Middletown,CT

After a very fast paced week, we are finally out of the truck and tucked in nice and cozy at a hotel here in Middletown.

Yesterday after I made our second drop, we headed out and got a shower and a hot meal. From there J took off driving and got me to a Service Plaza a mere 24 miles away from our third drop in Wilmington,MA. After heading inside for a cup of coffee and a quick restroom break, oh, and taking Smokey out since he was quite demanding, I was off. Of course with morning traffic, it took me about 2 hours to get the 24 miles. LOL! Having been to this particular place before I was able to find in pretty easily. They have a small parking lot, but luckily the truck that was in one of the docks was leaving as I was checking in so I had room to maneuver around. A short 30 minutes later, I had the doors locked back up and was on the road to our last drop.

Off to our 4th and final drop we go. This is also a place we have been to before. Last time we had a hazmat load out of Pittsburg,CA we had 5 drops. This time we only had 4 but three of the 4 were the same places we went when we had the 5 stops. So were were on familiar ground. I found the place and got a dock right away. It took about 45 minutes to get unloaded but I made good use of the time. I found a hotel for the night! And one that will take Smokey.

Now our last drop was up in S. Portland,ME and we are now in CT. So I am sure you are wondering why we would drive all the way down here and not just stay there. Two reasons actually. First, we were wanting to see Justin who is stationed up here in Groton,CT. And second, there was no where up there that we could drop our trailer. So our FM found a place down here in Middletown,CT that we could drop the trailer and it is a short 45 miles away from Justin. We were just going to stay up there in Maine, but they have a storm coming in that is supposed to drop quite a bit of snow, and our FM said we don't get much freight out of there and he would probably have to send us south anyway. They only bad thing is that as we were driving down, we talked to Justin and he has class all day and watch tomorrow evening so he can't get away. I guess we will just hang out and be lay and just enjoy being out of the truck. We have been running pretty hard since we came out the day after Christmas, with the exception of being down the two days while the truck was in the shop.

Speaking of running hard, I hear drivers complaining of no miles and things slowing down. I hear rumors of companies going out of business or laying off half of their fleet. What is odd is that we have been busy. I think January is going to be our most profitable month since we have been with Prime. And January and February is supposed to be the slowest time of the year. Thank goodness for high value and hazmat loads! I would haul those all the time if we could. Except even after just two of those back to back, you need a break because of the rules. One person has to stay with the truck at all times. That means separate shower times, no sit down meals, basically just go, go, go. That gets olds. But I am still enjoying the profits from it!

So we are going to enjoy our time out of the truck and just kick back. Then Thursday morning we will be at it again hoping that February will be as good as January.