WEEK THIRTY
Monday, July 21st through Sunday, July 27th
Well, it’s Monday and my week of home time has come to an end, back to work.
I arrived at the yard to find my truck where I had left it, but was a bit disappointed to find no empty trailers in the yard. It’s the same old story, no trailer, no load. I let dispatch know that I was back on the truck and ready to work, but did not have an empty trailer available. That didn’t slow them down any though; I was sent a single load offer. It was a shag load sitting in the yard that delivered on the north side of town. It meant sitting around for a couple of hours waiting for a live unload, but at least I would have my empty trailer.
Just to start the week off right this load had a 7am appointment and a quick check of my watch let me know that it was 6:50am. That means I have 10 minutes to hook to the trailer and drive 25 miles in rush hour traffic. I hope they aren’t one of those customers that take exception to late deliveries. It’s just a load of AC units going to a small distribution warehouse, so I can’t imagine that they will put up much of a fuss.
When I finally managed to make it there, no one seemed too be concerned by the late arrival and I backed to the dock and spent the next two hours waiting for them to unload my trailer. Once that had been accomplished I put in my MT call and hoped for a decent load out of town. I was really hopping that I wouldn’t get a load going into California. Well, I didn’t get a Cali load but I was sent a crappy little 360 mile run going to NM that had a 11am live unload the next day. Not the way I wanted to start my new week, but I dutifully accepted the load and waited for the load info.
Once the Qualcomm started beeping I wrote down all the pertinate information and then started to read the comments on the bottom of the page. Oh goodie! “No trailers over 10 years old will be accepted by the shipper.” And it just so happens that I had one that was 11yrs old. That’s a Monday for ya. I sent a message off to dispatch asking them for a different load because my current trailer would be refused if I tried to pull it into the shipper. Of course it couldn’t be that simple, instead I was told to drive back to the yard to see if there were any newer empty trailers there. My reply telling them that I had been there a little over 2hrs ago and there were none at that time was summarily ignored and I finally relented and headed back to the yard. As suspected, no empties had magically appeared and I sent another message off to dispatch that let them know that unless they know where I could pickup a newer trailer I must be released from this load. Although this was turning into a big pain in the back side, I was actually happy to get out of this short run.
After about 45 minutes I finally received another load offer. Not much of an improvement, another 373mi run going to NM, but at least this on had an open drop delivery time and 180mi of deadhead to make a respectable 550mi run. Unfortunately it was already noon and the better part of my 14hrs clock has been wasted. Oh well, at least I’m finally rolling.
After getting all the necessary info I pointed the truck south and headed off to Nogales. I made it about 30 miles down the road and got a beep on the Qualcomm (I sure wish I could read this thing when the truck was moving). I didn’t really have any idea what they might want, but I assumed it wouldn’t be good news. I was right; they wanted me to shuttle a damaged trailer from the shipper to a local repair shop before picking up my preloaded trailer. Apparently it had been there for some time and they were getting a little perturbed with Crete for leaving it there so long. Looks like I’m the lucky one again. This day is turning out to be a hoot.
I arrived at the shipper to find a very small yard with trailers parked inches apart and no where to put my empty trailer. What a pain. First I had to drop my trailer in a open dock, next I hook to the damaged trailer and pull it out of its shoe horn spot and pull it out onto the street and drop it there (made for a great road block). Back into the yard to hook to my original trailer and spend the next 10 minutes wiggling it back into the blind back spot I had pulled the bad trailer out of. Then back to the street to hook to the bad trailer and off to find the repair shop. That was another adventure that should have taken 5 minutes but turned into 40 minutes. The directions where a little less than specific.
Back to the shipper I go and begin my next challenge. All I had to do was hook and go, but my Monday of trials and tribulations was destine to continue. Upon backing under my trailer I found that it wouldn’t sit flush on the 5th wheel slide. The trailer was parked on an uphill and slanted parking spot that was twisting the frame in a nasty way. When I tried to crank the legs down in an attempt to get it to a point where I could latch onto the king pin I found that there was a incredible amount of tension on the legs and it took every thing I had to crank the handle, even in low gear. As my frustration was mounting I was assaulted by a horn from the yard jockey. Apparently he needed to pull the one and only trailer I was blocking out of the dock. I wasn’t making any progress and didn’t want to hold him up so I went back to the truck and pull ahead so the yard dog could pull his trailer and be on his way.
