Gambling with Nevada
I booked this load from Quebec Canada to Nevada:
Line/haul: $5,900 Fuel surcharge: $1,068 To the truck: $1,068 + 73% of $5,900 Total to the truck: $5,375 Loaded miles: 2,925 miles D/H from Sydney NS to the pickup: 587 miles I got up at 4 am this morning to drive the remaining 2 hours to the shipper in Quebec. Moose warnings were everywhere but I got lucky and didn't see a single animal. Got to the shipper in Mont-Joli QC around 8 am and of course I was at the wrong gate. Had to drive around on some narrow city streets to get to the correct gate. They loaded me with 8 (!) small skids full of some metal parts and the total weight is 30,368 lbs. Each skid is only 46 inches long, so I had the forklift guy - who spoke 2 words of English - put 4 in front of the signal light on my trailer and the other 4 behind (in rows of 2). No tarping was requested (I had checked this before booking the load, as I don't carry tarps on my stepdeck). I passed Montreal today (I hate this town) and shut down at the Flying J on the western side, in the suburb of Vaudreul. From here it's only 30 minutes to Ontario where everybody speaks English! My delivery is in the town of Golconda, NV so when I pass Chicago IL I'll just stay on I-80 all the way to the town. After that it's a bit tricky... Here's directions to the consignee as written on my paperwork: "take Exit #... off I-80, travel north 15 miles to end of payment, then 12 miles to the mine." This is going to be interesting! |
I got up at 5 am, grabbed coffee at the Flying J and was on Hwy 20 out of Montreal by 6. While driving towards Napanee, ON on 401, it occurred to me I might get a LTL shipment out of Canada to US. A half of my trailer is empty: despite what the agent said ("it's a full 48' load"), what I have is 8 skids each only 46" by 46" and 24" tall. The weight is 30,000 lbs so I still could take 19,000 lbs, in theory...
I stopped at the Flying J in Napanee, logged on to the Landstar Loadboard to see if there was any loads out of the Greater Toronto Area going west, but the search produced 0 results. I did see however a bunch of loads out of Nevada but the pickup time was Jan-03. I called the agent who posted one of the loads and told her I"d be in Nevada on Jan-05 and will have to do a 34 hr reset but if she has something on Jan-07 I'd be glad to move it for at least $2.35/mi to Landstar. She took my cell phone number and truck number and promised to call once an Ontario-bound freight pops up. I drove from Montreal at the steady 1,270 RPM and 95 KM/H (59 mph) and my fuel gauge is still above 1/4. After I had that overpriced fueling in New Brunswick ($1.187 per liter or $4.48 per US gallon!) I was determined to make the fuel last as long as possible. My odometer now shows I'm more than 1,200 miles away from that Irving in NB and I hope to reach some truck stop in MI to get more fuel. No more diesel in Canada for me, at least for now! I'm at the Duty Free on the border in Sarnia, ON and my Verizon USB stick already catches the US signal. I stopped here to check if my ACE is ready for crossing, and will sleep today somewhere in Michigan. Happy New Year from Michigan, everybody! -tracer |
Speaking of gambling..... I won $3500 at Sierra Sids Casino (ta truckstop) in Reno back in May :)
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It is 2000 miles from Capac, MI to Golconda, Nevada where I must deliver on January 5th. So, I had 4 days at my disposal. I checked Google Maps to see what truck stop was roughly 500 miles west of Capac. Walcott, IA caught my eye where the 'world's largest truck stop' is located. So, I set myself a goal to reach Iowa-80 by the end of Saturday, Jan-01. It'd be a perfect place to take a shower and do my laundry.
As usuall it took 2 people at the McDonald's to process my 'double espresso with hot water' request, and I left Capac at 9 am. As I drove west on I-69, I-94 and then I-80, the temperature started to drop. It was +4C or 39F in Capac, MI, -3C or 26F in Chicago, IL and by the time I reached Walcott, IA it became really chilly at -9C or 15F. The roads were all clear, with hardly any snow in the ditches, but a strong western wind started up after Chicago and it kept blowing head-on all the way to Iowa. I planned to fuel up at Iowa-80 but the price was $3.31 per gallon, so I filled only 1 tank. Diesel might get cheaper further west, you never know ... In Capac, MI I got one tank too and it was 3.25 per gallon. I have never been to the third floor at the Iowa-80 truck stop, but that's where you have to go to get showers and do your laundry. They also have great pictures of old trucks on the walls, and I ran into this old fuel pump on a stairway landing (see the pic). Don't you wish sometimes that at least for a month diesel became this cheap? Ah.. the good old days, when classic Peterbilts were the way to go and nobody cared about fuel mileage :) |
When you get out to Wyoming,Utah you will find fuel for under $3.00 gallon.
