[jimjim]

There's a reason for the less'r miles in June versus January, "Global Warming"! The earth is shrinking, so the roads are getting shorter also! :wink:

Or it could be...in January, your spinning the wheels on ice! so your rack'n up more miles! :shock: :roll:

Like read'n your x-ploits, but how do you find the time to write that much!!

[Karnajj]

Evertruckerr I have noticed exactly the same thing. I have had several loads that I have run multiple times in the past suddenly not pay as much as they used to. It's not a big difference, usually 10-25 miles, but the fact that they are trying to sneak this by us makes me angry. I'm getting to the point that i don't trust a thing they tell me any more.

[Bumper]

See....now you will believe me when I tell you your buddy Krewel is a Weasel.....

[Karnajj]

Originally Posted by Bumper

See....now you will believe me when I tell you your buddy Krewel is a Weasel.....

Huh?

[ct77]

Little tip for finding good (safe) truck parking at hotels,motels. This is something i came up with while I was training and needed to find a place for me and my trainee(flattop mack just dont have much room). The solution is at your fingertips since you are using a laptop to find and book your rooms.

All you do is use........(drumroll please)...... Google Maps and hit the SATELLITE view and the latest STREETVIEW(they are still building up the database on it so its not everywhere yet).

Satellite view is great everytime I am going somewhere new or looking for a hotel or a customer I can recon from the air and get a good idea what the layout of the property looks like.

Streetview is like you are standing on the street and looking at everything from eyelevel(I understand they have a van which is driving around with a 360 degree camera on top and it films the streets it drives and then uploads it to google) This is fantastic because you can see which intersections have light poles right on the edge and you can get set up for your corners prior to even getting to the intersection.

Makes me wonder how I used to survive, I have always believed in using every available tool to make my life easier and these two are great.

I have gone places now where I have never been but since I scoped it out before hand I feel like I have already been there and can concentrate on traffic instead of looking for streetsigns which arent there.

I will never forget calling the Super 8 in Sanford FL on I-4, since the person behind the desk did not have a fluent grasp of English, I said Big truck, Semi Truck, Tractor Trailer and 18 wheeler all in the course of the conversation. Oh no problem I was reassured. So off we go. I get there and look and think no way, so I drive down the road find a place to park and call again. No problem, park here all the time. So I think must be parking around back that I could not see. Now you access this motel by going through a filling station parking lot past a Waffle house and then a sharp right turn(forgot to mention the sign which said NO TRUCKS and the hotel reassured me that just pertained to the filling station.) Well I impressed the hell out of my trainee(and myself) not only did I get the truck in there but then I managed to turn it around so I could get out. Parked that sucker right in front of the office with just enough room for cars to single file in and out, walked in the office and asked the desk clerk if they were a comedian, "Oh I thought you meant a rental truck"(trust me a 24' rental with car carrier would have had problems)

[hamboner]

Originally Posted by ct77

Little tip for finding good (safe) truck parking at hotels,motels. This is something i came up with while I was training and needed to find a place for me and my trainee(flattop mack just dont have much room). The solution is at your fingertips since you are using a laptop to find and book your rooms.

All you do is use........(drumroll please)...... Google Maps and hit the SATELLITE view and the latest STREETVIEW(they are still building up the database on it so its not everywhere yet).

Satellite view is great everytime I am going somewhere new or looking for a hotel or a customer I can recon from the air and get a good idea what the layout of the property looks like.

Streetview is like you are standing on the street and looking at everything from eyelevel(I understand they have a van which is driving around with a 360 degree camera on top and it films the streets it drives and then uploads it to google) This is fantastic because you can see which intersections have light poles right on the edge and you can get set up for your corners prior to even getting to the intersection.

Makes me wonder how I used to survive, I have always believed in using every available tool to make my life easier and these two are great.

I have gone places now where I have never been but since I scoped it out before hand I feel like I have already been there and can concentrate on traffic instead of looking for streetsigns which arent there.