What happened next just left me dumb founded. After he hooked to the trailer (thus sitting directly in front of my trailer) he jumped out of the cab and went inside. Un fing believable! I sat there for another 15 minutes waiting for him to come back out and finally decided to hunt him down. I found him in the middle of a BS session with a co-worker. It’s times like these when I am tempted to respond in a less than professional manner, but I refrained and simple walked up to him and asked him to move his truck so that I could get my trailer. I wasn’t really impressed with his nonchalant, when I feel like it attitude, so I simply stood at a painfully uncomfortable close distance from them with a smile as they tried to continue their conversation. There is nothing like a complete stranger stepping into a conversation and hovering like a hawk to bring it to a sudden stop. He got the point and finally headed outside to do his job.
After that little delay I was ready to make another go at hooking to my twisted trailer on a hill. The tension on the legs was really too much to deal with and I didn’t think I would have too much luck getting any help from the yard dog considering what had just transpired so I went on a search for something I could put under the trailer and drive up onto so that I could get the legs off the ground. I was able to find a couple of wood blocks that did the trick. I was still very concerned, even though I was able to latch onto the king pin, the trailer still wasn’t sitting flush. I was beginning to think this trailer might have some serious frame damage. It would only be a fitting end to this day. It turned out to just be the angle of the parking lot, once I pulled out onto leave land everything settled into place and was finically on my way. What should have been a nice quick 15 minute drop and hook had turned into 1½ hrs of aggravation, but it was behind me now and tomorrow would be another day. As for today, 14hrs and a whopping 430 miles.
I start out my Tuesday with an optimistic outlook. It has to be better than yesterday, right? I arrive at the customer and drop my trailer where instructed and wander around for a while looking for their empty trailer lot. After taking a little tour of the surrounding area I am rewarded with an empty trailer and put in my MT call which results in no load offer. After about 15 minutes I get a message that they are short on freight, but “working on it”.
The wait wasn’t as long as I feared and I received a single load offer and other than being a live load and unload it was a good one going to the Atlanta area (1743mi). All I had to do was headhead 150 miles to get the load and I would be on my way. There is even enough time on this load that I will be able to stop off at the Marietta yard to get my A service taken care along with a number of minor issues that are in need of some attention.
There is one other little hiccup to this load, I’m suppose to be there for an 12:30 appointment, but it’s already 11am and I have 150 miles to go (not going to happen). Must be a brokered load; I let dispatch know I was on my way but would be about an hour late for my pickup. That turned out to be very optimistic, but then I had no idea what laid ahead of me. I should have guessed when I read the name of the shipper “St. Cloud Mining Co” (I do recall wandering what they mined).
The first 120 miles or so went just great, interstate into the south central part of the state and then follow the instructions given to me. “Follow Hwy52 into Winston to 2nd street (I later found these so called “streets” to be a fairly liberal description as well as a so called town), T/L follow uphill to top @ Y intersection T/L an go 8 mi.” Simple enough.
Now, when I turned off the interstate onto Hwy 52 I was greeted by a very narrow paved road and wasn’t looking forward to 20+ miles of riding the lines to get to my turn. Fortunately there wasn’t too much traffic which was a good thing. This road was very narrow and my trailer took up a good portion of the road on a number of the turns. At one point I could see for some distance in both directions and had a chance to hop out and take a picture on a better stretch of the road.
This wasn’t the worst stretch of road I had ever been on, but there certainly wasn’t much room for error. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was currently on a modern day expressway by comparison to what lay ahead.
I finally arrived at the thriving metropolis know as Winston, NM (consisting of 2-3 buildings and a couple of so called streets that my directions had eluded too. I turned left at what appeared to be the best course of action and was happy to see a dilapidated sign that said “St Cloud” along with a little arrow. “Must be on the right track”.
Up a little hill I went looking for a “Y” in the road and this is what I get.
“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!” 8 MILES?
OK, I spent a number of year driving a dump truck around on roads just like this in the Phx dessert, but that was in a truck and trailer built for this kind of terrain. I was not looking forward to the next 8 miles and my ill feeling turned out to be well founded.
The road simply went from bad:
To worse:
Keep one thing in mind, this was a supposed two lane road and every time I went around a corner I was on the CB calling out a warning and blowing my air horn as I went around. The pictures above were actually some of the wider spots; I couldn’t take a chance of shooting a shot as I was going around some of the nasty turns in the event I was meet by another vehicle.
