Yeah, this thread is useless without pics, Nova!!!

 

Haven't posted yet because I have been enjoying my home time, but it is about time to get back on it, so here we go. The trip home was a decent one, other than some stupid drivers, and a few hold ups, all was well.

I got the pictures of the trailer that I was talking about, turns out that it WAS NOT the trailer being pulled by the truck I posted earlier, BUT the driver did walk away from it, so that's a good thing.



Here she is, not that bad, but bad enough, I am glad I didn't do it! Even with the damage, and it was obviously twisted cause the back doors aren't lined up at all anymore, it pulled nice and straight, even though I figured I would have to fight it the whole way up to WI.



Here is a shot from the inside of it, lets you see all the daylight coming through. All the stuff in the picture are pieces of the truck that was pulling it.



You can see that it wasn't a all out professional place I had to find, it was really a residential area for the most part. It wasn't a business, this was a house. You can see how narrow the road was, and how the fence was fighting against me getting it out of there. You can't see it here, but the wrecker is just out of view on the right of the picture, which was preventing me from swinging wide enough to make the turn.



Here is what happens when you are in too much of a hurry. There was a back up on the interstate just north of Atlanta and this four wheeler didn't want to wait in line, so they took the inside emergency lane at around what appeared to be 70 or so. I guess the drivers side tires buried up in the soft ground, and it just pulled it toward the middle, and the driver over corrected, and this happened. (that was the talk on the cb anyway, so take it with a grain of salt)

Funny thing is, I saw it pass and thought about how stupid it was to do something like that, and that's a good way for someone to get hurt. But it passed, and in about 20 minutes I seen it sitting there like above, I figured I was coming up on the wreck that was causing the back up to begin with, but it was this guy. On a good note, he appeared to be out walking around with no problems, so at least no one was hurt. Turns out he hold up was construction.

 

There hasn't been much to post, which is why I haven't done any updates, today is no different, but I thought I would write anyway since I am really bored, lol.

I left Monday morning, not too early, still had some odds and ends to do around the house, but I was gone by 9am. I was due in Marshfield on Wednesday morning, so time wasn't all that tight, but I figured if I got up there earlier than required, maybe some miles would be thrown to me.

I drove nice and easy, no big hurry, just enjoying the drive. I got to Gary later in the day to fuel, and decided to just shut down there since I only had a couple hours left of drive time, plus it would mean a free shower, internet, and cable inside. While I was there I decided to look up someone I met on this board and is currently in training.

Turns out he was out with a trainer already, so we didn't get to meet up, but I was talking with one of his instructors for a little while. He asked me if I was happy with Roehl, and I told him I am now, it was a little rocky at times, but now, I couldn't be happier. He asked if I was happy enough to be a trainer, I told him that I hadn't really thought about it, but might consider it after a little more time passes.

His boss was in the room too, and over heard us talking, and he came over and was saying that my trainers had advised Roehl that I would be a good candidate for a trainer and all that, plus they were pretty sure that I would get a brand new truck if I wanted to go that route. So they told me to take a few weeks to think about it, write down any questions I might have, and get back with them if I was ever interested.

I went ahead and got my shower, and sat down to see what was on the tube. Watched that for a little while and decided to finish the night in the truck. When I got out to the truck, I decided to call my trainer whom I keep in touch with, to let him know what they told me, and to see what his thoughts were on me becoming a trainer.

He said it didn't surprise him that they would ask me to think about becoming one. I had recommendations galore, and a good track record so far, plus he has heard that Roehl is down to like 9 total trainers, and have no women trainers at all(which reminds me, when I was in orientation with Roehl, one of the higher ups, I won't use his name, but lets just say titles don't go much higher, asked me not to leave the company and run off somewhere else because he needed women trainers badly, I think I mentioned this when it happened, I will go back through my posts to see if I did or not).

So anyway, that is something for me to think about, my trainer seems to think that my paycheck would jump around $300 a week if I decided to give it a try, so that sounds pretty good. But the thing is that IF I did decide to go for it, they would have to understand that I would have to do things my way. I want to be a trainer, not a team driver. I can't teach a darn thing, or answer any questions if I am in the sleeper asleep. So I already have a list as long as my arm of questions to make sure I can do things my way. About the biggest things I worry about are how much my home time would be affected, and what would the trainee do when I am at home for a reset, I don't think I could make someone just sit in a truck that isn't theirs while I am enjoying being home. One thing I do like is the fact that I can still stay se regional, which I didn't think was possible.


