Out w/ TE… Days 8 – 10

Here’s a few more days of adventure…

Wednesday, 10/18:

This morning was the most relaxed I had since being out. After a shower at the OC I sat down in the driver’s lounge to fill out (and catch up on) paperwork. As trainees there are several exercises we have to complete on each load, such as scaling, route planning, and a morning report on the Qualcomm that gives a rundown of our progress and projected delivery time. These will be examined and graded as part of our SQT, the skills qualification test we take once we return from our time with our TE.

I also made a few phone calls to friends and relatives to catch up with them a little. Of special importance was my daughter Lori’s birthday; it was very nice to have a few minutes to chat with her. Just before I was ready to leave Joe and Mandy walked in. They are a married couple (who plan to run as a team) that went through class with me in Charlotte. They were just finishing up their CDL testing in Alabama and were looking forward to getting out with their TE soon.

After that short breather we hit the road around 11 with plans to spend our next DOT break at the Charlotte OC. Curtis drove us just past Atlanta, and I took us on in to Charlotte, arriving a little past 9.

Thursday, 10/19:

It sure was nice to spend a night at home; I was really missing Terrie, and there was a week’s worth of dirty laundry that was just beginning to make it’s presence known.

Of course the visit was all too short, and we were on the road again a little after 10am. Curtis took us to Brown Summit, NC where we exchanged our load for one headed to South Brunswick, NJ. We were delayed a bit making the exchange, and on top of that the delivery appointment for the new load was for Noon on Friday. Since the schedule was tight on this one, and with Val being a man who likes to stay moving and won’t miss an appointment for anything, he took the wheel for the first leg of this trip.

Around 6pm we had made it to Carson, VA and he let me take it from there. By 10:30 we had made it past Washington, DC and stopped for the night in Perryville, MD.

Friday, 10/20:

It was raining when we got started this morning. We left at 8:30 with about a 3 hour drive to make our destination. Once we got to South Brunswick, NJ we had to wait about an hour for them to get us a dock to drop the trailer. Our next load assignment came in while we were waiting; a pick up just a few miles away in Avenel, NJ to be delivered to Cedar Rapids, IA. Looks like we’re going to make another lap around the eastern half of the country.

One real treat today; I received a phone call from a good friend (and former boss/coworker at BellSouth) Dennis.  He and several other ‘old farts’ from the company are gathering for lunch in a week or so and he wanted to make sure to invite me.  We hadn’t spoken for a while, so there was a lot of catching up to do from both ends.  It was great to hear from him, and I certainly hope I can be home to make the lunch. 

We got our trailer loaded and started out sometime in mid afternoon with intentions of putting some miles behind us before stopping for the night. Great plan, until a HazMat spill on I-80 in Jersey stopped us cold before Curtis could get in high gear! Well, not quite that quick, but we had only gone a very few miles. So that was the rest of our day; Curtis driving in stop-and-go traffic and me sitting on the sleeper bunk getting yanked around with each gear shift (Curtis ain’t that smooth). We held out until around 8:30 and finally gave up at a T/A truck stop in Columbia, NJ. I didn’t get to drive ’cause there was no place to stop to switch, and we weren’t going anywhere anyway. Val left w/ instructions for me to take the truck to the fuel island to fill up tomorrow morning, and he’d meet us there.