As the saying goes, just as I thought it was as bad as it could get, it took a turn for the worse. As I was marveling at the ridiculousness of this road and wondering what in the hell I was doing here I came across another hairpin turn and was horrified to see what appeared to be nothing more than a sandy wash in the middle of the dessert. I’ve been on this kind of terrain before, but I was riding an ATV at the time and having a blast. Throw yourself into a semi and all of a sudden it’s not so much fun anymore. All I could do was turn my steer wheels in the general direction I wanted to go and hope for the best. Response was sluggish at best and I was getting horrendous traction and downshifting as quickly as I could in an attempt to keep moving before I sank into the sand. I had been caught completely off guard and had not bothered locking in my differentials earlier on and now was too late. I was sure I was about to sink in and spin.
I basically found myself in a situation where there was nothing that resembled a road and I was having serious doubts about having missed a turn somewhere.
The sand trap lasted for about half a mile with varying degrees of depth and I once again found myself on solid footing in the form of a so-so gravel road that eventually grew to a respectable width and a few more miles down the road found me at the front door step of the elusive St Cloud Mining Co a mere 1 hour late for my appointment. Apparently they mine a substance called “Zeomite” or something along those lines. Basically it was some kind of hard clay that they blasted out of the ground and pounded into granules and powders. It is used as cat litter and oil absorbents in the granule form and as an ingredient in metal polishes and as swimming pool filter medium in its powder form among other uses.
Being late didn’t seem to be a problem with anyone; as a matter of fact I was the only one in a ten mile radius as best I could tell. I was loaded with 45,000# of the powder stuff in short order and after scaling out on site I was ready to have another go at that sand gully. I really wasn’t feeling very confident in my chances, but knowing I wasn’t the only truck to have been out here I figured I had a fair chance of getting out. I did ask the shipping clerk how often trucks got stuck “on that road back there”, he just laughed and said “Every few days we have to pull one of you guys out”. I decided not to ask him how often trucks come out here.
OK, here we go. I locked my rear end in and I was off to the races. On my way out I actually meet another truck who was on his way in and he called me on the CB. Something to the effect of “Holy Sh**, I thought I was lost, is the road to the mine?”
A few more turns and I found myself bearing down on the stretch of sand and hit it with my RPM wound up in the hopes of plowing through it before the sand sucked all of my momentum out of the truck. That always worked during my dump truck days (when I had a 575HP Cat under the hood) and I assumed it would have similar results today. Well, let me tell you what happens when you hit 6-12” deep sand with a gutted 400 something HP Detroit with an occasional “acceleration hiccup” in it. I immediately lost massive RPMs and the damn thing started missing what seemed like every other cylinder and my attempt to downshift one gear was hopeless and I dropped two right of the bat and as soon as I hit that gear I realized I was going to have to grab a low range gear and settled on 4th gear and floored it and was just barely able to keep the momentum going long enough to get me out of the mess. The pictures really don’t do it justice, mainly because I wasn’t able to take a shot of the worst of it, but these will give you some idea of what I was looking at.
Anyone that has pulled 80,000# through sand knows what I was dealing with, any one that hasn’t, well, hope you never experience such a thing. I was surprised that I made it through with my gutless wonder of a truck. I have no idea what would have happened if I had meet another truck at the point of the journey.
OK, I know I’m whining, but I just wasn’t in the mood for this kind of trip today.
I finally made it out of my back road experience and my trip out on the narrow two lane asphalt road didn’t seem nearly as bad as it did on the way in.
I spent the rest of my day driving out my hours and had just enough time to put in 600 miles for the day. This would make it possible to put in two 11hrs days of driving which would allow me to make it to our Marietta yard so that I could put the truck in the shop.
The next couple of days were uneventful (for a change) and I was able to make it to the Marietta yard early Thursday evening. This load had an appointment delivery for 11am the next day and I was hoping that would be enough time to have an “A” service done and take care of a few other nagging problems with the truck. But, as I has somewhat expected, I was told that they wouldn’t be able to get me in until the next morning at best. I wanted to be at the consignee an hour early and would have to leave by 9am to do that. The shop didn’t open till 7am and I knew there was no way anything would get done in a two hour window so I decided I would see what I could do about getting the truck in a shop later in the week. I was starting to get a little tight on hours, if I got the right trip over the next day or two, I would be able to take a reset at one of our terminals and have the work done then. It is always a tremendous time saver to have work done at these times.
That left me with about 14hrs of downtime, so I took a nice long walk (75° in Atlanta, mid July; unheard of) and took care of my laundry and was ready to go the next morning.
Friday morning had me looking at a quick little run to the northeast side of Atlanta to make my 11am appointment. I showed up my usual one hour early and was assigned a dock door. After a short 40min unload I was empty and awaiting my next load offer.