Anyway, back to my day, I wasn't too worried about getting a early start, so I slept in till 8am Tuesday morning. I got a qualcom asking where I was, I told them I was fixing to leave the Gary terminal. They ask if I can hang around there for a couple hours so I could give a guy a ride up to Marshfield so he can pick his truck up.

Well, I didn't really want to wait around, but Roehl has been really good to me the past few weeks, so I thought I would help them out. Plus it would give me someone to talk to on the way up, and maybe I could answer some questions, or give some pointers to him, since he was a new hire, fresh out of school(well, he had been through training, but no solo driving yet).

I end up waiting about 4 hours, when him and his trainer finally pull into the yard, cool, lets go! It was alright having someone to talk to, he had many questions too, not really about driving, but how the icon system works, what kind of trucks, how have they been treating me, blah blah blah, you know the typical stuff.

I make it to Marshfield, and watch the excitement, and fear in his eyes as he is seeing his first truck, and realizing what it meant to be out there on his own, I remember that look really well, I seen it a lot when I started my first job. I found a parking place, dropped the trailer and qualcom a message letting them know I am early, and want a load if possible(we talked earlier in the day when I was asked to give the guy a ride, and they said they would have a load for me)

They promptly get back with me, and give me a trailer number, so I go on the hunt, finally find it, and it's a big one, this load is almost HALF A TON! :shock: That's right, 648lbs, I didn't know if the truck could handle a load this huge, but I figured I would give it a try, lmao :lol:

It was a small load of aluminum heading for Prentice, cool, all of the oversize loads I get to pull to have come from there, maybe, just maybe, we will see. I make my way to Prentice, and shut down in the drop yard we have there since the place I am going to is about a mile away.

I get up nice and early this morning, drop my load at the consignee, which turns out to be the place that makes the machines I get to pull(called a knuckle boom loader). Whoo hoo, today must be my lucky day, I am told to run back to the drop yard, drop the trailer I have and pick up an oversize load AGAIN!! :shock: 8)

Now this is the 3rd week IN A ROW I have got to pull the high dollar oversize loads, and it's the 3rd week my paycheck has been huge, 639 and change this week, and THAT will do. I have all my bills paid for the month already! The rest of my checks this month will go into savings, and for a head start next month. And to think that last month I was thinking I would lose everything(and really could have).

Anyway, I hook to my load, and start getting the flags and brand new nice and shiny oversize load sign put on, lol. I get all that done, get my permit that will get me to the WI state line, and head to Marshfield to pick up the rest of the paperwork, and permits. Now this is the only thing I don't care for about these loads, it just seems like they would have all this worked out by the time a driver was ready to take it, especially since it is a "daylight hour sensitivity" load.

I get to Marshfield to pick up the paperwork, and guess what, it's not ready, wait over an hour, nothing. I say screw it, and figure if I am going to wait, I am going to wait as far south as I can, no sense in not going as far as I can, I can still get a couple hundred miles under my belt, unless I hang around at the yard waiting on the paperwork.

So I hit the road, and start heading south. There is a pilot I am supposed to fuel at, and it is right at the state line on 39, so I figure that's a good place to get everything in order, cause they will surely have the paperwork done by the time I get there. :roll:

I get there, fuel up, and go inside to pay, get on the horn with Roehl to give them the fax number there, and of course, the papers aren't ready. Oh well, I only have about a hour of daylight left anyway, I will just shut down for the night.

So that is what I did, and as I was filling out my logs for the day and all that, I saw a hit and run literally right in front of me. Man I hate being in these situations, on one hand I don't want to get involved, but on the other hand, I don't want to see a innocent driver pay for the mistake of a careless one.

So I sit contemplating what I should do. I figured the driver was inside the store, since when it hit, he would have had to felt it and come out of the truck to see what was going on. I get in the back to arrange some things, and think over what I should do. I come back up front after changing clothes, and there is a a police woman there looking at the truck. The driver comes walking out, and has a reaction similar to the one of the kid from "home alone" when he slaps on the aftershave.

I can see that he is telling the cop he doesn't know what happened, but there is another driver out there that was a witness as well, and he is the one that called the police to begin with. Well, I decide to do my good deed for the day, and talk with the police as well, and let her know what I saw, not to mention the nice picture I took of the truck since he was right in front of me. I wasn't able to get the license plate, but hoped the picture would tell on him, but it didn't, you could see it, but you couldn't make it out.

