LOCKPORT, IL to MAUMEE, OH to NEW BERLIN, WI: 600 miles + errands + hazmat (575 loaded + 25 deadhead + $200).
Wednesday July 29th, I started with a free shower at the Petro truck stop in Wilmington, IL where I spent the night and had a fuel voucher. I left the truck stop at 10:30am after performing the pre-trip inspection of the truck. I drove half an hour to Romeoville, IL, to pick up an empty trailer that the lease was expiring and needed to be returned. It took me forty-five minutes to drop one trailer and pick up the other one then I drove half an hour to the leasing company’s lot. After dropping the trailer and having them inspected for excessive damage I drove half an hour to another establishment that had some of our empty trailers. From there I drove twenty-minutes and stopped at a truck stop for lunch at a Hardy’s. From there it was a half an hour drive to the first shipper of this assignment where I arrived at 5:00pm. I drove five and half hours to the consignee in Maumee, OH and shut it down for the night there at 10:30pm. For the errand of returning the empty trailer I got paid by the hour which came out to $100.
Thursday July 30th, the second leg of this assignment was taking a load from the same facility as the previous consignee to Wisconsin which was 331 miles away which should take around five-and-half hours but it ended up taking seven hours due to traffic. The route goes through Chicago which is always a problem. I started my day at 11:30am with the pre-trip inspection of the truck and drove half-an-hour to a nearby truck stop to scale the load and have lunch. This is a hazmat load so important to scale and the BOL indicated that it was heavy. The load weighed in at 75,720lbs which is close to the maximum DOT Regulations allowed of 80,000lbs. I arrived at a Petro truck stop in Wisconsin at 8:00pm just as the sun was setting and fueled the truck. I then had dinner there and did laundry.
Friday July 31st, I started my day at 7:00am EST with the pre-trip inspection of the truck and caught a glimpse of the sunrise. I drove half-an-hour to the consignee and arrived at the set delivery time of 8:00am EST. I get paid an additional $100 for hazmat loads.
BOOK REVIEW: Pretty Little Girls by Jenifer Ruff (2019), THRILLER – RATING (****)
A psychological thriller that gets better as it goes along with new discoveries that keep the suspense at high levels. Book 2 of the Agent Victoria Hesling series but can be read as a stand-alone.
Alice, a fourteen year old girl, sole daughter of wealthy parents goes to the mall to meet a man she met online and gets abducted. Her parents can pay a handsome ransom but the kidnappers have other plans. The FBI is called in as a consultant and Agent Victoria Hesling is assigned to the case but she finds her parents uncooperative and the local police not giving it the proper priority. Soon Agent Hesling discovers more than she bargained for and needs to go rogue to find Alice.
Overall very entertaining.