I will never forget calling the Super 8 in Sanford FL on I-4, since the person behind the desk did not have a fluent grasp of English, I said Big truck, Semi Truck, Tractor Trailer and 18 wheeler all in the course of the conversation. Oh no problem I was reassured. So off we go. I get there and look and think no way, so I drive down the road find a place to park and call again. No problem, park here all the time. So I think must be parking around back that I could not see. Now you access this motel by going through a filling station parking lot past a Waffle house and then a sharp right turn(forgot to mention the sign which said NO TRUCKS and the hotel reassured me that just pertained to the filling station.) Well I impressed the hell out of my trainee(and myself) not only did I get the truck in there but then I managed to turn it around so I could get out. Parked that sucker right in front of the office with just enough room for cars to single file in and out, walked in the office and asked the desk clerk if they were a comedian, "Oh I thought you meant a rental truck"(trust me a 24' rental with car carrier would have had problems)

For some reason I am having visions of an Iraqi sitting behind that motel desk with a shit-eating grin on his face when u pulled that truck in there!

[ct77]

NOPE, IRAQIES DONT USE THAT MUCH CURRY, she didn t mean it but the place was pretty empty and i think they wanted the business and couldnt say no. If you ever drive I-4 heading east out of Orlando it is SR 46 exit I think in Sanford Fl.

[part time trucker]

Since I drive day cab trucks, can't stay at a truckstop for over night runs.. The company had set me up at a motel in Richland, washington and I called ahead for directions and parking. They had an mt gravel lot to park in.. First intersection off main road say no thru trucks. Not a problem since I only had 1 block to go. Made my turn on the street to the motel, which was also the only obvious access and the directions I was given, only to see a no trucks sign half way down the block. Thank goodness the motel was only 1.5 blocks down the street.

[ct77]

yeah had the same thing on market street in Wilmington NC

[evertruckerr]

2008
WEEK TWENTY FIVE
Monday, June 16th through Sunday, June 22nd


Monday starts the week fresh with a load that I’m scheduled to pickup at 10:52am. What? That’s what the load info says; PU 06/16 10:52.

It’s at the Owens-Corning factory in Amarillo that I’ve been to before and know that it is a drop and hook situation. I’m not exactly sure what the deal is with the PU time, but assume it has something to do with staggering the trucks coming into the place. It’s a small lot and they only allow three trucks in at a time so even though there is a very strong possibility that the load was ready to go early this morning I decided to wait until the appropriate time before showing up, close anyway, I showed up an hour early and then proceeded to wait 45mins for the trucks in front of me to pickup their trailers.

This was indeed a quick d/h situation but when I dropped my trailer I noticed what might become a problem in the near future for me. This “problem” comes up on occasions when one is dropping a trailer and while lowering the landing gear it becomes apparent that the legs must be lowered an extraordinarily long distance to reach the ground. In this particular case I would have had to extend the legs to the full extent of the gearing before they contacted the dirt. This sometimes occurs in dirt lots or damaged asphalt lots where there is and excessive indentions in the ground at this point or in lots where there is a buildup of dirt under the drive tires of the tractor due to many trucks repeatedly spinning out in an attempt to get under a trailer.

The “problem” is simple to resolve if addressed at this time. All one has to do is lower the gear to an appropriate level (in this case about 4-5” from the ground) go back to the truck and dump the airbags so that the legs of the trailer are now on the ground, or at least very close. Then simply pull out slowly and allow the trailer to settle in. Unfortunately the vast majority of drivers fail to do this and the resulting consequence is a laborious pain in the butt for the next driver.

A quick side note here. This is often a problem at all drop sites. For those of you that are new to the biz, when dropping a trailer at any time, leave the legs about an inch or so above the ground and dump your airbags to allow the legs to set down. This way the next driver can back under the trailer and the legs will not be touching the ground once they get under it. This way the next driver won’t have to contend with a high trailer or binded landing gear that can be very difficult to retract.

