YOU HAVE ALOT OF ROOM TO TALK YOU FREAKIN IDIOT! :roll:

You do the exact thing to me everytime. Really pisses you off doesn't it :idea: :?:

That's because you can't support your numbers. Never have, never will. You even got called on it by another Knight driver and you didn't even have the guts to respond. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Nobody ever CALLED me on it. I don't know anything about the other Knight driver so I won't speak about him. What I do know is what my W-2 says that I just got in the mail. That's all I need to know. As far a weather you believe me or not...I could give a shit. You are nothing to me but a waste of space in this crowded world. No matter what I have to say you always have a negative spin on it because you just can't believe that someone could be as successful as I am. Go, ahead and go through your life being bitter. I will do my best to make you feel even worse by being even more successful but I won't be here bragging about it anymore. So go ahead and spew your hate and discontent with the other people here that may want to hear it. For me I am going on to a higher level of intelligence. I will however miss communicating with Skywalker and UTurn as they are probably the two brightest and honest people on this entire site.
So enjoy :wink:

Nobody ever CALLED me on it. I don't know anything about the other Knight driver so I won't speak about him. What I do know is what my W-[quote]2 says that I just got in the mail. That's all I need to know. As far a weather you believe me or not...I could give a $&!+. You are nothing to me but a waste of space in this crowded world. No matter what I have to say you always have a negative spin on it because you just can't believe that someone could be as successful as I am. Go, ahead and go through your life being bitter. I will do my best to make you feel even worse by being even more successful but I won't be here bragging about it anymore. So go ahead and spew your hate and discontent with the other people here that may want to hear it. For me I am going on to a higher level of intelligence. I will however miss communicating with Skywalker and UTurn as they are probably the two brightest and honest people on this entire site.
So enjoy /quote]

Does any of this ring a bell. Do you understand how we feel on the TMC thread. Not trying to start anything here.

[quote="terrylamar"]Nobody ever CALLED me on it. I don't know anything about the other Knight driver so I won't speak about him. What I do know is what my W-I see what you are saying but the difference is I have state TRUE facts and he is just talking shit.

Re: Uh huh
 

BINGO! Give that man a cupie doll! :lol:

As soon as you send in that empty call, you should go on the clock until you get another load or unless you're out of hours. That would put an end to all the unpaid sitting around and force these companies to be more productive.

Like those old Grey Poupon commercials..."anything else is uncivilized".

Dispatch loves the drivers who live out of their trucks for weeks on end. The guys who want to go home and have a life outside of and away from the truck sit around more often and gets the short end of the stick for loads. That's just the way it is.

Re: Uh huh
 

That first part is absolutely true-- and I agree. It was the bitterest pill to swallow when I came to work here at Shaffer(Crete) a layover policy that states: We don't pay for lack of freight.

( now what the recruiter told me was--- we don't set trucks-- we'll bounce you To another area that has freight) -----Yeah, Right!
That's why I laugh at the XM commercial about "our drivers demand the best--or they'll go somewhere else."


CFM- I disagree on what you say about the Regional( home every weekend) drivers---- true, dispatchers don't like having to "pull rabbits" out their ass to get them home every weekend- But-- these drivers don't get "too short" of a stick on the freight end.----See the one factor you missed is--- the TRUCK has to turn X miles in that 5days to make the company any money. So these drivers still pull down 2200-2500 a week(working for a good company) and are also home weekends.--
This screws up the whole remaining OTR industry(and drivers)-- because all the freight is now mostly 500mile short freight--- which means, OTR drivers get screwed on the weekends anymore-- gone are the old days of expecting 1500 miles from Friday- Monday.

Re: Uh huh
 

You are right Clay. I have no reason to lie about Crete. It seems though when someone mentions anything that is taken in a negative light though some will get pissed because they see recruiting money going away.

There is no reason to lie to anyone here at all. No need to put up phony numbers either. We all know what OTR driving and the companies are like.

Now January was a very good month for me and only sat a total of a day and a half also. December though was horrid and sat for a total of 7 days waiting on a load that was unpaid because Crete has a policy of not paying for sit time if there is no freight.

Re: Uh huh
 

Those days were awesome. Just a slow time now. I had a good January for now so hope it continues.

I was told to not use curse words on Quallcom. So just say where the sun don't shine or something.

Too late and I no longer work for Crete.

Ok
 

Then the comment was for anyone that uses a Quallcomm.

WEEK FOUR
Monday 01/21 through Sunday 01/27


This week starts out with a tediously boring Monday once again. I have found myself doing a reset at another truckstop with nothing to do. I look around and see that they allow dropped trailers, but I really don't feel good about leaving mine here. I'm not exactly in the best part of Montgomery. I was going to get a hotel, but couldn't find anything with truck parking under $55 and had no desire to spend that much so I decided to suck it up and make the best of things in my truck. At least I had a chance to sort through some receipts to speed up my tax work when I get home later in the week.

Tuesday starts off bright and early, well not so much, it's still dark, but you get the idea. I have just under 500 miles via Interstates to go and I have a delivery appointment of 3pm. In my down time I figured I could run the back roads and cut it down to 440 miles. These would be slower routes but I can probably save 30mins in travel time overall (as it turned out, the back roads were a bit slower than anticipated and I was only able to save 15mins). Never know when that time savings can make a difference later in the week, plus I'll get to run some roads I've never been on before. There aren't as many of those left as there once was.

The trip went uneventfully and I found myself a little ahead of schedule and decided to treat myself at Stake N Shake and take a shower at the local Pilot. I was wishing I had started a little later so I would have more time on the 14 Clock after my delivery but I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be late for my delivery and since I was taking unfamiliar back roads it would be best to be cautious with my time.

The qualcom tells me that the receiver begins taking deliveries at 3:00pm on a first come first serve bases so I arrived at 2:30 and try to check in. Well when the said 3:00pm they meant it. I'm told to leave the property and return later. I return a little after 3 and go to the gate that was pointed out to me earlier. Well, it's still locked up so I call the number given to me earlier and am told to wait until he was done with his meeting. I tell him I'm blocking traffic which is answered with a grunt!. 20 minutes later the gate opens and the guy on the speaker gives me a door assignment. I dock and wait another hour before unloading begins. This is rather annoying because my load is just 18 bulk rolls of insulation and I should have been unloaded in 20 minutes. But since this is my first live unload in almost 2 week I wont complain (too much). Loading begins and 15 minutes later I'm empty and put in my MT call.

