France

Next question: what does a trucker do when she's disgruntled with her 60-hour work week and her void of a social or intellectual life? Answer: she quits her job and moves next door to a monastery in France to spend a year studying philosophy, of course. Occasionally the village maintenance guy parks his rotten old tractor outside my bedroom window and lets it sputter there for half an hour while he gets ready for his work day (I live next door to the "town garage", if you can call it that), but otherwise the absence of perpetually-running diesel engines is a beautiful silence to my ears.

Did you happen to spot the monks in my vacation post? They're the two in the center of the lunch-break group, looking like hard-asses and wearing pretty gray skirts. (Yes, they hiked 4 days in the Alaskan wilderness in their habits. These are some hardcore monks.) Well, a week after I got home from Alaska I got a phone call from one of them. It went something like this: "You're thinking about doing something besides truck driving?" "Yes." "Do you want to study at my monastery in France? Classes start in 6 weeks." "Perfect. Thanks. I'll be there." Okay, it wasn't quite that smooth. After the invitation, it went more like, "What?! Are you crazy?! The last time some monk had some crazy idea about what I could do next I ended up trucking for the next 3 years!" If I would just stop talking to monks, my life would be so much simpler. And not half as interesting.

Smartphone

I should have done it long before I did. Last spring my aunt came up from Dallas with her new iPad and as much enthusiasm for it as a kid after Christmas. I had heard of iPads but had never seen one before. I adamantly resist any sort of technology that comes with a monthly charge and is not absolutely essential; but within a day or two, I was convinced that, for a truck driver, a smartphone is indeed essential. Besides, I had a significant discount with Verizon through my company, and my entire phone bill was tax-deductible. So, here are the reasons why every truck driver should have a smartphone or other mobile internet device:

1. YellowPages.

 * Since I delivered to stores - up to a dozen or more a day - it was extremely handy to be able to look up customers' phone numbers or addresses when they were missing or inaccurate on the paperwork; much easier and quicker than calling and bothering my dispatcher, having her search through the slow old computer database, and often with no luck.

* I also now have directory access to all my local businesses and agencies, etc., so if I have some business to take care of at home while I'm away, I can do it.

2) Google Maps.

* When my map software isn't quite precise and I want a second opinion, or when I want for any reason to see a satellite image of the place I'm going to be putting my 75' vehicle before I put it there.

* When I find myself settling into a new town for the night and don't know what's around or where to eat, I can find out. I can also zoom in on a satellite photo to see if the access and parking of a place are big enough to accomodate a truck. I hate to use the word "empowered" but I can't understate how useful Google Maps is for a truck driver, for getting the job done and for after-hours.

3. Google Navigator. This functions exactly as a GPS device. And it's free. And it's reliable.

4. Numerous truck- and travel-friendly apps, including a national interstate exit directory of restaurants and amenities at each exit.

5. E-mail. I can take care of business, or be in touch with friends and family about plans for the weekend.

6. Facebook. Same thing. And because when I'm parked for the night in a Lowe's parking lot in the boondocks of Northern Pennsylvania I really need to know what my friend's kids are up to in Colorado.

7. It appears that you can tether your laptop to your internet phone via USB cable and thus also have internet on your laptop. (I noticed this only recently, long after I had cancelled my phone service and left the country, so I'm not able to try it out. But it looks promising.)

8. Your phone bill is tax deductible.

Vacation!

Where does a truck driver go on vacation? Many truckers I know go someplace where there is absolutely zero chance of having to hear an engine running. (There are exceptions, like Dave, who is presently camped out at the Kentucky Speedway, but that's Dave.) I went as far from the lower 48 as I could without leaving the country: Alaska! I've been working for my company for 2.5 years and I've loved my 34-hour breaks on the beach in Southern California, my summer weekend off in the heart of Rocky Mountain Montana, harvest weekend with cousins in Northern Vermont, day off with an old friend in New York City, warm winter evenings in the hills of North Georgia, etc. But I haven't taken a vacation since I started trucking. Actually, I haven't taken a vacation since 2003. This one absolutely made up for lost time.