The end result was a row of trailers with landing gear cranked out to the max. If the loaded trailer is then dropped in the same place no harm is done. But of course, for the most part (as in this case) the loaded trailer will be dropped at a different location, often on concrete or at least on a lot that is not in total disrepair. What this leaves you with when you try to pickup your load is a trailer filled with 40,000# plus of something and it is sitting high above your 5th wheel plate. Now I know why I had to wait so long for the previous drivers to get their trailers.

I’ve had to deal with high trailers in the past, but this one was as bad as it can get. This loaded trailer had been dropped on a concrete lot and the kingpin was sitting a good 8” too high. It was also a 44,000# load and it took a solid 15 minutes of cranking in low gear to get this trailer down to a level where I could back into it. The Texas heat didn’t exactly make this an enjoyable experience.

Once loaded my next dilemma was the delivery time. It was a live unload at 8am on Thursday. That’s just over 1300mi and 3days to do it. I will have it there much sooner than that. The nasty part about this is that the load info specifically states that drivers are not to call or arrive prior to the set appointment time. My only hope was to contact dispatch and asked for a new appointment time. The answerer to my Qcom request was a simple, “can not deliver early to this customer”.

I was discouraged but not yet ready to give up on this one. I finished my days driving and put in for the night at a Pilot somewhere in Arkansas. My plan was to get an early start the next day and run the 600 or so miles to our Knoxville yard and then hit dispatch up for a Tcall so that I wouldn’t be stuck under this load. After all, it was only about 4hrs away, this is Tuesday and it doesn’t delivery until Thursday. How could they turn me down? And if they did the unexpected and forced me to stay under the load I would have just enough time to fit in an unneeded reset(I would still have 27hrs available after the days drive) If I didn’t screw around and waist anytime on my way to Knoxville, I was looking at about 1½hrs, at most, of spare time. I sure didn’t need a reset at the time, but will never pass up a chance at a fresh clock if the circumstances allow for it.

Tuesdays drive was progressing nicely and I was planning my day out in my head when I heard the all too familiar beep of the QualCom. Well, we can’t read our messages while we are driving (we must pull over and stop) but we do have a digital readout on the dash that shows the first few words of the message. This is usually enough to give you the general jist of the message. In this case all I could read was “from xxxx- goto Knox”. This could only mean on thing in my mind. By now it was common knowledge that our trucks were to be turned down to 62mph. The company memo that was floating around stated that all trucks would be turned down by October, but the fact of the matter was that any truck that pulled into a company terminal was being chased down by the shop Nazis with the intentions of beating that deadline by a good four months.

I assumed the message that awaited me was simply instructions to stop at Knoxville for a quick adjustment. I had just had my truck serviced last week or so and was hoping to avoid this for at least another 20,000 miles. I had already decided that I would slip by to avoid the inevitable for the time being and worry about coming up with a plausible excuse later on down the road. I could always claim bad timing in the event of a Tcall at the terminal, or claim that it would have negated my reset if the Tcall never happened.

After an hour or two my curiosity got the best of me and I pulled over to read the message and send in a Tcall request at the same time. After getting an answer to that question I could work on my escape plan in order to keep my truck at 65mph away from shop personel.

The message I read left me stunned! “go to Knoxville to turn in your truck, it is due for trade-in. When you arrive, get with shop foreman and PU truck #84xxx. When will you be there” Of all the possibilities that had been bouncing around in my skull, this was not one of them. I knew my truck was close to its’ last day with Crete, but I had assumed I would be getting one of the shinny new trucks coming off the assembly line any day now(with APU’s, I have sense learned that they will be equipped with the far less desirable battery packs).

