Fuel for Thought

Sit, Sit,…Run. Pause.

First, I had to drive out of Florida after delivering in Tampa on the Thursday before last. I slowly moved north, stopping for a day to eat, stopping for a day for laundry. I eventually made it to Atlanta by the beginning of this week. I was leaving Atlanta on Wednesday (tired of sitting in the heat) when dispatch called and told me to wait until the end of the day and then they would give me an empty move to Nashville. Three nibbles and at about 1500 I got one to Kokomo, Indiana. It was a full night drive, so I went to sleep around 0800 after delivering Thursday morning.

During my noon breakfast, dispatch called with one picking up 100 miles to the north near South Bend, Indiana going to San Antonio. I was loaded around 1500. GPS routing showed about 1300 miles and about 3.5 hours of cushion. I would have preferred 7.5 hours cushion, so I could have a full five hours of sleep, and 1.5 hours to waste on fuel stops and traffic. So what is the extra hour for? I have never been able to get five hours of sleep during a five hour stop. Same thing happens with a three hour stop—I’m not going to get three hours of sleep.

I headed straight west and cut to the south at I-55 in Illinois. Overall traffic was good. The most time I lost to traffic was on I-55 in north Illinois. I lost a full thirty minutes in one pile of traffic. I was grumbling as the clock cut into my planned three hours for sleep. I cut across Missouri on I-44 and thought I was doing pretty good when I found $3.69 diesel in Lebanon. I was staying awake okay, so I gave myself two hours of sleep in Pryor, Oklahoma. I timed the sleep break, so I would wake about the time the sun was coming up. I did even better on fuel in Sherman, Texas--$3.55. I think the local Exxon dealer in town was having a holiday special. This was the 4th of July after all.

I ran most of the day in Texas with close to an hour cushion. Dallas at 0800 on a holiday was all open roads. North and south of Waco is now becoming the major TxDot construction zone. During regular truck hours, this area is going to be nearly an hour of lost travel time. The last two hours after Austin, Texas I was tired but not sleepy. I wasn’t going to need a coffee boost. I usually don’t do caffeine, but occasionally I’ll have a coffee or Mountain Dew at the later part of a long load. I roll up to a locked truck entrance with thirty minutes to spare. All holiday traffic to the facility was redirected through the main entrance a couple miles away. To make a long story short, ninety minutes later I was driving away with freight still in the van. Today, Saturday, we thought we might be able to deliver the freight to UPS, who set up the load, but they are closed all weekend too.

From door to door 1280 miles.

eb