There used to be a nice independant TS South of Bend that I used to stay at when I was up there.....cant remember the name of it...

Are you refering to Bend, Oregon? I am in North Bend, Washington

OH..........................never mind.

Gordies in la pine is where you are thinking about....i think.

Yep, that be the one.

First time I found it was in a really bad snow storm, I barely saw the place from the highway...sure was a welcome place to stop.

Had dinner with a driver from May Trucking. He was Hawaiian, said he came over to the Mainland because he got tired of driving in circles...LOL

DD,

Glad to see your movin along still. I never had any luck getting LTL's from " P ". She would have me sit tight for an hour and then kick me loose saying she couldn't find anything for my direction at the time.....She was so dang efficeint, I miss her and "J" :sad:

An update for you about the my reimbursement. Get everything the Co. tells you, in writting... Don't trust what they say. (You still have my number?) I won't be getting payed back the hotel room they told me to get. I will be getting payed back the rental car and the taxi fares to the hospital. I will be out about $240.00 I havent decided on what I'll be doing to regain the loss. I'll tell you this, my warm and fuzzy for Davis has diminsihed a bit because of this. Be careful....

When I read your descriptions I can see the places you mention... :lol: I really liked the Petro at Medicine Lake. I was never able to find a spot at Bend, it was always packed in like sardines. St. Louis, that place...bad place for me... :shock:

DD you be careful with everything, I hope to get back on the road.... when I get better.

Bumper.... long time no see, neighbor...


pb

Sure nice to see that you picked up the knack for LTL's and the $$$ they add to a run!!

I hope you get better soon. I cant imagine how frusterating all that can be.

tootie

02/07-09/08
I got up early as planned and made my run into the Seattle area. My 2nd drop was about 15 miles from the 1st and the final was only about 10 from the 2nd. So by about 10am local time I had all 3 drops off and was calling in my empty status.

No sooner than I called in I was offered a load that was in Vancouver, WA going to Bozeman, MT, 749 miles for a flat rate of $1,400.00. My deadhead was something like 150 miles so I took the load. As I am getting the info, I was sitting there thinking that this stuff is going to be heavy by nature and asked what the weight was. I was told it said 48k. Crap, I can only scale about 47k, maybe a little more if I play with my fuel so I had to turn it down.

I bounced over to the Flying “J” in Tacoma and would call back in a couple of hours. Well shortly after arriving I got a call from the dispatcher saying she called the customer and they say the weight is closer to 46k and would I still be interested. I said sure and headed down to Vancouver.

I get there about 12:30ish local and back into their warehouse. They start loading and what appeared to be a quick load turned out to be anything but. I didn’t roll out of there until after 6pm! The customer asked when I would be delivering and since it’s only 749 miles, I planned on Friday. The only thing that may hold me up would be weather (and the fact they took so long to load me). The customer said that if I could not be there by 2pm Friday, not to bother until Monday. So I told them we better plan on Monday then.

I get rolling down I-84 and planned on stopping at the TA to scale the truck. Well since it was so late in the evening, by the time I get there it is a massive traffic jam of trucks trying to get into the truck stop. So I said the heck with it and kept on rolling.

I get to the first scale house there in Oregon and as I am rolling over the scale, I write the numbers down. I was shocked and a little pissed off when I looked at the numbers. I had a half tank of fuel and my gross weight was a little over 79k. My axles were just barely legal with latterly a few pounds to spare on my trailer and almost a hundred on my drives. This load was no where near 46k; it was more like their original 48k. I figured they must have just told Davis 46 so I would come get it. If I was going farther than Bozeman I would have been really pissed off because I don’t shine to bullshit too well.

Anyways, I ended up stopping in Wasco, OR for the night and got up early the next morning and made my way to Missoula. The roads were clear and dry all the way to Lookout Pass. There, all west bound trucks were required to chain up and east it was just advised. I hate having to chain up and debated whether or not to do so. I finally decided that since I was so heavy I would go ahead and run barefoot across. Well that was an adventure in it’s self because in my personal opinion, the roads were bad enough that it should have been required vise advised. Too late now because I need to keep the truck moving, if I try to stop and chain up, I may not be able to get going again, besides I already passed the chain up area long ago and there really isn’t anywhere to pull over safely. Although the seat was stuck to my “you know what”, I made it over with no problems.

I got to Missoula about 3pm and was surprised there were so many drivers here. It reminded me of not so long ago when there were company drivers and Muralt’s TS was like the unofficial Davis terminal. Since I knew I would be resetting my hours here, I decided to treat myself to a hotel room and a few cold beers.

Sometime Sunday I will make my way to Bozeman for a first thing Monday morning delivery.

Yeah LTL's are not always easy. You got to be in the right place at the right time. I just got lucky.

Sorry to hear that things are not or did not work out the way it was promised to you. I certainly hope you get healed and compensated soon. Would love to see you out here again.