A Truck Driver's Journey

Deleted my post

2008-06-14T19:58:00.000-06:00

I typed out a good long post about my last week on thr road and somehow deleted it before it posted. There is no "undelete" on the blackberry. Damnit! I'll work on it again tomorrow. Too late now.
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1 week out, 1 week to go!

2008-06-13T18:47:00.001-06:00

Well, I've been out for a week now and it's been a good week.

I left the house on Wednesday morning and went and hooked to my trailer and waited for a load. My DSR (driver service rep.) told me there wasn't much freight in my area, but she would let me know as soon as she had something for me. It didn't take long. At 9 am, I got a load that picked up just 2 miles from where I was parked. The only issues were that it didn't ship until 3 pm. I tried to call the shipper to see if it would be ready sooner, but the phone number listed for them was disconnected. I asked my DSR for a working number, but the number I got was to someones voice mail. I also tried calling 411, but that had no listing for the shipper either. So much for trying to pickup early. I just took a nap and went to the shipper, which happened to be a mattress company at 2:30 pm.

There was a preloaded trailer for me in a pothole filled dirt lot. Yeah! The holes in that lot were HUGE! Even though I went really slow, it didn't matter, things went everywhere in my sleeper.

I got my loaded trailer and headed out of Denver towards Gary, IN. I got up I-76 and across I-80 to a rest area just past North Platt, NE and stopped for the night. I ran into some really heavy rain as I left CO.

Thursday morning I continued east making a stop at the Walmart in Lexington. That's a really truck friendly Walmart. Lots of truck parking.

When I got back in the truck I had a message telling me that I was relaying my load to another driver so he could get home. The relay point was Aurora, NE. I had about 100 miles to go to get there. I got to the Loves truckstop at about 10:15 am and ended up waiting till about 12:30 pm for the relay driver to get there.

We swapped trailers and I ended up getting a load right out of that town going to Lubbock, TX. It was a dog food factory and you could smell it from miles away. Not a bad smell, just a dog food smell.

I was directed to drop my trailer in a row of trailers right across from from where they were doing construction. There was absolutly no way I was going to be able to stick my trailer anywhere on that row. I found a yard driver and asked him what I was supposed to do and he was pretty good about it. He moved a trailer from a spot I could get into so I could use it. Sometimes it pays to just ask someone for help, instead of risking hitting something.

I got my load and headed south through KS and into OK. The rain was incredible. I found out later that there had been some tornados in the area. From what I saw, I believe it.

I delivered the load to a grocery distribution center in Lubbock, TX on Friday afternoon with no issues. It was over 100 degrees there. Ouch!

More to come.

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Background for the past year....

2008-06-09T18:46:00.000-06:00

It's been about a year since I have posted anything here, that's because there really wansn't much to tell about working for Papa John's, at least until now.

Now that I'm not working for Papa John's anymore, and don't have to worry about lossing my job to tell what's going on there, I feel it's my obligation to tell the complete story. This will hopefully be some good info for anyone trying to decide whether to stay an OTR driver or take a local driving job.

I had been with Roehl for about 6 months when I started looking for a local driving job in Denver. I found that Papa John's was hiring "Delivery Specialists" and called them for more info. Now this is not a PJ store, it's the distribution center that makes the dough and delivers the dough and everything else that a PJ store needs to operate to all the stores in CO, NM, (alburqurque area), WY, UT, (northern area), ID, (southern area).

When I called PJ Food Service, that was what the distribution center called itself, I was told to come in and fill out an application. At the time, I was still driving OTR and was in TX. I told them I would be in to fill out an application the next time I was in town. They said that wasn't a problem because it was the beginning of June and they weren't looking to actually hire any drivers until the middle of July.

Why were they hiring drivers? That's a question that every driver looking for a job needs to ask.

I filled out the application in the second week of June 2007 and went back for an interview the last week in June. They hired me for a July 9th start.

The first week at PJ's was orientation. They said all the right things about safety and doiing things the right way. Reality was way different.

Here is a sample of what really happened.

0330 - Wake up and drive to work.

0430 - Get to work and count the truck and do a pre-trip on the truck.

0530 - My partner would start driving us to our first store.

0600 - Our first store. Unload and deliver.

0630 - My partner drives us to our next store.

0645 - Deliver store.

0715 - My partner drives us to the next store.

0730 - Deliver store.

0800 - My partner drives to Pueblo, CO. I get a 1 hour nap.

0915 - Deliver 2 stores in Pueblo.

1045 - My partner drives us to Raton, NM. This gives me another 1 hour nap.

1200 - I start driving in Raton, NM and drive us to Alburqurque. My partner gets a 4 hour nap.

1600 - We start delivering the 10 stores in Alburqurque. This takes about 9 hours.

0100 - My partner, who got a 4 hour nap, now starts driving back towards Denver. I now, having been away working for the past 21 hours, get to take a 4 hour nap.

0500 - I start driving around Raton and get us back to Denver in about 4 hours.

0900 - Back to the terminal and another team of drivers takes the truck to do a local route.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this?

Driving tired is one of the most dangerous things a driver can do. Pretty much the same as driving drunk.

I brought my concerns first to the guy who trained me and he said that this is just how it's done. He told me that the routes can't be done legaly and still get back at a decent time. He even told me that if he had to run legal, he would quit. He said the money just wasn't worth it to stay out any longer.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I hated trying to stay awake and drive with such little rest. It scared me silly. Many times I pulled the truck over and slept for a bit because I was just so tired. My partner really didn't like that. It caused us to get back later than he wanted to. Oh well.

I went to my manager with my concerns and he told me that what I said was happening,, wasn't. He didn't want to hear the truth.

I then called Louisville, (PJ's headquarters), and told them my concerns. Instead of resolving the problem in any way, they told the regional manager that I was raising questions about how things were working. Nice. He called me and told me that nothing unsafe was going on. Nice.

I tried one more time to talk to my manager about it and this time he yelled at me saying nothing I said was happening was happening. I gave up. I suggested that he follow an out of town route and see for himself. He said it wasn't his jhob to babysit drivers. Nice.

About a week after that I was given a solo route. I think this was to shut me up about everything I was trying to bring up about how the team routes were running.

I ran solo for about 6 months and then I was put back on a team routem That lasted about 2 months before I couldn't take it anymore and called Roehl about getting my old job back with them.

Roehl hired me back and after a week of orientation I'm happily back on the road with them.

At Roehl, SAFETY is a VALUE!

Having been at a company that was "eyes wide shut" about truly dangerous driving practices, it's great to be back at Roehl!

I plan to keep this blog updated with my daily travels, so be sure to check back often!

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Test Post

2008-06-05T20:22:00.000-06:00

This is a test post from my Blackberry. If everything works the way it should, I should be able to update my blog almost daily.
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John has not disappeared!

2007-09-05T11:59:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, this is John's wife. He wanted everyone to know that he is alive and well and has just been too busy to blog--so he asked me to let people know what is going on.

We left Roehl because Papa John's offered such a great deal regarding hometime and pay. It's more of a hands on delivery job than just an over the road driving job, but regardless, he's home five nights a week and has better pay.

We have absolutely nothing bad to say about Roehl. They are a good company with decent pay and hometime. It was nice to find a trucking company with ethics (Take note, C.R. England!) But as everyone in the trucking business knows, you move on until you find something that's a perfect fit.

Because Papa John's is sort of a different beast when it comes to trucking, John probably won't be maintaining this blog anymore. He will leave it up for those who want to read about his experience at the beginning, but right now he's moving on. I mean, really, does any one care to hear about how many boxes of sausage and dough he's delivering? :-)

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement!

All the best,
Sarah (Big John's Wife)

5-8-07 - I have a story for you!

2007-05-08T07:22:00.000-06:00

I'm really sorry for not writing more here. I have been busy and happy. It's kinda funny that when everything is going well, there doesn't seem to be much to tell. Anyway, I do have a pretty interesting tail to tell from last Thursday.

First, I just want to answer a quick question that was asked in the comment section. The question was do I slip-seat. NO! I have my own truck!

Ok, about last Thursday. I had delivered near Orlando, FL on Wednesday afternoon and stopped in St. Augustine for the night. I drove up to Savanna, GA to pick up on Thursday morning. My shipper was located in the Port Of Georgia. It was a drop-hook, so I thought it was going to be no problem. Well, the directions said that when I got the a certain intersection, I would see the Port Of Georgia and I was to go 200 yards and turn into Gate 5. I got to the intersection and went 200 yards and found myself in the middle of about 300 container trucks. Now I knew something was wrong. I also knew that there was no way for me to get turned around and get out of there. I saw a sign that said Gate 4. Now I definatly knew I was in the wrong place, but there were about 15 lanes with more than 25 trucks in each of them lined up to go through the gate. I just figured the only way to get out was to go in and have the people running the place show me how to get out. I was in Lane 1, on the far right. I got to a scale in the lane, about 150 yards from the checkpoint and I pushed the button on the speaker to try to talk to some one. It took about 5 minutes, but a guy finally came on the speaker and said I was driving a "van" and that this gate was only for containers. Well, I told him that I had figured that out already and just needed to know how to get out. He said I needed to turn around and go back out through Lane 15. I asked him how I was supposed to do that and he said he didn't know, but that was what I needed to do. OK, so at least I knew what I needed to do. Cut across 14 lanes of trucks and just go out Lane 15. This was going to be fun. I started edging my was to the left and after about 10 minutes and pissing off about 20 other drivers I made it to the exit gate. The Police Officer there asked me for my pass. I told him I didn't have one because I never actually got in the gate. He the asked me for my troubld report saying I didn't get in the gate. I told him I didn't get in the gate to get one of those. He then told me I need to go get a trouble report. I asked where I was supposed to get on of those and he said at the gate. I asked him if I was supposed to go get in line again just to get to the gate to get a trouble report to get out. He looked at me in a confused way and told me to just go! I got out of Gate 4 and found that Gate 5 was up the street on the right about 1/8 of a mile. I got in there with no problem and was directed to a dropyard about 1 mile away. Interesting that I passed the other side of Gate 4 on my way to the drop. They could have let me in there, but I guess it really made a difference what gate I went in.

I found the dropyard, if that's what you want to call it. It was a huge dust pit with hundreds of trailers just parked every which way. I pulled up to a shack and a guy wanted to look at my empty to be sure it was clean and told me to slide my tandems all the way back before dropping my trailer. That was not fun at all. I was in a hole and the wheels just spun even with the differential lock in. What a pain in the ass! The entire dropyard was a dusty, hole ridden mess. I finally got the tandems back and stuffed the trailer back in one of the only empty slots there was. Not that there was any order to the dropyard. I found the loaded trailer I was supposed to pick up and it was nicely wedged against another trailer so I couldn't get to the landing gear crank. That was inportant because the right landing gear was in a hole causing the trailer to lean so much that when I tried to back under it, my drive wheels got stuck! So now I'm stuck under the trailer and I can't get to the crank to get unstuck. I found a yard driver and explained that he needed to move the trailer that was up against mine so I could crank the gear down and get unstuck. He looked at me like I was crazy. I explained it again and he finally moved the other trailer anout 3 inches. Gee, Thanks! I crawled under the trailers and got mine cranked up enough to get lout, but in the process, smashed my thumb. Damn! It was hot, humid, smokey, (from the wild fires), and I was a dusty mess.

I finally got out of the port after 2 hours of messing around. Just goes to show that drop & hook can sometimes be a real pain in the butt!

4-22-07 - Hometime and Lawn Mowing

2007-04-22T08:07:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a long time since I've had the chance to write here. I spent 5 weeks on the road and now I'm home for a week. I cancaled my internet access from the truck stops because it's pretty expensive and not very reliable. Maybe I'll get one of those broadband cards for my laptop.

I left Denver on March 20th. The load I got was a bit different than most I haul. I had to pickup behind an office tower. There was no loading dock and I had to back through the parking lot around to the back of the building. They load was used filing cabinets. The load was hand-loaded by about 10 guys that didn't really look that happy to be hauling over a thousand cabinets down a freight elevator and up a ramp into a truck.

The loading took about 4 hours. It was a nice day, so I didn't mind too much. I had to deliver the load in Chicago on the morning of March 22nd. I had a day and a half to get it there. No problem.

