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! :D :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!! :D

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.

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

Huh?

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!

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.

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.

yeah had the same thing on market street in Wilmington NC

Week 25
 

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

Damn, your making me home sick.

Yeah, there are all kinds of street around there where you don't want to take a truck and Market St is definitely one of them. It's very easy to spot a lost driver in those parts. I actually guided a Swift driver out of town one day. He was sitting in the middle of the road and had no idea where to go. His company directions had put him in a very bad place.


I've actually used that very method many times when looking for a customer or when determing availible overnight parking, I just failed to use in in this case. I'm just too trusting of others I guess, never again.

Holy goddamn long post. Lots of respect for spending the time to spread the good word... Good or bad?

Yeah i was coming in from the east side on Market and I think it was the super 8 or days inn with the chinese place next to it. I knew where I was going but the last two blocks had those evil no thru trucks signs. Your right though if you dont know Wilmington or dont do proper tip planning you can definitely get in a mess there

Week 26
 

WEEK TWENTY SIX
Monday, June 23rd through Sunday, June 29th


Another Monday has arrived and it really isn’t any different than any other day. I have a load to deliver and get started at 3:30am so that I can drop my load asap and get my next load offer. This is another dropped trailer at a WalMart DC and after doing so and hunting down an empty trailer I put in my MT call and received a single load offer that is to pickup 80 miles down the road in Muskogee. I had been to this customer sometime ago and recall that it is a little hard to get to and has one of those short docks that will leave my truck sticking out into the street when being loaded. Looking forward to that.

Although it is a live load, it has an open pickup time frame so I don’t have to sit around waiting for an appointment time. I was given a door as soon as I arrived and the loading didn’t take long at all. This load was destine for Dallas(310mi) and had a 7am appointment the following morning. This was a short run, but I had already put in 300 miles before getting this load and it will give my a solid 600mi day. No complaints here, I can get close tonight and then drive into my customer before the morning rush hour has a chance to annoy me.

As planned, I arrived about an hour early for my delivery and as soon as I pull around the corner to get into the place I recognized it. I had been here about a year ago and it was a drop and hook. This is a pleasant surprise for me, it beats the heck out of sitting around on a live unload. The joy soon faded however, because there were no empty trailers to be found and to make it just a little worse there was another Crete driver who also needed an empty. That means that he would get the first available trailer and that would just result in a longer wait for me. We went inside to ask the warehouse clerk when a trailer might be emptied and available (there were a number of loaded Crete trailers on the property). The reply was to check back in a couple of hours. With that I sent a message off to dispatch (7am on a Monday morning, not good) to inform them of my situation and asked if they knew where I could get an empty trailer or if they might have a load I could bobtail to.

I was not too surprised when a timely response was not received. About an hour later the QualComm beeped with a “How long will you have to wait for a trailer�. Wish I knew the answered to that one. I made one more trip into the warehouse and this time I was told to check back around noon. I’m willing to sit around for a couple of hours, but the noon thing just wasn’t going to happen. We have a terminal down in Wilmer, and although it is about 25 miles away I decided I was going to look for an empty there. I couldn’t get any help or commitments from dispatch without an empty, so I’ll go find on one my own.

I put the truck in gear and headed out of the yard only to have Murphy’s law kick in when the Qualcomm chirped to life. At least I was bobtailing and it was easy to find a place to park. I was please to find a single load offer that was to pickup south of Dallas and I would be able to get my load without bringing in an empty. Can’t complain about that. It was a good mileage run going to Ft Lauderdale area (1352mi), but it didn’t deliver until Friday morning. This actually works out very good for me. I’m getting tight on hours and this will allow me to run out the rest of my day a put in a reset. Unfortunately that reset would have to happen in AL. I would have liked to take my down time in Ft. Lauderdale, but it was not to be. I just didn’t have enough hours to get there. After picking up my load and running my hours out I was able to make it to Mobile, AL by the skin of my teeth, as far as hours go. As is always the case, parking in this town in almost impossible to come by, but I knew of a side road near a past customer that I could park on for the night.

I decided to get a hotel room for Wednesday night to save on idling time and much more importantly, to get me out of the truck for a day. A little advise to anyone trying to get a hotel room in Mobile. Many claim to have truck parking, in face they do not. At least Google Earth saved me pulling into the Red Rood Inn. That would have been a bad situation for me. I ended up at the Howard Johnson (only the best?) and was able to wiggle into a parking spot only because it was early and there was no one else in the lot at the time. I also took this chance to figure out the local bus schedule and did a little sight seeing. If you ever get down there and have a little time available to you I would suggest checking out the USS Alabama.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ssalabama1.jpg; http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ssalabama2.jpg

Thursday morning had me back at work and it was just a matter of putting as many miles behind me as possible for the day. I ended up stopping with more than an hour of drive time left because truckstops are virtually nonexistent in south Florida. I actually had just enough time to make it to my customer, but I didn’t know if they had overnight parking available and if they didn’t I would be hard pressed to find parking. I was lucky to get parking at the Pilot. It wasn’t even 6pm and there were less than 10 spots left. I’m glad I don’t make it down here very often. It’s been 5-6 years since my last trip into the Miami area (in a truck that is), and hopefully it will be at least that long before I return.

Friday finds me about 90 miles from the customer and as usual, I pulled in an hour early for my delivery. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. This is a “doesn’t� day. They did give me a door assignment, but told be unloading would not begin until the appointment time. After some tricky maneuvering I was able to get my trailer to the door of this “strip mall warehouse�. Another one of those places where 53’ trailers were never meant to go. I actually had to drop my trailer once docked because my tractor completely blocked thru traffic.

All I had to do at that point was wait, and that’s what I did. They were taking their time and it was close to 3hrs before the unload was completed. I had put in an MT call a bit early in anticipation of getting a load offer and load info asap. There was no where to park in the area and I needed to know what direction I was going as soon as the trailer was empty. It didn’t do me all that much good though. My next load offer was slow in coming and I found myself empty before getting my next load. Now I had to pull out of the door and try to find a somewhere to park where I would be out of everyone’s way. I wasn’t too successful and had to keep driving around the building every time someone else wanted to drive out. The load offer eventually came through and it was a single load offer. Looks like I’m going to OK (1392mi), and it’s a wonderful drop and hook on both ends. Sweet! The big surprise it that I’m being deadheaded 320mi to get my load. I don’t see deadheads that long very often anymore. I don’t image there are many options from the Miami area.

As soon as I knew where my pickup was I was off. I hadn’t received any load info yet, but I was tired of being chased out of this parking lot and planned on stopping somewhere down the road once the Qualcomm started beeping (it took another 45mins before that happened). The Florida weather was looking nasty today but the roads stayed dry, until I was 10mins from my PU that is. Then the skis opened up and unloaded on me. The traffic was crawling along at 20 mph and my drop n hook was not much fun. It did stop raining shortly after I was done though.

The next two days weren’t too bad, but I did run into some nasty downpours and the four wheelers were hitting the ditches like it was ice. They seem to think they can keep driving 80 mph regardless of the weather conditions.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...FLRollover.jpg; http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...OKRollover.jpg

It’s been nice getting a couple of longer trips of late. Fewer pickups and deliveries makes for far fewer problems and simple days of driving. Before I know it, I’m looking at a Sunday and I’m dropping my trailer in OK and awaiting my next load offer.

It’s another single load offer, but I’m not complaining. It’s a preloaded trailer 100 miles away and is going to Columbus, OH(1113mi). Another nice long run. The only drawback is it’s a live unload scheduled for 1pm next Tuesday. That will have me sitting around a little bit, but nothing too serious. OK, there are two drawbacks to this load. The other is that this is a tire load. At least it is a preloaded trailer, the unload will be time consuming though.

I got my preloaded trailer and made it to Joplin, MO before my Sunday came to a close.

Killer miles for the week, love it!

Can you believe the year is half over already, we will be driving in the snow before we know it.

WEEK TWENTY SIX RESULTS
Monday, June 23rd through Sunday, June 29th
Miles include deadhead


Little Rock, AR to Ocheleta, OK(final leg)................................302mi
Muskogee, OK to Garland, TX................................................ 310mi
Waxahachie, TX to Pompano, FL...........................................1352m i
Alachua, FL to Ardmore, OK................................................ .1392mi
Lawton, OK to Joplin, MO(first leg)..........................................403m i

Total Paid Miles............................................. ........................3759 Miles

Actual Miles...................................3796Miles

3759 miles x .42 = $1578.78

thanks for the reminder about the snow :roll:
Super 8 exit 15 in Mobile has great truck parking and you have tons of restaurants and shopping around ya

Yeah, saw that one but they were charging much more than surrounding hotels so I had to go with the more challenging parking spots. The annoying thing is I could get a much nicer (and cheaper) room by using Priceline and naming my own price, but then the truck parking becomes a major issue. Sometimes I'm able to drop my trailer at a truck stop and bobtail, but it wasn't an option in Mobile.