Within 15 minutes I was given a single load offer that has a drop/hook PU and DEL going to Ardmore, OK (1173 mi) with a delivery anytime Thursday. Awesome load but I had a home time request in for the weekend. I have been out for over 3 weeks and all I would have to do is send a message that I want to get back to the house and I would have been pulled off the load. Here's were I have problems getting home and it's not Crete's fault. It is usually a product of my own greed. The way I look at it, there is a $500 bill sitting on the ground and all I have to do is run up to Oklahoma and pick it up.

Add this to the fact that I was able to get in my reset the day before, I will be in Oklahoma early Thursday and have plenty of hours available to get me home by late Saturday or early Sunday if the right load came along. That part of the country has a strong freight base for us and I know I have a good chance of getting a load close to the house.

I accept the load and get ready to head over to pickup my load 90 miles away. The load is scheduled to PU the following day, but I figure it is already loaded and if I get there tonight I can do my drop/hook and still have time to put another 100 miles behind me before I run out of hours.

This hope is almost immediately squashed. Just as I'm ready to pull out I get a message. "Can you shag a trailer with tire problems to a local shop and DROP it there before you PU your load, pays $35"? That's a new twist; I'm usually hit up for favors before the good loads. Well, I'm definitely not thrilled about this, but I figure it's the least I can do for the past couple of weeks. I let dispatch know "happy to help out, where is the trailer and where do you want me to take it."? Ten minutes later I get started.

As I'm driving it occurs to me that by the time I hook to this trailer with the bad tire and get it to the shop it will be after 5pm and I don't know if this is a 24hr shop. I call them and they inform me that they will not be open but I can show up anytime after 7:30 the next morning. I told them that I was suppose to drop a trailer there for tire repairs and asked if I could leave it on their property after hours. He�s seems to be oddly amused by this silly notion and lets me know that they have no room for dropped trailers and I would have to remain with the trailer during repairs. �See ya in the morning�

This puts a serious wrinkle in my timeline. I had planed on being in OK early Thursday so I could get an early start on a load going back to the house. This little mess has just set me back at least 6hrs. It does occur to me that if the tire in question is just a flat and not off the rim I could plug the hole and fill it myself and be on my merry way. Yeah, I can be a little too optimistic at times. I arrive to find the tire in question has seen its last days.

I resign myself to the fact that things don�t always go as planed, drop my empty trailer at the customer, PU the one with a bad foot and park onsite for the night. Oh yeah, the loaded trailer I was to PU was on property and ready to go.


Three hours later I wake up from a dead sleep and am very annoyed with myself because 1. Why did I let this wake me up? 2. The stupid trailer only needs a new tire, I have a spare on the truck, all I have to do is pull the trailer to a truckstop and there is one less than 30 miles away. If I would have been thinking I could have had the tire replaced before shutting down for the night for a total cost of $30 to the company instead of letting some local shop fleece the company for $400 for the cost of a new tire. All is not lost; I am able to get going early the next day.

Wednesday starts at 3:30am; I�m able to get the tire switched out at the Petro. Nice short lines that time of day. I�m out in 30 minutes; head back to get my loaded trailer and I�m on my way to OK by 6:00am. This works out much better than what the company had set up. I saved Crete allot of money (no one will ever realize this, but it makes me feel good) and I�m rolling by 6:00 instead of 10:00 and am almost back on my preplanned schedule. I put in my 11hrs of drive time and shut down for the night in Louisiana.

Thursday starts out early and I drive the final 463 miles and drop my trailer before 1pm. I put in my MT call and let dispatch know that I have till 16:30 before my 14hrs is up and I wait in anticipation for that golden load to get me home. 10 minutes later I get a one load offer that was to PU 100 miles away at 18:00 (Uggg! There�s that automated �Load Offer� button again) and delivered to St. Louis (600 mi) Friday morning. Not a bad load but I don�t have the hours to PU the load and although it doesn�t get me home, it�s in the right direction. I send in a message, �can�t commit to load, PU is after my 14hrs window. PS I�m trying to get home�.

Within 15 minutes I was giving a load offer that was a drop/hook PU north of Wichita, KS(300 mi DH) and had a live 7:00am delivery in Henderson, NC(1300 mi) the following Monday. This offer is followed by a message �accept this load only if you have the hours and can pickup and deliver on time�. What that basically means is NO TCALL! I�m not all that excited by that because I can have the load to our Greensboro yard by Saturday morning. I decide to take the load and take my chances of talking the weekend dispatch into T-Calling this load at a later time.

The scheduled PU for this load is a drop/hook the following day at 16:00-23:59, which leads me to believe it is a preloaded trailer and ready to go. I can�t get there today, but I figure if I drive out the rest of my hours for the day I can get within a 100 miles. This is important because that will leave between 1300-1400 miles to my final destination and that can be driven in (2) 11hrs shifts. Thus making it possible to make Raleigh, NC by noon Saturday �IF� the trailer is ready to go when I get to the shipper at 5:00am. Why do I want to make sure I can get to Raleigh, well, even if I make it there I will be out of hours. But at least I will be close enough to the house so the wife can drive up for dinner and we can get a nice room for the night. I take off and am able to drive 230 miles before running out of hours.

Friday rolls around and I get going at by 3:45am. I am taking a big chance here. Once I start driving so does my 14hr clock. If I show up at 5:00am and my load isn't ready for hours I will loose significant drive time for the day and will not be close enough to the house to be able to spend the weekend with the wife. Also, it will make it impossible to fit in another 34hr reset before my delivery. I could start later in the day, but for every hour I delay I will be looking at a later arrival in NC.

Throwing caution to the wind I arrive at the shipper at 5:00am and check in. Anyone want to guess. Nope, trailer is not ready and the crew doesn't show up to load until 6:00am. I am told to put my MT in a door and unhook. He also told me that he would make sure my trailer would be the first one loaded and should be ready by 7:30am. This makes for a tight schedule over the next couple of days but is doable.

True to his word, the trailer was ready when promised and I was off.

Friday and Saturday was spent driving and I was able to make it to the Greensboro yard in hopes of T-Calling my load early Saturday. I didn't really expect to get away with this and was not surprised when I was told I had to deliver the load. This wasn't the end of the world, even if I had succeeded, I didn't have the hours to drive home and the wife would have driven up to meet me in Raleigh either way. I left the yard and found a truckstop outside of Raleigh.