I was really thrown for a loop by this turn of events. I have been anticipating an APU for some time now and am really pissed off that I’ve just been told to pickup a used truck. And to rub it in even more, I know by the number of the truck that I have just been assigned a damn blue Shaffer truck. I now have a 5hr drive to get there and stew over the unknown. My absolute, biggest fear was that it would be a smoker’s truck. I don’t smoke and there really is nothing that could be more disastrous to me than being forced to live in an ashtray. It may be hard for a smoker to understand and not seem like that big of a deal, but it is. Is it a smoker’s truck? Will it be clean? How many miles will it have? What kind of new mechanical problems will I have to deal with? Will I have to have a showdown with my FM once I see this piece of Shi#? Etc. And of course, I’m sure it will be set at 62mph! I managed to work myself into quite a tizzy by the time I pulled into the yard.

We’ll, into the shop I go to announce my arrival and let them know I was here to pickup a different truck. The shop guy was quite pleasant (our Knoxville shops seem to have a good bunch of guys working there) and handed me a set of keys and some paperwork to sign. “Not so fast”, I say with a smile. “Nothing personal, but I need to take a quick look at the truck to determine if a phone call to my FM was going to be necessary.”

After a good once over, (non-smoker, thank the lord) most of my concerns were put at ease and I went back to the shop to pickup a pile of cleaning implements and such and headed back out to the trucks. I had parked next to my “new” blue truck (with 200,000 miles on it) and was staring at it wondering where to begin. I’ve had the pleasure of this experience a few times in my day and I was not looking forward to a repeat. I had already put in a 10hr day driving and just wasn’t in the mood to “dig in”. I wanted to do this right and not rush it. Well, there is no point in Tcalling my load anymore; it looks like that 34hr reset option was going to workout just fine for me.

It was around 4pm and the sun was shinning brightly. I decided to call it a day and get myself a hotel room. I will get some good rest and get an early start on the switch over in the morning when it’s nice and cool.

It appears that Crete has implemented a new policy when it comes to drivers turning in trucks for either trade-ins or those leaving the company. It is no longer acceptable to simply empty your belongings from a truck, but drivers are now required to completely detail the interior of a truck (or we are given the option of paying the company to do it). Now, this isn’t a big deal for me, I have always returned my trucks in far better condition than I received them, but the policy seems a little extreme to me. Not to mention, it is a rare driver that will or can clean a truck as well as an experienced detailer can. Yet another cost cutting measure at the drivers’ expense.

The result was not only did I have to clean out my truck, but I also had a good two hours of scrubbing to get my “new” truck to an acceptable standard for me. Not that it was all that dirty, the previous driver had made a decent attempt, but it was no where close to good enough (he obviously had a small dog, no smell, but very small hairs everywhere).

I got started Wednesday morning and my overly optimistic projection of a 4-5hr switch out ended up taking the entire day. The sun was actually going down by the time I was finally satisfied with everything. I am always amazed at how much stuff I manage to pack into one of these trucks. The most time consuming endeavor, as suspected, was the refitting of my electronics and routing all the wires so that everything is out of sight. For the most part, I ended up pulling most of the dash off along with side panels and floor plates and mats and so forth. When I was done, I had my personal stereo, XM receiver, GPS, CB and a couple of fans up and running. I had also replaced the factory speakers with my own and added a few other gadgets to truck. Home sweet home once again.

Shortly after the sun had set for the night I was moved in and ready to get some sleep before taking off early in the morning. Thanks to my unexpected delay and my newly reset 62mph truck I would need to leave at 2am in order to make my delivery on time. I just wanted to make a quick trip to the nearest Wal-Mart to buy a couple of pairs of jeans and some shirts. I haven’t had time to do laundry lately and this seemed to be the quickest way to resolve my current situation of not having anything to wear after my shower tonight.

I jumped into the drives seat and start her up. Turn on the headlights and, OK, something is not right here. Looks like I have no dash lights on the left side of my dash. I check the dash light dimmer switch but know that will do nothing because the center dash lights are working fine. Probably just a fuse. I put the truck in gear and hit the brights and am greeted with only a single beam working. Then I notice not only do I not have dash lights, I don’t have a single gauge working and the digital odometer display is also out. I can’t believe this is happening. Every one of these things were working less than an hour ago. I’m also realizing that the A/C is blowing nothing but hot air which is very odd since it had been working just dandy all day long and the stereo no longer wants to work either. The shop guys will be leaving at 11pm and it’s pushing 10. Dispatch is just going to love hearing that my truck is down, I can’t make my delivery and it has to be out of the yard within 4hrs to avoid a late delivery.

