One of the least favorite aspects of Over The Road trucking, to me, is the occasional trip that requires you to break your sleeping habits and travel during hours you are ordinarily counting sheep. Yesterday I was instructed to hold in Davenport for a load at 7 PM central time that had to deliver without delay in Ohio almost 400 miles away by 4:30 AM eastern time. Because of the time zone change I lost an hour and Illinois has a 55 MPH speed limit for trucks that stole the better part of another hour from me.
Luckily, the John Deere warehouse where I picked up was a bit early and I was able to depart an hour ahead of schedule. I had napped in the early afternoon and ate earlier so that wouldn't make me sleepy. However, I avoid stimulants like coffee, soda and the like so my natural circadian rhythm was pushing me to yawn and making it hard to maintain focus.
I arrived at 2 AM eastern time and woke the driver who I was relaying the load with. I quickly dropped off the trailer and gave him the paperwork, then went to bed. This morning I was awakened by the satellite system going off, showing me I have a similar run tonight. This time I will be the relayer of someone else's load, going to Pennsylvania. After that is a rare pre-planned load, from Carlisle, PA all the way to Laredo, TX, a trip of almost 1,800 miles. Tonight's load is very time sensitive Conway load which allows little time for anything other than driving, but it is due in at 10 PM eastern time which will let me get a full night's sleep tonight.
