Bumble-whaa?

"keep rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin'..." Limp Bizkit, Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)

I've been doing this Iowa route now for about a year, year and a half. It's hard to remember.
They've changed things around on me quite a bit; adding stores, pickups, now we're losing a
customer, which means they're changing it around again, making it a two instead of three-day
run. My first day will be basically the same: six company-owned pizza stores out in the west-northwest burbs, ending up in Rockford. I can usually get 'em all done in 12 hours or so, sometimes more or less, depending on the volume of product ordered. These managers at the company stores, I wonder about them sometimes. I'll walk in, and they have stuff (flour, for example) stacked to the ceiling, yet they've ordered 35 or 40 more. WTF? But I try not to ask too many questions. Once, though, I delivered 140 bales of flour to this one store - they really pissed me off that week. And see, some of the stores get 2 deliveries a week, so, I dunno, just
idiotic behavior, I guess. The company stores (unlike the franchises) don't care, because they're not paying for anything, so they just order as much as they want, and nobody even raises an eyebrow.
Anyway, I'm shut down in Rockford for quite a while. See, if I start Monday night at 11:00 or so,
I'm done and at the truckstop by 10:30-11:00 Tuesday morning. Shit, I don't have to be in Dubuque till 8:00 Wednesday morning. So, it's about 17 hours or so in the sleeper. My bosses
were giving me a hard time about all the "idle time" (they're constantly worrying about "truck utilization"). But there's nothing I can do about it; these stores (most of which are in strip malls, etc.) have to be delivered in the middle of the night, otherwise you can't get to them. Hell, I wouldn't mind starting at 7:30 Tuesday morning, but there's all kinds of problems associated with that, not the least of which is the traffic on 294. Besides, I'd rather get in and out, without these $10/hour pizza store managers telling me what to do - I don't play that game. We're given the keys/alarm codes (if applicable) and bam! we do our thing and go. No problem. So, I get to the truckstop and eat, maybe take a nap, wake up, read, listen to tunes, whatever, then get ready for my "real sleep" about 7:30-8:00 Tuesday night. I take a "daddy's little helper" then
try to sleep (it's difficult for me to sleep in these damn trucks, especially when you have a loud reefer unit going off every 10-15 minutes) But the alternative is a motel room; well, they don't reimburse you as much as they used to, first off. Secondly, finding a place with truck parking ain't always easy. Third, there's no guarantee I'm gonna sleep any better anyway, and last, if there's a problem with the truck/trailer, I don't find out about it till the next morning. I remember going to a motel in Waterloo in the middle of winter one time, came back out, and the truck barely started. So I stay with the truck; I figure it's the lesser of two evils, plus, even though I rail at truckers, I feel like I belong.
I'm off to Dubuque about 5:00am Wed. - it's only a couple hours drive from Rockford, but I like to allow extra time, just in case. The twisting, turning, rising, falling trip on US20 can do some funny things to your load, so I'm always aware of how sharp my turns are (especially lefts). If the warehouse idiots haven't bothered to strap down the load properly, you have to figure out a way to secure the load (borrow a strap, lash two pallets together, etc.). I usually don't
go too much faster than 55 on my way out there (maybe 60). The traffic all seems to be coming the other direction anyway. So I usually get to Galena about 6:30 or so. There's a McDonald's there with truck parking. It's a good place to stop, check the load, grab a cup of Joe, etc. Then, having timed it out over the past year or so, I take off for Dubuque about 7:20 - that get's me to Charlie's (not his real name) parking lot about 7:45. Charlie is a franchisee, and because he knows people in the corporate office, he is treated with a LOT of respect. You must be there before 8:00 when he opens his back door; if not, a phone call to corporate. If his stuff is really f'ed up, a phone call to corporate. If you are not polite, etc., a phone call to corporate. He is actually a very nice guy, but he's a businessman, so his deliveries need to be on time and in decent shape, ya know? His delivery takes 45min -an hour, then I have a smaller delivery in Dubuque, then I'm off to the Hinterlands of Iowa (Bumble-whaa?).
Actually, from Dubuque, I go to either Cedar Rapids or Waterloo (frozen yogurt stores, they alternate weeks), then Marshalltown, then Des Moines, and I'm done. Of course, they would throw in these "specials," so that would foul things up as far as my schedule goes (I'll tell you what those are some day, as this blog nears it's end). It wasn't always that way: I used to have to go pick up pepperoni/frozen meats out there at a frozen storage warehouse (I won't mention the name of the company, but it's pretty much a household name).
That could wind up taking hours: the order might not be ready, no open door, shift change, any number of things could delay you. Once you were given a "hole", you backed in, dropped the trailer, and set the reefer at whatever temp they told you. In summer, we were told to "pre-cool" the trailer, just like when picking up cheese in WI. Then you waited. Those who had CB's tuned in to channel whatever; me, I just looked for the green light. Back in, hook up, go get your paperwork, stop at the guardhouse, then you were gone. I almost always had prepass, so I didn't worry too much about scaling the load. One of the senior drivers once told me that, on a 45-foot trailer, if you set the tandems 7 holes from the front (by the tires), you'd scale out perfect every time. So, I'd try to do that once I was empty, and you know what? It worked!
Anyway, they changed meat suppliers several months back, so I haven't had to pick that stuff up for a while, now. I remember I'd try to make it to the World's Largest Truckstop in Walcott, IA on my way back (before I ran out of time - I really liked the place). Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Of course, I had my favorite waitress I'd always see over there. What a cutie!
There's been another one I've been "perving on" lately, but she's another chapter. I'll write more about Iowa next time...

More soon,


Steve