1-20-07 - Saturday - Hometime

I got home last night at about 6:30pm. It's so good to be home after only being out for 2 weeks.

I left Marshfield at about 10:00am on Thursday morning and headed about 2 hours south to Baraboo, WI to pick up a load of lawn equipment from a warehouse there. I found it with no problem even with out my GPS. I will have that from here on out. I left it at my house because I didn't want anyone with sticky fingers to steal it while I was at orientation. I picked up the loaded trailer and headed south on I39. I stopped at a rest area and called my fleet manager as I was told to. We talked for about 30 minutes about what he expected from me and his policys. He also pushed the delivery date for the load I'm on out to Tuesday so I could have 3 days at home. Cool!

I got to a rest stop about 50 miles east of Des Moines, IA and stopped for the night. I don't have any of my stuff in my truck right now, so there was no TV to watch and no cold drinks from the fridge. Not much at all, so I just went to bed.

Friday I started driving at 5:00am and stopped only once for fuel and a short break. I got to Denver at about 4:30pm. Long day of driving and used all my drive time, but I'm home.

I dropped the trailer at the local Sapp Bros. and locked the 5th wheel and put a huge lock on the trailer doors. I then drove the 20 minutes to my house that took me about 45 in the friday evening rush hour traffic. I'm thinking that I might just leave the entire truck parked at the truckstop in the future and just have my wife pick me up. Much easier.

Today, Saturday, I'm going to clean the truck out and move my stuff in. Make it home. Well, as much as it can be. I deliver tuesday morning, so I have 3 days to relax and not think about driving.

1-17-07 - Wednesday - Got My Truck!

It's been a few days since I have written here, so here is an update. I was supposed to leave Friday evening. That didn't happen. My mentor lives here in Marshfield, so he decided to spend the night at home and we left on Saturday morning. I did get a hotel room and a van to use from Roehl that night, so it wasn't that bad.

Saturday we left from Marshfield and drove about 1 hour away to pick up a trailer that was load at a customer. The trailers I was pulling during this time with my mentor were curtain-side trailers. That's pretty much like a flat bed with a top and curtains along the sides. That means that anything loaded on it needs to be straped down. Pain in the ass.

We got the loaded trailer and I started driving. We got to Gary, IN around 3:00pm. Roehl has a terminal there. My mentor wanted to show it to me. I drove until late in the evening and got to around 50 miles from the KY border. I tried to sleep as best I could as my mentor drove for a few hours, well, it was more like 1 1/2 hours and he stopped. I didn't mind. I can't sleep very well when the truck is moving. That's why I drive SOLO! I could never team drive.

On Sunday morning, my mentor drove for anout 4 hours and I took over driving at around 10:00am. I drove us all the way to Charleston, SC where our delivery was. We got there on Sunday evening and the delivery wasn't until Monday morning, so we parked at a Super Walmart and got some dinner and called it a day.

Monday morning we drove about 5 minutes to our delivery customer and got there at about 7:00am. We were on time for the delivery, but the customer said they wouldn't be ready to unload us until 9:00am. I laid down and tried to get some more rest. They finally unloaded us and after closing the curtains on the trailer were finally on our way to our next pick up point.

We drove to Lugoff, SC, whih is near Columbia, SC and got loaded. Not much, just 4 big axles for heavy equipment. Again, we had to srap everything down and close the curtains. I like pulling vans. Simple. Open the doors and back up to a dock. Easy! None of the messing with straps and tie-downs.


We got lunch and a shower at the Flying-J in Columbia and I started driving. I got us all the way up past Lexington, KY before calling it quits at about 10:30pm.

Just a side note. It was about 8 degrees when we started this trip in Marshfield, WI, and it was in the 70's in SC. You have to be prepared for all kinds of weather and temperatures.

Tuesday morning we were in Gary, IN again. My mentor had driven most of the night to get us there. That meant that I had tried to sleep. But I didn't get much. I started driving at around 8:30am and we got into Marshfield late in the afternoon. My mentor wanted to go home for the night, so I got a bunk room and tried to catch up on some sleep.

We left at 3:00am for Owattana, MN to deliver our load. I was driving. Yuck. I don't like driving in the middle of the night. My body wants to sleep, no matter how much rest I get before I get going. Oh well. I did ok and we got to the delivery point in about 4 hours. We did the delivery thing. Unstrap, curtains, ect. Our pickup was from the same customer, but it wasn't going to be ready until 2:00pm. We went to a truck stop and I went to sleep for a few hours.

At 2:00pm we picked up again from the customer. Straping, curtains, ect!!! I hate flat bed work! I didn't drive back, I rode and got my stuff packed. At 6:00pm we got back into Marshfield and I got off the truck! I'm so glad. I like SOLO! Not team.

Roehl assigned me a truck so I could start moving my stuff into it. It's an International. I have never driven an International. It's a little bigger than the Freightliners I'm used to, but that's cool. It has about 186,000 miles on it and that's not bad for an over-the-road truck. I just hope it has good power to get up and over the mountains I'll be driving in out in CO.

Well, it's bedtime for me now. I've been up since 2:30am. I got the 3 hour nap, but I'm still beat. I already have a load to pickup tomorrow at around 9:45am. It's going to Denver!!! Homeward bound!