Delivering Really Rural!

I awoke in Lake Erie, PA to a misty sunrise. I was heading to a delivery in ‘rural’, Indiana.
This load was a relay from CAN. A ‘relay’ means a fellow driver brought it across the border, but for any multitude of reasons, was not scheduled to make the destination delivery. Since this delivery had an appointment time and was a live unload, I’m sure those two factors contributed to the relay. A live unload is where a driver waits while the receiver unloads the trailer, and then takes the empty trailer with them. Combine that with an appointment time as opposed to a general appointment window, and if the first driver is ahead of schedule, they will be able to relay it so they can keep rolling, instead of wait until the appointment. This could be shipper related sometimes, like “don’t deliver before such and such a date” or could be receiver driven to ensure they have staff working and or space available to receive and off load the product. In any event, I picked it up and was to make the delivery by 14:00 on said date.

I enjoyed winding the rural roads, which normally is difficult at the end of a day, but since I was only 3 hours away, driving the curvy rural road thing was going to be okay on this bright blue sky sunny mild day. I just didn’t know *how* enjoyable…. (wink-wink with a hint of sarcasm….)

So, the road became narrower and narrower as I made my way to this recipient’s farm, and then the tell tale horse poop on the shoulders of the road became evident, and I realized all the beautiful horses I was admiring were not show horses. I had just been so mesmerized by all the foals I was seeing, that it didnt even dawn on me, haha.

So, I made a turn onto yet a skinnier road, and found myself behind a cyclist. I was not able to pass him, because I was heavily loaded, and the brief stretches without double lines, were exactly that; brief. Too brief for a truck pulling 17 tons to even get through a handful of low gears, let alone get around a cyclist. So I had to crawl behind this fella for quite a distance. Here is a fun clip I made with my dash cam.

Well, onward to delivery. There came an opening which I seized, and steadily and with great care, passed my road companion. The delivery was a shop on a farm, and here is a google satellite view of the obstacle course I got to practice my slow maneuvers with. Around the loop then back up to the ramp. In trucking, at least among noobies, we like to count a day as good if we delivered on time and didn’t hit anything, haha. (Sometimes just the latter!)

I was unloaded, then needed to sweep out the left over shavings… just the nature of that kind of delivery. I had a few moments to chat with one of the women, and ended up giving her a copy of my book, as well. They had two gorgeous Pitbull Terrier dogs, and she shared how horses (ones that pulled buggies) in her area were pretty expensive at around $6,000-$7,000. I had mentioned about my gal Ella’s champion show horses, which is how we ended up on horse chat. She also mentioned how several a drivers that deliver there have dogs with them, and take the unloading time to walk their dogs.

All said and done, it was maybe *the* most interesting of all deliveries I had yet been on in my illustrious career of one year+. One for the books. Literally!

Hope you enjoyed this quick share of one of my days in trucking. I think about many of you as I travel, and I capture way more photos than I’m ever able to keep up with. I’ve begun compiling Volume 2 of my Truckin’ with JJ books, so keep an eye out for a July-August release date. I’m also going to upload the book(s) digitally to my website for easy downloads.

In gratitude for your support, sending blessings, hugs and smiles, across my US miles…

JJ

xx