Off to the shop I go, only to learn that the mechanic has just left to drop off a driver at local hotel. “Should be back in half an hour”, I’m told. We’ll there’s not allot to do until then so I head off to Wal-Mart to purchase my next days apparel.

I returned to the shop at the same time as the mechanic and filled him in on the recent developments with my truck. He then begins to fill me with horror stories of what “might” be wrong and how much time it could take to repair. With that he climbed into the cab and started messing around with fusses. Turns out it was nothing more than that and a new one cured all the woes. A very quick shower and into the bunk for a short nap before beginning my new day.

My Thursday started shortly there after, 2am to make a 7am delivery. With my newly acquired slower truck I should be able to make it with about ½ an hour to spare. The first thing I notice immediately with my new truck is that it is painfully deficient in horsepower. Not that my other truck was bursting with power, but this one was a flat out dog. I believe my last truck had somewhere in the neighborhood of 475hp, well this one must be set at 435hp or so. Next thrill comes when I turn on my brights. First off, my right high beam lasted for about 5 seconds before going out. Then my left side dash lights started to flicker on and off followed by the center dash lights. It made for quite a light show. And various gauge needles started bouncing around. I went back to my low beams and all returned to normal. As good a time as any to start my new “fix-it list”

Once that little scare had passed everything else seemed to be working fine other than the cruise control, it seems as if the cruise works whenever it feels like it, more often than not, but I never know when the “not” will happen. After a number of steep hills (they call them mountains over here) combined with a heavy load, my gutless truck and a non-stop trip I managed to make it to my consignee with 15mins to spare. They had just opened the doors for the day and gave me a dock assignment and told me to wait in the truck. I climb into the bunk for a badly needed nap and it was about two hours later when someone knocked on my door to wake me. It could have been 5mins for all I knew.

Now, here I sit in the uncomfortable position of being empty on a Thursday morning in North Carolina. There is a distinct possibility of getting a short hop load going up to Pennsylvania, Virginia or somewhere in the New Jersey area and this late in the week that can result in a very frustrating weekend. Although I don’t think I’ve been up in those parts since late April or so, freight may have picked up for us up there like it seems to have elsewhere. I’d really rather not have to go up there to find out.

My concerns are soon laid to rest when I receive a single load offer that is a d/h pickup anytime today down in SC and had a drop delivery in Columbus, OH(687mi) anytime tomorrow. Oh, how I love runs like this. Not a single minute of wasted time. The rest of the day consisted of getting my load and driving as far as I could get before running out of hours. Unfortunately, because of my very early start I found myself stopping at 3:30pm which then resulted in another 2am start the following day. I guess I could have slept in a bit, but I still had a good 350 miles to go to make my delivery and I wanted to drop my trailer early enough to give me an opportunity at a morning load out of town.

Friday started at 2am and I had an uneventful trip to Columbus where I dropped my trailer at a Sears DC and headed out into their lot to find an empty trailer so I could get my MT call in. This looks like it will be the first challenge of the day. There was one empty available, but it had a note attached to it, “do not reload, customer has been informed and will PU for repairs”. I did a walk around and couldn’t find anything wrong with it so I took another trip around and looked a bit closer, still nothing. There was a bit of a blessing here, this customer was directly across the fence from out terminal, so I hooked to the trailer with the intention of taking it to the yard to drop it after letting the shop know. I could then get an empty trailer (not always an easy feat in this yard) and get my next load offer. I decided to stop off at the customers control window to find out what was wrong with the trailer because I hadn’t figured it out yet. No big surprise here, but they didn’t have any info on it and a check of the computer system didn’t turn up anything either. Oh well, I’ll let the shop have a go at it.

