
Didn’t get much sleep the past two days because the truck and trailer were in the shop at different times. Left me with WAY too many miles to cover yesterday. Totally caffeined out, stressed from phone calls from dispatch and the broker asking when I would be at Super Valu in Minneapolis. Warned not to be late…fines impending, etc. Silver is bored and wants to get out and play. I want to take a shower!! And sleep!!!
Second Monster drink down…almost there…gotta pee bad…
Got to the exit and I have exactly 15 minutes to find the guard shack or I’ll be L A T E.
Sign at the street where I am getting ready to turn says “NO TRUCKS”.
This is starting to become a habit. Why was I not warned about this???
I have no phone number to call the Super Valu people. Perhaps this is because if I actually had their phone number I would have unloaded on them. Flames were coming out of my ears.
I had to find a way to get off the f-ing freeway to turn around.
I called dispatch at Hensley after getting stuck in a Honda sales lot while trying to turn around. Scott answered the phone and guided me to the Super Valu building.
All was well… sort of. I got there with 5 minutes to spare!! Checked in to receiving office and was told to back into door 30. So I did. About 20 minutes later a guy from the warehouse came out to ask me if I had a “roll up” door? CRAP I backed into the dock without opening the trailer doors!! Nice.
What Makes Dogs Happy?
We are back at the Hensley yard in Osakis. Silver saw my friend Melanie standing by the shop with her Chihuahua and went berserk. The whole place was a mud bog as it has been raining and the place is not paved. I decided to go ahead and let her run around in the mud. So she did.
She also decided to share her enthusiasm with me by bouncing off my leg.
The Magical Mystery Sound
April 19: I have a truck question. Please, if anyone out there can help me with this….
I just got my truck out of the shop. Everyone has gone home and the 3 people I have phone numbers for are not answering.
Here is my problem:
There is a beeping noise coming from the bunk in my truck. It goes off every 30 seconds. Sounds like when a smoke detector needs a new battery. I can’t find the source of the noise. I haven’t the faintest idea what it is or how to make it stop!!
Ideas please?
A long series of suggestions was emitted by members of the peanut gallery. All wrong. Nary a one of them fixed the problem.
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April 20: O.K. The mechanic at work looked under my bunk and pointed to a silver box that looked like a big stereo amplifier. It’s called a power inverter. Plugs into the truck batteries and allows you to plug things into an extension cord on its power. Or something like that. I’m tired.
So this power inverter started beeping because the mechanic unplugged it from the batteries while working on my APU yesterday. So all the second guy had to do was flip a switch to reset it. GEEZE. No more beep!!!!!!
Back at the Ranch
I enjoyed my calm repose in the drivers’ room at the Hensley yard. Brian, the guy who had lost his wedding ring (and found it in the dirt), came in to give me ribbing about the security guard in El Paso who had been asking about me. Remember the older Mexican dude in the cowboy hat? Oh noooooo! He had been asking other Hensley drivers when I was coming back.
I should have seen this coming. When I took his picture to put on Facebook, he decided I must be in love. Blew me a kiss as I was driving off.
This all got back to my boss who, thankfully, just thought it was funny.
Kaleb (mechanic) came in to ask me about the truck service he was about to do. He also said the boss was real happy about how nice the place looked after I cleaned the drivers’ room last week (I was bored) and said he (boss man) left a care package for me. I began looking around for a pretty basket containing potpourri, tasty candies, hand lotion and a gift certificate to Starbucks…
I turned around and found a black milk crate full of cleaning supplies and a hard hat with my name across the front written on duct tape. Ha! These people are so cool.
Brian had to go wait outside because his daughter’s boyfriend was coming to the shop to ask Brian if he could marry her. Before he left he told me I should stop by the Dairy Bar and try out their sloppy Joes. Turns out the owner of this Dairy Bar place is his daughter’s teacher and he runs the fast food joint on the side during the summer.
I hosed off my muddy dog, tossed her in the truck and went in search of the sloppy Joe purveyor. I just ate two (gave some to Silver, of course) and can hardly move. Now if I could just get rid of that blasted beeping noise in the bunk I could call it a night and get some sleep.
Passenger as Escape Artist
I was wondering how I could have been so absent minded yesterday. I came back to the truck after eating at the diner in Sauk Centre (the one with the crappy food) and noticed the passenger side door was wide open!! Oh man, how could I have been so forgetful?? Silver was sitting in the seat looking absolutely horrified!! I thought perhaps someone had broken into the truck to steal her and she must have fought them off!! But then I realized that was dumb and scolded myself for the screw-up.
Tonight we are in York, Nebraska. I took Silver on a nice long walk and let her sniff and pee all she wanted. Had a little time to kill…. Then, like yesterday, I went into the restaurant to eat. After dinner, as was leaving, I saw a large muddy dog running back and forth on the other side of the glass drivers entrance doors. WTF??? OMG!!! It was Silver — 
totally spazzing out. I went outside and threw my arms open — she jumped all over me. She was wiggling around like a fish and I could not keep a hold of her. So off we go toward the truck, and there is the door wide open again.
