Its so sad when the honeymoon ends…….
We found out the hard way that Schneider does not send you a HazMat route when they send you a HazMat load. Will says ever other company he worked for has sent hazmat friendly routing. Heck even Swift did that, 1 point swift.
Thank goodness Will was driving and not me. We had just switched drivers and we were on I95 Baltimore Maryland. And we see this sign says last exit for HM. All HazMat must exit.
Surprised and upset and confused Will exits. Next thing you know we are down town Baltimore.
DOWNTOWN.
We were on a street that has the light rail down the middle. There wasn’t enough room for us to stay in our skinny lane so the driver’s side of the truck and trailer was on the tracks. I decided to get dressed in case we had to jump out. (I was in my pj’s ready for bed)
The GPS kept telling us to turn at every street. But looking down each street it looked like there was a parking garage to drive under or a walking bridge or even smaller streets. I got the laptop up and said looks like if we stay on Howard Street we will run into Martin Luther King JR and then we can turn left and takes us back onto the freeway and we can start over.
After we turn on MLK we pass Pennsylvania Avenue. And I started thinking. How close are we to the White House. Turns out we were only 38 miles away from the White House with a truck load of HazMat. HUM!!! And nobody stopped us.
Then I started to wonder how close we were to other interesting sites I would love to see in Baltimore.
USS Torsk Submarine ~2 .5 miles
USS Constellation Ship also 2.5 miles away
Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum~ 1.3 miles away
Charm City Cakes ~ 2.3 miles.
The Annabel Lee Tavern ~ 3.1 miles. The Annabel Lee is a very sad poem and is the last poem Edgar Allan Poe wrote.
Annapolis ~27 miles.
Ok not near by, but if I were driving I would have gotten lost there, accidently of course. What better place to get lost where every day, is fleet week.
We had a little chat with our DBL (driver business leader) and asked why they didn’t send a hm route. He said all we have to do is call or check the map and route ourselves. Well fine now but maybe you should put a not on hm loads ‘double check your route’
After that we took a load from Pennsylvania to Logan Utah. It’s a refrigerated load. We tried to get out of it, telling them that we have no training in refer units, no experience. We talked to 3 different people they tried to give us refer training over the phone.
is the light green; no its white. Well that’s not right should be green. maybe the cover came off. What is the temp? I don’t know where is it at. Don’t forget to put fuel in. where does that go. Call this number if you have any problems, I wont know there is a problem until it explodes, as I told the last 2 people I have no experience in refer units.
I was talking but they weren't listening
Well Will does but only a couple of times. Doesn’t like them because it is hard to sleep with the refer unit turning on right next to the sleeper.
It weighs 43,200. If we were owner op’s and in our International Prostar we could not take something that heavy. But since its not our fuel cost the only down side for us is the speed at which we will be crawling up the hills. And crawling was right.
Who would route a 43,000 pound load on 9-10% hills instead of the interstates. Schneider figures why drive I70 when US40 runs right along side of it.
US40 through Pennsylvania is a beautiful scenic drive. For cars. Really beautiful.
It goes through Union Town PA
I would have taken more pictures but I was busy practicing my down shifting.
There are little towns with stop lights at the bottom of step hills.
We finally arrive and now it is time for some much needed time off. 34 hours off anyway.
Love and miss you all