I have to admit I sleep a hundred times better in the truck than the tent, but I'll take the itinerary, the route, and the scenery here any day of the year. Wait. I should amend that. This is late June, with unmelted snow and winter parkas. I would prefer to be in the truck with engine heat, dry blankets, and a parking space any day in December. And some other months, too.

That's me hiking down a snowfield to get to a glacier. In late June. Truth be told, It was perfect spring skiing weather and I was thrilled to be there after running I-80 in 95-degree heat a few weeks earlier.

Alpine glaciers are one kind of place I'm sure have no truck parking.

A friend took this shot which I nominate for best-of-trip. Among other reasons, it shows the transition from snowy tundra in the Crow Pass to green valley of the Raven Creek, the runoff from the Raven Glacier above, and on down to the Eagle River.

It was so nice to have friends with me on my lunch break.

Most days I do 350 miles (with LTL stops, truckers). This day we did 8, and there didn't seem to be a drop of energy left in any of us at the end of it. This shot is looking several miles back up the valley to the pass.

An awesome spot to set up chapel, beside the Eagle River. A little while later, a bald eagle soared right over it! And nice stone work, gentlemen. New England farmers of past centuries would be proud of you.

See? A bald eagle!

Some impressive shots taken by one of my fellow hikers. We hiked 26 miles on the Crow Pass Trail, the second half or so along the Eagle River. It felt just like Middle Earth.

Alaska in June provides nearly endless daylight. We never set up camp, or ate dinner, or went to our tents, or woke up in the middle of the night, in the dark. I left my flashlight in Anchorage to spare the weight. This photo was taken on the summer solstice around midnight. I'm in love with Alaska.

(* Thank you to my fellow trekkers whose awesome photos I couldn't resist including here. If you'd like to take your photo back, just let me know.)

All Work and No Play

April Showers

With all the storms going on recently I've been wondering what I would do if I were in a tornado in my truck. Well, I just found out. I got a call this morning from a trucker friend who wanted to tell me what happened to him this week: He was in a tornado. In his truck. In Kentucky. When the hail and horizontal rain got bad he pulled into a rest area. Then came the tornado. Too late to do anything else, he braced himself in his cab, ready to be picked up and thrown around. He watched the flatbed in front of him hauling an I-beam bounce up and down, the truck next to him blow over, and the rest area building implode. He lost a mirror and suffered some major scratches but his truck remained upright on 18 wheels. He says 46,000 pounds of carpet saved his life.

Update: The local news station announced that it was not a tornado as originally believed but a straight-line wind of 80-100 mph that beat up the rest area. Still.

What not to do when you get stopped

I yelled at a cop. Yep. His tone and approach with me from the start were way out of line.

He pulled me over because I was (unknowingly) driving on a road I was not permitted to be on with my size trailer, and he let me know it in a dozen different ways, and he'd ask me accusatorily what I was doing there, and as soon as I'd start to respond he'd cut me off as if he had no interest in finding out and as if it were irrelevant to the legality of the situation, which it were not. My frustration level rose quickly from 'severely annoyed' to far beyond until my blood was boiling and it became irrelevant to me that he was an officer of the law and I was a truck driver at his mercy; I was only aware of the fact that he was a man treating me badly, and no man gets to treat me badly. It wasn't something I thought out: really, I lost my head there for a minute. I hit my boiling point and I let him have it:  "Are you giving me a hard time?"

I don't recommend smarting off to a police officer. It's unjust but true that if I were a male driver my situation most likely would have gone from bad to far worse right then. I'm still a little surprised at what happened: First, probably a bit shocked that this little young woman stood up to him, he pointed out that he was a police officer and a DOT officer and I needed to respect him. But then he started trying to let me know that he wasn't a bad guy. He asked the young officer who had meanwhile pulled up for backup to let me know that he was a good guy. Later on in the stop, he apologized for the way he acted in the beginning and he thanked me for being cooperative. And I apologized and said I was already frustrated because I got bad directions from a customer and didn't want to be on that road in the first place.

He let me off with a warning, for which I am extremely grateful. I am also now intimately acquainted with New York State law governing truck travel. Ask me anything you want to know. Life is good.

Don't believe . . .

. . . everything you read in the logbooks.

