Just hooked up to my next load in Elkins, WV. The load delivers on Thursday morning in Hampton, VA. It's a 42,240lb load, so definite weight behind me, but at least I've got plenty of time to do what's gotta be done. The bad part is the route (we route ourselves). There's NO easy way from Elkins to Hampton without adding a crapload of miles. The short route is to take US-33 across to Harrisonburg, VA, then pick up I-81 south.

I've driven US-33 before and it blows. The worst I've EVER smoked my brakes was on US-33 with a 44,000lb load. There's one mountain in particular that I'm not looking forward to, that's for sure.

Then, as a slap-in-the-face way to end the day tomorrow, the closest truckstop is the Pilot just east of Richmond, about 50 miles from the delivery. I hate Pilot's...

Well......You could take the route that Rand McNally suggests!

Rand McNally Driving Directions and Maps

LOL - I've taken US-250 in a loaded truck ONCE. It's a definite 'short route', but I'll NEVER do that again. I don't even like to drive that road in my car.

Yup - just as long and hard of as a drive as I remembered. I drove nonstop between Elkins & the Harrisonburg truckstop on US-33 this morning. It took me exactly 3 1/2hrs to drive 114 miles. Luckily, though, I didn't run into any fog until I was coming down the mountain from the WV/VA line coming into VA. By that time, the sun was coming up.

It's been a looooong time since I had to drop to 4th gear on a US highway to pull a hill, that's for sure.

I'd have taken that run ANY day over a run to Baltimore or the DC metro area. If I'm gonna go into the basement of the gearbox, I'd rather it be for a hill that I know will be there every day than for traffic that will stop right in front of me. Oh, and friend request sent.

The return trip wasn't any better - I picked up in Norfolk and delivered in Buckhannon, WV, which is on US-33 about 20-30 miles from Elkins. I ran a different way back (90 miles further) and it cut almost 3 hours off the drive. The loads weighed within 500lbs of each other.