Anyway, I tell her what I seen, and verify with the other drivers dispatch that he wasn't even in the truck, since they were wondering how he got so much information if he wasn't in the truck. So I assume he didn't get in trouble, and I helped out like a good person should, so I felt good. Plus his company told me to look for a check in the mail as a reward for coming forward with the information I had. It will probably wind up being $5 or something, but you never know. Plus another great thing was, that his truck was messed up pretty bad, it got hit in the front fender, but the damage also got his radiator, and he wasn't able to go anywhere, so they gave him a brand new company truck to come and pick up in the morning, so that was pretty cool, he was grateful for everything me and the other driver did for him.

So that is what has happened over the past few days, nothing too exciting, but I wanted to update something to keep the post alive. Now, lets go to Mississippi!

 

Happy to hear things are looking up for you these days. You sound alot happier since everything was taken care of by the bank. Don't have to much fun now. Oh and by the way, just pm me and I will give you your new Savings account # (mine), so you have no worries anymore. :lol: :lol: just kidding. BOL

Skills

 

to rat or not to rat.i guess you have to be their to decide. looks like you took moral high ground . im sure the truck stop has cameras on the fuel islands and entrances parking lots etc.
training i hope your not seriously thinking of doing that in all honesty you schould have at the least 2 years exp. no one wants an inexperienced trainer im sure even you can appreciate that. After all this is someone elses livelyhood you could be effecting not to mention they may have families depending on their new career.
but then again i was trained by a super trucker and an old timer not at roehl. i didnt didnt learn a damm thing and i turned out all right.
On the other hand you can make some serius extra change for your pocket by training, god be with you.

my week at roehl not so bad either only got 3200 miles.

 

no reply from novacane hmm must be lost again

 

Nope, not lost just busy. We had some pretty bad storms come through last week, and I have been busy trying to get things cleaned up, and fixed. Chris's car took a pretty good beating from hail, he said it was pretty amazing at the amount that fell. There are literally no more leaves on trees in my neighborhood, they are all on the ground and road. This just kills him, he loves that car almost as much as he loves me! But, it already has so much of his blood sweat and tears in it, that a little more won't hurt anything. Our house also took on some damage, nothing major, just enough to cause problems, shingles blown off, 2 windows broken, small things like that. That isn't the story for people about 50 miles from me, 3 and 4 thousand square foot homes completely destroyed, it was pretty amazing.

Anyway, back to my day(s). When I left off, I was pulling an oversize, heading for Mississippi. Well, again the route was really messed up, but still, no big deal, I just hate pulling on smaller highways where good places to stop are few and far between, and with having to shut down before nightfall, I get nervous sometimes worrying about finding a place to park for the night. Thankfully I have Chris and he has books, and the internet, so he can find me a place just about anywhere when I need him to.

I did have some problems with the trip though. I have always bragged about how Tn has nice clearly marked roads, but I am starting to take some of that back. I ALMOST messed up a few times, due to roads not being marked. It wouldn't have been that big a deal, except I am only allowed on the roads on my planned route, so messing up isn't an option, there is no going up the road a little way, and turning around, so I spent a lot of my time stopped trying to make sure I was going the right way. The one time my gps unit(I don't really use it much anymore) would have really come in handy, it wouldn't work, I think the usb plugs are going bad on the dell laptop I have, but thankfully I rent, and I can just return it and have it fixed for free(just in the nick of time, it's almost paid off).

So I finally make it to the consignee on Friday, drop the machine, and that's when I get a call from Chris telling me that I am in a tornado warning zone, and that the storm is bearing down on the house as well. I soon found out that he wasn't kidding, the sky went from clear to dark as night in less than a half hour.

Since the time he called, I was on the phone with Roehl asking to get me something so I can get out of the area, and hopefully home in case something happens. The get back with me, and tell me to bobtail home for the weekend, and they will have a load for me on Monday, cool, I needed to go home, and bob tailing will let me get there much quicker, it all lined up perfectly.



I actually made it home that night, which couldn't have been done without bob tailing, considering I was out of hours, I literally pulled into the driveway with seconds to spare, I didn't even have time to stop by the local store to pick up some goodies for everyone which has got to be my weekly ritual.

I was really scared as I was coming into town, can't see the roads, lights out everywhere, road crews working around every corner, looked like a disaster zone, I could only imagine what my house would look like when I arrived. But as I pulled up, it was still standing so I was happy, lol. I shut down and began catching up on the days events, and looking for any damage that needed to be fixed since it was still raining pretty heavy.

I got all that took care of, and had to leave Sunday evening to be just outside Indianapolis on Monday morning to pick up a new trailer to bring to the yard. I get to the shipper today on time, and pick up the trailer, aww man, it's a van again! Oh well, with the good comes the "bad"(pay cut) and much to my surprise, they want me to go and pick up a load before heading to the yard.