Taxes

I like TurboTax. Every year I figure my taxes first with TurboTax.* Then I figure them all by hand. Some years TurboTax has caught some deduction or credit I didn't know about, and some years I've discovered something in the fine print of the instruction book that I qualify for that TurboTax couldn't have known about me that I didn't know to tell it.

Being a trucker is a huge tax advantage. Virtually everything you buy or spend for use in the truck or on the truck or while away from home driving the truck or to improve your quality of life while trucking is deductible. When I started trucking it was time to put away the children's versions of the 1040 and start itemizing: Battery charger for mornings the truck won't start. Work boots, gloves, and coveralls. Window cleaner and paper towels. Log books. Bed sheets. Snow shovel. Sunglasses. 12V appliances. Satellite radio with traffic and weather reports. Cell phone bill. $47/day for meals for every day spent away from home. This year approximately 25% of my gross income was tax-deductible. One of my trucker friends has had years where he has had no taxable income.

My favorite trucker tax rule applies to company drivers.** We can deduct any expenses that are not reimbursed to us. What I found (heh heh) is that any money reimbursed to the driver through his paycheck, and included in the wages line of the W-2 form, is considered by the IRS for tax purposes to be not reimbursed! When I discovered this  exception I started jumping up and down like a little kid on a snow day, since this is the way my company reimburses for expenses. Now I can deduct: Tolls and scales. Antifreeze, starter fluid, windshield wipers, light bulbs, glad hand seals, and any other truck fluid or part. Truck washes, repairs, any fuel that happens to get purchased with a T-Chek express code rather than the fuel card, and any other expense paid with a T-Chek. Bada-bing. I've actually been contemplating putting the EZ-Pass away so I can start racking up the 2011 deductions.

* The online version is free for anyone to use up to the point of e-filing.

** Disclaimer: I am not a tax expert. I am a taxpayer expressing here my understanding of US tax law as I read it. If you know something I don't know, please feel free to comment here. Actually, please do comment here! Preferably before reporting me to the IRS!

Real Trucker?

Sometimes I think I'm not a real trucker, because I drive shortline and am never more than a day's drive from home. Then I have days like today, when I a) spend 9 hours, unpaid, sitting in a repair shop waiting room, and b) spend part of that time on the phone with my car insurance company and the DMVs of two states trying to find out why my rates have gone up astronomically over an alleged two-point violation I got in the truck in another state last year, which in fact did not have any points associated with it, and incidentally was issued for choosing the safer although illegal of two courses of action.

For a trucker, I have a very cushy life. I'm home every weekend and several nights during the week, and I can't even compare that to the life of someone who is away from home for weeks at a time (which has been my life before and I don't want to be again). But a day spent sitting in a waiting room because the truck in the repair bay is my only means of transportation is the same whether that shop is in Las Vegas or 10 miles from home; and the legal responsibilities and ramifications of driving a 75'-long vehicle 40+ hours a week also don't change with geography.

Smokin'

It's Monday morning and I'm sitting in the waiting room in our local repair shop smelling like burned rubber. On my way to the terminal a few hours ago I noticed something in my mirror I'd never seen before: a cloud of smoke coming out of my drive wheels. I pulled into the plaza parking lot next to me and parked next to a small mountain of snow, which I proceeded to throw on the offending rims by the handful. They sizzled like skillets. I kept it up for a while and waited a while longer. While I was trying to cool them down from overheating I was also trying to warm them up so that whatever part of them had frozen up would release. I parked the truck at an angle so the morning sun would shine down in the narrow space between the tires and the frame. (The sun is the solution to so many wintertime problems.) Whether from the heat of the sun or of the hot brakes themselves, they eventually released, and the smoke eventually subsided, so I decided it was safe to try to drive a few miles up the road to the shop. I want to have everything checked out before I head out of town with a load.

Lesson learned: Don't drive on frozen brakes in hopes of warming them up and thawing them out. Park them in the sun and come back later. Don't drive on them. Okay? Okay.

Cookies

Do oatmeal cookies count as breakfast? What if your mother made them?

These oatmeal cookies are the best because my mother made them with craisins, which I love, instead of raisins, which I don't.

Life is good.

