As expected, getting up at 11:45 pm for work and starting driving at around 12:15 am was a total disaster. For me anyway. I am definitely not a night driver.  I only got 3 hours of sleep to start with and keeping myself awake all night long until I arrived at 7 am was ridiculous. I climbed into the sleeper after I got backed up to the dock and told them to come knock on the door when they're done, cause' I'm wiped out.

I was sleeping soundly, too, when that knock came on the door.  Well that much driving ate up a bunch of my allowable driving hours to the tune of over 7, leaving 3 hours and 45 minutes drive time left.  I was given instructions to head northwest to a company that we do a lot of business with, get loaded and the head out.  I didn't look at where I was heading out to, just the loading information.

I was a bit shocked when I went to do a map route for it to see I am going to Columbus, Ohio.  I can't remember the last time I was there, at least 2 decades.  I decided the miles outweighed the home time.  They couldn't have gotten me home today anyway, not enough driving hours left to get there.  So, I put on almost 700 miles today, which is a pretty good feat in a truck the is governed at 70 mph.  You get 11 hours of driving allowed in a 14 hour time period.  The extra work hours are for loading and unloading, fueling, whatever.  I'm a driving fool when i want to be, I can go on and on and on without stopping for anything at all.  Keep a nicely stocked truck and you don't need to stop.  And yes, I bought a variety of low calorie/fat snacks - several boxes worth this time.

The last time I just bought one huge box of granola bars, and tho they were tasty, very much a big mistake.  Must have a variety in the offerings.  So now I have 4 different types, plus some crunchy things that Rene gave to me (tenant) and another case of water.  Welp, the load itself was difficult because it is very near 80,000 pounds, meaning trying to get the steer axle, drive axles and tandem axles all below the maximum amount allowed.  For whatever reason, this company doesn't want drivers fooling with the placement of the Fifth Wheel.  Meaning I can't slide it back or forth.  The only thing you can do is slide the tandems - that's the axles and wheels on the trailer.

Well, when I looked into the trailer I picked up, I knew right away it was a heavy load, so I just went ahead and slid them suckers on up.  It wasn't enough, tho, my first round through the scales at that place I was over on the drive axles by 1,200 pounds.  You don't go through weigh stations like that.  They will give you a hard time at best, most likely issue you a fine at worst.  So, I slid them even further forward and it came out very nice.  I've been through 2 weigh stations since then so I know it's good lol.  \

The things that I have forgotten about trucking.  It's all coming back to me now.  I despise heavy loads that are near full amount of legal weight because it can take several tries to get the axles set to where the truck is no more than 34,000 on the tandems, 34,000 on the drive axles and 12,000 on the front/steering axle.  You can't just be below 80,000 and call it good, you have to be good on all 3 of those things as well.