I receive a one load offer; this is becoming more common again, at least during the week. The weekend dispatch still seems to be handing out more of the multi choice loads. Anyway, this load was a drop/hook PU just up the road and destine for NY(1049mi). Not my favorite part of the country, but a quick check of the map showed that I was headed upstate, close to Vermont as a matter of fact, and I would be able to take I-81 and avoid the 95 corridor. I was actually looking forward to this run because it would get me out of the heat and I would be able to control my idling with much less discomfort.
The drop/hook was quick and painless and I was on my way to good ol’ NY state. I wasn’t able to run my full 11hrs today though because I got a late start due to my mid-day delivery and running my hours out for the day would have found my looking for a parking spot very late in the evening along I-81 somewhere in MD or southern PA. Never a sure thing, so I held up short in northern VA. I wasn’t in any great hurry anyway, this was a drop/hook delivery on Sunday and I was going to be there Saturday evening well after their closing time. I would be there early, but not able to drop until the following morning anyway.
Saturday was going to be another short day; it was only going to take about 9hrs to get where I was going. There was a truck stop less than a mile from the customer where I planed to spend the night, so when I got there I went ahead and stopped at the customer first. As I had suspected, no one was around in shipping/receiving, but there was a sign on the door that said they would be back at 5am. That was encouraging because my load assignment said they didn’t open until 6am. This was a good little tidbit of info to have. There were a large number of Crete trailers on site and I had to assume that there would be other trucks dropping loads in the morning. If they had the same info, they would think that the doors opened at 6am and I could be in and out before that and get the first crack at the loads going out the following day. Early bird gets the worm!
There was plenty of room to drop my trailer and I did so. There were also a large number of empty trailers on site, so I know that wasn’t going to be an issue. One less thing to worry about in the morning, I just wish that there would have been someone around to sign off on the bills. I still have a few hours left in my day and I could have been on my way to the next load. I could hear people in the warehouse, but the receiving office was dead. Oh well. I just bobtailed over to the truckstop to put in for the night.
The weather did not disappoint either. As I had hoped, it was wonderfully cool and we even got a fairly heavy rain throughout the night. I always sleep better when the rain is bouncing off the truck.
While at the truckstop I went inside to watch some TV in the lounge to pass a little time. I had also noticed three other Crete trucks in the parking lot and found the driver to one of them inside. We had a chance to chat for awhile; he was one of the old school drivers who had been with the company for 10+ years. When ever I run across one of the Crete long timers I line to ask them as many questions as I can about Crete, what it used to be like, their impression of what its like now and so on. He was a very pleasant man and it was a very enjoyable conversation. He was quick to tell me that he gets all the miles he wants (2500-3000mi/wk). “He’s not as young as he used to be” and doesn’t want anymore than that. He was also willing to admit that he has seen many changes of late, but overall he didn’t have any serious complaints, other than the new “idle policy” that is. As far as he was concerned, “I’ll idle this damn thing whenever I need too.” I would have to say that is the standard response I get from most of the old timers; can’t say that I blame them. Hopefully it will be a moot point soon. The new APU installs are in the works, just a matter of time before we all get ours.
Before heading off to bed for the night I made it a point to let him know that the doors opened at five the next morning as opposed to six and there were plenty of empty trailer. He thanked me but informed me he planed on sleeping in.
I started my Sunday as early as I deemed useful. The sign on the customer’s door had said that they would return at 5am. I showed up at 4:45 so that one, I would be waiting for them when they arrived, and two, so that I would get there before the other Crete drivers so I could get the first pick of available loads. I arrived to find that the receiving office was already staffed and since I had dropped my trailer the night before, I had my signed paperwork in hand within minutes and was sending in my MT call by 5am.
As I had hoped, I was sent a choice of three loads. One was a very crappy 300mi run with a live load today and a live unload late tomorrow (it pays to get the pick of the litter, I’m glad I showed up early), the two others were drop/hook PU’s 60 miles down the road. One going to Atlanta (1060mi) with a D/H delivery and the other going just outside of Detroit (669mi) with an early morning appointment delivery.
As I was running over my options with assistance from my Streets and Trips in an effort to figure out which load would work out best with my available hours I had seen one of the other Crete drivers pull in. After coming out of the shipper’s office he stopped by my truck to find out what kind of load offers I had received and I gave him a quick run down. He seemed keen on the Atlanta load and I told him I would see what I could do for him. He then went back to his truck and waited for his load offer. Now, at Crete it often works like this when there is more than one truck in the same area. A multi load offer is sent to the first empty truck (that was me in this case because I made it a point to be the first one there), once I choose my load the remaining loads are sent to the next truck in line.
