ROUTE: Flint, MI to Martinsburg, WV: 578 miles (526 loaded + 27 deadhead)
I picked up the load on Friday the 12th after the previous assignment ended around midnight the night before. The delivery was scheduled for Monday at 07:00 so I had time to do a reset at our terminal. I would fuel, get the driver’s side mirror fixed, do laundry, take a shower and get some errands done.
I was planning on leaving the terminal on Sunday the 14th somewhere between 10:00 and 13:00. The drive to the consignee required seven hours and there’s a good Middle Eastern restaurant in Breezewood, PA six hours away. If I left early enough I good have dinner there and then spend the night at a truck stop just minutes from the consignee. I ended up leaving at 13:00 so I planned on spending the night at Breezewood and have dinner there. There was a snow storm in the forecast but it wasn’t snowing in Canton, MI so I figured the roads would be fine. I was wrong. Driving through Ohio the weather changed and it started snowing slowing down traffic. By the time I reached Breezewood I was behind schedule by an hour-and-half and the restaurant would be closing soon. I decided to push on but now my DOT Regulation 8-hour clock was a factor. I decided to shut it down for the night at a Sheetz in Williamsport, MD as my clock was winding down to nothing. I was only 15 minutes from the consignee so I could do a Split and deliver on time at 07:00 or do the full DOT Regulation 10-hour break and deliver at 08:00. I called the AD Dispatch and they instructed me to take the full ten-hour break.
BOOK REVIEW: The Coroner by Jennifer Graeser Dornbush (2018), FICTION – RATING (****)
A romance novel with the backdrop of a murder investigation, a life changing heart attack of the protagonist’s father and her recent marriage engagement.
Dr. Emily Hartford rushes back to her small rural hometown to tend to her estranged father and is caught up in a murder investigation as she has to step into her father’s coroner’s duties. She’s the most financially reasonable alternative for the county to execute her dad’s function and he pleads her to do it. The eventual outcome was as predictable as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The killer acted irrationally but fits the narrative in a practical manner. The details of how the murder was committed were brushed over, but that was a secondary plot.
Regardless of its clear flaws it was a lighthearted entertaining read.