While I waited for the wife to pick me up I got a room at the Hilton Duke, $140 room for $45 through Priceline (love that website) and did a little research on the net and found the best restaurant in the area and made reservations. It wasn't home but it was a wonderful weekend and I was able to fit in that coveted 34hr reset.

WEEK FOUR RESULTS:
Monday Jan 21 through Sunday Jan 27
Miles include deadhead

Montgomery, AL to Jacksonville, FL....................501 Miles
Alachua, FL to Ardmore, OK..............................1173 Miles
McPherson, KS to Mebane, NC...........................1567 Miles


Total Paid Miles............................................. ...3241 Miles(5 days of driving, Monday and Sunday were reset days)
Actual Miles.........................3284

3241 miles x .42 = $1361.22 + $35 shag pay

Cool
 

Great going Everready. I also just turned in some Transflos for a great week this morning. Have fun at home. I am about to ask for hometime for a couple of days myself.

Damn that sounded like one hell of a week. You have more patience that I sir. When its time to go home.....

That shag and bag trailer would have had my stomach hurting :lol:

I kind of wish I would have went to Crete. We had a miscommunication on the Orientation date. That was July 2007. I was roaming around the wilds of Maine on my motorcycle. When I got back to civilization there was a message from Crete asking why I didn't show for Orientation. As God is my witness, I swear it was supposed to be the last week of July, not the 2nd week of July! Crete said I could re-apply.

Instead, I did a few months with Schneider, bagged that, and now yank tanks for Superior.

I miss the length of haul with dry van.

Superior also seems obsessed with getting you back to the home terminal. During the winter I would just as soon stay on the road. I have no winter hobbies, or interests. Home to me during the winter is a game of cat and mouse with my wife - the mouse is me getting caught turning up the thermostat. Any guy with a wife of 40 should know this game :lol:

Hopefully, Superior is so adamant on getting me home when golf season starts.

Anyways, I like your Crete commentary.

I was all set up to go to Crete when I was moving from WI to TX. I had to quit my job of 7 years in WI so I went looking and found them. They were advertising for southern regional and that's what I applied for. They were begging me to come to orientation and take my physical etc. Finally I got my house sale stuff done and called to set up my orientation date and we got it all done and I asked, "you are hiring me for the southern regional fleet right" and she didn't answer me and went off on something else. I ended up asking her 3 times before she said no, we're not hiring for southern regional this is for national. I hade the website up and checked right away and it sure said they were hiring for southern regional. That really made me mad, I don't like bing lied to so I told her no thanks. WHo knows, mabey I'll call them again. I am looking again but I will be on gaurd

I talked to my terminal manager the other day because I was toying with the idea of going on the midwest regional fleet just to see what it was like and he said that Crete has basically stopped hiring for all the regional fleets except SE region.

Well hell, here I was all set to apply for the Western Regional too....

They did this just so they wouldnt have to hire me back.... 8)

Might be wrong on the western region. It's the only one I don't qualify for so I didn't even ask.

Darn the luck. :D

Call them and find out. Who knows.

Actually I did, I called my old terminal in Phoenix two days ago and the acting terminal manager hasnt returned my call.....

Can ya feel the love Crete has for me...... :lol:

Lol. Too funny. Don't worry they have the same love for the drivers that work here too. :shock:

I would go back just to see the look on the Weasel...er...Kerry Krewels face when he saw me in the Lincoln cafeteria....;)

LOL
 

I hear you. He is clueless about trucking. I still remember him asking to come to Licoln and see him. Went twice and he begged off both times and sent his secretary.

WEEK FIVE
Monday 01/28 through Sunday 02/03



Monday starts after a nice weekend in Raleigh with the wife. I have to deliver the load I was unable to Tcall Saturday. It’s an 8:00am delivery 60 miles away so I get started at 7:00 and make my delivery on time. It’s a very quick live unload and I send in my MT call.

I get a message “Thank you; enjoy your home time, what is your PTA”?

I am now MT and set to go home. I am 180 miles from the house; about average dead head to get me home. My dilemma is that it is now Monday and I’m looking at home time of four days. That would have me leaving the house Saturday morning (Monday is not counted as a day off even though I would be able to make it to the house by noon). This doesn’t work well for me since the wife works weekdays and I make it a point to be home over the weekend so we can spend as much time together as possible.

Considering I am coming off a very good January with somewhere in the area of 13,500 miles I know I would be able to take the rest of the week off and hit the road Monday morning. But I really didn’t want to take that much time off. With my down time in Raleigh combined with home time I would be looking at 8 days without pay.

With that in mind I sent a message to dispatch “I would rather not take home time during the week will the wife is working, do you have a couple of regional runs that can have me back in the area so I can take home time over the weekend”

Within a few minutes I am offered a drop/hook load that was sitting in the Raleigh area and ready to go with a drop/hook delivery in near Allentown, PA(551 mi) the following day. This looked good to me; I accepted the load and sent in a request for a pre-planed load to get me back to the house.

Quick note here, this will amaze other Crete drivers, I can’t believe it myself. I took a look at my previous trips and with the exception of a run to Middleboro, MA 11/23/07 this PA run will the closest I’ve come to the feared North East since late October. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been offered loads up there, but have had other loads offered with alternate destinations at those times. Prior to that I ran a 3 month period where I only made it west of the Mississippi 2 or 3 times. Go figure.

Meanwhile…….back at the ranch,

I had the hours to make it to the customer that night, but it is one of our customers that have drop/hook deliveries but still require an appointment. 11:00am in my case. No early deliveries. My truck is also in the need of an A service and I decide to swing by our New Kingstown terminal to have that done. It’s only 40 miles or so out of route, this way I know I will have a place to park and will be able to get the truck serviced without loosing any time.

I make every effort possible to take care of truck maintenance during my resets or extended down time periods so that I can stay productive. If you show up at one of our shops and expect to get in and out during you 14hrs clock, Good Luck. It’s not uncommon to be told “it will be the following morning before we can get you in”. This particular layover is about 14hrs for me, usually plenty of time with the exception of some of our major terminals, i.e. Wilmer TX, Marietta GA, Lincoln NE and Columbus OH. I avoid these terminals at all cost as far as maintenance is concerned; they tend to be very busy.