Before leaving their yard I decided to slid the tandems (they were all the way to the back of the trailer), but when I pulled the tandem pin release handle I suddenly found the elusive problem with this trailer, one of the pins would not retracting. At least that mystery is solved and off I go. Upon arriving at our yard I found a place to park (another trick these days at this yard) and went about a fruitless attempt at finding another empty trailer. If I don’t have a trailer I won’t get a load. At best I’ll be sent on a search of the area customers to find one, and even if I am lucky enough to come across one, there is no guarantee that I will be allowed to take it with me, not to mention a massive waste of my morning and log book hours.

Time to try my hand at mechanicing (yes, I know that’s not a real word, but I’m not a real mechanic either). An inspection of the offending pin revealed a missing arm that connected the pin to the twisty thingy magig that made the pin retract. This brought to mind an empty trailer on the other side of the lot that I came across not more that a few minutes ago that had been red tagged with a note that said release pin will not retract (must be an epidemic). Ding, Ding! I have an idea; it’s time for a scavenger hunt. I was in luck, this was the same model of trailer, therefore, the same parts and after grabbing the necessary tools from my truck I returned to collect my prize. Before leaving the other trailer I add a “2” in front of the red tag note that said “front tandem pin(s) will not release.”

Although I had lost a couple of hours to my misadventure, I was pleased as punch with myself for solving my own dilemma. I put in my MT call and awaited my next destination. I was starting to run a little short on time(5hrs left in the day), but that would still give me the opportunity to put in at least another 200 miles or so before shutting down for the day.

The QualComm beeps and I’m ready to have a cow. They want me to PU a load in town (this is Friday morning) and deliver it just over 400 miles away to Manassas, VA (how has this place avoided the politically correct assault, I mean, really, that’s gross) on Monday morning. I’m getting ready to start making phone calls when I get another beep and find a message that says, “Please pick up this pre-loaded trailer and Tcall in Columbus yard”. That helps to release a good portion of the steam I had managed to build up, but I still wasn’t thrilled about this. If I had a full 14hr clock ahead of me I wouldn’t have cared, but I was down to 5hrs for the day and a shag load would make getting a load after this a tricky. Problem number two and a much bigger one in my mind is the fact that at this moment I am sitting under an empty trailer. You know, the one I just spent two hours repairing (because the shop was too busy to get to it). Well, what happens when I pickup the shag load? That right, I have to drop my empty trailer there, and then Tcall this load in our yard. You know where that leaves me, sitting in the yard with no empty trailer, therefore, no load offer. I’m not liking the way this day is working out.

Some days are just like this and I sent in a message to let dispatch know that I would grab this load for them and asked for a decent preplan to keep me moving over the weekend. (Just the basic, I scratch your back; you scratch mine kind of thing). I then sent in the load acceptance and awaited the load info, and like a bad dream that I can’t wake up from, my woes continue. The Qualcomm decides today is a good one to go into delay mode. Of late, it has been very responsive and I haven’t really been having any problems getting my load info, but not today and I just didn’t have the time to deal with these delays.

After waiting for 30mins or so I called my FM in an attempt to get the load info via phone but was informed that their computer system was down, but as far as they knew it was a local problem, not company wide. As I was saying goodbye the Qualcomm once again beeped and I assumed the load info was finally coming through, but no such luck. It was an answer to my earlier request for a decent preplan for the weekend. Nothing more than a snide “just get going on this load, there will be loads available when you are done”. Well, that’s some gratitude for ya. I just responded with a “Would love too, but still have no load info, please resend.”

Another 20 minutes passed without any info and I called dispatch direct to get the minimal info (Company, address, phone #and pickup #’s). I made a call to the customer to get directions and took off. It was only 12 miles away and I still had a chance of getting a load out of town today if I could do this turn quickly. During the delay I had experience waiting for my load info I had the good fortune of seeing another driver pull into the yard with an empty trailer (he was just getting in for some hometime). I imagine this will ruffle some feathers but I put my enforcer lock on it to claim it for my own. I felt I had done more than my share today to justify my actions. This way I would have an empty trailer available to me after leaving my current empty trailer across town and bringing the shag load to the yard.

