On my run this morning from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area to Ohio I had to pay a whopping $65.05 in tolls! Yes, I'll be reimbursed, but the amount of money our public servants get for us to use our own roads is simply outrageous.
The trailer I picked up at oh-dark-thirty this morning was interesting... one of our older ones, and its landing gear was balky. Even though my tractor was backed under it to take off some of the pressure it took a lot of elbow grease to work the gear up and into the ready-to-roll position. Score one for my genes and resulting 6'4" frame.
I messaged ahead to let the driver picking up the relay know that I would arrive about 90 minutes early. He was ready to go when I rolled in and the switch happened quickly... he left me his empty trailer and got the loaded one to take out to the Port of Newark.
Blaze doesn't think much of her new proscription. I have to fight her and pin her down (well, best two out of three at least; sometimes I have to tap out) to give her the liquid. She's received five doses so far and has puked up four of them. The fifth may be bubbling up as I type...
After three or four hours of waiting my satellite unit went off with a curious sequence of dispatch messages. As best I could read it, I was told to take my empty trailer down to just south of Louisville, Kentucky to a Linens n Things distribution center and pick up a full one to take to Laredo. Yes, my very favoritist destination!
The dispatch looked weird and I wanted to ask for a couple more hours to arrive, seeing as I was just doing a drop and hook so I called my fleet manager. It turns out I'm not picking up a trailer! They are deadheading me there to drop my trailer then sending me bobtail (sans trailer) to Laredo! This is about 400 miles deadhead with my trailer and another 1,200 or so bobtail. All paid of course.
The reason for this is that there is an enormous number of full trailers waiting in Laredo for tractors to move them and they don't need any more empties. This will make for some extremely high MPG figures for me this month: I wasn't doing bad with real loads, either.
The downsides are the ride and the weather. Class 8 tractors are designed to haul trailers and the suspensions are set up for the extra weight on the drive tires. No trailer and the suspension is extremely "firm" with lots of bounce on some kinds of pavement. In rain, ice or snow a driver has to be extremely cautious about following distance and sudden application of brakes or steering. Which I will be, of course.
