ROUTE: Canton, MI to Fishkill, NY: 731 miles (630 miles + 101 deadhead)
I had requested home-leave for Friday 11/14 as I had a doctor’s appointment at 10:15 and had other errands to do. I always set up my doctors appointments on a Friday or Monday so I can see the kids on the weekends. AD needed to get me an assignment going to New York. This assignment’s load was waiting at our terminal as a Local driver or another OTR had brought there from the shipper, as I had done last Friday 11/06.
I started my day on 11/12 at 09:00, I had parked at a rest stop five minutes from the consignee as I didn’t want to burn my clock to have the maximum available at the start of this assignment. After completing delivery I stopped at a nearby Speedway truck stop for breakfast: spicy red mini tacos and a coffee. The terminal was 90 minutes away where I would pick up the load and I also needed fuel, a shower and do laundry. I managed to get all that done under three hours and headed out. The driving time required for the trip was roughly ten hours. I decided to push it that evening and drive seven hours to a Sheetz Truck Stop in Buckhorn, PA. There’s normally parking, even late at night, and they have 24/7 dining services. I arrived at midnight and had a chili dog, a salad and a strawberry yogurt parfait.
I started my day on Thursday 11/13 at noon. I couldn’t start earlier than 10:00 due to the DOT ten-hour break requirement. At 08:00 I received a call from AD personnel informing me that I-80 Eastbound was closed due to an accident so no need to start early. My appointment was for 14:00 but the consignee is a 24/7 operation so I had flexibility, it just needed to be there by Thursday early evening. I arrived at the consignee at 16:00 and it was a simple drop-&-hook. I spent a little time chatting with a SWIFT driver trying to recruit her to come work for AD. We get paid a bonus for recruiting drivers. The trailer I was picking up was dirty with broken pallet wood pieces and dust, so I needed to sweep it. We need to arrive to the shippers with a clean trailer.
I arrived at the Pilot in Milford, CT at 20:00, that is my home base as we can leave the trucks unattended without risk of being towed, contrary to Rest Stops or Travel Plazas. I had a two slices of pepperoni pizza for dinner and started my 34-hour reset that would go until Monday morning.
BOOK REVIEW: Dead of Winter by Keri Beevis (2025), FICTION – RATING (***)
The premise of the story sounded original and interesting but that’s where the interesting ended. Works of fiction deserve a slack because it’s not real but there has to be rationality. It’s OK if one character goes AWOL because that can happen but not five and their actions fuel the plot.
A 37-year-old woman that four years earlier had her romantic life end abruptly for reasons out of her control. She’s adopted and realizes that she has a brother and wants desperately to make a connection with him. I can’t even remember the explanation for it to happen then and not when she was 18 and didn’t care to go back to find out. I was happy it was over.
The meeting with the brother goes horribly wrong and it becomes a snowball effect, literally trapped due to a blizzard with no power. That’s when it unraveled for me. Reasons why that encounter came to fruition are due to poor decisions by each of the five main characters. Therefore it’s all based on those factors coexisting, if any was not present then there would be no climax.
I won’t give any spoilers but just one example of the stupidity given to the characters. The protagonist goes to great lengths to discover a hidden photo that sheds light on what is happening. She puts it away carefully in her back pocket to conceal it then reaches the living room and places the photo on the table and leaves the room. The others see the photo and now they know that she knows the secret. Irrationality: Why was the photo not destroyed by the bad guys? And why did the good gal not keep it hidden in her back pocket and instead decides to place it on the table? There are many other examples of foolish actions that made listening to this audiobook excruciating but I hung on.
A Hollywood happy ending doesn’t even save it. Should it be a two-star rating? Probably, but there were some elements of suspense and twists that kept me listening, so It wasn’t that bad.