[quote="ct77"]Little tip for finding good (safe) truck parking at hotels,motels. quote]

GOOGLE "truck parking near _____ (zip)". The majority of the responses will be for hotels.

My Sprint aircard has a GPS feature, too. I can do the same thing with it and it will display the results on a bird's eye view map in order of proximity . . pretty stinkin' cool!

everrtrucker . . do you find that priceline is losing or holding it's advantage? I had used travelocity quite a bit until recently. The savings seem to be shrinking.

2008 Mid-Year Summary
 

2008 Mid-Year Summary


Well, the year is half over and time to throw up the mid-year numbers.

Here is a summary of my first six months of 2008 with Crete.

This is a spreadsheet of miles run to date. Each trip is posted on the date that the load was delivered. This can result in a slight distortion of the monthly totals when the majority of the load was driven during the last day or two of a month and delivered on the first day of the next month (specifically June, where all but 200 miles of my last load of 1113 miles were completed in June, but will be included in Julys totals). This will also result in 900 miles being excluded from the Mid-Year totals, they will be included in my next summary. There were also a couple of instances where I delivered two loads in one day. On these trips I listed the miles for the second trip on the next day to avoid distorting the length of haul numbers.

Also in regards to hub miles I just added the miles run in my new truck to the mileage on my old truck as opposed to figuring out a formula on the Spreadsheet. I wasn’t motivated enough to do that today


http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...YearTotals.jpg


And here is a quick breakdown of the numbers above.



http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...rbreakdown.jpg

bigtimba wrote:


I find that Priceline is the absolute best when you use the "Name your own price" feature. You can get screaming deals, but you can only pick the general area and "star" classification of your stay. You can not pick your hotel. Many times I can get myself a room in a Marriot or the like for about the same money as a direct booking in a Super 8. If the price you offer is accepted it results in great savings. I can only use this option if I am able to drop my trailer somewhere and bobtail to the hotel because there is seldom parking available at the chosen hotel.

Hotwire is also good if you don't need to stay at a specific hotel.

Generally speaking I must do a search on the web to make sure truck parking is available and choose a specific (and often less desirable)hotel based on that criteria. In this case there is little difference between search engines and it is often cheaper or at least the same price to book directly on the Hotel's website. When you do that you usually only make a reservation and can cancel without loosing any money in the event something comes up. You only have to pay after you show up. If you book through one of the discounter sites that money is often non-refundable.

Hi Evertruckerr, Great posts. Keep them coming.
I stopped by the Deland, Fl. terminal today and had a discussion with the Manager. She checked with Lincoln and to find out whether my school was accreditted. Unfortunitly there are none in Fl., so it looks like I'll have to pay my dues with another company for a year. She suggested a smaller company nearby and then come back to see her. I'll keep checking up on this thread to see how the job is going.

Charged for OOR fuel?
 

Has any Crete driver been charged for going out of route fueling?

They are going to take/steal $10 from me.
nice.

I have always followed their fuel solution before this one time. But this fuel stop was on one of the worst "suggested routes" I have ever received. And they have already gotten enough of my cell minutes free for me to call and deal with their rudeness.

It is really petty.

Try and send a qualcomm message to your terminal manager to get a different routing the next time you disagree with the routing.

It wasn't that easy but to keep my anonymity I'm not going to say why. Call me paranoid.

I did get it resolved though and an unneeded apology, but I did appreciate the understanding. And I'm glad it isn't just a blanket policy to charge oor fueling.

Week 27
 

WEEK TWENTY SEVEN
Monday, June 30th through Sunday, July 6th


I could have started this Monday morning as early as 3am, but this load had a lousy 1pm delivery tomorrow and I only had a little over 700 miles to go. I could get it there earlier, but there wasn’t enough down time to justify a TCall and there was no point in pushing, so I just decided to take it easy for the next day or two. If nothing else, it would be a nice change of pace. I slept in and took a nice leisurely drive across MO and called it a day in our Indy yard. I could have made it another 100 miles or so, but I had a White Castle craving and oddly enough, there happens to be one just down the road from the yard. I’ll admit that a 9hr day is nice, but I can’t help feeling like I’m wasting my time sitting around.

Once again, Tuesday was a day that I could have gotten an early start, but in order to time my delivery (I had specific instructions not to arrive more than an hour early) without starting my clock too soon I sat in the yard until 8:30 and headed out. With a short stop at a rest area I managed to pull into the receiver at exactly 12 noon. One hour early. I said hello to the guard and then proceeded to wait 35mins to finally get a door assignment. In the mean time I passed my time by reading the many “notice to drivers� signs stuck on the wall. The one that really scared me was the one that stated “Live loads can take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours, please be patient. We will let you know when you are empty� or something to that horrid effect. I had hoped to get away with a drop and hook, but it was not to be. I headed on over to my dock and hoped for the best with somewhat of pessimistic outlook. Tire loads are just about the worse load you can have when it come to unloading. They are loaded on the floor and must be unloaded by hand, one at a time.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...cker/tires.jpg

The only thing I had going for me was that this was a Goodyear plant and I had to assume they were properly staffed and proficient at unloading.

The end result turned out to be quit acceptable for a tire load. They finished up in just over two hours and I was ready for my next load offer.

I was expecting a load of pet food out of Obetz just up the road and that’s what I got. I was only given a one load offer, but it was a good one. A preloaded trailer that picked up anytime today and delivered anytime Thursday (or earlier) to Opelika, AL (687mi). If I had the hours I would have had it there Wednesday afternoon and been ready for my next load. Unfortunately I was on the verge of running out the last of my 70 hours for this week and would have to find a place somewhere between here and there to put in for a reset.

With that in mind I headed on over to the shipper and got my trailer and made my way out of town. As soon as I got onto the loop on the south side of Columbus I started hearing something about the interstate being closed. The problem is I didn’t know what interstate or what direction. After a few tries I found out that I-70 east bound was closed down just east of town and was causing one hell of a mess. I was grateful to be heading south out of town on I-71. Dodged quit a mess there, sometimes luck is with me.

As I was going down the road I was checking my available hours and trying to find an acceptable place to waste a day for my reset. I really wanted to make it to Knoxville where I knew I could drop the trailer in our yard and allow me to make my way around town via bobtail (thereby, greatly increase my hotel options). Along with the fact that there are plenty of restaurants to choose from and it would also give me a chance do a little shopping and catch a movie or two. But wanting is not the same thing as doing. I simply didn’t have the hours to make it there today. My early stop over in Indy last night has just bit me in the ass. If I had run out the rest of my hours yesterday, I would have been able to make it to Knoxville tonight. This just reinforces my “run as far as possible� mentality.

While I was contemplating an alternate layover spot I once again heard a faint CB report from the distance that the interstate was closed. This really was nothing new at this point; I had been hearing numerous reports ever since I had left Columbus. Something about this report, however, struck a different cord. I could swear I heard something about southbound this time. I-70 runs east and west, someone must have been confused. A few minutes later I once again heard southbound and this time it was load and clear. Sure enough, not only was I-70 shut down, I-71 was having its own share of problems and I was headed directly into it. So much for my “Good Luck�. Apparently there was a horrific scene down the road and a helicopter had been called. My driving hours were getting tight for the day and I couldn’t afford to lose any driving time to sitting in traffic. I grabbed the atlas and started looking for alternate routes. There were a few viable options, but from what I was hearing on the CB, most of them were getting stopped up with overflow traffic from the interstate. I also learned that it had been shut down for a while and the helicopter had just left with its passenger from crash site. I had plenty of time left on my 14hr clock so I pulled into a Flying J and waited for the mess to clear up.

This gave me some time to finalize my destination for the day and make sure I could get a hotel room in the area. An hour later the news came down the pike that the road was once again open, but still backed up. These reports were coming from drivers that had passed the scene of the accident 30 minutes ago. Combine that with the 30 minutes it will take me to get there I figured there would be a very good chance that the traffic would be moving by the time I got there. Off I went and the traffic was indeed flowing unabated by the time I arrived at the reported crash site. All was well once again and with the exception of a slight delay getting through Cincinnati (nothing new about that) I ran out the rest of my hours and settled in for my reset in very exciting community of Corbin, KY. Not my first choice, but it’s where I found myself when my logbook said stop.

Wednesday was a boring yet restful day in the comforts of a nearby hotel and before I knew it my reset was over and I started my Thursday as soon as I could in order to drop my trailer as early as possible and get a start on my next load. I still had 400 miles to go and after a 7min fuel stop in our Marietta yard I managed to make it to the Wal-Mart DC by 2pm. My drop/hook went quickly and I put in my MT call and waited for my fate.

My concern was that this was July 3rd and that makes tomorrow the 4th. No one is open on the forth and I could only assume that I would be getting a load that delivered on the 5th or later. That would be fine if I got a high mileage run, not so good if I got stuck with a short haul. I wasn’t exactly being optimistic about my chances.

A few minutes later I was actually given a choice of two loads. The 1st was preloaded and ready to go just up the road with a final destination of IN (420mi) with an anytime drop. Yes, this is a short run, but the kind I love. Not a second of wasted time and I would be empty early tomorrow and ready for my next load in a solid freight area. Under any other conditions I would have jumped on this load, but as it where, I would be dropping this load on the 4th with a very strong possibility of no freight availability once I got there. There might be freight, there might not. I didn’t want to take that chance and that left me with load option 2. It was a live load (yuck) 100 miles away in Birmingham and going to Ardmore, OK (858mi) with an anytime drop on the 5th. The big problem with this load was that it wasn’t scheduled to load until 9:30pm. Not good because it was currently 2:30pm. I had started my day at 7am, which means my 14hrs will be up at 9:00pm. My live load is 30mins after that. Well, I can drive after 14hrs, but that doesn’t mean I can work after 14hrs. I’ll make it work.

One other contributing factor to my choice; I was looking forward to finding a 4th of July celebration somewhere along the way and enjoying a fireworks show. I figured I’d have better luck driving around in TX and OK as opposed to central IN.

I headed toward the shipper with my always hopeful optimism at getting loaded early. If they would do this I would have plenty of time to put some miles behind me and find a place to park for the night. If not, I would have to find a place to park nearby.

As I approached the shipper I realized I had picked up a load here over a year ago and that one was a drop and hook (I also remember that trailer had a blown air pod on it that another driver stuck me with). Even though I had an appointment loading time, it isn’t unheard of to find a loaded trailer waiting. My hopes where high but the result, not so much; this was indeed a live load, but not all was lost. Even though I was over 3hrs early I was actually given a door to dock too. At least I will be loaded before my 14hr clock expires.

Or NOT!

Even though I was allowed to dock early, it did nothing to expedite the loading process. As the minutes turned to hours I decided to crawl into the sleeper and watch a movie. As scheduled, the loading began at precisely 9:30 and a mere 2hrs later the process had come to an end. My 14hrs also came to an end long ago, but as luck would have it there was plenty of room for overnight parking and at least I didn’t have to deal with that problem. I didn’t bother setting the alarm and took off when I awoke in the morning. No real hurry with this load.

Well, what do you know? It’s Friday, July 4th and the country is celebrating a national holiday and I’m ready to spend the day driving, ugh!

This was one of those loads in which I was given a fuel routing that was along a “practical mile� route, interstates the whole way but after checking the route on Streets and Trips the paid mileage was based on a less than practical and more direct route of mostly two lanes. In short, my fuel routing would have resulted in 70+ out of route miles, so I went ahead and took the two lanes. This made for slower progress, but what the heck; I was in the mood for some sight seeing today. My only problem was that I would need to get some fuel at an unauthorized fuel stop along the way and this being a holiday meant that I would have to deal with weekend dispatch. I opted to not bother them and pulled into a Pilot and put in 50gals. Just enough to get me where I was going, a shower and a small enough amount to avoid getting a phone call for unauthorized fuel purchase.

The rest of my Friday was spent meandering across some of our finer southern states and came to a close in the fine community of Paris, TX. I had hoped I would be able to find a good fireworks display but I could find no info on such an evening. I actually had a little time left on my clock and knew that the Choctaw’s had a couple of casinos across the state line and I was sure they would have something going so I jumped back in the truck in the search of show. I was rewarded with a fairly good steak dinner and a first rate fireworks show (OK, second rate, but not bad for the middle of no where)!

Saturday started with me being a little more than an hour away from my drop and I was empty and awaiting my next load offer by 6am. This particular time had concerned me since I took this load. I figured I had little chance of getting a load on the 4th, which is why I took the load that delivered on the 5th. But loads weren’t exactly plentiful today either. A half hour went by without an offer and I finally broke down and sent a message asking for a load. That went unanswered for another 40 minutes before I sent another message that was eventually answered with a “low on freight, will let you know when we have something�. This wasn’t an entirely unexpected turn of events and I didn’t get too wound up about it, I just kicked back and awaited a load.

After 5 short hours (I wish I would have known that earlier so I could have slept in, and not started my 14hr clock so early) I got a single load offer. At first glance I was none to happy with it. It was a load that was scheduled to PU anytime tomorrow. What a waste of a day this turned out to be. But I quickly realized it was a preloaded trailer (I assumed this) at the Goodyear plant in Lawton, OK. It had to be a preloaded trailer. I was at this very shipper just last week (yuk, another tire load). This being a holiday weekend, it also meant that this very trailer has probably been sitting here since Thursday and that 5 hours I just spent lounging around in my truck could have, in all likelihood, been spent in a more productive manner. Oh well, that’s truck driving. I could only assume that since this load wasn’t scheduled for PU until tomorrow that it had just come up in the system for dispatch. I’ll give them the benefit of doubt on this one.

Not only is this load picking up at the same shipper, but it’s going to the same receiver just outside of Columbus and once again it has a mid-day appointment delivery. I know how this is going to work; no early arrivals and a 3hr unload. Crap! One more stroke of good luck to top it off. It wasn’t scheduled to deliver until Tuesday and this is Saturday. That’s a nice run of 1113 miles, but over 3 ½ days. Holy Crap! I’m going to be hell bent on Tcalling this load. There is no way they can expect me to sit under this one. In all honesty, I’m not too worried about it. I have little doubt that I will be able to drop this in Indy or Columbus.

So off I go to get my trailer. I’m greeted by the same pleasant lady that I dealt with last week and she even remembered me “Hey, I know you, weren’t you here last week?� Sure is nice to work with people that don’t hate life. I went through the normal routine and was headed down the road within a half hour.

Thanks to my extended wait for a load offer this morning I was somewhat limited on available hours for the day but was just able to make it to Tulsa for the night and parked at yet another casino, sure are a lot of them in OK. This was a bit frustrating because if not for the wait, I would have been able to drive far enough down the road tonight to make it possible to reach Columbus the following day. But as it worked out, I would have to settle for Indy as a final destination Sunday night and work on a Tcall from there.

Sunday was just a good old fashioned day of solid driving and I made it to Indy with time to spare. All I had to do now was dump this load. I was still in the position of dealing with weekend dispatch and decided to wait until the morning to tackle that little obstacle.


Another week is history and I find myself in the exact same place that I spent Monday night. Just one big loop. Do it again!





WEEK TWENTY SEVEN RESULTS
Monday, June 30th through Sunday, July 6th
Miles include deadhead


Joplin, MO to Lockbourne, OH (final leg)..................................... 710mi
Obetz, OH to Opelika, AL................................................ .......... 687mi
Birmingham, AL to Ardmore, OK................................................ 858mi
Lawton, OK to Indianapolis, IN................................................ ...926mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ..........................3181 Miles

Actual Miles.............................3231Miles

3181 miles x .42 = $1336.02

Re: Charged for OOR fuel?
 

I had never heard of this practice.

Just out of curiosity, did they hit you up for out of route miles or was the charge for fueling at an unapproved fuel stop.

Either way, $10 sounds like more of a minor slap on the wrist, "don't do that" kind of thing as opposed to a serious attempt at recouping costs.

If I ever have a problem with my fueling solutions, a quick call to my fleet manager is all that is needed. On the weekends I just send a QualCom message and have always been rerouted. Going through proper channels has always worked for me. True, a pain at times, but I realize fuel costs must be controlled these days.

Re: Charged for OOR fuel?
 

It was for fueling at an unapproved stop. But the fuel department rescinded the charge. And your right, it is just a slap on the wrist. I tried to only fuel what I needed anyways.

My qualcom was down and going through proper channels, esp. on Sunday, will eat my cell minutes. Besides, waiting on hold for fifty minutes for someone that obviously doesn't want to deal with me or anyother driver puts me off too. It has gotten to the point that if I HAVE to call operations or breakdown I do a quick prayer and hope for their indifference. And the one time I did have to call safety wasn't smooth sailing either.

Honestly, I don't like to talk with most of the drivers out here either. And I have no idea the workload or stress operations and breakdown has but...
sometimes I wonder if I called the right company. Thankfully my QC is working now.

Evertrucker
 

I just wanted to say thanks and great job posting this actual information. That you ran 140k isnt that big a deal. That you did it Legally.. wow nicely done man. Thanks a lot for posting actual info rather than just hot air.

Additional note to newbies: You Can run that hard and be home weekends but you will be running VERY illegal and spend your weekends laying on the couch recovering. Very long loads allow high legal miles and those guys stay out a long time. Not many are cut out for hardcore otr.

Re: Charged for OOR fuel?
 

$10?
I saw the company im with charge a driver $180 for OOR. Me I woulda laughed at them and walked out.. The gave me a route that i broke down and took throught the back country of Ga. I lost more time on a back 2 lane road at night looking at all the deer, In small town waited 20 mins for a train runnnng at 3am that seemed a mile long, the dam thing was bigger then the town (lol) no place to stop for coffee May have save them, $50 in fuel and cost me 3 hours more in time.

Re: Charged for OOR fuel?
 

Let me guess, your company doesn't pay you for your time? If they charged me $180 for anything I would be out the door. I'm giving this job a few more months before I make a decision. Who knows maybe they'll fire me and I'll take a vacation.

Week 28
 

WEEK TWENTY EIGHT
Monday, July 7th through Sunday, July 13th


OK, ready to start another week on the road. My last week ended with me pulling into the Crete yard here in Indy and putting in for the night. I have another trailer loaded with tires like last week that isn’t scheduled to deliver until Tuesday at 13:00. It is now 3am on Monday and that leaves me with 34hrs to go 200 miles. I could stay here and put in a 34hr reset, but I still have 27hrs available before that will be necessary and I have no desire to do that at this time.

It is my intention to Tcall this load so that I can keep moving (getting out of a live tire unload would be nice too). Before contacting dispatch I did a quick check of the yard for an empty trailer (to facilitate getting a clean dispatch) and found that I was out of luck. The yard was packed full of trailers, but they were all loaded. This was the tail end of the 4th of July weekend which resulted in a large number of loaded trailers that had been Tcalled by drivers that live in the area so they could take their time off. Good news in a way; I wouldn’t be able to get an empty trailer, but my chances of re-powering a load in the yard was good. The only question was which load they would need me to deliver. Most of them were to deliver in the immediate area, but there where a number of them that had good miles on them. Scary part – two were going to eastern New York and one was destine for Baltimore.

With that in mind I sent off a message to dispatch. “I’m at the Indy yard and have a load that doesn’t deliver until tomorrow after noon. What are the chances of Tcalling this load here or in the Columbus yard so that I can keep moving? There are no empty trailers available, but I can re-power any of the loaded trailers sitting here in the yard.� The early morning dispatch shift must not have been too busy because I received an answer almost immediately (This is why I set my alarm for 3am. If I had waited until 7am or so I would have to compete with an entire fleet of drivers vying for their attention).

My answer was, “Tcall complete, what empty trailer do you have?� Dispatch tends to scan messages and apparently failed to read that no empties were available. I once again reminded them of this and offered to re-power a load, if not “I could forward this load to Columbus and get an empty there�. After about 10mins I was sent out a single load offer and as I had feared, it was the Baltimore load. The pisser about this one; I had put in for home time on or about the 10th of this month (that will make 6 weeks out); today is the 7th. Now, I’m not dead set on getting home at this time and I would rather be making miles as opposed to sitting around waiting to make a delivery. There were no loads in the yard headed in the direction of PHX anyway, so I went ahead and accepted the load. I might be able to make it home by the weekend if everything goes perfect (I’m not counting on it though). Murphy ’s Law was in full effect. I haven’t been anywhere close to the feared Northeast since early May. I put in for home time in PHX and BAM, I’m off to Baltimore. I suppose I could have requested another load, but I was happy to be moving.

This Baltimore (584mi) load wasn’t all that bad, other than the fact that I was going to Baltimore. It was sitting here and ready to go and had an appointment delivery the next day of 09:30. I could have went back to bed and started later in the morning, but I wasn’t really tired and if I left now I wouldn’t have to deal with the rush hour traffic here in Indy (not really anything to worry about anyway) and would hit Columbus after the brunt of their morning traffic. The main deciding factor however was the burning desire to get into Baltimore as early as possible so that I wouldn’t have any trouble finding parking at the TA in the center of town. Generally speaking, it fills up quickly and you really need to be parked by 4pm to guarantee a spot for the night (at a cost of $12, F… TA)!

After getting my load info I was happy to see that the customer had overnight parking so I could avoid paying the parking fee. I guess I could have stopped outside of town some, but if I could park at the dock of the customer I would be able to avoid the morning traffic going into town and I would also be able to start my 14hr clock much later in the day. Always helpful in getting good miles the following day. I also had my normal hope of delivering early, but the load info stated under no circumstances was this load to be delivered early. So much for that idea.

A few hours into my day I heard the familiar beep of the Qualcomm and was able to read the first few words of the message on my dash and it was from an unfamiliar name. Better pull over and find out what that one is about. Turned out to be a question “Are you still wanting home time in PHX?� That would have been a nice question to have received while I was in Indy. The day crew tends to pay a little more attention to home time requests and I find when I’ve been out for six weeks, they tend to be a little more attentive. I sent off a response, “Yes I am, Thx.�

That was the last I heard about it (at least I know someone is working on it), and I spent the rest of the day making my way to Baltimore. Once there I was tring to decide where I wanted to park for the night. The truck stop was only about 2 miles from the customer and would afford me a place to hang out until the sun went down so that I could avoid idle time, but it was a pleasant day and I decided to head on over to the customer. When I got there I found a very small “distribution center� with 5 rundown docks and a small lot next door (that must be the so called overnight parking). I pulled into the lot and prepared to spend the night there. That didn’t last long; within 15mins a UPS bobtail pulled up next to me and informed me that I couldn’t park there. It was one of their transfer lots and not affiliated with the place I was delivering to in the morning. I appoligized for the intrusion and pardoned myself long enough to ask where this elusive overnight parking was. It turned out that I could park at their dock overnight, but only after they went home for the night and that was still 3hrs away. Looks like I will be spending my night at the TA.

I was very surprised when I pulled into that arm pit of a TA truckstop. It was 5pm and the place was half empty; unheard of at this time of day. I don’t know if it was due to the recent holiday weekend or decline in freight, but whatever the cause, parking was plentiful. All I had to do was go into the TA and buy $20 worth of stuff so that I wouldn’t have to hand over $12 to the parking attendant when I left in the morning.

It was a pleasant 80° day with a wonderful breeze but the direct sun made sitting in the truck rather unpleasant and I wanted to keep my idling down, so I grabbed a book and sat under a tree across the street and watched the people go by. Apparently this TA sits on a corner that doubles as a major buss stop that commuters use to run up and down the coast. A number of different commuter bus lines were stopping here and my curiosity was peaked. Later that night I pulled out the computer and started checking out various bus lines and found out that I could get to virtually anywhere on the east coast from here. I also learned that a number of these buses run deep into the surrounding states at reasonable rates. I will make a point of utilizing this info the next time I am able to take a reset in this area. In a mater of a few hours I could myself in DC doing the tourist thing or any number of other points of interest. I might even be able to swing a Manhattan trip someday or maybe a baseball game in any of the ballparks in that part of the country.

My delivery was set for 09:30 and I considered heading over tonight and parking against one of their dock so I would be ready to go, but I had failed to ask when they opened in the morning and was afraid I would be chased off. My load info was adamant about not delivering early and I didn’t want to cause waves and I opted to wait until the morning to arrive.

This turned out to be a bad idea. I arrived at 9:00 only to find another truck sitting in the docks blocking my entry and I was forced to park in the street and block a driveway or two (right next to the sign that said, “Don’t block drive�). I also learned that this customer didn’t open until 9:30 (who opens that late!). To make matters worse, the Werner truck that had beat me there had backed up to the middle dock and could only manage to back in at an awkward angle that had one corner of his trailer against the dock and the other corner at least 18� away. When I politely suggested that he “might want to strengthen out his truck� so that the dock plate would be able to catch the end of his trailer he looked at it and made a statement to the effect of “it should be OK.� I had the feeling he was a little inexperience and left it at that.

When the dock doors opened up we where greeted by your traditional east coast dock worker who was far from impressed with Werner’s docking attempt and wasted no time in telling him to try it again (with a much less tolerant manner than I had employed earlier). He then instructed me to take one of the two docks next to him.

My first impression of this Werner driver turned out to be dead on. I could not back into my spot until he finished his maneuvering, so I sat back and enjoyed the show. This was one of those nightmare docks that could beat up the most seasoned driver and Mr. Werner was out of his league. He was having one hell of a time dealing with the fire hydrant and the protective posts around it that sat dead center in front of the dock. What a ridiculous setup this was. I finally broke down and headed over to help him out. I don’t like to do this for two reasons. One, some guys don’t appreciate the offer, and two, I really don’t like taking on the responsibility of someone else’s actions, but this poor guy was lost. We finally got him situated and I headed out to my truck to start what I was sure was going to be an unpleasant experience. I hope Werner appreciates the fact that he got the “easy� spot.

What I now had to deal with was docks that were setting on a piece of property that was in a triangle shape. The bulk of the building was on the wide part of the property and the docks were situated at the tip of the triangle. This tip was bordered on one side by a very busy main artery 4 lane road with a built up median (preventing me from splitting the lanes of traffic) and a standard side street on the other side that had its share of traffic going in and out of a busy industrial area. At the center of that dock area was a fire hydrant with a box truck parked across the street (with tall grass growing out of cracks in the road under it telling me it was a permanent structure). These obstacles prevented me from making a traditional approach to the dock from the side street and left me with the sole option of driving into the oncoming traffic lanes of the 4 lane and then blind backing into my dock with a dropped pup trailer on one side and the Werner truck on the other side. My only saving grace was that I had the width of two docks to play with so I could shoot out into the street and quickly back into my spot and then worry about wiggling into my dock once I get off the street.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? My first hassle was finding a place to turn around. If I had arrived 10mins earlier before Werner got there I could have pulled into the U shaped dock area, spun around and back to the dock effortlessly, but now I was on the street pointed in the wrong direction. I was able to find a drive down the road that I could back into and get myself going the right way. Next, I pulled up in front of the docks and waited for an opening in traffic. The problem I now faced was that I couldn’t pull all the way up to the street because I would be blocking all traffic behind me, but by stopping short of the stop sign I wasn’t able to get a good look at traffic coming from the left (the traffic I had to pull into head-on). I actually had to get out of the truck and stand in front of it and when I saw what I hoped to be an ample opening, I then would have to run back to the truck and go for it. This was compounded by a double set of traffic lights in close succession and a ridiculous amount of traffic and the endless thread of left turning traffic that would throw a wrench into everything.

Ten minutes into my adventure I was horrified to see a bozo in a pickup full of pallets pull into my docks and park directly in the middle of both docks. I chased him down and was able to get him to move over, but I just lost my cushion of error. Long story short, yeah I know, too late, I sat there for a total of 25mins waiting for an opening that I though I could make work and it was off to the races.

I jumped into the truck and floored it. There were a number of cars bearing down on me from ahead and a few coming down the side road. I had one chance to make this work. Why me? I managed to hit my spot without backing into anyone and finally docked. Wow, I hate these antiquated docks.

While being unloaded I put in my MT call and hoped for a load home, or at least in that direction. I immediately received a preplanned load going to Missouri followed by a message that said “take this to the Columbus yard and Tcall it, we will get you a load to PHX from there�. This was a pleasant surprise because no one had informed me that I had been preplanned. I was happy to be going home, but not too pleased with what would in all likelihood be a Monday or Tuesday arrival due to losing a day along the way for a reset (I’m running short on hours). I stay out for long periods of time and insist on spending a full weekend with the wife because she works during the week. I don’t get any special enjoyment out of spending my time off while the wife is at work. I know I can call my Fleet Manager and stretch out my hometime, but I don’t really want to take that much time off either.

I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

This next load had an appointment live load just down the road and I showed up a few hours ahead of schedule in the hopes of an early load. They were more than happy to load me when I got there and I was rolling 45mins later. Columbus was only a little more than 400 miles away and I made it there by the end of the my day and informed dispatch so they could Tcall my trailer. I was looking at a log book with limited hours left on my 70 and let dispatch know that I was going to take a reset.

They said OK and sent me a preplanned load that I was to PU Thursday morning here in Columbus that was going to Fontana, CA with a Tuesday delivery and told to Tcall it in the PHX yard for my home time. Perfect, just enough time to put in a reset, thus allowing me to run hard once loaded. The mileage was perfect, I could run three 650 mile days and make it to PHX by Saturday evening as a best case scenario, or if I run into delays I would make it by Sunday morning for sure.

I spent my reset at the Columbus terminal. I was going to get a hotel, but since I was on my way home I figured I could put up with hanging out at the terminal. I pulled out my computer and used it to watch movies and pass time. There were plenty of drives to BS with too. There are always a number of trucker stories to keep me entertained.

Thursday finally rolled around and I headed over to get my home bound load on the north end of Columbus. It was a fairly quick loading process and I was on my way home before I knew it. My next three days consisted of steady driving with as few stops as possible. Fewer stops meant an earlier arrival and I was shooting for a early afternoon arrival. The entire trip was on interstates and I encounter no problems unlike this unfortunate driver just south of Flagstaff:

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...apedinhalf.jpg

and found myself in PHX by 3pm Saturday afternoon. I’ll be damned, I actually made it home for the weekend, or at least part of it that is. And NO, that’s not good enough. I desire to be home for a whole weekend, Fri thru Sun at least; especially this home trip. I need to be in town for my Nieces baptism next Sunday (it had to be rescheduled from this Sun because I didn’t think I had a chance of being home by tomorrow considering I was in Baltimore just last Tuesday). But I’ll worry about that later.









WEEK TWENTY EIGHT RESULTS
Monday, July 7th through Sunday, July 13th
Miles include deadhead


Indianapolis, IN to Baltimore, MD...........................................584mi
Baltimore, MD to Columbus, OH.............................................409 mi
Columbus, OH to Phoenix, AZ (first leg)................................1909mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ..................2902Miles (Short week, Mon thru Sat)

Actual Miles................................2970 Miles

2902 miles x .42 = $1218.84

Sorry for what may be a silly question, but what exactly does Tcalling a load mean? How about a shag load?

I'm new to the industry and am just trying to learn these terms.

Thanks for the great posts evertruckerr.

Jeffro

A "T-Call" in an industry term for dropping a loaded trailer somewhere other than it's final destination, generally at a company terminal or drop yard. The driver that T-Called that load is then released from any further responsibility with respect to that trailer. At a later time the trailer is picked up by another driver who completes the delivery.

This is done for a number of reasons, the main ones being breakdowns, to increases productivity for drivers that would otherwise have to sit around for extended periods of time to make a delivery or to facilitate a driver that is trying to get home.

A "Shag" load is a term used for a very short, local delivery (usually less than 30 miles). These are usually loaded trailers that were T-Called by other drivers at an earlier date so that they could pickup another load and keep moving. Most, if not all large trucking companies use this practice to one degree or another in order to keep truck moving. Trucks make no money when they are parked.

Thanks a lot evertruckerr.

I figured shag loads were somewhat "unwanted", and now I know why.
Thanks for all the cool pictures in your posts.


Safe traveling.


Jeffro

well i never heard of shag...i've been shaged alot.lol

Goes to show you always learn something new in here :)

This was on the news tonight, thought I'd pass it along :P they had a different angle of it on the news and it looked like maybe it was an owner op truck 8) 8)http://rochesterhomepage.net/content...ext/?cid=25231

couldn't completely make out that sign above the trailer... did it read 12' 2"?

Makes you wonder!

LOL... Now that Bites! if it was an O/O its a good day to hang the head :oops:

Week 29
 

WEEK TWENTY NINE
Monday, July 14th through Sunday, July 20th



This week finds me at home. I had put in for home time for some time around the 9th, which was a Thursday so that I could be home for my Nieces baptism on the following Sunday. I had hoped that would be enough cushion to get me to town by then. It actually worked out that way; I made it by Saturday with the help of two perfect loads. What threw me was that I never get two perfect loads and when I found myself sitting in Baltimore last Tuesday I called my Sister to let her I know I wouldn’t make it back in time so that she would have enough time to reschedule the event for the following Sunday.

Then, surprise, I find myself in Phoenix on a Saturday and I am now in a position in which I must be here the following weekend (the wife and I were the God Parent’s), it was just one of those things I have to be around for. That means that I will have to be home for 8+days. I was sure I could call my Fleet Manager and arrange for the additional time, but I really hate to take that much time off. And if I do, I would rather spend in on a Caribbean beach than in Phx in the middle of summer. It has been hitting 110° and more on a regular basis, not fun.

With plenty of time to think while I was making my way to Phx from Columbus I had hatched a little plan to avoid a prolonged, unscheduled vacation. What I had in mind was to park the truck in the yard Saturday afternoon, and then instead of contacting dispatch to Tcall this load I would simply stay attached to the trailer so that the load would remain dispatched under my truck. I then spent the remainder of Saturday along with Sunday and Monday at home. My plan was to call dispatch first thing Monday morning and let them know that I was in Phx with my load that was scheduled to deliver in the LA area Tuesday afternoon. If they were not opposed to it, I would go ahead and deliver the load and then PU another load somewhere in the LA area that went through Phx so I could then Tcall it at that time and begin my official time off. Since I was technically under dispatch for the first part of the week, it would not count against my home time. This would also allow me to make a little extra money during the week while the wife was working.

By doing this I kept my official home time within reasonable limits a was able to remain in town long enough to make it to the baptism and everyone would be happy.

The only problem I had with this plan was when I tried to call dispatch. Mondays are notoriously bad days to talk to anyone in person. They tend to be very busy and are pron to ignoring the phone. You are expected to use the Qualcomm to resolve problems of this nature, unfortunately it’s in my truck some 30 miles away.

My first attempt early Monday morning was on my cell phone and after 15mins of being on hold I realized I had better use a land line to avoid using up too many of my minutes. My second call, just like the first went on hold automatically (bad sign). I had a hand held wireless phone, so I hit speaker and set in on the coffee table and watched a Deadliest Catch marathon while I waited for someone to answer. That attempt failed when the battery on the phone went dead an hour later. Not to worry, I’ll try in a couple of hours. That effort went a little better, sort of. I called the driver services operator and managed to talk to California dispatch, I wanted to make sure I would be able to get a load back through Phx after delivering my original load. That answer to that was a “sure, plenty of freight going through, but you might have to wait until the following morning to get a load out�. I had no problem with that and asked him to set me up. At that time I was told I would have to talk to Ohio dispatch because they would have to pull the planed Tcall off of my current load, “Let me put you on hold and forward you to them�.

That whole plan didn’t go so well. Once again my call went directly to hold music and that’s all I heard until the phone once again died. Grrr!

Later that afternoon I was able to talk to a dispatcher once they had a chance to catch up and were answering the phone again and the Tcall was pulled off the load and I was set to deliver the load tomorrow. All I had to do was show up at the yard in the morning and make a quick run out to LA, Fontana actually, and I did just that. I had a 2pm appointment and made it there a bit early and was very please to find out it would be a drop and hook. I had expected a live unload which would have made it impossible to make it back to Phx by tonight because of the 14hr thing, but with this new develop I could see a glimmer of hope. If I get the perfect backhaul I’ll be able to make it back to the yard. I’m in Fontana and have just enough drive time to make it back if I pickup a load in the immediate area (strong possibility of that, we have a number of customers in the area). If, however, I have to head into LA I will be spending the night somewhere in the Arizona desert.

I send in my MT and receive a single load offer going to SALT LAKE CITY! OK, that definitely doesn’t go through Phx so I send off a message to dispatch. “I need a load going to or through Phx so I can Tcall it there for my home time, I must be home this weekend, load offer is going the wrong way. I can wait until morning for a load if necessary. Please advise thx.� A few minutes later I got a message, “working on it�, and I waited. Shortly there after I was sent a load that picked up in Redlands (drop/hook and ready to go) going to Houston along with a message, “how about this one�.

Well I’ll be, doesn’t get any better than that. Redlands is on the way back to Phx and I will be able to make it back to the yard within my 14hrs as long as I’m not held up at the shipper. Once there I was simply told to drop my trailer in the middle of the yard and wait for the yard jockey to bring my loaded trailer from the off site yard and 15 minutes later I had my trailer and was in prime position to make it back to Phx.

I was able to pull into the yard with 15 minutes left on my clock. I let dispatch know they could Tcall this load and I would be back Monday morning.


When all was said and done, I had spent 9 consecutive nights, 7 complete days and 2 partial days at home, or at least not working. The wife and I spent some time at the Omni Resort down in Tucson. Priceline did it for us again, $180 room for $75 per night.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ni-tucson2.jpg


WEEK TWENTY NINE RESULTS
Monday, July 14th through Sunday, July 20th
Miles include deadhead


Phoenix, AZ to Fontana, CA(final leg)............................300mi
Redlands, CA to Phoenix, AZ........................................324mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ..............624 Miles (One day driving, home time week)

Actual Miles………………………655 Miles

624 Miles x .42 = $262.08

I wouldn't exactly call them unwanted, at least not from my point of view. I can do without them, but they do have their good points. Also, I feel that it is only fair to shag a load every once in a while to make up for the loads that I Tcall. Give and take.

Crete pays us $35 plus mileage and I can usually get them done in 2 hrs or so. It often works out to $50 for 2-3hrs work.

They also are great for leverage on your next load. When ever I'm asked to do one, I simply let dispatch know that I'm happy to help out and "keep me in mind if you have a good load available after I'm finished" kind of thing.

As a matter of fact, I'm sitting in our Columbus yard at the moment doing a 34reset. I had sent a message to dispatch to let them know I would be ready to go by 4am tomorrow and that was answered with a "I have a hot load that needs to be shagged in the morning with a 5am appointment, can you do it"

I answered with a "happy to help out, do you have anything you can pre-plan me on so I know where I'm going after".

Shortly there after I received a pre-plan for a 1000 mile trip that is a drop/hook on both ends. The perfect way to start a new week.

So Shags do have their place.

Week 30
 

WEEK THIRTY
Monday, July 21st through Sunday, July 27th


Well, it’s Monday and my week of home time has come to an end, back to work.

I arrived at the yard to find my truck where I had left it, but was a bit disappointed to find no empty trailers in the yard. It’s the same old story, no trailer, no load. I let dispatch know that I was back on the truck and ready to work, but did not have an empty trailer available. That didn’t slow them down any though; I was sent a single load offer. It was a shag load sitting in the yard that delivered on the north side of town. It meant sitting around for a couple of hours waiting for a live unload, but at least I would have my empty trailer.

Just to start the week off right this load had a 7am appointment and a quick check of my watch let me know that it was 6:50am. That means I have 10 minutes to hook to the trailer and drive 25 miles in rush hour traffic. I hope they aren’t one of those customers that take exception to late deliveries. It’s just a load of AC units going to a small distribution warehouse, so I can’t imagine that they will put up much of a fuss.

When I finally managed to make it there, no one seemed too be concerned by the late arrival and I backed to the dock and spent the next two hours waiting for them to unload my trailer. Once that had been accomplished I put in my MT call and hoped for a decent load out of town. I was really hopping that I wouldn’t get a load going into California. Well, I didn’t get a Cali load but I was sent a crappy little 360 mile run going to NM that had a 11am live unload the next day. Not the way I wanted to start my new week, but I dutifully accepted the load and waited for the load info.

Once the Qualcomm started beeping I wrote down all the pertinate information and then started to read the comments on the bottom of the page. Oh goodie! “No trailers over 10 years old will be accepted by the shipper.� And it just so happens that I had one that was 11yrs old. That’s a Monday for ya. I sent a message off to dispatch asking them for a different load because my current trailer would be refused if I tried to pull it into the shipper. Of course it couldn’t be that simple, instead I was told to drive back to the yard to see if there were any newer empty trailers there. My reply telling them that I had been there a little over 2hrs ago and there were none at that time was summarily ignored and I finally relented and headed back to the yard. As suspected, no empties had magically appeared and I sent another message off to dispatch that let them know that unless they know where I could pickup a newer trailer I must be released from this load. Although this was turning into a big pain in the back side, I was actually happy to get out of this short run.

After about 45 minutes I finally received another load offer. Not much of an improvement, another 373mi run going to NM, but at least this on had an open drop delivery time and 180mi of deadhead to make a respectable 550mi run. Unfortunately it was already noon and the better part of my 14hrs clock has been wasted. Oh well, at least I’m finally rolling.

After getting all the necessary info I pointed the truck south and headed off to Nogales. I made it about 30 miles down the road and got a beep on the Qualcomm (I sure wish I could read this thing when the truck was moving). I didn’t really have any idea what they might want, but I assumed it wouldn’t be good news. I was right; they wanted me to shuttle a damaged trailer from the shipper to a local repair shop before picking up my preloaded trailer. Apparently it had been there for some time and they were getting a little perturbed with Crete for leaving it there so long. Looks like I’m the lucky one again. This day is turning out to be a hoot.

I arrived at the shipper to find a very small yard with trailers parked inches apart and no where to put my empty trailer. What a pain. First I had to drop my trailer in a open dock, next I hook to the damaged trailer and pull it out of its shoe horn spot and pull it out onto the street and drop it there (made for a great road block). Back into the yard to hook to my original trailer and spend the next 10 minutes wiggling it back into the blind back spot I had pulled the bad trailer out of. Then back to the street to hook to the bad trailer and off to find the repair shop. That was another adventure that should have taken 5 minutes but turned into 40 minutes. The directions where a little less than specific.

Back to the shipper I go and begin my next challenge. All I had to do was hook and go, but my Monday of trials and tribulations was destine to continue. Upon backing under my trailer I found that it wouldn’t sit flush on the 5th wheel slide. The trailer was parked on an uphill and slanted parking spot that was twisting the frame in a nasty way. When I tried to crank the legs down in an attempt to get it to a point where I could latch onto the king pin I found that there was a incredible amount of tension on the legs and it took every thing I had to crank the handle, even in low gear. As my frustration was mounting I was assaulted by a horn from the yard jockey. Apparently he needed to pull the one and only trailer I was blocking out of the dock. I wasn’t making any progress and didn’t want to hold him up so I went back to the truck and pull ahead so the yard dog could pull his trailer and be on his way.

What happened next just left me dumb founded. After he hooked to the trailer (thus sitting directly in front of my trailer) he jumped out of the cab and went inside. Un fing believable! I sat there for another 15 minutes waiting for him to come back out and finally decided to hunt him down. I found him in the middle of a BS session with a co-worker. It’s times like these when I am tempted to respond in a less than professional manner, but I refrained and simple walked up to him and asked him to move his truck so that I could get my trailer. I wasn’t really impressed with his nonchalant, when I feel like it attitude, so I simply stood at a painfully uncomfortable close distance from them with a smile as they tried to continue their conversation. There is nothing like a complete stranger stepping into a conversation and hovering like a hawk to bring it to a sudden stop. He got the point and finally headed outside to do his job.

After that little delay I was ready to make another go at hooking to my twisted trailer on a hill. The tension on the legs was really too much to deal with and I didn’t think I would have too much luck getting any help from the yard dog considering what had just transpired so I went on a search for something I could put under the trailer and drive up onto so that I could get the legs off the ground. I was able to find a couple of wood blocks that did the trick. I was still very concerned, even though I was able to latch onto the king pin, the trailer still wasn’t sitting flush. I was beginning to think this trailer might have some serious frame damage. It would only be a fitting end to this day. It turned out to just be the angle of the parking lot, once I pulled out onto leave land everything settled into place and was finically on my way. What should have been a nice quick 15 minute drop and hook had turned into 1½ hrs of aggravation, but it was behind me now and tomorrow would be another day. As for today, 14hrs and a whopping 430 miles.

I start out my Tuesday with an optimistic outlook. It has to be better than yesterday, right? I arrive at the customer and drop my trailer where instructed and wander around for a while looking for their empty trailer lot. After taking a little tour of the surrounding area I am rewarded with an empty trailer and put in my MT call which results in no load offer. After about 15 minutes I get a message that they are short on freight, but “working on it�.

The wait wasn’t as long as I feared and I received a single load offer and other than being a live load and unload it was a good one going to the Atlanta area (1743mi). All I had to do was headhead 150 miles to get the load and I would be on my way. There is even enough time on this load that I will be able to stop off at the Marietta yard to get my A service taken care along with a number of minor issues that are in need of some attention.

There is one other little hiccup to this load, I’m suppose to be there for an 12:30 appointment, but it’s already 11am and I have 150 miles to go (not going to happen). Must be a brokered load; I let dispatch know I was on my way but would be about an hour late for my pickup. That turned out to be very optimistic, but then I had no idea what laid ahead of me. I should have guessed when I read the name of the shipper “St. Cloud Mining Co� (I do recall wandering what they mined).

The first 120 miles or so went just great, interstate into the south central part of the state and then follow the instructions given to me. “Follow Hwy52 into Winston to 2nd street (I later found these so called “streets� to be a fairly liberal description as well as a so called town), T/L follow uphill to top @ Y intersection T/L an go 8 mi.� Simple enough.

Now, when I turned off the interstate onto Hwy 52 I was greeted by a very narrow paved road and wasn’t looking forward to 20+ miles of riding the lines to get to my turn. Fortunately there wasn’t too much traffic which was a good thing. This road was very narrow and my trailer took up a good portion of the road on a number of the turns. At one point I could see for some distance in both directions and had a chance to hop out and take a picture on a better stretch of the road.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...r/Hwy52-MN.jpg

This wasn’t the worst stretch of road I had ever been on, but there certainly wasn’t much room for error. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was currently on a modern day expressway by comparison to what lay ahead.

I finally arrived at the thriving metropolis know as Winston, NM (consisting of 2-3 buildings and a couple of so called streets that my directions had eluded too. I turned left at what appeared to be the best course of action and was happy to see a dilapidated sign that said “St Cloud� along with a little arrow. “Must be on the right track�.

Up a little hill I went looking for a “Y� in the road and this is what I get.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...oudMineRD1.jpg

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!� 8 MILES?

OK, I spent a number of year driving a dump truck around on roads just like this in the Phx dessert, but that was in a truck and trailer built for this kind of terrain. I was not looking forward to the next 8 miles and my ill feeling turned out to be well founded.


The road simply went from bad:

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...oudMineRd3.jpg

To worse:

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...oudMineRd2.jpg

Keep one thing in mind, this was a supposed two lane road and every time I went around a corner I was on the CB calling out a warning and blowing my air horn as I went around. The pictures above were actually some of the wider spots; I couldn’t take a chance of shooting a shot as I was going around some of the nasty turns in the event I was meet by another vehicle.


As the saying goes, just as I thought it was as bad as it could get, it took a turn for the worse. As I was marveling at the ridiculousness of this road and wondering what in the hell I was doing here I came across another hairpin turn and was horrified to see what appeared to be nothing more than a sandy wash in the middle of the dessert. I’ve been on this kind of terrain before, but I was riding an ATV at the time and having a blast. Throw yourself into a semi and all of a sudden it’s not so much fun anymore. All I could do was turn my steer wheels in the general direction I wanted to go and hope for the best. Response was sluggish at best and I was getting horrendous traction and downshifting as quickly as I could in an attempt to keep moving before I sank into the sand. I had been caught completely off guard and had not bothered locking in my differentials earlier on and now was too late. I was sure I was about to sink in and spin.

I basically found myself in a situation where there was nothing that resembled a road and I was having serious doubts about having missed a turn somewhere.

The sand trap lasted for about half a mile with varying degrees of depth and I once again found myself on solid footing in the form of a so-so gravel road that eventually grew to a respectable width and a few more miles down the road found me at the front door step of the elusive St Cloud Mining Co a mere 1 hour late for my appointment. Apparently they mine a substance called “Zeomite� or something along those lines. Basically it was some kind of hard clay that they blasted out of the ground and pounded into granules and powders. It is used as cat litter and oil absorbents in the granule form and as an ingredient in metal polishes and as swimming pool filter medium in its powder form among other uses.

Being late didn’t seem to be a problem with anyone; as a matter of fact I was the only one in a ten mile radius as best I could tell. I was loaded with 45,000# of the powder stuff in short order and after scaling out on site I was ready to have another go at that sand gully. I really wasn’t feeling very confident in my chances, but knowing I wasn’t the only truck to have been out here I figured I had a fair chance of getting out. I did ask the shipping clerk how often trucks got stuck “on that road back there�, he just laughed and said “Every few days we have to pull one of you guys out�. I decided not to ask him how often trucks come out here.

OK, here we go. I locked my rear end in and I was off to the races. On my way out I actually meet another truck who was on his way in and he called me on the CB. Something to the effect of “Holy Sh**, I thought I was lost, is the road to the mine?�

A few more turns and I found myself bearing down on the stretch of sand and hit it with my RPM wound up in the hopes of plowing through it before the sand sucked all of my momentum out of the truck. That always worked during my dump truck days (when I had a 575HP Cat under the hood) and I assumed it would have similar results today. Well, let me tell you what happens when you hit 6-12� deep sand with a gutted 400 something HP Detroit with an occasional “acceleration hiccup� in it. I immediately lost massive RPMs and the damn thing started missing what seemed like every other cylinder and my attempt to downshift one gear was hopeless and I dropped two right of the bat and as soon as I hit that gear I realized I was going to have to grab a low range gear and settled on 4th gear and floored it and was just barely able to keep the momentum going long enough to get me out of the mess. The pictures really don’t do it justice, mainly because I wasn’t able to take a shot of the worst of it, but these will give you some idea of what I was looking at.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...MineDitch2.jpg

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...MineDitch4.jpg

Anyone that has pulled 80,000# through sand knows what I was dealing with, any one that hasn’t, well, hope you never experience such a thing. I was surprised that I made it through with my gutless wonder of a truck. I have no idea what would have happened if I had meet another truck at the point of the journey.

OK, I know I’m whining, but I just wasn’t in the mood for this kind of trip today.

I finally made it out of my back road experience and my trip out on the narrow two lane asphalt road didn’t seem nearly as bad as it did on the way in.

I spent the rest of my day driving out my hours and had just enough time to put in 600 miles for the day. This would make it possible to put in two 11hrs days of driving which would allow me to make it to our Marietta yard so that I could put the truck in the shop.

The next couple of days were uneventful (for a change) and I was able to make it to the Marietta yard early Thursday evening. This load had an appointment delivery for 11am the next day and I was hoping that would be enough time to have an “A� service done and take care of a few other nagging problems with the truck. But, as I has somewhat expected, I was told that they wouldn’t be able to get me in until the next morning at best. I wanted to be at the consignee an hour early and would have to leave by 9am to do that. The shop didn’t open till 7am and I knew there was no way anything would get done in a two hour window so I decided I would see what I could do about getting the truck in a shop later in the week. I was starting to get a little tight on hours, if I got the right trip over the next day or two, I would be able to take a reset at one of our terminals and have the work done then. It is always a tremendous time saver to have work done at these times.

That left me with about 14hrs of downtime, so I took a nice long walk (75° in Atlanta, mid July; unheard of) and took care of my laundry and was ready to go the next morning.

Friday morning had me looking at a quick little run to the northeast side of Atlanta to make my 11am appointment. I showed up my usual one hour early and was assigned a dock door. After a short 40min unload I was empty and awaiting my next load offer.

I receive a one load offer; this is becoming more common again, at least during the week. The weekend dispatch still seems to be handing out more of the multi choice loads. Anyway, this load was a drop/hook PU just up the road and destine for NY(1049mi). Not my favorite part of the country, but a quick check of the map showed that I was headed upstate, close to Vermont as a matter of fact, and I would be able to take I-81 and avoid the 95 corridor. I was actually looking forward to this run because it would get me out of the heat and I would be able to control my idling with much less discomfort.

The drop/hook was quick and painless and I was on my way to good ol’ NY state. I wasn’t able to run my full 11hrs today though because I got a late start due to my mid-day delivery and running my hours out for the day would have found my looking for a parking spot very late in the evening along I-81 somewhere in MD or southern PA. Never a sure thing, so I held up short in northern VA. I wasn’t in any great hurry anyway, this was a drop/hook delivery on Sunday and I was going to be there Saturday evening well after their closing time. I would be there early, but not able to drop until the following morning anyway.

Saturday was going to be another short day; it was only going to take about 9hrs to get where I was going. There was a truck stop less than a mile from the customer where I planed to spend the night, so when I got there I went ahead and stopped at the customer first. As I had suspected, no one was around in shipping/receiving, but there was a sign on the door that said they would be back at 5am. That was encouraging because my load assignment said they didn’t open until 6am. This was a good little tidbit of info to have. There were a large number of Crete trailers on site and I had to assume that there would be other trucks dropping loads in the morning. If they had the same info, they would think that the doors opened at 6am and I could be in and out before that and get the first crack at the loads going out the following day. Early bird gets the worm!

There was plenty of room to drop my trailer and I did so. There were also a large number of empty trailers on site, so I know that wasn’t going to be an issue. One less thing to worry about in the morning, I just wish that there would have been someone around to sign off on the bills. I still have a few hours left in my day and I could have been on my way to the next load. I could hear people in the warehouse, but the receiving office was dead. Oh well. I just bobtailed over to the truckstop to put in for the night.

The weather did not disappoint either. As I had hoped, it was wonderfully cool and we even got a fairly heavy rain throughout the night. I always sleep better when the rain is bouncing off the truck.

While at the truckstop I went inside to watch some TV in the lounge to pass a little time. I had also noticed three other Crete trucks in the parking lot and found the driver to one of them inside. We had a chance to chat for awhile; he was one of the old school drivers who had been with the company for 10+ years. When ever I run across one of the Crete long timers I line to ask them as many questions as I can about Crete, what it used to be like, their impression of what its like now and so on. He was a very pleasant man and it was a very enjoyable conversation. He was quick to tell me that he gets all the miles he wants (2500-3000mi/wk). “He’s not as young as he used to be� and doesn’t want anymore than that. He was also willing to admit that he has seen many changes of late, but overall he didn’t have any serious complaints, other than the new “idle policy� that is. As far as he was concerned, “I’ll idle this damn thing whenever I need too.� I would have to say that is the standard response I get from most of the old timers; can’t say that I blame them. Hopefully it will be a moot point soon. The new APU installs are in the works, just a matter of time before we all get ours.

Before heading off to bed for the night I made it a point to let him know that the doors opened at five the next morning as opposed to six and there were plenty of empty trailer. He thanked me but informed me he planed on sleeping in.

I started my Sunday as early as I deemed useful. The sign on the customer’s door had said that they would return at 5am. I showed up at 4:45 so that one, I would be waiting for them when they arrived, and two, so that I would get there before the other Crete drivers so I could get the first pick of available loads. I arrived to find that the receiving office was already staffed and since I had dropped my trailer the night before, I had my signed paperwork in hand within minutes and was sending in my MT call by 5am.

As I had hoped, I was sent a choice of three loads. One was a very crappy 300mi run with a live load today and a live unload late tomorrow (it pays to get the pick of the litter, I’m glad I showed up early), the two others were drop/hook PU’s 60 miles down the road. One going to Atlanta (1060mi) with a D/H delivery and the other going just outside of Detroit (669mi) with an early morning appointment delivery.


As I was running over my options with assistance from my Streets and Trips in an effort to figure out which load would work out best with my available hours I had seen one of the other Crete drivers pull in. After coming out of the shipper’s office he stopped by my truck to find out what kind of load offers I had received and I gave him a quick run down. He seemed keen on the Atlanta load and I told him I would see what I could do for him. He then went back to his truck and waited for his load offer. Now, at Crete it often works like this when there is more than one truck in the same area. A multi load offer is sent to the first empty truck (that was me in this case because I made it a point to be the first one there), once I choose my load the remaining loads are sent to the next truck in line.

I was in a situation where I only had about 8 hrs left, after which time I would need to take a 34reset. All of the loads offered fit into that criteria and all I had to do is decide where I wanted to spend my reset. I really wanted the Atlanta load, mainly because the freight base out of that area is so strong, plus it was a much longer run and had a D/H delivery. The Detroit run was shorter and had an appointment delivery, so it wasn’t nearly as desirable, but if I took that load I would have just enough time to make it to Erie, PA. That may not sound all that exciting, but I had never spent any time there and I assumed it would be a good place to do a little sight seeing. After all, it’s right there on Lake Erie, there has to be something to do, and I could probably count on a nice cool breeze to keep the area cool. The idle issue is always at play. If I take the Atlanta run I would be stuck at some hole in the wall truckstop in northern VA with no known entertainment in the immediate area. I also had the fact that the other driver wanted the Atlanta load, and since it was a D/H delivery, he could pick it up and run with it and deliver it early. The PA load wasn’t even an option.

Even though the Atlanta run would have netted me more miles over all, I chose to pass it on to the other driver so he wouldn’t be stuck with one of the other two. I needed the reset, he didn’t. Erie sounded like an interesting stopover anyway.

I accepted the Detroit run and waited for my load info (which for some reason took an hour today, Qualcom delay hasn’t been an issue lately, but it was in full effect today). Not really a big deal however, even though it was a D/H PU, it wasn’t scheduled to be ready until after 11am and it’s not even 6am at this time. I will show up early anyway, but still no rush.

While I waited I headed on over to the truckstop so that I would be out of the way. Shortly there after the other driver that had delivered after me pulled along side and thanked me for the Atlanta load and offered to buy me breakfast. I thanked him in return and took him up on the offer.

We were both picking up at the same shipper and made the trip at the same time, arriving a couple of hours early. Once there he found his load ready to go, but they were just getting ready to start on my load. Instead of messing around with the drop/hook thing, they just had me back into a vacant door and did a live load. No big deal, I’m in no real hurry anyway. The only thing I have to look forward to is Erie, PA.

The loading process went amazingly quick, which was a good thing. Since I had started my day so early I was beginning to be squeezed by my 14hr clock. I wasn’t worried about it when I thought it was a D/H, but the live loading had me concerned. The worry was all for not however. Once loaded I was off and made it to the Pilot on the south side of Erie without a minute to spare on my 70hr clock. I had a grand idea of spending the next couple of nights in a nearby hotel. I even got permission to drop my trailer at the Pilot, but after pulling out the computer and looking for a room I was very disappointed to find that Erie is not a cheap place to stay during the summertime. Oh well, it was quit pleasant as far as the temperature went and I had planed on spending the entire day Monday wondering around town to see whatever there is to see in Erie.

Another week done!




WEEK THIRTY
Monday, July 21st through Sunday, July 27th
Miles include deadhead


Phoenix, AZ to Phoenix, AZ(Shag load).......................................1mi
Nogales, AZ to Santa Teresa, NM............................................554m i
Winston, NM to Lawrensville, GA............................................1743 mi
Oakwood, GA to Gansevoort, NY...........................................1049m i
Rotterdam, NY to Erie, PA (first let).........................................405mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ......................3752 Miles

Actual Miles………………………3910 Miles (50mi due to driving around Phx for shag load plus some personal bobtail use)

3752 Miles x .42 = $1575.84
+Shag pay = $35

This was a bad great week for miles. Even though I ended up with over 3700 paid miles for the week, it took me an entire 7 days to run out my 70 hrs. I am now doing a 34reset, but it isn’t really isn’t the most productive use of a reset. I would much rather run my hours off in 6 days. After my reset I will be ready to go by 2am Tuesday morning. Midnight (00:01) of the same day is also when I will regain hours from the previous week. I could have run 8-9hrs days to this point and achieved similar miles at the end of the 8 day period, the difference is that: one, I wouldn’t have the luxury of sitting around and taking a day off (I would have to drive 8.5 hrs tomorrow also), two, after my reset I will have a fresh 70hr clock with no restrictions on how many hours I can work each day next week. This is the MAIN reason I strive for resets. By the end of the 8th day I will have similar miles in either case, but the following week presents me with the opportunity to run another 3700 miles, whereas the 8-9 hr day would restrict me to a maximum of 3200 miles or so.