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When you pay your quarterly fuel tax, which Landstar will deduct you will see that the pump price means nothing, pay it at the pump or mail it in quarterly, NO difference |
Any one have a 3G Ipad? How is that thing working?
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The stick works great. I love it. It gives you independence. I can't tell you how many times people with sad faces would come over to me and ask, "Do they have Wi-Fi here?" and I had to say, "No. I'm using my own USB stick!" Even in places where they do have "free" Wi-Fi, I sometimes just get tired of waiting for the connection, plug in my USB stick and I'm online in 15 seconds. The Bell stick I'm using in Canada works actually worse than the Verizon in US: for some reason it kicks you off the Net if you stay idle for over 10 or 15 minutes (eg when you're reading something online). I called Bell about this and they said that's how it was designed, to prevent people from down- and uploading too much stuff. But it is a bit cheaper than Verizon. Everybody is going crazy about smartphones, but I like browsing Internet on my 15" screen Dell with ultra-sharp 1,920 x 1,080 dpi resolution. |
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I have one, works real good but it is limited what you can do with it, if you just want internet surfing it works fine. |
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My first stop after the Iowa-80 truck stop this morning was a Bosselman/Pilot near Altoona IA, where I took the attached picture. Somehow, the words "24 days without an accident" do not instill much confidence, do they? If I were the manager of the truck stop, I'd probably hide that sign in the closet till I had at least "100 days without an accident". Otherwise, it kind of makes you think, "What exactly happened 25 days ago?" Did a runaway forklift truck kill 5 people in the shop or was it something worse?
Driving came easy today, thanks in part to the great audiobook I picked up at the Flying J in Lake Station, IN the other day. This thriller by John Lescroart is called "The First Law" and it came with 5 CDs with a running time of 6 hours ... all attactively priced at $9.99. Were I to spend that money of a DVD movie, the entertainment would be over in 2 hours. With the audiobook inside my Sony CD player I spent the biggest part of the day following the adventures of Leutenant Abe Glitsky, his friend Dismas Hardy the lawyer and Hardy's former client, John Holiday. Here's from the jacket, ".... Cut off from the system that they both served, denied justice from the corridors of power, and increasingly isolated at every turn, Hardy and Glitsky face their darkest hour..." :) I did 568 miles today and shut down at North Platte, NE. The price of diesel still hovers is $3.30 per gallon at the Flying J and only a cent cheaper at the Love's across the road. The good news is I only have 1000 miles to go to the drop, so I only need one fill-up. |
Tracer, you need to fuel at TA/Petro. the cost plus price you get will almost always be the best. Today OKC Petro cash price $3.19, LS price $2.97 Loves cash price $3.18 LS price $3.10. Use your book to call and check TA/Petro, when the price of crude is falling the discount can be .40 or more
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I know ... that's what they told us at Landstar. I fueled this morning at the Flying J in NE and the posted CASH price was $3.29. There was a Love's across the road - same price. I then passed a TA while driving on 80 thru NE and the CASH price posted on the sign was $3.34! |
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Remember those useless subjects we wasted time on in school? I think basic math plus maybe some physics plus chemistry ... okay ... some biology (to know how things work around us) were at least somewhat useful. When I stopped in Sydney NE for breakfast this morning I used those basic math skills - well, kind of... I took out my cell phone, opened the 'Calculator' application and punched in my hours for the past 7 days :) It turned out I have only 7.5 hours to work today! What's worse - I"ll have only 4.5 hours for tomorrow! That throws a big monkeywrench in my plans... I thought I'd deliver the load early on Tuesday but now that's moot (especially since the consignee stops receiving at 3 pm Mountain Time). I'm going to have to take it easy for now and just try to be in Golconda NV before 3 pm on Wednesday, Jan-05th.
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What ever happended with your trailer tire?