Upon arrival (how I despise DC traffic) at the New Kingstown terminal (it’s a technically a Shaffer terminal) I go into the shop to put in a work order only to be informed that unless my Crete truck is part of their dedicated fleet he could not work on it. Well isn’t that a dandy policy change. I guess I missed the “notice” that was sent out. Communications is not one of Crete’s strong points.

Crete is in the process of consolidating their operations with the Shaffer division and has caused some changes that I’m not entirely familiar with at this time.

Anyway, I’m not going to get my truck serviced today, that just means I’ll have to deal with it after my home time. I drop my trailer in the yard and head up the road and park at a Kmart, walk across the street to Outback and order a wonderful NewYork strip. Yum!

I wake up the next morning with my truck covered in a layer of ice. Perfect!

I bobtail over to the yard (yeah, that was a blast, these things should come with skates) to hook to my trailer and fuel up. During this time I have been listing to the radio for traffic and weather reports and find that the roads are in horrible condition. Somewhere in the neighbor hood of 70 accidents on rural roads in a 50 mile radius, the 76 turnpike is shut down in both directions, etc. I’m in luck though; I-81 is currently accident free. OH GOODY, this is going to be fun.

Once I get on the Interstate I find the roads to be in fair condition. Just take it easy and things should be just fine. Hopefully no one will do something really stupid up ahead and shut the interstate down. The trip takes a little longer than normal, but I make it unscathed. The east bound side wasn’t as lucky. A handful of 4 wheelers decided to mix it up and traffic was backed up for at least 10 miles. What a mess.

I arrived 1 3/4 hours early, they allow 2hrs, and drop my trailer. I’m thrilled to see 5 MT trailers sitting there waiting for me. This particular receiver is notorious for holding our trailers. This is a pleasant surprise because I had fully expected to spend and hour or two waiting around or trying to steal one of our trailers from another customers in the area without being caught. I’m running about 50/50 in that department ;-)

My MT call gets me a one load offer in 5 minutes going to southern Mississippi (1200+mi), drop/hook on both sides. Another gravy run, but home is in NC. To tell you the truth, if I didn’t have to go home to PU my 2008 permits that had to be on the truck by the end of the month I would have accepted the load and worried about getting home later.

I then send in a message “I can PU load, but must TCall it at our Greensboro yard (525mi). I’m due home time and must get to the house to PU permits (ace in the hole here, they have to say yes) Do you want me to PU this load or do you have something else for me. And “yes” it is, I do my drop/hook PU on the outskirts of Philly and head to the yard. I’m there by late evening Tuesday night. I drop my trailer and am now ready for home time. Unfortunately I’m out of hours and have to spend the night in the yard and head to the house (210mi) in the morning. Now instead of taking my home time during the week I will be home Wednesday morning (doesn’t count as a day off because I had to drive 3+ hours), I will be able to spend the weekend with the wife and catch the Super bowl with our friends. WOW, what a game that was, eh!

Wednesday is now here and I’m ready to go home, it’s early and I will be at the house well before noon, but the wife is still working. I send a message to dispatch that I’m getting ready to head home, but if they have a shag load or a quick hitter (there were two trailers in the yard with deliveries within 150 radius) I would be willing to help out. Got a message back, “everything was covered; enjoy your home time, when do you want to come back out”. I set my PTA for Monday morning and pointed the truck home.

I was in town before noon and on the golf course by 1:00.


WEEK FIVE RESULTS:
Monday January, 28th through Sunday February, 3rd
Miles include deadhead

Mebane, NC to Henderson, NC………………………….58mi
Cary, NC to Breinigsville, PA……………………………511mi
Oaks, PA to Greensboro, NC……………………………..525mi


Total paid miles…………………………………………...1094mi (Home Wednesday through Sunday)
Actual miles………………1365(included 214mi DH to the house)

1094mi x .42 = $459.48

Hey evertruckerr, did you know that you can get a blog from the friendly folks here at classadrivers.com :?:

Either way keep up the posts.

Hey Evertruckerr,

for future reference-- in the past even Shaffer Drivers couldn't get serviced in NK unless they lived there- out of terminal. The number of local and near by Shaffer drivers-- always home on time off kept that shop in business 24-7. We were always told we had to "make an appointment" for service at least 48hours in advance and be ready to give a day or maybe take a "loaner" truck( which I refuse to do).

Bull
 

I have watched the NK terminal pull shaffer trailers and truck ahead of Crete's. Now it was awhile back and I do know they have changed by firings and being forced to do them. I prefer to go anyplace else but NK because they always had done shoddy work. Many have complained about the place and it surprises me not at all that they are known throughout the company for that.

Now the other ex shaffer terminal in york was awesome and if ever anyone is passing through there I say to get it done. They are awesome and make no distinction of color of truck there. They are true professionals there. I even went there for fuel and the guy there said he saw a couple of things he saw needed done and asked if I minded bringing my truck in. I did and was happy with the work. I am so hoping with the merger that this shop and people stay around.

I got very good service at the Indy IN yard.

I had work done at the NK yard about a year ago, but it was emergency qualcom work, I guess I just assumed I could get a service there too. I know better now.

As far as the York terminal goes, I've alway heard they do/did good work but I do believe that terminal is no more, or a least will be soon.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Stop it, You're killin me, I can't breath :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well they are on my list......way down at the bottom, but on the list!

Actually, I am awaiting word from Tru-Line on a LA-Vegas run and if that falls through I have spoken with Pride for a WR job too.

huh
 

As a wide receiver?

Yeah, you start out at England as a Tight End and after they are finished with you, you can then go over to Pride as a Wide Receiver.......

lol
 

Too funny Bumper. After a long football season I was used to seeing WR meaning a wide receiver.

Hey, I used to work for Crete, you just know I have a sense of humor!!
:shock:

lol
 

True, very true. And I work for them so I need a sense of humour too. :lol:

WEEK SIX
Monday February 4th through Sunday February 9th


Well, it’s Monday and home time is history. Amazing how fast it goes.

I throw all of my stuff into the truck and let dispatch know that I’m ready for a load. I can usually count on an hour, or maybe a little less to get all my stuff situated before I get a load offer and assignment. Not this time, less than 5mins later I get a load assignment along with a message “need this load picked-up ASAP, it’s a missed load from the day before”.

Great, just get in the truck and I’m already behind the 8-Ball. It’s a crappy short load that will deliver late today and probably leave me with no load till the next morning. Oh well, better than getting a load up to PA (in hind sight PA might not have been such a bad place), which is where I usually go after my home time. This is a live load that is 70mi away and is due in eastern KY (389mi) by 14:00. That’s not going to happen. I send a message that I’m on my way to PU the load, but it will be late. Dispatch acknowledges this and asks me to let them know when I can have it there.

Most of the trip is on back roads and I finally get to the customer by 17:00(wow, is this in the back woods). It is another drop/hook and they are waiting for me when I arrive. I drop the trailer in a door and do an MT call. I see allot of preloaded Crete trailer on the property, so I send in a message “do you want me to deliver one of the loaded trailers here or get an MT”. I’m now dealing with night dispatch and don’t expect a rapid response, not that they are less helpful, just a bit understaffed I believe. I end up waiting about 30mins and finally get a 2 load offer. Both are preloaded trailers from the customer that I am currently parked at. Cool, no deadhead. I was short on hours for the day and didn’t have time to PU a load and try to find a place to park on top of it.

Load 1 was going to the Chicago area (540mi) and it had an appointment delivery early Wednesday morning. I’m not particularly fond of that area and the miles are so-so, could be worse I guess (I had no idea how much worse at the time).

Load 2 was going to Tracy, CA (2535mi), BINGO! This is a 2pm appointment delivery and isn’t scheduled until Saturday. That’s 5 days away and by the time I’m unloaded I’ll be looking for a load later in the afternoon. There’s a good chance I’ll be getting my load the next day. I think about it and realize I would probably be better off with the IL load, but opt for CA. Just can’t turn down a cross country trip. One thing I didn’t really think through was the trip across WY and Donner Pass in CA. I knew things could go bad this at this time of year, but chose to ignore my better judgment. This would prove to be a bit of a mistake.

Once again, I’m under a load that I can take my time running and get there with limited effort or I can run hard on a very tight schedule and make it close to my destination and do a 34 reset and have a clean slate Saturday. Big surprise, I decide to push and take off; I have a couple of hours left on my clock for the night.

Tuesday starts at 6am; I see that I can make it to our Kansas City terminal within my 11hr drive day with a little time left. This way I can put the truck in the shop for its overdue A service while I’m taking my 10hr break.

The day is abnormally pleasant hovering around the mid 60s, this is February right. That all changed when I hit St. Louis. It was 55 on the east side of town and a rainy 33 on the west end and it continued all the way to KC. According to the radio the rain was suppose to turn to snow any minute with accumulation of 3-6 inches by morning. I knew I should have taken that Chicago run!

I made it to our KC yard by 5pm and put a work order in for my truck. The shop manager said they were busy, but would try to fit it in before closing time of 11pm. If not it would not be until the following morning. Oh well, if they can’t do it tonight I can always stop by the Salt Lake City shop on my way through.

While I was waiting for the truck to get worked on I decided to heat something up in the lounge microwave and pull out the computer and see what I could do about catching up on my update for the previous week.

The lounge was filled with the normal chatter that one seems to encounter when you have a room full of drivers, including the obligatory know it all who was determined to depart his entire lifetime of truck driving wisdom upon all that would listen. Not that any of us had an option, it was a small room and he had a very boisterous voice. Basically, the normal “I don’t take crap from anyone”, “I told dispatch what they could do with that load”, laced with stories of ridiculous exaggerations, etc. Surprisingly enough he also was complaining that his miles were horrible, wasn’t even getting 1500 miles a week (as believable as his other stories). I’m sure it had absolutely nothing to do with his charming personality. When he asked me about my miles he all but called me a liar, at which time two of the more mild mannered individuals in the room rallied around me and said that they too were having no trouble turning out 3000-3500 a week on a fairly regular basis.

This seemed like a good time to redirect my attention to the computer and withdraw myself from the attention of Mr. Happy. As the night continued I realized it was after 10:30, looks like my truck didn’t get worked on. Oh well, I’ll stop by the Salt Lake City yard on my way through and try my luck there. I begin gathering my things and am pleasantly surprise to hear my truck number being called out on the load speaker. Well I’ll be, they actually got to my truck. KC tends to be one of the better shops in our system; at least it has been for me.

Turns out the weather guy knew what he was talking about. The rain had turned to snow and there was already 2in on the ground. Looks like tomorrow is going to be a blast. By the time I get settled in for bed it’s almost midnight and although I can start running at 3:30am I opt to set the alarm for 5hr (I generally sleep no more than 5-6 hrs a night) and give the road crews a chance to clear the way before I get started. This pretty much shoots my chances of getting in a reset before my delivery, but with the snow storm ahead I don’t imagine I’ll make good enough time to do that any way and there is no point driving tired on challenging roads.

Wednesday starts at 5:30 and I am pleased to see that there hasn’t been much of a snow build up, an extra inch or two at the most. Maybe things won’t be as bad as I thought. It doesn’t take long to dispel that silly notion. Within 10 miles I find myself on what I can only describe as horrendously treacherous roads with less than desirable visibility. Kansas City may not have received much snow, but is seems like there was a foot of fresh snow being blown around further north this morning. There is a variety of vehicles in the ditches included 7-8 big trucks. At one point there were actually three of them, one behind the other in the median. It looks like they were following tail lights and just hung a left.

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I don’t know what it is about Missouri road crews, but they could stand to take a lesson or two from the Iowa boys. By the time I reached Iowa the sun was finally coming up and the roads improved greatly, although they were far from clear. I exited I-29 at Hwy 2 to go through Lincoln and was held up for about 30 minutes as a wrecker finished pulling a jackknifed CFI truck out of the ditch.

The rest of the day went well, once I made it to I-80 the roads were no longer a problem and I headed across NE with Cheyenne as my goal for the night. As I drove along it become apparent that the roads were in bad condition last night. Many trucks and cars were still I the ditch and there was evidence of a number that had already been pulled out.

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I arrived in Cheyenne and stopped at the POE (point of entry) to show my permits and was surprised to see a sign on the door that I-80 was closed. Not a big deal at the moment since I was out of hours anyway, but when I asked about the duration of the closure I was a bit setback when the officer said it could be days before they would reopen I-80. Son of a #@%^, I knew I should have taken that Chicago load.

With that bit of good news I headed over to our terminal (not one of our biggest, but the newest with comfortable amenities as far as Crete terminals go) and grabbed my shower gear and computer and planned on spending a few hours out of the truck. This plan is quickly squashed when I went inside. Apparently this terminal is no longer left unlocked at night when the office personal go home (it was now closing time). I can only assume it has something to do with past driver conduct or a vandalism issue. Why not, this day is just full of good news. I decided to drop my trailer in the yard and bobtail to the truckstop down the road for a bite to eat.

By the time I’m ready to hit the sack for the night it’s about 11pm and I decide to check WyDOTs website for road conditions and am surprised to see that I-80 has been reopened. How I miss the days when I could “adjust” my log book. It would be very advantageous to get going now before they shut the road down again. As it stands I can’t start driving until 5am. With that in mind, I retire for the night and hope for the best.

Thursday starts with me waking up early; I’m very antsy about the roads and want to get going before things get bad again. The winds tend to pickup during the day. A quick check on the web shows that I-80 is still open. As soon as I’m able to start I run over to the Pilot and fuel up. My fuel solution has only approved me for 85 gals, but there is no way I’m driving across WY in this mess with half a tank and I top her off. One last call to 511 road conditions let me know that the roads are still open and I’m off. I must have gone a whole 20-25 miles down the road when I came across a road condition info sign and guess what it said “I-80 closed at Laramie”. Son of a @#%@#.

I get to Laramie and there are trucks everywhere, most of them were still parked from last night and didn’t know the road had been opened while they were sleeping. I didn’t want anything to do with trying to find a spot in a truck stop and found a place on the side of the road next to a Pilot, at least I can take my shower now.

A mere 5 hours later the word went out and the race was on. There is nothing like watching 1000+ trucks trying to get out of the same one or two driveways at each of the truckstops. This being the primary reason I chose not to park in one to start with. While I was waiting I had pulled up a local map of the area and found a back road and was able to get onto the Big Road with relative ease. I was west bound and down and I was leading the pack (not for long of course). I just stayed on the right side and let all the big boys fly by. I was in no real hurry; I knew it was just a matter of time before the roads would get bad anyway.

I wasn’t disappointed; the wind was horrible from the get go and as the road headed down into the valley blowing snow became a real problem. Visibility was horrible and a number of times it was reduced to almost zero. It was slow going but at least I was moving. I just had to get past Rawlings before they shut the roads down again and I should be good to go.

I managed to get through the worst of it and once Rawlings was in the rear view the only concern was the wind. Thankfully I had a heavy load that was holding up well to the gusts, although the fuel mileage was taking a beating.

After 3hrs I decided to take a quick break at a rest area to stretch the legs a bit, a decision I would soon regret. I was there no more than 10 minutes and when I got back on the road I noticed that there was no longer any east bound traffic. Not a good sign, I didn’t know if traffic had been stopped because of the roads behind me (defiantly no picnic, an accident waiting to happen) or if the roads ahead where bad. As it turned out, east bound traffic was being stopped at Rock Springs because the road I had just past over had once again been shut down.

Once I made it past Rock Springs I was able to get east bounders on the CB for some info. According to everyone that I talked to it was snowing a little just ahead and I would have to deal with some snowpack, but nothing to worry about. Sisters was also reported to be clear with light snow and mostly wet roads. I’m thrilled by this and was patting myself on the back for making it through the last small window of opportunity. I should be in Salt Lake City in a few hours (yeah right).

It didn’t take long and we started hitting snow, not terrible but heavier than I was expecting, much heavier actually and it just kept getting worse. Before I knew it I was in a full fledged blizzard and then everything went to he!!

This was not good. As a matter of fact this was absolutely horrendous. I have never seen a storm come on this fast. We were supposed to be out of it by now according to reports from numerous drivers that had just been through here in the last hour. And as bad as it was it got worse. Visibility was all but zero and the CB was starting to sound like a battle zone. Dozens of drivers were shouting (everything from stressed yet calm to total panic), we were doing our best to inform each other of road conditions, accident locations, sections of total white out, what lane we were in, mile marker(if we could see one) how fast we were going. Anything to avoid becoming one of the many, many accidents that were piling up everywhere. At one point I was in the right lane, I think, going about 20 MPH and was passed by a flatbed doing at least 40 (I have NO idea what was going through this bozos head). I got on the CB to warn him that he was practically on top of a 3 car accident including a Highway Patrol car blocking the left lane and now would be a good time to start breaking. He didn’t answer. I just hoped for the best and slowed down. I also heard something about a right lane blockage just past that involving a big truck.


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Just about then I was hit by a complete white out that lasted at least 5-6 seconds (not exaggerating in the least). That may not seem like long, but try closing your eyes and count to six and pretend you’re driving a semi at the time. It was the most horrifying, helpless experience of my driving carrier. I wasn’t worried about driving off the road, I was going slowly enough that I could react to the rumble strips (ok, maybe that’s a bit optimistic), but I was certain that I would be slammed into from behind. All I could do is grab the mic and warn about my situation.


http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...2008windsm.jpg; http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/wywindsm.jpg; http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/wyjacksm.jpg

Shortly after making it out of that mess, less than ¼ mile down the road I came up on the tail end of that flatbed that had passed me. Now he was on his radio (he later told me he didn’t realize his CB volume was turned down). He had just managed to miss the truck in front of him and was trying to explain something about needing a clean pair of britches, and there we sat at a dead stop in the middle of the road. The snow was so blinding that I couldn’t see the front part of truck in front of me. Once again I’m on the CB with warnings. All the time this is happening there are many, many others in similar situations. The CB assault was nonstop.

Shortly after we started rolling again I came across the 3car accident involving the Patrol car. It was pancaked between the other cars, but it looked like everyone was out and OK. The flat bed that had flown by me a little earlier had just enough time to swerve around it and was now on his CB telling about his harrowing experience (you would think he would learn, unbelievable). I had just enough time to tell him that he was coming up on a right lane blockage and he apparently just missed that one too. Along with this bedlam there were dozens of cars and truck in the ditch. Amazingly there were no rollovers from what I could see.

Somehow I managed to make my way through this disaster, slow and stead gets you to the end of the race, and eventually started to see a slight letup in the weather. This whole thing started getting out of hand around the 60 MM and one hour later I was looking at the 45 marker wandering what the he!! had just happened. That is one experience I never care to go through again.

Anyway, the roads where by no means good, but after that last hour I felt like I was on easy street and from what I was hearing, once I made it to the 30 MM I would be home free. “Nothing but wet roads”. Yeah, sure, I’ve heard that before. But this was coming from east bound drivers that had just been their 20 minutes prior and apparently the weather was holding out on the Sisters. I keep my fingers crossed and forge on.

My heart beat had actually returned to normal (or at least close) and I was once again feeling confident that the worst was behind me. Then came MM35 and a big road condition sign flashing, “I-80 closed ahead, all traffic must exit”. Son of a #$@!.

I am stunned, so close. I can’t believe my luck. I actually watch the plow driver lower the gate and close the road in front of me. I am actually the very first truck in the line. It turns out that there was a jackknifed rig with injuries just up the road. I can’t help but reflect on my stop at the rest area. Had I not stopped I would have made it through. But then again, I may have been part of one of the accidents too.

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The sickening part of this became apparent later in the night. The road had been closed down from MM 3O to MM 68 due to weather. We had just finished driving through that entire stretch and I was currently sitting at a gate on exit 34. I was 4 miles from and open highway. As I sit there, it occurs to me that a dedicated run to Chicago might just be what I’m looking for.

So, here I sit on the exit ramp in the middle of nowhere, no phone, no internet access. At least I have the CB chatter to keep me amused. By 11:00pm it becomes more than apparent that the road isn’t going to be opening any time soon so I decide to get some sleep. An hour later a state trooper is pounding on my door and telling me I have to move (even though this is where they told us to park 5 hours ago). I look up and see that the gate is still closed which leaves me more than baffled in my sleepy little world. I make a polite inquiry as to where he would like me to go and he points down a county road that is in worse shape than the interstate I had come off.

The next subject that comes up is the good ol’ 14 hour rule. I make a feeble attempt at pointing out the pesky little federal rule that we all live and die by; you know that one that they site as they give you $1000 fines. My plea is meet with an obnoxious “move it”.

OK, next subject. “Sorry sir, but I have absolutely no idea where that road goes, could you give me some idea of where I’m going”. He replies with a curt, “We’re clearing the ramp, go to Lyman” and walks away. Nothing like a professional! I try to give the troopers the respect they deserve, but they sure don’t make it easy.

I grab the map and see that Lyman is about 10 miles away via county road. Un fing believable. Off I go into the great unknown on roads that have no business being traveled. After driving for about 15 minutes I’ve gone all of 2 miles and come across a little town, (turns out to be Fort Bridger) and consists of a main street that is ¼ mile long at best. At least I’m first in line; I find a spot wide enough to do a u-turn and park it on the side of the road. That’s enough for me. I listened to the CB for another hour or so, long enough to hear that they cleared the ramp and then were directing all the trucks to pull over as far to the right as possible. Any trucks in the left lane that couldn’t get over were funneled off the road so that plows could get by. What an absolute cluster F once again. Just dump trucks off on side roads with absolutely no direction. Disgusting! I finally wind down and go back to bed. Rumor has it that the road will be opened in the morning.

Well, it’s Friday morning and the sun is just starting to come up. I turn on the CB and it is chalk full of, well, lets call it animated chatter. CB rumor is that trucks are lined up single file from the 34 MM to the 58 MM. That’s 24 miles of trucks end to end. Is it true, don’t know, but wouldn’t be surprised. There are allot of grumblings from hungry and thirsty drivers. I’m amazed at how many drivers don’t have anything to eat or drink in their truck, especially this time of the year and running across WY on top of it. Personally, I could probably last upwards of two weeks without outside supplies.

As the day wears on a female Landline driver gets on the CB and informs us that she has just received a message from dispatch telling her that the road would remained closed for the rest of the day and would not be opened until tomorrow morning at the earliest. I just hang my head and cry. Not really, but you get the idea. This little bit of information is bolstered by the fact that the national guard is now driving up and down the road with fuel tankers for the drivers that are running low (I can’t help thumbing my nose at my fuel solution, it’s a good thing I topped off in Laramie) and portapots are being setup at intervals along the interstate. I finally decide to send a message into dispatch to let them know that if the road isn’t opened within 6 hours it will be a late delivery.

Hours later the unexpected happens, I start hearing rumblings on the CB. “The road is open, roll out”. Now I’ve been hearing this all day by so called humorists, but this one seems to have some steam behind it and I start getting excited. Sure enough, the word comes down and it is once again a free for all and off I go. Since I stopped at this little town just down from the interstate I find myself 2 miles from the starting gate along with a handful of other trucks that were able to find parking around me and we have an unobstructed route and are rolling down the road within minutes. The best part; its 11:30am and if I kick it I can make my delivery on time. It will be tight, but I think I can do it. I make it to somewhere in Nevada and shut down at 1am. Damn, I’m on night hours. Ick!

Saturday starts 11am and I have a very pleasant drive over Donner Pass and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It was almost 50 degrees at the summit. WOW, did they get a bunch of snow this year. Looks like 10 feet of standing snow at least. Wonder how I managed to miss those storms.

I make my delivery in Tracy, CA at 13:45 local time, 15 minutes before the appointment time. And what do you know; it’s a drop and hook. I make a notation in my book for future reference and drop my trailer. The drop part goes well, but the customer will not release an empty trailer to me, it seems they are planning on loading the ones that are on their lot later in the day.

I do my MT call and inform dispatch that I have no trailer. I’m short on hours and I know the 4hrs I have already worked today will not be taken into consideration by the computer, but do my usual wait and see what comes up. If it’s a load that doesn’t conform to my available hours I can refuse it. 20 minutes later I receive a single load offer that is a D/H PU just south of San Francisco and is a live delivery in Yakima, WA (1032mi) early Tuesday morning. Isn’t that just peachy, I’ve been listing to the weather channel and the snow is flying up there too. I’m also getting low on hours, but I look over the numbers and see that I can work in a 34 reset and hopefully the snow will move out before I get up there.

Now all I have to do is find an empty trailer. Dispatch had sent me two different addresses in the area to look for one. I head off to the closest and am in luck. I hook to the MT and wait for my load assignment. For whatever reason, every once in awhile, computer generated messages get caught up in the qualcom system. Direct messages between myself and dispatch go right through, but not messages like load information and directions (sometimes, like today, it can take well over an hour). Usually this isn’t a problem because I keep a list of every customer I’ve been to along with directions. In a case like this I can start driving and worry about getting the pertinent information by stopping at a rest area along the way once the info comes through. If that doesn’t work I can call my fleet manager to get the info over the phone. But this is Saturday, no one is in the office and weekend dispatch has enough to do without answering my calls. Unfortunately I have never been to this customer and after more than an hour I breakdown and call dispatch to get the basic PU info along with a phone number so I can get directions and take off.

I do my D/H PU, check to make sure the consignee is correct and head north. While I’m driving my qualcom starts chirping and my load assignment has finally arrived. Better late than never.

I have the hours to drive till 1am but by the time 11pm rolls around I decide I’ve had enough and shut down in Corning, CA for the night. This leaves me with 10 ½ hrs of drive time tomorrow. I can drive to a place of my choosing and do my 34reset. If time doesn’t permit that, no big deal because I will start picking up hours as of Tuesday, thus leaving me plenty of time to make my delivery. I’ll worry about the logistics of it tomorrow after a good nights sleep. I find a place to park and go find a place to eat a hot meal for a change.

When I got back to the truck I took care of a few things and as an after thought I remembered that my load assignment had come through the system after I had PU my load and was on my way north. I’ll just jot down the info before I go to bed. As I start doing this I am horrified to see that my Tuesday morning delivery, you know, the one that I have all the time in the world to get there is in fact a 2 stop delivery with the first stop scheduled for Monday morning in Seattle, WA. Holly S, that is sooo not good.
I scroll down to my load offer and there it is, in the lower corner of the screen “Stops 01”.

A quick look at the map and I see that I have over 600 miles to go with 10 ½ available and I have to stop for fuel on the way. That means I have to average around 61 MPH. That would be fine if I were running across a NV, but CA and OR have 55mph speed limits for trucks (that they enforce with a nazi like fervor), and a good portion of that is driving up and down mountains (fortunately I have a very light load, so I won’t be slowed down too much due to weight). This is going to be tighter than I like. If I would have noticed the extra stop when I received the load offer I would have refused it without a second thought, (and no, I didn’t notice the additional one page BOL attached to the bills that had the additional stop on it, my bad).

The big problem is that if I do make it to the customer, it will be Sunday night and the delivery isn’t scheduled until Monday morning. This will leave me there with no time on my clock not only for Sunday, but also no available hours for Monday and no possible way to go anywhere legally. This is not a good situation. I have the option of taking the load with a “see what happens” outlook, or calling Crete and rescheduling both deliveries, which would probably garner me a service failure. Well, I’m not going to go that route. Off to bed I go.

Well, its Sunday, showtime and I have to make this work. CA and OR are states that I make a practice of not messing with. The speed limit is 55 and I just set my cruise at 58 and kick back. That’s not going to be possible today. I bump it up to 62 (usually slow enough to get away with if the troopers are in a good mood) and hope for the best. I also make it a point to make a few stops and time them at just over 8 minutes. This way I can log a 15 minute stop and save a few minutes. One of the grey areas that is useful in these situations. If I do this a few times I should pickup enough time to get me to my destination before running out of hours. My fuel stop also works out great. I’m able to pull into the Pilot and get the only open pump left and there is no one parked in front of me. I am able to top of the tanks and be back on the road in less than 6 minutes. I’m required to log 15 On Duty for this, so in effect I’ve gained another 9 minutes. Every one of them counts today.

It was a beautiful drive through the Siskiyou Mountain range and Mt Shasta was absolutely beautiful.

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After a day of tight driving I was able to make it to the customer 10 minutes over my available hours. That means I was close enough that I can jump down to On Duty, Not Driving. That was way to close for comfort. I may still end up with a log violation, but I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 safety points on the good side. If I get dinged a point of two so be it. A fair price to pay compared to a service failure. Note to self, read load offers closer in the future.

Now that I’ve made it here I have the next obstacle to contend with. Can I stay here or will a security guard try to chase me off the property. Seattle isn’t exactly known for its abundant parking options, although I’m on familiar ground. I ran a dedicated route for a couple of years that delivered within a 6mi radius of here and knew of a few hiding spots. Things work out fabulously and I am not only given permission to stay on property, I am told to open my doors, throw the bills in the back and bump the dock and the morning crew would unload me first thing in the morning. Hot damn, somebody is watching over me today. I do as instructed and wonder off and try to decide which of the dozens of restaurants I want to eat at.

I woke up at 7am the following morning when the truck started bouncing around and ½ an hour later they were pounding on my door with the paper work. I pulled away from the dock and parked behind the store for the remainder of the day. No hours available until midnight.


Looking back on this week just reinforces the way I look at setbacks out here on the road. All of the delays I encounter would have eaten me up years ago. I have since learned to take everything in stride. Driving a truck OTR isn’t something you can judge on a daily basis. It’s something you have to look at as a whole. There will be bad days, but if you just take them in stride and move on I find that things usually work out in the long run. Especially when the check comes in.

With that in mind, I'm not feeling too good about next week, don't know why. Guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

‘til next week;

Adios





WEEK SIX RESULTS
Monday February, 4th through Sunday February, 10th
Miles include deadhead

Wilmington, NC to Kimper, KY…………………………..460mi
Kimper, KY to Tracy, CA…………………………………2535mi
Santa Clara, CA to Tukwila, WA………………………….883mi


Total Paid Miles…………………………………………..3878 miles
Actual Miles………………………3969 (includes off duty bobtailing)

3878mi x .42 = $1628.76

WOW! Fantastic post! I am really starting to look forward to reading this. Keep up the great work. I am considering going back to OTR, my current local job is not pannning out and being single, maybe i should head out for anther 2 years and just save all that money for retirement or buy a house I don't know.

I do enjoy seeing the good things about Crete. I drove for knight for a while and have considered going back to them, but I remember staying out for 4 or 5 weeks at a time and still only getting 2300 miles. And I ran hard and smart, but Knight terminal compete for frieght with each other and that can make it alttle hard. But they're easy as long as u don't do a"drop and hope to god for an mt trailer"

Travel safe my friend and I look forward to your next report

Chris