The trip over could have been smoother. The directions I was given got me to the customer, but when I got there it looked like an abandoned school and by the time I realize I had missed the less than conspicuous driveway I was in a bad situation. One of those, “a truck shouldn’t be here” kind of places. I eventually found my way back and after dealing with a rather rude shipping clerk (I don’t know wyt people work at jobs that they detest so much) was able to get my paper work. I also started to receive my load info at this time, better late than never (not really).

By this time I was looking at a little over 3 hrs left in my day and I really wanted to get a load offer today as opposed to waiting for Saturday morning scraps. I knew that I had an empty trailer waiting for me at our yard and after confirming trailer and seal numbers at the current shipper I sent in a loaded called followed immediately with a message to dispatch. “I have dropped loaded trailer in Columbus yard, please Tcall. I have mt trailer #xxxxxx. Please send load offer, I have 3hrs before break” With the Qualcomm delay that I’ve been dealing with today I needed to do what I could to speed up the process.

With the wheels in motion for my next load I went about hooking to the loaded trailer and had it back to our yard within 20mins. Still no load offer though, so I dropped it and hooked to my empty trailer in waiting and swept it out while I waited.

By the time I returned to the cab I had a two load offers waiting for me. Both d/h PU’s here in Columbus with one going to SC(450mi) and the other headed to AL(742mi). Looks like I’m going to AL. This time the load info came in fairly quickly and it was a familiar customer and I was able to get rolling without waiting for directions. I was down to 2.5 hrs for the day, but if my PU hit on all cylinders I might be able to knock out a 100 miles today. This would get me within 640 miles of my delivery and I would be able to drop the load tomorrow and get the ball rolling on my next load offer. If not, I would have to wait until Sunday morning to deliver this load. Not the end of the world, but well, you know.

The PU however did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. This is another one of those customers where we drop our empty trailers on a gravel lot. This lot is not in the best of shape and there are deep indentions where the trailer legs set on the ground. At least this customer has square boards at each spot that you can throw under the legs so that they are not hyper extended. De’ja Vue. This is great when they are used, but many drivers either don’t know what they are for or don’t care, as was the case with the driver that dropped the trailer that I was destine to pickup. The result was another arduous low gear lowering of another 45,000# load. This day was just too hot and humid to be dealing with this, not to mention, each minute lost was one less mile I could make it down the road today. Reminds me of a tag line I saw painted on a flatbed years ago. “They are not miles, they are minuets of my life”, painfully true. Anywho, time was slipping by and I still had to pull this trailer around back and slid the tandems to a good guesstimated position, then scale out one axel at a time on their scale (one of the crappies scales I have ever come across at that).

This leads to problem number ? Hell, I lost count.

I had the good fortune of getting a load that was on one of our archaic trailers. There aren’t as many of them as there once was, but this was defiantly one of the old timers and the process of sliding the tandems with a very heavy load was anything but agreeable to my tight schedule and did little to promote my festive mood. I used every trick in the book that I’ve learned over the years, but I can honestly say I have never had a trailer in the Crete fleet give me the hassle that this one did. I would have cut it in half if I had a torch available (OK, maybe not, but it would have made me feel really good).

The only positive to the whole adventure was that the load scaled out legal on the first round (supposedly so, the load info stated that this scale wasn’t all that accurate), so I didn’t have to go through the process again. But that was all I had to be happy about. The delays had bested me and I was no longer in a position to make it far enough down the road to make my delivery by tomorrow night. I left the shipper a defeated man, at least for today, resolved myself to a Sunday morning deliver and headed back to our terminal for the night.

After that day I needed to treat myself and I headed over to the Red Lobster for a little Surf n Turf.

