Just make sure everything is in good order when you get to the island. I would suggest getting out there at night or very early in the morning. There is a lot of construction going on and traffic is very heavy. You need to allow extra time coming out as well. It is slow going at times coming out, too. So I would allow plenty of time to get to your next load unless it is on the island. And unless you want to haul trash out there isn't much coming out. And that is REAL trash they haul over to Ohio and pay about $1/mile.

 

Route sounds good. I always head in early in the am as in 0300 or so to avoid having to sleep on the island. Without a gun I'm not spending the night anywhere in NY Metro and that includes the Island.

 

I feel so much safer in NYC then lets say Detroit or Atlanta. I would rather go into NYC too. I don't think it is all that bad, but then, what do I know, right?

 

why? the island is safer then alot of places i live in west palm beach now and i feel alot more unsafe here then i do back on the island. especially south hampton.

parkways are a no no!!! you'll rip the roof off your truck. if you dont have a ez pass mistake or not be ready for a ticket.


the route looks good. there is one portable weigh station around exit 39ish on the LIE (495. ) i've seen it open maybe 5 times over a few years.

the only problem is 495 will not take you to south hampton. it ends in riverhead (exit 73). what i would do is take 495 to exit 62 (rd 97 ) witch is nichols road. take that south to sunrise highway witch is state road 27. get on east and enjoy the view. they sometimes do have dot out that way and there is no way to really avoid it. if you have the time walk around and enjoy! some of the best food in the world is out there and its nothing but beautiful. i miss home

 

Well, I made it without incident. Got there about 2am, slept for 8 hours, and got unloaded. Then the fun started- they took off 2 of the 3 boulders I had on, then rejected the third. Then they decided to put one of the ones they unloaded back on the truck. Luckily, I was going back to the same place in Northeast PA anyway for a second load, so tomorrow I'll get these 2 off, and load (hopefully) the ones they really want. On the upside, I got an additional $400 from the shipper for having to come back loaded.

Thanks everyone for all the advice. It made it go off without a hitch, and made me MUCH less nervous about it. I will say that it was much less trouble going in at night than coming out at lunchtime, lol.

I noticed that 495 through queens is horrible, but when you get out to the wealth end of the island it becomes a beautiful road.

Now i'm at the J in New Milford, PA for the night, and we reload tomorrow and go back late tomorrow night...

Jeff

 

I am glad things went fairly well on the trip, Jeff. At least you are being paid something for your trip back to the shipper. :thumbsup:

 

That's why I love hauling stone. They are almost always willing to compensate the driver and truck well, as long as you treat their customers with respect. My experience has been that if you treat the various shippers and their customers with respect, they always reward you. I think many of them have come to expect truck drivers to be rude and unclean. Even when I know I am going into a muddy quarry to load I always make sure to be showered and clean. Though you will get filthy during the day working up in the mountains, I think it's important to present a professional image- especially in this economy.

and the return money is excellent considering that it is on top of the original rate- which covered going to the island loaded and returning empty.

 

It isn't too bad hauling rock. Most of the time we hauled rocks that were stacked on pallets, but sometimes we hauled boulders from a different quarry. The quarries are pretty slow down here right now. Maybe I need to come up to your part of the world and start hauling some of that northeastern rock.

 

It will be getting slow here soon. In the winter we usually have one of the trucks hauling a reefer, doing mostly walmart DC runs.

The trick to hauling out of these rough quarries is to use a steel wood deck trailer, or at least a combo. The all aluminum trailers seem to get beaten up pretty fast.