ROUTE: Flint, MI to Tampa, FL: 1,356 miles (1,227 loaded + 129 deadhead)
I completed my last assignment on the evening of Monday 01/26. I had a emergency dentist appointment on Tuesday 01/27 at 08:00 so I told my DM (Dispatch Manager) that I would be available for work at noon of that day as I did not know how long the visit to the dentist would last.
I received an assignment to pickup a new load where I had dropped off the previous one in Maumee, OH but it would only be ready at 18:00, which is normal for this shipper. That meant I could do some food shopping at Walmart. That assignment was cancelled as the consignee could not take delivery. This happens with certain regularity. I was not worried as a new assignment would pop up. I was hanging out at the terminal taking care of some personal stuff on my laptop when the new assignment came in. It was to pickup a load in Flint, MI at 19:00 and deliver in Tampa on Friday morning, which I accepted happily as we don’t get many loads going to Florida. The problem that it would only be ready later that evening which means picking it up in the dark and the temperature drops ten degrees at night. I had not yet gone to Walmart which is a couple of miles down the road.
On my way there I was hit with a whiteout flash mini-storm which reduced the visibility to under twenty yards. I called my DM and asked if I could pick up the load in the morning as I did not want to drive the 67 miles from the terminal to the shipper in those conditions. The other 62 miles of deadhead was the distance traveled from the last consignee to the terminal. My DM agreed as long as I could be sure to make delivery on Friday as the consignee was not open on weekends. The trip was just over 1,200 miles which would require at least twenty drive hours which I could do in two days plus a little on Friday.
Good thing that I waited until Wednesday in the day for the pickup because the weather conditions had deteriorated and instead of a one hour drive for the pickup it took me almost two and on the way I saw half a dozen cars that had strayed into the sides of the road. One spun out in control in front of my truck. I was driving on RT-23 and a Ford 150 was on the inbound ramp. I slowed down to let him in which he did but instead of driving ahead he floored his car and spun to the left, steered it to the right and then oversteered to the left again and lost control going into the snow bank. The car did not flip, otherwise I would have stopped to give assistance. There was nothing to do. He would need to call a tow truck to get him out.
I arrived at the shipper at 10:00 and was ready to go by noon. I had refueled the day before after going to Walmart at our terminal. I drove eight hours that day and shut it down at 21:00. The roads were icy and at some point I must had clipped the icy snow pushed to the side of the road by the plows because the next morning I noticed the right side of my front bumper had been torn off.
Thursday 1/29 I started my day at 09:30 and as I was about to leave when the warning light on the dashboard indicated that I needed to do a manual regen of the engine, which consists on running the engine at high resolution to clean out the soot on the filters. Unfortunately, the process took an hour which set me back but I still could make the delivery on Friday. It would be in the afternoon and I had until 16:00, otherwise I would be stranded in Tampa for the weekend. I had to drive as much as possible that day and I drove 10 hours and 57 minutes of the maximum eleven hours permitted by DOT Regulations. I made it to Lake City, FL at 23:20 which was also close to the maximum 14-hour DOT Regulation for a single workday. I was scheduled to refuel there which would give me a shower credit and free parking. Unfortunately, the showers were under repair.
Friday 01/30 I started my day at 10:00, after the minimum DOT Regulation ten hour break. I still had a three hour drive to reach the consignee and I arrived at 13:30.
BOOK REVIEW (1): The School Run by Ali Lowe (2024), FICTION – RATING (***)
How far will a parent go for the welfare of their kids? Financial ruin, fraud, cover-up, murder? This story is a tribute to parenting but as the narrative develops is starts getting a little weird and then absurd. There are some contradictions in the narrative and more emphasis is given to mother-son relationship than father-son one.
A widow moves into the town of a highly sought out private Catholic all boys school. The neighbor is obnoxiously noisy whose BFF is an extraordinary baker that seems genuinely sweet, no punt intended, but has a haunting secret. When it’s revealed it’s not that shocking but the other two women have deeper more sinister secrets. There’s additional drama with the teenage daughters of two of the women and the boys surrounding them.
For a small town a lot of people have skeletons in their closets! Not one character sticks out as a lovable one which made the story hard to bear and therefore less entertaining. The writing and pace are good.
BOOK REVIEW (2): The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (2015), HISTORICAL FICTION – RATING (****)
Kristin Hannah masterfully combines a thriller with a romance novel under a catastrophic scenario while empowering her female leads. In The Women she did it with the backdrop of the Vietnam war and in this book it’s in the midst of WWII with the atrocities committed by the Germans in France and with the Holocaust.
The writing well deserves the four stars but the plot has some flaws and the pace in the first half is ridiculously slow, so much that I was tempted to DNF. The second half is more vibrant with several subplots. The ending is corny introducing a provocative twist that felt like cheating. As if the whole book was under false pretenses. Not enough to derail the story but wishing she had chosen a more traditional finish. It didn’t make much sense and left too many questions unanswered.
The story consists of two young sisters that are sent off to boarding school after the death of their mother. The father becomes a drunk and is mostly absent. Years later as Germany occupies France one sister becomes involved with the French resistance movement while the other has a fairytale marriage until the husband is sent off to war and doesn’t come back. Much happens in those years of war to both women and their families. It all falls nicely together at the end or does it?
Overall entertaining.