I was in a situation where I only had about 8 hrs left, after which time I would need to take a 34reset. All of the loads offered fit into that criteria and all I had to do is decide where I wanted to spend my reset. I really wanted the Atlanta load, mainly because the freight base out of that area is so strong, plus it was a much longer run and had a D/H delivery. The Detroit run was shorter and had an appointment delivery, so it wasn’t nearly as desirable, but if I took that load I would have just enough time to make it to Erie, PA. That may not sound all that exciting, but I had never spent any time there and I assumed it would be a good place to do a little sight seeing. After all, it’s right there on Lake Erie, there has to be something to do, and I could probably count on a nice cool breeze to keep the area cool. The idle issue is always at play. If I take the Atlanta run I would be stuck at some hole in the wall truckstop in northern VA with no known entertainment in the immediate area. I also had the fact that the other driver wanted the Atlanta load, and since it was a D/H delivery, he could pick it up and run with it and deliver it early. The PA load wasn’t even an option.
Even though the Atlanta run would have netted me more miles over all, I chose to pass it on to the other driver so he wouldn’t be stuck with one of the other two. I needed the reset, he didn’t. Erie sounded like an interesting stopover anyway.
I accepted the Detroit run and waited for my load info (which for some reason took an hour today, Qualcom delay hasn’t been an issue lately, but it was in full effect today). Not really a big deal however, even though it was a D/H PU, it wasn’t scheduled to be ready until after 11am and it’s not even 6am at this time. I will show up early anyway, but still no rush.
While I waited I headed on over to the truckstop so that I would be out of the way. Shortly there after the other driver that had delivered after me pulled along side and thanked me for the Atlanta load and offered to buy me breakfast. I thanked him in return and took him up on the offer.
We were both picking up at the same shipper and made the trip at the same time, arriving a couple of hours early. Once there he found his load ready to go, but they were just getting ready to start on my load. Instead of messing around with the drop/hook thing, they just had me back into a vacant door and did a live load. No big deal, I’m in no real hurry anyway. The only thing I have to look forward to is Erie, PA.
The loading process went amazingly quick, which was a good thing. Since I had started my day so early I was beginning to be squeezed by my 14hr clock. I wasn’t worried about it when I thought it was a D/H, but the live loading had me concerned. The worry was all for not however. Once loaded I was off and made it to the Pilot on the south side of Erie without a minute to spare on my 70hr clock. I had a grand idea of spending the next couple of nights in a nearby hotel. I even got permission to drop my trailer at the Pilot, but after pulling out the computer and looking for a room I was very disappointed to find that Erie is not a cheap place to stay during the summertime. Oh well, it was quit pleasant as far as the temperature went and I had planed on spending the entire day Monday wondering around town to see whatever there is to see in Erie.
Another week done!
WEEK THIRTY
Monday, July 21st through Sunday, July 27th
Miles include deadhead
Phoenix, AZ to Phoenix, AZ(Shag load).......................................1mi
Nogales, AZ to Santa Teresa, NM............................................554m i
Winston, NM to Lawrensville, GA............................................1743 mi
Oakwood, GA to Gansevoort, NY...........................................1049m i
Rotterdam, NY to Erie, PA (first let).........................................405mi
Total Paid Miles............................................. ......................3752 Miles
Actual Miles………………………3910 Miles (50mi due to driving around Phx for shag load plus some personal bobtail use)
3752 Miles x .42 = $1575.84
+Shag pay = $35
This was a bad great week for miles. Even though I ended up with over 3700 paid miles for the week, it took me an entire 7 days to run out my 70 hrs. I am now doing a 34reset, but it isn’t really isn’t the most productive use of a reset. I would much rather run my hours off in 6 days. After my reset I will be ready to go by 2am Tuesday morning. Midnight (00:01) of the same day is also when I will regain hours from the previous week. I could have run 8-9hrs days to this point and achieved similar miles at the end of the 8 day period, the difference is that: one, I wouldn’t have the luxury of sitting around and taking a day off (I would have to drive 8.5 hrs tomorrow also), two, after my reset I will have a fresh 70hr clock with no restrictions on how many hours I can work each day next week. This is the MAIN reason I strive for resets. By the end of the 8th day I will have similar miles in either case, but the following week presents me with the opportunity to run another 3700 miles, whereas the 8-9 hr day would restrict me to a maximum of 3200 miles or so.
ops:
