Celadon owns a Mexican carrier - Jaguar. The US & Canadian drivers working for them bring the loads to Laredo, where Jaguar or other Mexican carriers actually deliver the loads. If I'm going to be 'stuck' in Laredo for any length of time, I bobtail out and go to the Flying J to park. The only other place I've ventured to there is the closest Wal-Mart. I try to avoid eating the food in the cafeteria they have there, if that's what you want to call it.

 

well, I liked it ok, also you have vendors that sell food to us as well. had an awsome bbq chicken, spanish rice, refried beens, and baked potato for $5. you can't beet that.

 

yess, I knoticed the jag trucks in the back by the inspection bays. I worked for swift and celedon both had a mexican counterpart. tex-mex for swift, and jaguar for celedon

 

some years back, swift bought mexico's largest carrier, transmex. go down to laredo or calexico, or otay mesa and you'll see them all over the place. before the craziness really began in laredo, i went into nuevo laredo with a couple of swifties and a group of transmex drivers. their rule was "stay within arm's reach and in eye sight at all times!" it was a crazy-fun time for sure. that was one of the best 34hr restarts i ever had!

 

I have heard some real horror stories about drivers taking their trucks into Mexico. I would not take my truck across the border. Mexico used to be a fun place to go. It is really dangerous to cross any more. Even if you aren't directly involved in something you could be caught in the cross fire between the cops and drug cartels. It is dangerous enough on this side of the border.

 

i should have clarified the visit into nuevo laredo. i went down there by way of a taxi cab and the trans-mex drivers as my escorts/protection. there was another time shortly before that restart. only this time i had been sitting at a wal-mart parking lot in calexico over the weekend. it was myself, 4 other swift drivers, 3 cfi drivers, and one independent o/o. we all had a meeting and decided to go down to mexicali. that was an even more awesome night than the time i spent in nuevo laredo. the only bad part is we all had to leave a swifty stranded. the guy took one sip of liquor and became a jekyl & hyde case. we knew we had to ditch him because he would have gotten all of us in some serious trouble. as we were going elsewhere, he attracted the attention of the federalis. the rest of us made it back to our trucks later that night. he didn't. monday came and he was still down south of the border. is it messed up to leave another behind? you bet. however with it being mexico, you've got to CYA.

 

Hey, congrats on the new gig Geeshock.

I've got another month left before I'm somewhat in the clear to get on with a few decent OTR outfits.
Perhaps I'll be running some re-introduction threads similar to your own.

 

hope so, so far things are going ok. Like with any outfit, the longer you are with someplace, the more issues you see but I can say, they don't leave me sitting. Miles are slowing a little this week but I think that has more to do with the loads I've hauled, yesterday I spent 4 hours at on dock in grand rapids getting unloaded and almost 4 hours getting loaded in chicago, needless to say, my miles realy sucked yesterday. Most weeks my milage is 2600 or better though.