Perspective

I was going to write today about the frustrations of the past 24 hours: how my trailer wasn't ready when I was at 12:30 yesterday afternoon, how it started snowing around 3:00, how I started out at 4:30 and the roads in my county were glare ice, how my truck failed to make it up the hill on the road out of our terminal and I had to back it down the hill, how it took me 45 minutes to get to the interstate 2 miles from the terminal, how I spent the next 6 hours white-knuckling it on roads I probably should not have been driving on, how traffic was moving 5 mph across Akron, how the truck stop parking lots were busting at the seams, and how it took me almost 7 hours just to get to Columbus, when it usually takes 3. Also, how this evening as I was going through Akron at rush hour again there was a multi-vehicle accident that brought traffic to a standstill and set me back half an hour; and how on what had promised to be a short day I got home after 7 pm.

If I had written about those things I probably would have left out the parts about how as I was stopped on said hill leaving the terminal yesterday the minivan that crested the hill coming at me head-on, swerved, and lost control drove in and out of both ditches but did not hit me; how I avoided a multi-hour backup I heard about on the CB by taking an alternate route; how I drove about 150 miles through fast-falling snow without sliding my truck off the road; how I parked next to a no-parking sign in front of two state troopers while I ran into a Taco Bell for a late supper and neither of them minded; how although the truck stops and rest areas were overflowing I parked for the night in a vast and quiet Walmart parking lot. Next to a Tim Horton's. How I crossed twice over "Pee Pee Creek" in Pike County; how I found a way around this evening's backup in Akron and was on my way long before the rest; and how I got home tonight and ended the day with a purring cat, a woodstove, and a cup of tea.

So, why the change in attitude? When I got back to the terminal I ran into one of our local drivers who told me about an accident that happened in Cleveland today. A truck jacknifed on the Valley View Bridge and went over it. If you don't know the bridge, it's impressive. It's so tall you have to stare at it because it just doesn't look right. It makes the Cuyahoga Valley look like the Grand Canyon. I don't want to but I can't stop imagining a truck going over it. God of the universe, have mercy on the soul of the driver who lost his life today and help the rest of us drive carefully and keep it between the lines and not get hung up on the frustrations and fail to be grateful that we finish the day with 18 wheels upright on pavement.

The Best Thing About Trucking . . .

. . . is being home on a Sunday night and making myself some real, hot food in my own kitchen. I don't love to cook unless it's a social activity with persons I really like, or unless it's about 20 minutes from turn-on-the-stove-time to sit-down-and-eat-time. Tonight I made some homemade onion and mushroom and barley soup. I used some vegetable stock for broth, and leftover barley I had cooked yesterday, but otherwise it was from scratch and it took about 20 minutes. An hour and a half later I was hungry again, so I made some three-cheese pasta. From scratch. From a pot. Not a paper bag. No napkins, no receipt, just a small pile of dishes I honestly don't mind washing in my own sink. 20 minutes. Life is good.

The other best thing about trucking is having a glass of wine with dinner. I don't drink when I'm out in the truck. A good trucker friend told me when I was a rookie that he never has a drink when he's under a load, even if he's parked for the night and legally has a few hours in which he could, even if he's grounded by a Rocky Mountain blizzard for 3 days, etc., because he's still responsible for the truck and the load and if he would have to move them for any reason he would have himself a real dilemma. (For CDL drivers the legal limit is half what it is in most states for anyone else, and a first-time offender loses his license for a year, which means he has also lost his job and probably his career. I don't personally know any truck drivers who are even a little bit careless about it.) I thought my friend's policy sounded very wise and I adopted it. Which makes that glass of wine or cold beer at home taste all the better; and all the more better because it is at home.

Letter to FMCSA

Re: Proposed changes to hours-of-service rules

Dear United States Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration,

I know you are a beaurocracy. I know you've never spend a night in a truck, let alone a week or a month or a year. I know you don't know your head from  . . .


Oops! Wrong Letter. Back to the drawing board . . .