Fate was merciful to me on Saturday and handed me a peaceful and totally uneventful day of driving. It even threw me a bone because I had made it to the TA in Montgomery by 6pm and there was abundant parking available. Unheard of at that time of day at this truck stop. With fate stepping in one more time, I had just enough time to make it to another truck stop south of Montgomery, but decided to stay put. When I drove by that stop the next day I was surprised to see that it was out of business and the lot was blocked off. I would have been in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to park and no hours. Close call.

Sunday slapped me upside the head to bring me back to reality. It started out well enough with a simple d/h at a Wal-Mart DC. They even had an abundant supply of empty trailers which is always a nice relief. The trouble started when I hooked to the newest empty on the lot (fewer problems as a general rule) and sent in my MT call and waited with anticipation for my load offer. While waiting I went to work by sweeping out my trailer and doing a quick check of the air pressure on my tires. This is something I really should have done before hooking to it, but I didn’t. My reward for such a grave error was the discovery of a flat tire, but it wasn’t just flat (I could have pumped it up), it was off the rim (another tire with a bolt in it). At least I have a spare this time around; all I have to do is find a tire shop, deep in the heart of Alabama, at 6am, on a Sunday. Are you starting to see me problem? The simple fix would be to grab a different trailer, but I’m not about to do that to another driver. It’s my problem now, I’ll deal with it. (Boy did that turn out to be a stupid idea.)

I returned to the truck to find a single load offer that was a d/h PU (there has been a nice swing towards d/h loads for me lately), but that was 180 miles away across two lanes roads. Not a single mile of Interstate, and therefore not a single truck stop, i.e. tire shop. I’m not liking this. I could always call breakdown and have someone sent out, but I don’t like the prospects of sitting around for untold hours waiting either. I pretty much knew how this would end, but head on down the road in the hopes of coming across a back road repair shop that can help me out. Oddly enough, I saw 4-5 of them over the next few hours, but the whole Sunday thing wasn’t working in my favor and I pulled into the shippers drop lot dreading the next hour of my life. I haven’t had to do this since my dump truck days, but that was about to change. If this had been an inside tire I wouldn’t have had the option, but it was on an outside rim and, well, time to change a tire.

I had a crowbar in the truck and other odd and end implements to do the job but I was surprised to see a little tin shed in the corner of this lot. And that little tin shed had an open garage door and an open people door. They weren’t actually open, they just didn’t actually exist, just the openings. Anyway I took a gander and saw all the tools I needed to complete my chore. I checked with the folks in the shipping “trailer” (they sure like trailers in these parts) and got their blessing to use the tools. The tire guy doesn’t work on Sundays. I backed the inside tire up onto a wood block to get the outside tire off the ground so I wouldn’t have to pull the wheel off (the air compressor wasn’t on and I didn’t want to be that intrusive anyway) and it actually went much quicker than I had feared and I had the spar on in about 30 minutes. The biggest godsend was the, well I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s the small LP sized air tank that you pump up with air. It has a flat end that comes out of the top of the tank and you set it against the rim and bead of the tire. You then pop the air release value and a burst of air pops the tire bead onto the rim. Without that I don’t know what luck I would have had setting the bead, but all turned out well. All I needed to do was hunt down my loaded trailer and then find a shower ASAP. The humidity down here is murder!

This day and this week came to a conclusion at a truckstop west of Little Rock, AR with a decent little pizza joint across the street. There was still a fair amount of sunlight left in the day so I went for a nice little walk and stopped off for some pizza before putting in for the night.



WEEK TWENTY FIVE RESULTS
Monday, June 16th through Sunday, June 22nd
Miles include deadhead


Amarillo, TX to Huntersville, NC....................................1425mi
Anderson, SC to Columbus, OH....................................…687mi
Columbus (Shag load)............................................. ..........1mi
Obetz, OH to Brundidge, AL........................................... 742mi
Pennington, AL to Little Rock, AR (first leg)......................591mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ..................3446 Miles

Actual Miles.........................................3471 Miles

3446 miles x .42 = $1447.32 + $35 Shag pay