OldTroubador's blog post - A Day in the Life

2 am. Damn alarm clock anyway. Alright, alright, I’m getting up. I look out the window to see if I remember where I am, and I do. Damn, again.
I’m in Newport, TN, about an hour east of Knoxville. I was at a canned goods packager there yesterday to pick up what was supposed to be a pre-loaded trailer. Strike one. I had to bump the dock for a live load, which took five hours. Strike two. Finally got loaded, signed and picked up my paperwork and high-tailed it for the nearest truck stop, six miles away. I made it there just before my log book ran out of time. The problem for me now is that I have to drive all the way to Elkton, FL (45 miles south of Jacksonville) by 5 pm today, a total of 550 miles. Strike three.
I go through my morning ritual – cold coffee, cussing, cigarettes – and wander inside for some fresh java. Fill out my log book, inspect the truck, and then I sit there for a few minutes looking at my route on MapQuest and watching the weather radar. There are thunderstorms dotting my route, but they seem to be missing the tough sections of where I have to drive. It really doesn’t matter either way, I have to get this done; so I slip it into gear and hit the highway.
There is some high thin cloud cover and faint early morning ground fog as I head east on I-40. The Freebird III is pulling the heavy load like a champ on the gentle hills. The hills stand in relief against the brighter sky, the light from a full moon diffused by the clouds and fog. They are dark shadows against the sky, sharply defined in shape, but lacking in detail. My windows are rolled down, the night air refreshing after breathing recycled air conditioned air the last few days. Crickets and other night insects call to each other as my tires sing the highway song.
Up ahead is the Gorge, splitting the Smoky Mountains. Twenty one miles of twisting turns and hills in the bottom of a river valley. My truck is heavy, and slightly top heavy. I’m going to take it easy through this stretch; I don’t feel like rolling the trailer over and I haven’t gotten used to how the load feels and handles. I let a couple of trucks pass – I don’t want to hold them up either – and hit the first of two hard left turns before the Gorge actually starts. I gear down for each, the engine brakes growling as the truck slows. I ease through the turns and accelerate out of them. A few more miles and I am in the Gorge. I tiptoe through the tight hairpins and long carousel turns. No other traffic is behind me, so I am not xxxxxx to push. Another reason for going slow is that I cannot see far enough ahead in the dark to see how the turn breaks. A mistake here will send me into the woods. So I caress the accelerator as I enter the turns, like a lover in the first few moments of intimacy with his partner. Coming out of the turns, I accelerate into the straightaways. I enjoy the peaceful night, the sounds and what sights I can see in the darkness. Trees rush toward me in the glow of the headlights, then past my peripheral vision. So I drive gently, relaxing and enjoying the nighttime.
I enter a left hand turn. It is a long one and goes on forever it seems. I feel like, any minute now, I will cross back over the highway. And I am reminded of the Tehachapi Mountains west of Barstow, CA. In 1874, to conquer one of the tougher grades, the Southern Pacific railroad built a spiral or helix track climbing the side of a hill. The helix is three quarters of a mile long and there is a tunnel where the track crosses over itself. An engineering marvel at the time, it is still in use by the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads.
I continue along the winding road, slowing for the turns, speeding up a bit on the straight sections. I pass through two tunnels that cut through razorback ridges that come off the mountain down to the river. Even though I know that the tunnels are tall enough to accommodate my truck, I still fade toward the center line, just to be sure. One nice aspect about driving at night is the lack of traffic. This allows me to fade a few of the turns, to let the Freebird ease through them where it feels most comfortable. Only about half a dozen cars pass me and I never see the headlights of any trucks in my rearview mirror during this whole stretch.
I leave the Gorge behind finally and am able to reach highway speed again. I’m in North Carolina now and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains , heading uphill toward Asheville. My next obstacle is the state scale house, but at this early hour, it ought to be closed. It ought to be, but is not. I gear down and pull onto the scales. I sit for a minute while the platform settles down and then, getting the green light, start grabbing gears to get back out on the road. I climb and drop over the hills, the city lights of Asheville casting a pale pink-orange glow on the low clouds. My exit for I-26 is just ahead, and I roll onto it, heading southeast to South Carolina. After a few miles, a bright light explodes across the sky. One of the thunderstorms I saw on the radar is nearby but not really a threat. I keep driving. Yellow caution signs ahead tell me that I am about to drop down into the Green River gorge. This portion of the road is a seven percent downgrade for the next mile. I downshift into ninth gear and set the engine brakes; I lift my foot off the accelerator so I don’t carry too much speed over the top of the hill. It doesn’t matter as 78,500 pounds of tractor trailer succumb to the force of gravity. The lower gear and engine brake cannot hold back the Freebird; I foot the brake and release, foot and release – this will keep the brakes from overheating. I really don’t want to replace the brakes with less than 25,000 miles on the odometer. As we near the bottom of the hill, I grab tenth gear and get as much speed as possible to start to climb away from the river. But the steep grade is repeated going uphill and I soon have the Freebird down in seventh to finish the climb. Over the top we go, walking the gears up the ladder to tenth again. I watch ahead as lightning dances and twirls across the sky; this next storm might be in my path. Hard charging for about another five miles, and then another downslope, this one a 6% grade for three miles. I briefly consider dropping all the way to eighth gear, but discount that notion. The engine will over-rev and I will be burning up brake shoes to keep it from exploding. I take ninth again, gently nose over the top, and begin stabbing and releasing the foot brake again. This newest version of the Freebird has yet to learn about hills like this; this stretch of highway is a good classroom for her. Again at the bottom, I upshift and keep on trucking.
I cross the line into South Carolina and the western foothills of the state. It is daylight now and the sky is studded with thunderstorms as far east and south as I can see. Exits and towns fly by as I near Columbia, the state capitol. Once through there, the highway bends more to the southeast on its run to the Sand Hill and Low Country part of the state.
Many states along the East Coast have similarities in topography. Through North and South Carolina, the Sand Hill region marks the ancient beaches of pre-history. Mostly covered in long-leaf and loblolly pines, various species of oaks also predominate. The falling leaves from all these oaks give the water a dark tea color. Similar regions on the coast also include the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey.
Driving through the low rolling hills of this area, I come over the top of a rise and see below a thin fog holding low in the valley. This brings to mind a sight from Kentucky just a couple days previous. I climbed a mountain in the southern portion of the Bluegrass State and looked down into a valley surrounded by more hills. The fog there lay heavy in the valley, obscuring from view all that was under the white blanket. Bound by the hills as it was, it resembled a mountain lake spread out below me.
Coming back to the task at hand, I turned south on I-95, my heading more south than east now, heading for Georgia. The road is walled by towering pines where, not a few hours ago, it was bordered by rock walls carved out by man to lay down the highway. The road is flat and I am no longer losing time struggling up the hills. In a little over an hour, I cross the line into Georgia just north of Savannah. The road has been lined with swamps along this stretch, with stands of flooded timber. Some of the trees cannot survive like this and stand grey and dead. Their branches are covered with Spanish moss, making them look like old women covered in shawls, or old men with long grey beards. The water surface is dimpled as small fish and large sip flies off the surface; egrets and herons stalk the shallows trying to catch their next meal as it swims by.
I am xxxxxx to take a break at the first truck stop I come to. New regulations mandate a half hour break sometime during the first eight hours of being on-duty. I had spent a little time on the phone with MrCoverYou, seeing if we could get together for coffee and doughnuts. Unfortunately, the exigencies of work xxxxxx him to postpone our meeting. An opportunity is lost for me to meet one of the finest gentleman I have come to know.
Getting back on the road, I am now in the coastal plains. Many bridges lay ahead, crossing estuaries and salt marshes, the cradle of life for the Atlantic Ocean just a few miles to the east. I watch as schools of shad and other baitfish swim near the surface. I can imagine the smaller, newly hatched fry of the oceanic species swimming out to meet their destiny in the great ocean. Occasionally, the pods of fish explode as a larger predator takes advantage of the buffet on the surface – then it is every fish for itself. Small buoys dot the surface where crab pots are placed to harvest the crustacean bounty for the dinner table.
My mind and backside are numb by the travelling now as I near the Florida state line. At the same time, I can count down how much longer I have to go and look forward to the end of this trip. The Freebird III soars into the Sunshine State and I slide through the agriculture check station and the state scale house. I hop onto the beltway around Jacksonville and drive around the east side of the city. I love this part of the drive, for I get to drive past the port facilities that line the St. Johns River. Huge thunderstorms are covering the interior of the state here and extend out over the Atlantic. The river looks like a race course as dozens of small boats rush headlong back to the marinas and boat ramps, chased off the water by the dangerous weather offshore.
Hurrying through the last 45 miles, I make it to my customer to drop off the trailer of goods they need to distribute to their customers. My next stop is a nearby truck stop to relax and sleep off the last ten hours and 550 miles of crossing state lines, mountain ranges, and rivers. I travelled from the high hills of the Tennessee Smoky Mountains with their oaks, maples, hemlocks, and pine trees to the sandy plains of Florida with palm trees swaying in the breeze. And now, I rest.