Township Road 30

This week freight picked up a bit after the post-holiday dead season and the post-North-Georgia-blizzard-of-late-January-that-shut-down-carpet-manufacturing-and-distribution-for-a-week dead period, so I was back on local delivery. Thursday I had several deliveries in Columbus and one an hour-and-a-half northwest of Columbus near Bellefontaine with an address on "Township Road 30". Things can get interesting when you're making deliveries in a 70-foot truck to roads without names in towns that are not found in your map software.

I got to the terminal at 8:15 to find that my trailer hadn't been loaded yet because the warehouse ran out of propane for the forklifts the afternoon before. By then the afternoon guys were 17 hours into their shift and not looking so good. But they quickly loaded my trailer. They're the best.

I left at 9:15 and enjoyed a beautiful drive across Central Ohio flooded with the first sunshine I'd seen in weeks. 4 hours later I arrived at Township Road 30. I checked out the parking lot from both entrances, started to swing in as wide as possible from the township road, saw my trailer wheels headed right for the snowbank, realized there was just no way, backed it up onto the road, and called inside instead. (Call me lazy but it's more efficient than trying to find your way into a building you've never been to before, especially when the sloped driveway is sheer ice, especially when your truck is stopped on a narrow country road with its flashers on blocking traffic in both directions.) They said they'd send somebody right out. Somebody came right out, waddling down the icy driveway. I met him halfway up. I asked him how trucks usually pull in there. He took a long look at my truck, said he thought they were usually shorter than mine, but told me not to bother trying because they weren't going to accept the roll of carpet I was there to deliver, because the manufacturer had double-shipped it and they had decided they were going to refuse this one when it arrived.

So, they know they're located in the middle of the middle of nowhere, they got a call from my dispatcher the previous day to schedule the delivery, they knew we were bringing them one item, and they knew they were going to refuse it; and they couldn't have told that to the dispatcher when he was on the phone and saved me 3 hours of driving time, and our company 150 miles of diesel fuel and driver pay, just for that one stop?

I didn't know what to say to this guy, but I didn't want to say anything I'd regret because I knew the only way I was going to get my truck out of there was to back blind across the busy national highway a few yards behind my trailer and I knew I needed his help. So I said "all right" and "how would you feel about watching for traffic and signaling me when it's safe to back across the highway?" He agreed and a few minutes later I was on my way.

I Didn't Say It

"You're way better looking than the driver they usually send!"

Oh, Atlanta

Thursday morning was a historic moment in my trucking life. I've been in and out of metro Atlanta on a regular basis for much of the last two years, since my company has a hub terminal in North Georgia and, to get us there, backhauls us from all over the east with freight delivering to metro Atlanta. Sometimes I've been there on a weekly basis, sometimes daily, and sometimes multiple times a day. But this Thursday morning, for the first time in my life, I drove through downtown Atlanta.

Normally, trucks are not allowed in Atlanta, or anywhere within the city's circumferential beltway, I-285. (An effort to alleviate the city's notorious traffic congestion.) Only trucks loading or unloading at destinations inside the beltway are allowed inside it, and, as they taught us in training (at a site two time zones away from Georgia), a wise trucker does not even think about crossing the exit line without paperwork proving his business there. So, in the last two years, I've made dozens of deliveries to metro Atlanta and only once been close enough to downtown to even glimpse the skyline.

This Thursday morning I had a delivery in Doraville, just outside the beltway on the northeast side. I pulled out of our terminal around 5 am, as we usually do to get to our metro Atlanta destinations before the traffic gets to slowing levels. And as I was driving along the northern beltway, I was thinking about how I'd never seen downtown Atlanta and wondering melancholically if I ever would.

My trucking life has been full of coincidences and one indeed happened here. Not long after I finished my delivery I received my next load assignment: head back to the terminal and pick up some freight at a few stops on the way. The first stop was in Hapeville. I'd never heard of Hapeville. I checked my map. It was (gasp!) inside the beltway, a few exits south of downtown Atlanta, and (gasp!) my route would take me right through downtown! Twice!

I've been through many cities' downtowns and chances are that you have, too, and don't need me to describe this one to you. (I'm not good at descriptions, anyway.) I was simply thrilled to be there, because in my two years of trucking I've fallen in love with the sweet state of Georgia and wanted just once to see the urban heart of it. It was a good morning.