I thought it would be a quick daily task to simply show my daily adventures, but it didn’t work out that way. The role of Professional Driving could be simply recording everything in a Driver’s Log, but then there is keeping track of the permits, a record of all maintenance, and keeping the truck clean and maintained. As a Lease Purchase [Independent Contractor] driver, there is more to contend with, such as creating and maintaining a business record, income and all expenses, Per Diem Record, and everything simply listed before…to include keeping the truck clean.

I came to a Service Plaza, off the Pennsylvania Turnpike last night, and spent five minutes debating on going sixteen more miles to a truck stop. It was a toss up, since balancing my hours meant when running a log in the form of recaps, I can expect that time to roll back to me eight days from now. But, when looking at how much closer I would be to the customer, with time down, today’s hours would be less coming back, since I am only three hours from the customer. It is always a balance, but it does prevent fatigue in the long run, and allows the truck to keep moving everyday; and by my standard, and average of three weeks, before taking a 34 hour break, to once again, prevent fatigue (and catch up on business, with some personal time just to break free…sort of).

It worked out in the end. I have gotten into a habit of personal hygiene, like they way they give hospital baths, so there is a degree of a clean appearance. Besides, truck stops have so much distractions at times, where Service plazas seem to have much more …cricket noises at night. It also helps focus on where I lack in the routines I have set myself up for…and clean the truck.

The original idea was a few paragraphs every night, and maybe a picture of two. I still find myself , well not exhausted, but just wanting to shutdown the mind, after the end of day routine is completed (paperwork). It is hard to add this as a routine, as of yet. I could not get the news last night, so I just simply worked on my spreadsheets of current records, until I could do no more. I check my status of where I was and when I could be there. And finally, sleep was the only priority.

I woke up wondering what was going on in the news, since there was a report on the internet about earthquakes in Iran,  but I was still in my daily running to actually pay attention. I thought about going online, when it occurred to me that there was so much to do right here, in my little world (on ten wheels)…to include clean the truck. After washing up (thanks to the field training I learned in the US Army from 1984 to 1988), there was my inventory list of equipment to check up on, and files to gather. A new load preplanned on me, and time to work on the mapping to see if it was in contrast to my available hours for the next three days. I collected the garbage and tossed in in the next refuse, and went in for that daily coffee. Back to the truck to gather those files, and notice today marked the three weeks left on a long, and challenging contract. Geez, I needed a current Blog.

Here is how this will work for the countdown…All the days past will be caught up, but the titles will include, “[backtracking]”, and there will be many days like that. At the same time, maybe a little more details recalled, along with more pictures.

It worked out anyway. By having everything done by noontime, and now a Blog written and submitted, I am down to rolling to the customer, and setting up for the next load….after I clean the truck.