I found the shipper, and it turns out I am picking up a load of my favorite material, raw wool. But thankfully, since it's a van, there was no dangerous tarping involved so it was no big deal. I did get a chance to remember just how different a spread axle backs than a van. It took me a long time to get used to the spread axle design, and now that I am used to it, a van seems weird to back up. I had to pull up 3 times to make it into a dock that was pretty easy with only one real obstacle!

The people at the place remembered me from when I was here during my training, and thought I had gave up pulling flatbed(I am STILL the only woman flat bedder they have ever seen) but I told them the story and they were surprised I was still doing it.

So I got loaded with no problems, and hit the road headed north. When it came time to shut down I picked a harder parking spot to get into just to polish my skills, but I had gotten used to how it backed and nailed it the the first time so it made me feel better about having to pull up so many times. A van will turn a lot faster than a spread, it just takes a little getting used to is all :wink:

 

Novacane, in earlier post you mentioned that they would run you really low on fuel before letting you refuel,Is this still a problem?

 

This has been a busy week so far, and a lousy paid one as well, my check this week was less than 300, but that is mainly because I didn't get my oversize load scanned in time, so it will be much better next week. Anyway, I left off with a new trailer full of wool, and did I fail to mention I really hate that freaking wool?

I take the load to Gary, drop it off, and grab another empty, take it through Chicago, get loaded, and start to make my way to South Carolina. The trip down really sucked today, first I get started, and am slowed so much by construction, there was obstacle after obstacle it seems today, if it's not construction, it's traffic, or well, the list goes on, I seemed to get a little of it all today.

I finally make it out of Indiana, and hope that things will start going smoother, but I was wrong. I stop for fuel and check a qualcom I got going down the road I didn't want to stop for, it was a urgent message to call dispatch. I call, and am told that I am being wrote up for not scaling the wool load, because the driver that picked it up got a over weight ticket. I told them that I did scale it, and it was fine. But I got in trouble any way, I don't know how it was over gross with another driver, I went through a scale with it, and my truck should be heavier than a van truck with all my equipment and so on. But it did no good, so I was off to a bad little start for the day.

I figure that there is no reason to worry about it, cause there is nothing I can do at this point, and try to put it out of my head and concentrate on whats in front of me. Well, after I fueled and got over the shock of it all, things seemed to pick up a bit, traffic was better, little construction, and the miles were starting to drop off pretty good. Get through Kentucky, then Tennessee comes, and that means the gorge on 40, which is no big deal, been through there a million times, but it seems as though there is always a test of some sort when tackling it, so I was on my toes as usual.

I'm going along, and minding my own business, cruising around 55-60 and come to a decent little curve, get started around it, and bam! White smoke so thick, you can't see anything. All this while in the middle of a curve on a decline at that! I literally can't see the end of my hood, I don't mean low visibility, I mean NONE, no exaggeration, I was scared.

I had no choice but to lock it down, I don't know whats in front of me, for all I know it could be a pile up, but at the same time, I know people are right behind me, so I am praying that I don't get rear ended. I was on the brakes as hard as they would go for the first time ever. So here I am, in a blind curve, coming to a stop on the interstate, yelling over the cb for everyone to shut it down, you can't see, all the while hoping that nothing appears in front of me, or I don't run off the road, cause you can't even see the lines on the road, I was blind in every aspect.

People are yelling back at me, "get it off the road Roehl, just pull over and we will come through" and I am telling them they have no choice but to back it down and crawl through, and that it will sneak up on you, but most didn't listen, they thought I was over exaggerating, but soon after, THEY are on the cb yelling to lock'em down, you have no sight.

Now there were 2 reasons it was like this, one, there are walls on both sides of the road, so the smoke has no where to go, and two, the reason for the smoke, a blown turbo on a truck in front of me. Luckily, just a couple hundred feet or so into it, there was a clearing, and the smoke dissipated just enough to see the lines on the roads, so I took a gamble, and hoped nobody was wrecked in front of me, and sped up a little to keep from getting rear ended. Luckily, I was out of it in a few seconds, but man, that seemed like a lifetime, I was truly scared today(along with many other drivers).

Now, I have been wrote up, blinded, scared for the first time, and braked at 100% for the first time, all within few hours, but thankfully, everything after these mishaps went ok. I got to the consignee on time, delivered, and dispatched again in a pretty nice time frame, then to top it off, I got a really good parking space, at a nice little truckstop. 8)

So now, I got to pick up a load in the morning about an hour away, take it to Ellenwood, drop it, and see what happens next, I just hope I can be home for Easter this weekend, but we will see.

 

Exciting stuff, girl. I felt like I was reading Stephen King.