On Thursday morning I found the delivery address. Yuck! It was a warehouse on the edge of a residential neighborhood. To get there, I think I rolled over several curbs and made alot of early morning commuters mad. Oh well. I squeezed into the tiny dock and they had me unloaded in about 2 hours. I like that.

I got out of there by 11:00am and started towards my next load. I was picking up a load of bicycles in southern IL. I got there by 4:00pm, but they wouldn't load me until 6:30pm. I got loaded pretty quickly, but I was out of hours for the day, so I found an abandoned warehouse with a large empty parking lot and put it to bed for the night.

My load was going to central FL, so I hit the road early the next morning and drove all day down through KY, and TN and into GA.

When I got to northern GA, I met my trainer from CR England for a late lunch. It was good to see him. He's still training for CRE. He's been with the company for 14 years, so he figures he'll just stick it out there for a few more years and then retire. I rolled south to the southern part of GA and stopped for the night.

My delivery was for around 11:00am on Saturday. I got there about an hour early and droped my trailer at the Walmart Dist. center and grabbed an empty. I got a load out of Perry, GA about an hour after I stopped and headed that way. I drove halfway to Perry and stopped for the day. My load didn't pick up until Sunday the 25th, so I stopped and got a shower and a good meal. On Sunday, I drove about 3 hours to Perry and got a preloaded trailer full of cardboard boxes and headed northeast through GA towards SC. I stopped at a nice rest area in northern SC for the night. On Monday the 26th I drove hard north through NC, VA, MD and into PA where I had to deliver on Tuesday. I stopped near Johnstown, PA and spent the night with some relatives I have in PA. It was a good chance to get laundry done and a good meal.

I delivered in Johnstown early on the 27th and got a load that had me deadhead to Mogodore, OH to get a relay load going to Bedford, PA. Back and forth across the Turnpike.

My next load was from Westminster, MD to a paper plant near Lynchburg, VA. I picked up in the afternoon and drove until late in the evening to deliver. The traffic around Washington, DC sucked! I hit the area at the perfect time. Evening rush hour. Yuck! I ended up on a four-lane highway with trafic lights all along it for my drive south to Lynchburg. YUCK Again! The plant I was going to was in the middle of nowhere. The roads around it seemed to all have "No Truck" signs on them. The directions they gave took me down a tiny little road. It was rainy and dark and there were at least 2 bridges I went under that said 13'5. That's an inch shorter that what I'm tall. The measurment must have been wrong, because I made it under them, very slowly. I got the delivery done finally and just stayed there for the night.

More to come tomorrow. It takes a while to get caught up!

3-15-07 - Thursday - Running Hard!

2007-03-15T18:29:00.000-06:00

Wow! It's been over 3 weeks since I have had a chance to update this blog. I will try to be more diligent in my attention to it.

I'm at the Bosselman's in Grand Island, NE this evening. I have until Saturday morning to deliver to a Walmart DC in Cheyenne, WY.

I started my lattest run last Monday by delivering to the Denver Pepsi distributor. My appointment was for 7:00 am. I didn't get to a door until 9:00 am. Oh well. I finally got unloaded and drove about 5 miles to pick up a load of pallets going to Whiteriver. I usually take the pallets to Whiteriver and get a load of baking soda going back to Denver. It's a good run that gets me about 480 miles for the day. Well, there was no load of baking soda waiting for me, instead my next load was out of Clearfield, UT. I got about half way towards UT and put it to bed in a little town just inside the UT border. There really wasn't a truckstop or rest area, I just stopped in a parking lot.

I got up on Tuesday morning really early. I usually try to start my day at about 6:00 am, but I needed to get about 150 miles out of the way and get to the customer by 7:00 am. I got up and started driving at about 3:30 am. OUCH! The pickup was pretty easy after I found the place. It was hidden in an huge industrial park and all the buildings looked the same and the street names and addresses really didn't make alot of sense. I did find the customer and they got me loaded in about 45 minutes.

I headed East and got to a truck parking area just east of Cheyenne, WY. Interesting note, I was on the phone with a guy I went to CDL school with. He is still driving for CR England, but is about to quit and find another company. He is getting further and further behind on his lease. Sucks to be an CRE driver.

I got over to my delivery in Smithton, PA on Friday at 12 noon. I dropped and went looking for an empty. They didn't have one. They had plenty of Roehl trailers, they just weren't unloaded. I counted at least three plus the one I brought. The customer just didn't have them unloaded.

I have family about 20 minutes from where I delivered, so I told my dispatcher that I would check back the next day for an empty. She was ok with that and it gave me a day to visit and hang out with my relatives.

On Saturday I again looked for an empty, but there still wasn't one. I called the weekend crew at Roehl and they sent me to another customer on the other side of Pittsburgh to look for one. There wasn't one there either. This was becoming really OLD! They finally just sent me bobtailing to Mogadore, OH to get my next load.

I picked up my next load at the Modagore, OH dropyard. I had to take it up to Westfield, MA. I had until monday to get there. I did most of my driving on Saturday and just rested on Sunday. It was the day that daylight savings time started, so it was good to have a day to get the body right with the clock.

On Monday morning I drove the last 20 miles to the delivery customer. I got there an hour early for my 9:30 am appointment. Well, they told me my appointment wasn't until 10:30 am. WHAT?!? They sent me away and told me to come back in an hour. Damn. There wasn't anywhere to go near the customer to just sit. They said I couldn't sit on their property. I drove around to the other side of their building, where the guards couldn't see me and waited. What's the worst that could happen. They could tell me to leave again. They never found me. I went back to the guard shack and finally got a door and got unloaded.

My next load was out of Ayer, MA. I had about 2 hours of drive time to get there and I had to be there in 1 hour. I called my dispatcher and she fixed the times. It really didn't matter. It was a preloaded trailer. I drop and hooked and headed south. I got down through MA, CT, and most of the way through NY on I-84 before I stopped and parked it for the night.

I drove West all day on Tuesday and Wednesday and stopped Wednesday evening in Concordia, MO. This morning I drove the last 125 miles to the customer in Lawrence, KS and delivered at 7:30 am. After I got unloaded I drove about 40 miles to the Kansas City drop yard and waited until about 12 noon for the trailer I was picking up to get there. I got the trailer and drove over here to the Bosselman's Pilot in Grand Island, NE.

I should be home by Saturday at Noon. Ahhh, a few days to do nothing around the house!

2-26-07 - Monday - Down in Tampa,,,

2007-02-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm in Tampa today. I delivered this morning and I leave out of here for Atlanta tomorrow. I ran out of hours, so I get to relax for a day.

I started out if Denver last Monday. I went up to Whiteriver, CO to get a load of baking soda. That's when the fun began. I didn't really read the load assignment closely. That was my fault. I got to Rifle, CO and called the shipper to let them know I was about an hour away. They said it would be ready when I got there. Well, I got there after an hour drive up the little two lane road into the mountains to Whiteriver and they said they had no record of a load for me. What??? I called my DM and we tried all kinds of load numbers, bill of lading numbers and PO numbers. Nothing. Then the guy at the warehouse asked if I was sure my load wasn't at the Rifle warehouse. The WHAT? I had no idea they had a warehouse in Rifle. I went back and pulled up the load on the Qualcomm and what do you know? The load was at the Rifle warehouse. I jumped in the truck and drove the hour back down to Rifle and of course, I drove right by the warehouse. Damn! I had to go about 2 miles out of the way to get back to it. Once I got to the warehouse, because it was President's Day, there was no one there. I saw the only Roehl trailer there and checked to see if it was the one I was getting. It was. I dropped and hooked the new trailer and then saw the sign that said the shipper wanted the trailers left with the doors open and swept out. The trailer I dropped was fairly clean, but it did need a little sweep out. They didn't want trailers swept out on the ground, but they didn't have a dumpster either. Guess what? Yup, the ground got it. Oh well.

The load I picked up was 44,000 lbs of baking soda. I usually weigh the truck before I hit the road, but there was no scale there and I didn't know where one was before I was going to hit the DOT scale near Denver. I did my best to guess where to put the tandems and got rolling.

I got to Denver with no issues from the DOT scale and parked it for the night and went to the house by 8:30 pm.

Tuesday I headed east. I had to take the load to Chicago by Thursday morning. The run across going east was uneventful. I stopped Wednesday afternoon about 30 miles south of Chicago. I got up at 3:30 am Thursday morning and headed up the road to the exit that the Qualcomm directions told me to and about 2 blocks off the highway I was looking at a bridge that was lower than my eye level. I backed up and went down another block and found the street that the customer was off of. The customer was on 42nd St. That's what the Qualcomm said. I passed 42nd Pl. and again came to a bridge that was only about 12'4". I called the customer and what do you know, they are on 42nd Pl. I love Qualcomm directions. NOT! I backed up about 6 blocks and turned down the right street and got to the customer about 5 am. Ontime. I sat at the dock waiting to be unloaded until 6 am and watched as 2 other trucks came and went. I got a bit impatient and went in to the dock area to find out why I was just being left to wait. Funny. As soon as I asked why I was being ignored, I got unloaded in 5 minutes. Go figure. I left the customer and in morning rush hour drove over to the Roehl terminal in Gary, IN.

They did a PM on my truck and replaced the passenger side windshield. It was cracked all the way across. While I was waiting I drove two other drivers to the South Bend IN airport. When I got back my truck was fixed and I headed out with a load to Omaha, NE.

The load to Omaha went well. I delivered to the customer and thought I would be getting a load heading back towards Denver. I ended up with a load from Muscatine, IA to Tampa, FL. I called and found that my DM was out of the office. That's probably why I went to FL and not to Denver. Oh well, it's really good miles. I headed east towards the shipper and stopped in DesMoines, IA for the night.

Saturday morning I headed to the shipper and ran into serious icing. My truck had about 2 inches of ice all over the front of it. The ice lasted until I got into southern IL.

At the end my driving day on Saturday, I stopped for fuel at a Loves near Mt. Vernon, IL and found that it was not open. They had a fire and everything was shut down. I ended up going back up the road about 10 miles to a TA and getting fuel there and then findinga rest area to stop for the night. That was a run around I really didn't need at the end of a long driving day.

Sunday was an even longer driving day. I got from southern IL to Ocalla, FL. This mornng I drove the last 135 miles to deliver. I had to help unload this load. I logged it so I would get paid. I was out of hours for the week so I found the closest TA and parked it.

Here are some pictures I took over the past months,,,

I'm not sure this is what the scale is really for!

This is what happens when a truck backs into another truck at a truck stop. OUCH!

This guy must be really bored. I saw him parked next to me and he's painting his tires with what looks to be "White Out" or some kind of house paint. He's using a little brush. He really needs a load!

2-18-07 - Sunday - Loving My Hometime!

2007-02-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

I havn't written in a few weeks, so I figure I will update the blog this morning. My truck was fixed on Tuesday the 6th and I headed out on a really good trip going east to get some miles on Wednesday. I ran some birdseed to Dallas, TX and then went up to Fayettsville, AR to get another load and took it to St. Louis and relayed it to another driver. I then got a load going back to Denver that delivered a day after I got there.

I have been mostly running between Denver and Whiteriver, CO. I'm home at least 4 nights a week and it's been working out that I'm home every other weekend. Good miles and good pay.

I did have quite the adventure last Wednesday coming back over Vail and Loveland Pass. It was late in the day and there was a ton of snow and ice on the roads. They didn't have the chain law in effect yet, so I ran it as best I could. Really slow and careful!

Other than that, driving for Roehl have been pleasantly uneventful. I have the time at home to get some projects around the house done, and I drive enough to get a good paycheck.

2-3-07 - Saturday - Broken Truck,,,

2007-02-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

Yup. My truck is a sick puppy. I started out yesterday, Friday, to go up to Wyoming to get a load of sugar and after I picked up my trailer and started up the entrance ramp to I-25, my truck decided that it wouldn't go any faster that 25 mph. It was about -5 degrees and there was 6-8 inches of snow on the road, but that really shouldn't have affected the truck. I got pulled over and almost instantly one of the courtesy patrols was behind me. The guy said I needed to get off the road. I understood and he told me that there was a parking lot just off of the next exit. I struggled to get there and called the Breakdown line at Roehl to explaining the situation.

I told the guy on the line that the truck wouldn't go any faster that 25 mph and that it was acting like the computer was shutting it down. He told me I had a clogged fuel filter and I needed to replace it. I really didn't think that that was the problem. I know what a truck feels like when the fuel filter is getting clogged, and this wasn't it. Then they wanted me to open the radiator cap and visually look to see that there was coolant in it. I could see by the sight gauge that the coolant level was ok, but I did what they wanted me to do. That was fun. Opening the radiator cap when it was at operating temperature.

Finally they let me drop my trailer at the Sapp Bros. and take the truck to the local International dealer. That's where it is now. I'm on some unplanned "hometime", and the truck will be fixed by Monday. Hopefully. I'm not making any money for these few days, but it's nice to have some time at the house.

1-29-07 - Monday - Rolling right along,,,

2007-01-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit since my last post, so I'll try to get everything caught up tonight.

Let's see. Last Tuesday I delivered to the local Toro distributor here in Denver. I got there at 7:00am, just like the directions said to do. Hmmm, interesting. they don't open until 8:00am. I guess the directions are a bit outdated. Anyway, I got docked and unloaded by about 9:30am. Not bad. Next I got direction to pick up a load of pallets at a pallet maker and take them up to a baking soda mine in Rifle, CO. I picked up a loaded trailer and headed up over I-70. It's only about 185 miles to the exit at Rifle, but it's also just about straight up. It took me about 5 hours to get to the Rifle exit and another hour to get the last 40 miles up into the mountains on a small ice and snow covered road to the customer. I got there at about 4:00pm. The sun was low on the horizon and the ice was pretty much a perfect glaze on the road and at the customer. I had to get a running start to get the trailer backed up against their dock. It was up a small incline and the compacted snow and ice made it really hard to get up. I did get docked and then unhooked and drove through about 6 inches of fresh snow to the back of the mine processing building to get an empty trailer to get loaded with 44,000 lbs. of baking soda to haul back to Denver.

I was finally loaded and ready to roll out of the customer at about 6:00pm. I decided that I was going to get back to I-70 before I parked it for the night. There was a Walmart Supercenter there and I wanted to do some shopping. The little two lane dirt road that ran about 10 miles back to where the pavement started again was ok. The dirt had absorbed alot of the melting ice water, so it was ok to drive on. When I hit the last 30 miles of small two lane paved road back to I-70, that was really slippery!

I got back to the Walmart and parked it for the night. There were signs that said "NO TRUCKS", but I just pulled in and parked next to the other trucks ignoring the signs.

I have to tell you that the best thing about my new truck is that I have a DirecTV receiver in it. I put it in when I was home for a few days last week and I love it. All I have to do is find South in the sky and spend about 5 minutes aiming the satellite dish and I have a zillion channels of TV. So much better than hoping for some local broadcast station.

On Wednesday morning I got up at about 5:00am and started driving East to Denver. I got there mid-morning and went to the Pallet company where I had been told to go by my Driver Manager to drop the load of baking soda. When I got there, the owner of the pallet company wanted to know what I was doing. I told him and he said he didn't have any extra room for any dropped trailers that weren't customers. I called my DM and told him this and was told to take the load to the Sapp Brothers truck stop and meet the relay driver. That's fine, but I was a bit irritated that I had to reconnect to the trailer and drag it some place else. I get paid to drive. Paid by the mile, not by the hook and unhook!

I got the load relayed to the other driver and got the empty from him. The next load I had was out of Sterling, CO. That's about 2 hours NorthEast up I-76. I hauled ass out of Denver and got the the customer at about 3:00pm. It turned out I was hauling sugar. They got me loaded pretty quick and I headed to a feed mill about 1/4 mile away to scale the load. Before I even weighed, I knew I was going to be heavy on my drives, so I tried sliding my tandems. No go. That's right. The old trailer I had was not going to let me slide the tandems. I beat on the the locking pins with my hammer and got really dirty fiddling with the pneumatic retracting mechanism, but it didn't matter, they weren't going to move. Oh well. I drove onto the scale and to my delight, I was just legal by about 400 lbs. on my drives. Cool!

I hit the road on some small county roads and back roads working my way down to I-70 so I could head East to Poteau, OK. I made it to Burlington, CO and stopped for the night.

Thursday was for driving. I pretty much just drove all day to Webbers Falls, OK. That was about 60 miles from my delivery point and also my refueling point. I fueled up and got the free shower that I got from Roehl buying 150 gallons of fuel. The shower felt so good! When you are on the road as a solo driver and you aren't lumping freight, you really only need to shower once every 3 days or so. Just be sure you shower before you go home to see your wife or husband. They probably wouldn't understand.

Friday morning I followed the GPS to Poteau, OK. This is a small town with a big bakery facility in it. I guess that's why they needed the sugar. I got docked and unloaded by 8:30am and was headed to Kansas City, KS to the Roehl drop yard there to relay a load back to Denver, CO! Cool!

On the way to to Kansas City I wanted to get my "trips" scanned before 11:30am cst so I would get paid for them by the following Wednesday. I needed to find a Pilot on the way. I tried faxing them and the fax number didn't work. Darn! I thought I found one in Fayettsville, AR, but I got off at the wrong exit and ended up wasting about 30 minutes driving down a 4 lane stop light ridden, shopping center infested road! I finally found the Pilot, thanks to my GPS, and got my "trips" scanned. Scanning is easier is there is a place to do it. I really didn't mind dropping the TriPac envelopes to get paid with CRE. Oh well, just something else to get used to. Did I mention that anything is better than CRE!

I got to Kansas City, KS at about 4:30pm and found the drop yard easily with the directions provided. The trailer I was looking for was there and I got it and headed West on I-70. I got to Junction City, KS and put it to bed for the night. There was a good Chinese Buffet restaurant there, so I had to help myself.

Saturday I raced back to Denver and was there at 3:00pm. My delivery didn't have to deliver until Monday at 8:00am. Oh, what's that? Yes, more home time, and still getting really good miles!

Monday I got up and did the delivery thing at the Toro distributor again. I was second in line, so I didn't get unloaded and clear until about 10:00am. Next I was to go to the Purina factory and grab a load and relay it to Fountain, CO. The only problem was that the load assignment didn't have an address to Purina. It just said Denver. That doesn't work. I finally got directions from my DM and picked up the load and ran it the 88 miles to Fountain, CO. When I got there I found that it was a typical grocery distribution warehouse. My appointment was at 2:30pm. I got there at 1:30pm. I got a door at 2:15pm and was unloaded at 3:00pm. OK, that's all well and good, but unloaded doesn't mean done. They have to "receive" what was unloaded. OK, so receive the stuff already! I didn't get out of there until about 4:30pm, and that was only after being very persistent about the need for me to get moving. I only had 2 pallets on the truck and one of them was only half loaded. Seriously, 4 hours to get it unloaded and counted.

I was to go back to the Pallet company in Denver and get a load going back out to the baking soda mine at 8:00pm, but I called the pallet company and they said the load going to the baking soda mine wasn't going to be ready until 3:00pm on Tuesday. I called my after hours service reps. and told them. They told me to hold tight till tomorrow morning when my DM would be in and figure it out. Fine with me. I dropped the trailer I had about a block from the pallet company and went home! I love this job!

So I'm home and it's time to get a good nights sleep before I go back to the crazyness of driving.

If you aren't reading this at:

http://a-truckers-journey.blogspot.com/

Your should be!

1-21-07 - Sunday - Snow!

2007-01-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

I really hate snow. I looked out the window this morning and we have more snow on the ground. I'm ready for Spring.

Time to go shovel the driveway.

1-20-07 - Saturday - Hometime

2007-01-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-01-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

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!

1-12-07- Friday - Almost out of here,,

2007-01-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today I got over to the Roehl terminal after another free breakfast at Perkins and at bout 8:00am my mentor called me. He told me we were headed to North Carolina for a Monday delivery. He lives right here in Marshfield and said we would get going at about 7:00pm. So I have the whole day to wait. I got a bunk room and I'm probably going to try to get some sleep. I figure if I get some good sleep, I will be able to drive tonight if he wants me to.

I'll try to keep the blog updated as much as I can. I'll be on the road for the next 7 days, so the postings here might be every couple of days instead of everyday.

Well, time for some rest now.

1-11-07 - Thursday - Still in Marshfield

2007-01-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'm still in Marshfield. I got up this morning and checked out of the Super 8 and drove over to the Roehl terminal. We stopped at the Perkins for a free breakfast and then spent the morning waiting to get picked up by our mentors. At noon we were still waiting and eating some cheese curds and pasta salad for lunch. After lunch we were still waiting. By 3:00pm we called the fleet manager and I found out that my mentor was still in MN. We asked what we should do and they sent us back to the Super 8 for another night. Oh well. At least I'm getting paid.

I really am ready to get rolling. The sooner I get this 6-7 day mentor program done, the sooner I can get my own truck and head back towards Denver.

Just a quick observation. There was a guy here going through orientation with us who went home today. He decided that he didn't want to drive for Roehl. That's fine, but his reason was a bit childish in my opinion. He was a very experienced driver who lives in Ohio. He talked to a recruiter who, he says, told him he wouldn't do ANY driving in the northeast. He didn't want to do any inner city driving in New York or any of the other big cities in the east. He didn't get this in writing, and who knows if he misunderstood his recruiter. Well, Roehl was ready to issue him his truck and had even issued him his locks and other gear. Yesterday, they put him in a rental car to drive to the terminal in Akron, OH. He got half way there and they called him and told him to come back to Marshfield to get his truck. I admit that he did get a little bit of a run around, but that's what this industry is about sometimes. So anyway, he got back here to Marshfield and said that his driver manager told him he would have to run to the east and to the cities he didn't want to run to. He got pissed and told Roehl that he wasn't going to work for them and he was going home. He got a ticket on Greyhound and was on a 19 hour ride home. Now, why would you come all the way to Marshfield, WI and think that you would be GUARANTEED not to drive to a certain place. That's not how this industry works.

That's my rant about that. Have reasonable expectations and understand that everything will not work out and things will not be perfectly what you hope for.

1-10-07 - Time for a Nap!

2007-01-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

Today we went over to the Roehl terminal and most of the others either went with their trainers or got rental cars to go back to their home terminals. Today another group of drivers started orientation. Mondays and Wednesdays they start driver orientation. Anyway, at 8:00am one of the orientation managers told me and 2 others to go ahead and go back to the hotel and be back tomorrow. My mentor driver will be in Marshfield tomorrow. I went back to the hotel and took a long nap. Nice!

Also, they gave us 3 meal vouchers and put us on the payroll. Great! I'll take $100 and three meals to wait. Time to get some dinner now. I hope by this time tomorrow I'm rolling down the road getting my mentor time done. It should be 5-7 days.

1-9-07 - The Van Driver

2007-01-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

That's me. The van driver. Oh well. Today we finished orientation and got all the rest of the employment paperwork done. We got our payroll and other important things taken care of also. I got a $3000 signing bonus. Cool! It gets paid out over the course of about 120,000 miles, but it's money I'm happy to get.

It was REALLY COLD here today. REALLY COLD! What am I saying, it's Wisconsin in winter. Of course it's going to be COLD!

Tomorrow I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing. I was told this afternoon that I wouldn't be leaving until Thursday to go out with a mentor for 5-7 days before I get my own truck. Some of the others are leaving tomorrow. It's ok. I'll just relax at the hotel for another day. Not my choice. Just how things happened. Maybe I'll take my camera over to Roehl tomorrow.

1-8-07 - Orientation

2007-01-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

I'm in Marshfield, WI now going through orientation for Roelh. It is such a difference than my experience at CRE. Roehl is paying for my room at a Super 8 hotel, they also provide a really good catered lunch and a dinner voucher for the Perkins here for $8.50. A good deal all around.

Today I met about 7 other drivers in the hotel lobby at 7:00am. We rode in a van over to Roehl and started by filling out some employment paperwork and getting a physical and drug test. At about 8:00am I took the driving test which was driving around for about 20 minutes and backing up once.

They served us lunch and the afternoon was a class on the Roehl driving philosophy. We got back to the hotel at about 5:00pm.

Just a side note. I did my best trying to avoid the orientation instructors eyes when he was looking for someone to drive the van, but it didn't matter, I ended up getting picked to drive it. Oh well.

Time for some dinner now. Tomorrow is going to be more classes and paperwork. By Wednesday I should be going out with a mentor for 5-7 days and then I get my truck. I'm really looking foward to getting my truck and heading back toward Denver!

1-6-07 - On the Road to Another Job!

2007-01-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick update for everyone following my story. I'm in Grand Island, NE tonight. I picked up my rental car at DIA, (Denver International Airport), at 1100 am today and headed out on I-76 to I-80 and made it about 370 miles into NE.

I'm on my way to Marshfield, WI, so I have about 10 hours of driving to do tomorrow. When I stopped, I first stopped at the Holiday Inn Express and they told me the rate for the night was $76. I drove away as fast as I could and about 1/4 mile away was the Motel 6 at the Bosselman Travel Center. They only wanted $39 for the night and the hotel was brand new. I got a room there and turned on some good Discovery Channel. I love Dirty Jobs! The show, not in real life!

I'm going to get some sleep and hit the road early tomorrow morning.

FYI - I'm working on a message board for anyone interested in trucking and I'm going to try get forums set up for as many trucking companies as I can. This will give anyone interested in the trucking industry a one-stop place to get the low down on as many companys as possible.

1-1-07 - Hometime and so many changes,,,

2007-01-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

OK, it's been almost a month since I have updated this blog. That was not on purpose, but the lack of a good internet connection and how busy I was, made it really hard to keep this updated. That will change soon!

OK, here's the deal, I'm not with CR England anymore. I was not making very much money and I never got home. I always said I would tell the truth about my experiences and I won't stop that now. I had a really good attitude about the leasing program from the time I started at CRE. The idea of being a company driver at .26 cents a mile was nuts, so I naturally was attracted to the leasing program that CRE offered. I'm not going to bad talk the company. I'm not here to do that. I'm only going to tell it like it was. Just like I have since the beginning.

CRE is a great place to get your CDL. I really believe that. They never taught me anything but the safest way to operate the equipment. That said, I'm not sure about their leasing program. I mean, it would work if I got the miles. I only got over 3000 miles one week in the 6 that I drove for CRE. I didn't just take it laying down either. I let the manager of the DM's know that I couldn't survive on the 2200 average weekly that I was driving. I got a few good trips, but I never could get ahead. I know there will be some out there that will say "I told you so.", but I don't care. I did my best and never turned down a load or was ever late.

OK, it's been several weeks since my last blog entry, so I don't remember all the specifics, but here is everything in a nutshell. I ran back east to Philadelphia and New Jersy. Great! Good miles! Now the downer. The toll roads across PA cost me over $150.00. That isn't reimbursed. That's alot of cash out my pocket to get a load going east. I'll drive anywhere. I don't care about driving east or northeast. I just don't want to PAY for it!

I met my parents in western PA for lunch on my way back west. That was probably the only good thing about running across the PA turnpike and having to pay for it out of pocket and no reimbursment. Anyway, had a good visit with my parents and got back west to just west of Columbus, OH.

My load at the time was going to east central IL. I can't even remember the exact town, but I got it there and then ran up to Chicago to pick up a load of Shampoo going to Dollar General Stores in southern OK. About that time I started calling around and looking for another job.

I really had no intention of not continuing with CRE. I started this career with intention of just doing the driving thing that I liked so much and not worrying about the details. I figured everything would work out in the end, no problem. That's fine if you have no bills or obligations.

Wow, I though I lost everything I typed. Computers can be so frustrating. Anyway I contacted a company that would pay me .32 cents a mile and let me buy medical coverage for my family for about $212.00 a month. That's less that half the cost for an IC for CRE. They also guaranteed me hometime of about 3 - 4 days for every 17 days on the road. How could I resist. I did the right thing and told my DM that the load I was on would be my last for CRE.

The big screw-you was yet to come. I got to south central OK and was ready to deliver at 9:30 am in the morning. I even got there a few hours early. Then the people at Dollar General told me that the appointment for my load wasn't until 9:30 pm! What??? That's 12 hours from now. I told my DM and he said there wasn't anything he could do, I would just have to sit there. That was total comfirmation that I had done the right thing by finding other employment. As an IC, sitting for 12 hours is suicide for the weekly paycheck.

I got the load delivered at 9:30pm and the next morning I headed straight for home in Denver, CO. I stopped in western Kansas. The snow was crazy. I got home the next evening and instantly got stuck in the snow about 50 feet from where I was trying to park my truck. I really hate snow!

A guy with a frontend loader came along and pulled me out. I offered to pay him a bit for his trouble, but he just said "Merry Christmas, go enjoy your family", and drove off. What a great holiday gift!

I spent Christmas at home and on the following Tuesday drove the truck back to Salt Lake City and turned it in on Wednesday. I'm glad to be out from under that obligation. I wanted to post my pay statements so everyone could see what exactly the miles were and what the pay ended up being, but CRE instantly deleted my account on the CRE website to allow me to see anything. Oh well. I will say that the miles I was getting were no where near what was needed to suceed.

I got hired by another company that will have me home every 7-10 days for 2-3 days and they pay "practical miles", that's what the truck actually rolls, not the map miles zip to zip. Starting at .32 cents per mile and the health plan for family is only $53 a week. The CRE IC health plan totaled over $500 a month!

So, anyway, I leave for orientation with Reohl Transportation on Saturday. It will take me 2 days to drive up to Marshfield, WI where their headquarters is, but the cool thing is that they are getting me rental car and paying my hotel on my way up there. It's a better feeling already.

As with everything I have written so far, I will be true to what has happened and keep it real. I'm not going to badmouth CRE. I just found a better opportunity. If anyone wants to pump my brain about my 4 month experience with CRE, please email me at skyviper73@yahoo.com and I will try to reply asap. Understand that I will be on the road alot, but I will do my best to respond.

That's what's up. A new job at a new company. I'll actually see my family without costing myself tons of money by parking the truck for a few days. I'm looking foward to the new year and a new direction. I'll keep the blog going as best I can. The good, the bad, everything!

12-6-06 - Wednesday - Haulin' Broccoli

2006-12-06T19:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been over a week since I have had an internet connection that was decent enough to do more than check email. Well anyway, I'm in Little Rock, AR tonight. I got a good dinner and I get some good reception on the TV, so it's a good evening.

To bring you up to date on the past week, it started on wednesday on my way out of Grand Island, NE. I ran on all the little country back roads going south. Very pretty country. As the sun was setting I got to Tucumcari, NM. About the same time that I got to NM, it started snowing like crazy. By the time I got just 15 more miles down the road, it was really coming down. They closed I-40 and I ended up parking it for the night. I woke thursday morning and did my best to crawl down I-40. I hit US 54 south and again started my crawl south.

It was slow going for the first several hours. At about noon, the snow on the road turned to slush and then to just wet roads and then finally to just beautiful dry roads and sunshine.

I delivered in El Paso and parked it for the night. A few words about the delivery. I got there at about 2:00 pm and ended up waiting till about 5:00pm to start getting unloaded and they were done by about 6:30pm. The door I had to back into was crazy too. It was on a strange angle and there was another building straight across from it. Pain in the ass.

Friday I woke up and waited for a load. By 10:00 I still didn't have a load. My DM, (driver manager), sent me on a deadhead trip, (a trip with no load), up to Friona, TX. I started out of El Paso and got about 20 miles before I got another message from my DM to go ahead and go directly to Laredo, TX. OK, so I turned around and headed towards Laredo. I got about 150 miles across I-10 and my DM sent me yet another message. I was to go up to Friona to get a load of meat from Excel meats going to El Paso. I guess he didn't really know what was up. Anyway, I dialed up Friona on the GPS and got to within about an hour of Friona and stopped at a truck stop on some back TX road with about 5 spots for semi's. I squeezed in and put it to bed for the night.

Saturday I loaded at about 11:00am at the Excel meat plant in Friona. I wasn't schedualed to load till 11:00pm, but I got there and they were ready. You never know, sometimes things go right.

I drove down to Big Springs, TX and stopped at the TA there. The trailer I picked up was a bit damaged. The mud flap bracket on the right side of the trailer was bent down so badly that the mud flap was dragging the ground. I didn't want to risk getting stopped by the police, so I stopped at the TA to get it fixed. Because it's a problem with the trailer, I don't have to pay for it.

On sunday I got down to Encinal, TX, about 10 miles from where I was to deliver at 3:00am monday morning. I delivered with no problem and waited for a reload. By 3:pm monday afternoon I told my DM I would be waiting at the Pilot truckstop about 10 miles away. I didn't get a load until 2:00pm on tuesday afternoon. Ouch! I got my 34 hour restart to reset my working hours, but sitting like that isn't good.

My load was from Laredo to Bells, TN. I grabbed the loaded trailer from the CRE drop yard in Laredo and got up to close to San Antonio before I stopped. I grabbed a shower at the Loves and watched some TV.

Today I drove about 600+ miles to Little Rock, AR and stopped at a Petro and ate dinner and again enjoyed some network TV. Tomorrow I expect to get up at about 6:00am and drive the last 3 hours to my delivery. I will be asking for a reload before I deliver with the hope of keeping rolling.

Below are some pictures from the past week.

Farm country in Nebraska

Small town Nebraska

Strike One! Pickup truck in the ditch,,,

Strike 2, horse trailer in the ditch,,,

Fair weather in south New Mexico!

11-28-06 - Tuesday - In a cave!

2006-11-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

Today I delivered in a cave. That's right. I got up at 3:00am and drove about 35 miles down to Kansas City and found the delivery customer. It was a cold storage facility in an industrial park called "Subtropolis". The worlds largest underground industrial complex. Miles and miles of roads underground and warehouses and offices. I found out that the entire complex is an old lime stone mine.

Anyway, I got my delivery done and by 8:00am I was waiting for another load. About an hour later I got my load assignment. I was to pick up in Schuyler, NE and run a load of meat to El Paso, TX. I got to Schuyler at about 2:00pm and was on the way by 3:00pm. I stopped in Grand Island and put it to bed for the night.

Below are some pictures I shot recently.

The clear blue sky in Utah a few days go.

The Rocky mountains in Utah.

My truck docked in the underground.

This is a view of the roads underground.

One of the many entrances to the underground.

11-27-06 - Monday - It's all about the weather!

2006-11-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

The weather the past few days has been good, bad, and ugly. I picked up from the customer in Tacoma, WA on Friday morning. I got 24,000lbs of shrimp cocktail rings with cocktail sauce. Yummy! Unfortunatly, I have to haul the load, not eat it.

I got as far as the Blue Mountains in Oregon and put it to bed for the night. When I woke up, there was about 8 inches of snow piled around the truck and on the roads. I did my best to clean the snow off the hood of the truck and crawled up the road. It was about 530 am and there wasn't much traffic on I-84, but the trucks I did see had their chains on. I was already pretty much up the mountain, so I just pushed through it at about 20 mph.

Later in the day after I got down towards Boise, ID, the weather really cleared up. I cruised down through Utah and into Wyoming before stopping for the night. I stopped in Ft. Bridger and got a shower and watched some local TV.

A word about TV in the truck. The truck has some sort of built in TV antenna that has a connection behind where the TV goes. Usually, I can tune in something. After I get to my house next time, I hope to rig something that will hold my spare DirecTV antenna. Untill then, I will deal with broadcast TV.

Sunday I made good time. Blazing across Wyoming and into Nebraska. I got to about 25 miles from where I was planning to stop in Grand Island, NE and traffic came to a halt. The road had been wet and possible icy. Well, it was very icy for the cars that crashed on the bridge near exit 291. We all sat there for about 2 hours while emergency crews cleared the road. Unplanned delays, gotta love it.

I had a good dinner and a goodnights sleep in Grand Island, NE. Monday I headed out and the roads were still pretty slick so it was slow going untill I got a bit further south. I stopped in St. Joseph, MO and called the customer in Kansas City to see if I could deliver early. That wasn't happening. They only take deliveries from 6-9 in the morning. I parked it and found some local TV to watch and got connected to the internet.

I'm going to get some good sleep now. I have to get up way early tomorrow.