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From Laramie, WY
Pilot, x. 310 off I-80 I called our LCAPP department - the one that deals with discount programs on tires, fuel etc - and now I finally know how to find out the "Landstar Price" I'd pay per gallon BEFORE I fuel. The LCAPP rep on the phone said the only way to do that is to call the 1-800 number listed in our LCAPP fuel directory (an orange thin booklet) and it only works for TA and Petro truck stops. The service is fully automatic and when you call you choose what price you'd like to know, "retail" or "base plus". I chose the "base plus" and then I punched in the 4-digit code for the truck stop location in Rawlings, WY (the codes are listed in the booklet). The computer told me the 'base price' today at that TA truck stop is the unbelievable ... $3.049!!! According to the orange booklet, it's cost plus $0.025', so as a Landstar driver I'd pay $3.049 + $0.025 or only $3.07 per gallon! They kept telling us to fuel at TA and Petro for best savings but I never bothered to compare the prices at 'cost plus' locations with regular Pilots and Flying Js. Now I'm a big believer, and here's why: The Pilot truck stop in Laramie, WY where I'm now shows $3.259 as cash price per gallon, and I could fuel here too. According to my orange booklet, I'd get 4 cents off the cash price at this location, so my "Landstar price per gallon' would be $3.219. That's all nice and dandy, but that's still 14 cents MORE per gallon than I'd pay at the TA in Rawlings, WY! TA and Petro are the only two truck stop chains that offer this 'cost plus' discount program to Landstar drivers. The 'plus' part varies from 2 to 3 cents and is only available in US. All other truck stops have the 'cash minus cents per gallon" deal. |
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It's called a "Cost Plus Price" and other companies besides Landstar uses it too. I can't believe they didn't tell you this at the orientation!!!! The cost plus price at the TA in Porter, IN is currently $.31 less than the posted price. You could have saved a ton when you came thru |
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T/A Petro is the best price on fuel 99% of the time, but not the place for a 120 day inspection. Now with all that money your saving you can buy lunch when you get down to my part of the world and I can help you with load selection, and a few other things. |
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The "short of hours due to overwork" should be changed to "short of hours due to me making a stupid decision and taking a load to an island in BFE" LOL !!!!!!!!!!!! You shall soon learn that MILES dont make you $$$$, accessorial charges and short-haul premiums DO !!!!! |
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Cost per mile at 10,000 mi/mo Base cost 0.15 Lease 0.15 Insurance 0.02 Maintenance 0.05 Fuel 0.7 Bills 0.64 Rev/mile 1.71 GROSS REQUIRED: 2.25 OR $2.64 On 8500 mi a month So, even $2.25 per mile on 10,000 miles a month will allow me to meet all my financial goals; but to be more realistic - for 8,500 miles - I should shoot for $2.65 per mile (after rounding it off). That's the rate quoted on the load board, GROSS to Landstar. |
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From Little America, WY
Exit 68, I-80 I fueled up this morning at the TA in Rawlins, WY. The posted rate was $3.329 per gallon and the sticker on the pump said, "cash and 3 party cash equivalent billing cards receive 7 cents off". When I used my Comdata to activate the pump, it still showed the CREDIT price in that little window and even the rolling dollar and gallon numbers reflected the $3.329 price. But when I went inside to get my receipt, I saw t showed the CASH price of $3.259 per gallon. I don't know yet what the "hidden" Landstar discount price is on my card but is should be considerably less than that. I'm cruising through the rest of Wyoming and the scenery is breathtaking. The roads are clear but there's lots of snow in the fields. I keep my engine speed steady at 1,270 RPM and the road speed at 95 KM/H or 59 MPH. At this speed I seem to be doing great in terms of fuel, despite the strong wind. |
I love Wyoming...... I went out to Reno like I stated around the end of April and in Nebraska it was 80*. When I got to Laramie tho it dropped to 31* and snowed the whole way to Rawlings. Then it went back to 77* and about 25miles down the road I took a picture of this tornado. Come to find out, it was about 7 miles wide but didn't damage anyhting but some fences. I originally thought it was just a large downpour, but it was on the news that night that it was a F2. I was amazed
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...12/tornado.jpg |
Well, it's beautiful here now as you can see from my pics: it's sunny and the temp is at 16F. By the way it's R-a-w-l-i-n-s, WY. There's a Rawlings in VA and MD though.
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From the TA truck stop in Tooele, Utah
Exit 99 off I-80, 20 miles west of Salt Lake City 552 km (343 mi) from Golconda, Nevada By an amazing coincidence I turned off the ignition at the Tooele TA (pronounced 'too - E - lah') exactly 5 hours and 30 minutes after I started work; and 5.5 hrs was all I could work today ;) The diesel cash price here is ... $3.41 per gallon! I called the Landstar fuel line and 'our' special price is $3.185. It's good that I fueled in Rawlins, WY - that TA is close to a huge oil refinery and I think that's why their diesel prices are lower. I don't remember the last time I crossed Salt Lake City, UT via I-80 and that hill is quite something, isn't it? The road up was okay (I had to downshift to Gear 7 Low), but the way down was scary. It's 6.5% grade and driving in 8 Low and with the jake brake on Max, the truck got up to 65 MPH in a matter of seconds. I kept my RPM between 1500 and 1600 RPM for maximum exhaust braking power... Thanks goodness, the pavement was dry and clear of snow. Otherwise I'd need chains - I saw the sign right before the grade, saying CHAINS REQUIRED WHEN LIGHTS FLASHING. I set up camp in the restaurant inside the truck stop with my laptop, scanner and Verizon USB stick. I need to prepare the mileage report so that I can send it quickly tomorrow, when I deliver the load. I also want to scan and email most of my logs I've filled out until today, again so that tomorrow I'd need to send only the bill of lading and the customs paperwork. |
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*sigh* the good ole days!!! *sigh* cured me of liking heights I tell you what!! |
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