I thought she was locked in when I locked the door. Apparently she figured out how to push down the door handle to escape. Just for an experiment I locked her in again and went back into the building to get some water. Yep. She was at the doors waiting for me.
How Can I Tell You? Let Me Count the Ways…
Navigating the 21st Century
I was driving in the rain through a dozen small towns in Minnesota a couple of nights ago trying to stay on Highway 23. I was going out of my mind over the lack of signage. In one particular spot in a town called Willmar, the road came to a “T.” The sign at the “T” had no freakin numbers or words – just a double arrow pointing to the left and right. Like a driver can’t figure that part out? Oh, let’s see…should I turn left or right or into the tree?
I did not know if “23” was still around, or whether south would be a left or right turn. SURPRISE!!! I guessed wrong. I turned right and drove a couple of miles until I saw a sign that said I was now on 70 North.
Fast forward to me parked on the side of the road calling anyone who might know the area to tell me what happened to 23. My two very good friends, also women drivers, both strongly suggested I stop what I was doing and figure out how to use the GPS on the truck. I couldn’t figure it out several times before. I am not such a great figure-outer. Never have been. But I made myself look at the damn thing, and after 20 minutes I had it figured out.
I will still be getting lost once in a while, but I know if I ever find that blasted sign with the double arrow, my GPS will say “Turn left in 20 feet and remain on highway 23.”
In the Can’t Win Department…
Dammit!! Finally got a shower after FOUR days (remember the dog-opening-door problem?) and I put on my crispy clean jeans only to spill coffee all over my lap.
This is caused by the plastic lid design of the coffee cups sold at Petro Truck Stops. If you are not accurate in your sipping with this lid, coffee ends up collecting along the edges. At a certain point the thing becomes one of those inventions from yesteryear called the “dribble glass.” Funny ha ha. Anyone who tries to drink out of one of these gets it all over their shirt or lap.
Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
Onward from Des Moines
Made it through Des Moines yesterday during rush hour. It’s nothing like LA, Atlanta, Chicago, or Phoenix during that time of day but it is no less challenging. I’ve never been a fan of generalization, but indulge me for a moment. Those people are NUTS and they DRIVE like MANIACS!!!
I was dodging crazy kamikaze four-wheelers coming at me and zipping around me from every direction. Absolutely amazing.
After surviving this, Judy in dispatch (Hensley) called to inform me I would be swapping trailers with another driver in Iowa and asked where I would like to do that. This plan was to get me a load going back to Phoenix as I have not been home for “time off” in over a month.
I chose Dows Junction truck stop because it is in the middle of BFE and there is ALWAYS a place to park.
While at Dows waiting for the other driver I spent some time trying to figure out how I could go into the truck stop for a shower without my dog, Silver, escaping from the truck and getting stolen, lost or run over. One of my conclusions about the whole thing was that, knowing the breed, keeping her in by covering up the door latch would only traumatize her further (she’s a rescue). Somehow I needed to figure out a way to make her WANT to stay in the truck.
I was not successful in coming up with anything that would work short of contacting The Animal Planet to see if they wanted to send over a trainer and do a bit for the show. Lame, I know.
I was running out of time and decided to talk to the drivers in the trucks parked next to me to see if they could dog-sit for thirty minutes. No dice. They were all getting ready to leave.
Hell with it. I looked Silver in the eye, and with all the doggie communication vibes I could muster up asked her to please please please stay in the truck long enough for me to take a much needed shower.
As I marched across the parking lot I heard a few drivers calling after me, “She’s already out!” “Your dog got out!” There she was. Running across the lot like she was on her way to a fire (as they say).
I left Silver on the entryway and searched out an employee so I could explain my plight. Several of the clerks and a manager all agreed that she would be OK if I just took her into the shower room with me.
This worked well! She had muddy paws from tromping through a puddle, and I could get her as well as me cleaned up.
Silver did not like the shower experience at all. I had to drag her in under the water to clean her up, and I am pretty sure she was not used to this kind of thing.
After the shower we got high fives and congratulations from all the people at the truck stop. And free coffee. It was very nice.
And I was clean!
The other driver (Denny) showed up within minutes. We introduced each other and swapped trailers and paperwork. I made the comment to him that it was too bad that I had to keep getting these Jennie-O Turkey loads to get me toward Phoenix because the receivers kind of suck.
The worst one, I explained, was called Ben E Keith in Albuquerque. Their docks are too short and you can’t even leave until the guy next to you leaves first. It’s a mess! By the time you leave there you feel like you are part of brotherhood of drivers who survived the ordeal. You get the strange sensation you should have gotten their contact information so that you could start a support group for the survivors.
Denny assures me that Ben isn’t one of the stops. I open the envelope to see where I am going and the first entry says “Ben E Keith,” 5:00 AM. I’ll be dipped in shit.
The good news is…I went back into the truck stop to grab an Arby’s Beef n Cheddar and Silver stayed put in the truck! The shower experience did the trick! At least for now…
How Good Government Rules Go Bad…
It was bound to happen. Since I came back to driving OTR (over the road), I have now had to spend the night parked on an exit ramp. I spent months locating a company that does not have computerized logging* installed in the trucks. I am not forced to stop driving EXACTLY the moment I hit 11 hours of driving for the day. And I don’t have to sit and stare out the windshield waiting for my truck to allow me to begin driving again EXACTLY 10 hours after I stop. However, the other 90 per cent of the drivers out here do not enjoy that freedom.
Last night I experienced one of the results of our country’s idiot DOT “Rules of Service” for commercial drivers.
These “rules” have changed periodically over the past 25 years. However, in 1995 (ish) someone or a group of someones decided the evil drivers** HAD to be STOPPED from their evil driving, and the biggest chokehold ever (like ever) was rained down upon us in the form of new “Hours of Service.”
This colossal cluster fuck restricts any driver of a commercial vehicle to driving a maximum of 11 hours in a 14-hour window. Period. End of story. Since shippers and receivers load and unload trucks between 5 AM and 5 PM ( generally), all the blasted trucks are on the highway at the same time. Also, after a driver reaches the 11 hours of driving, remember that he must not MOVE the truck for TEN hours.
So… Trying to find a parking place at a truck stop or rest area after 9 PM and actually finding one? PRICELESS.
Try spending 10 hours on an off-ramp. Nice.
Oklahoma is waaaay behind in creating parking places. I found that out last night. I drove from midnight to 2 AM before I even located a fucking OFF RAMP that had an open space for me to park and spend the night.
Congrats US Dept of Transportation. You have completely jumped the shark and screwed the pooch on this one. You have failed to make the highways SAFER as you claim as a result of your overly zealous ridiculously stupid idiotic pile of horse dung you call the New Rules of Service.
*All companies that employ commercial drivers will be required to install computerized logging systems in their trucks by Jan 2017.
**Evil Drivers: not to be confused with “evil doers.”
Americana in the Midwest
Oklahoma. So mired in the past and so still authentically Oklahoma.
What would happen if the entire state was to suddenly be forced to follow all the politically correct touchy feely mumbo jumbo?
No more of this to be sure!!
And really red dirt!
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Just a thought.. Bureaucrats passing laws to make constituents happy is (we ALL know this) about money, control, and profits.
However, when well-meaning individuals actually attempt to pass legislation to improve things, they will fail in the attempt if they refuse to study the situation in depth beforehand.
This includes seeking out anyone and everyone who might be affected by said legislation, etc. I am specifically referring to the trucking débâcle.
When a surgeon is scalpeling (technical jargon) around a heart he needs to be EXACT in his methodology. One millimeter to the left or right could be curtains for the scalpelee. Passing laws willy-nilly can have an kickback similar to someone walking behind the surgeon in the middle of his cut and bumping him in the elbow.
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Blimey! A lot lizard. I have not seen one of these in ages!
Albuquerque
I am traumatized. I am trying not to over-react to this Ben E. Keith place but it has me chewing my fingernails and eating donuts.
It sucked the first time I was here. It sucked worse today.
This time, my dog Silver decided to follow me through the parking lot to the receiving office. I was halfway there when I heard her doggie tag jingling. Oh shit. I thought she had stopped doing that!!
I could not address this problem as I did not want to be LATE (trucking Cardinal sin #2) so I took a deep breath and…pretended she wasn’t my dog.
There were 8 of us standing in line in the the tiny receiving area. Those of us who had been here before had the stone-faced demeanor of someone waiting for their death sentence to be carried out.
We grumbled and mumbled and discussed how awful it all was while the newbies listened in horror.
Every time a dock employee opened the door to show up for work Silver tried to sneak in. I finally had to confess it was my wacky dog and that this was a new problem for which I had yet to find a solution.
We were all given a dock number and instructed to take turns backing in. As you would expect, the driver assigned door # 1 would go first.
For some unexplainable reason, the drivers who had not been here before were unable to follow directions.
We were also told, “Don’t park in the lot or you will block in the other drivers. Wait outside the gate until it is your turn to back in.”
I was to back into dock #3. Easy peasy. All I had to do was wait for trucks 1 & 2 to get into their docks and it would then be my turn. ‘Twas not to be.
The new guys all drove into the lot and parked just inside the gate, blocking the entrance. This made it impossible for me to back into dock #3 when it was my turn.
Twice I had to ask one of the BEK employees to shoo the drivers away and twice, as soon as they did, some other nitwit drove in and parked there.
I was parked in the street with my flashers on this entire time. I kept getting back into the truck to prepare to enter the facility only to see another truck driving past to block me in.
Obviously I made it in or I wouldn’t be posting about it. But I am worse for the wear.
I polished off a package of mini donuts and chewed my thumbnail down to the quick during this experience.
In conclusion, the lot is TOO SMALL. WAY too small. It is just too small for what they want to use it for. There are too many drivers not quick enough on the uptake for this to work. Also, the smallness of this lot (did I mention the lot was SMALL?) creates such a tight fit that once you are done getting unloaded the truck next to you has to detach from his trailer to let you out.
I’m done here now. On to US Foods. They have a giant lot. Now I just have to figure out how to keep Silver in the truck.
Don’t miss Connie’s earlier adventures: