Now that I am home, I wanted to write and send a few pics of the construction site I went to(the one I couldn't find earlier this week)



As I was getting closer to where I had to unload, I realized I would have to cross a wood bridge, and it looked rickety to me, and I had second thoughts about crossing it considering I was right at 80k, but I saw another Roehl flatbed in the area where I was supposed to be, so I figured if he crossed it safely, I should be able to as well, but I just kept seeing the picture of the truck that collapsed the wooden bridge a few months ago. You also can't tell, but the bridge is shaped like a "A" and was pretty steep on both sides, it was scary just before crossing, but once I felt how strong it was and realized I was ok, it was all right.



This was a low bridge I had to go under, in this picture you can't really tell, but a condo wouldn't had made it. My truck barely made it, with the stack being an inch from the bridge(I had to get out and check several times, I was nervous).



Here is a closer look, pay no attention to the bugs on the windshield! Compare the height of the bridge with the truck on top.



And here is the big load the other Roehl driver was hauling, if I had known how light his load was, I would have been even more nervous, thank goodness I seen this after I crossed the bridge, lol!

 

Nova, those pics look like the "Mixing Bowl" mess of 95/495 in VA, specially the last one, see a concrete truck that looks very familar, like a Cardinal/Virginia Concrete truck with that color scheme. If so, bet that was a real fun site to drive around :roll:

 

[quote="Novacane"]
Now you're talking sense

 

You are correct, that is exactly where I was, give this man a cigar! It wasn't too bad to navigate, but finding how to get in using the dirt roads was a challenge, but I got lucky and had a construction worker help me through.

Now for an update. When I started my day Saturday for my trip home, about 4am, I woke up yet again to dead batteries. So now, it's the weekend, maintenence isn't in yet, and weekend dispatch isn't the best in the world. Nonetheless, I called dispatch to see what I needed to do.

Now, keep one thing in mind, when I was getting yelled at mentioned in my previous posts, one of the reasons I got in trouble was because I got a boost instead of having a truck sent. Now I called in and done the whole reporting it deal, but I figured I would be able to get a boost long before truck could arrive, and if that was the case, I didn't want the company to be charged for a service call when I was able to take care of the problem myself, that's me trying to help out the company I work for.

Anyway, I got in trouble specifically because it took too long to get boosted. I searched for a person who would boost me, that took about 30 minutes. Then, it took another almost 45 for his truck to charge mine enough to start, so it took me the better part of an hour and a half to get on the road, and that of course ate into my delivery time, so I got in trouble both for being late, and for taking too long for the boost, and was told next time to let a truck come out and fix it so it would be faster(they don't know how long it takes these trucks to get to me, I have always had bad luck with these places taking forever, is it like that for everyone?)

So..................Dispatch asks me if I can get a boost, ha! First off, I don't want to get in trouble again, and second, it's 4am on a Saturday morning, and knocking on doors and waking up drivers who are trying to rest while they work over the weekend isn't the best way to get some help. So I politely tell dispatch nope, and to send a truck on it's way, he says that maintence won't be in for at least another hour, but he will have them call me and set something up.

By this time staying on hold, having to repeat the situation, and talk back and forth, it's 4:30 am. So I wait, and wait, finally at 5:45, I call to talk with them again. To my suprise they were in, I asked why in the world they hadn't called me, I needed to be on the road. They said that dispatch indeed gave them my information, but put a note on it that I would call in myself at 6am! I DID NO SUCH THING!!

But I talk with them, and tell them how the batteries have been an ongoing problem, and that I needed someone to come take care of it. They say ok, someone will be on the way. 8 am rolls around and he finally shows up, and has a cordless battery booster with him(the kind like I said I wish they made bigger) just like Chris's, so I already know it's not going to work.

He hooks it up, and all that happens is the lights get a little brighter, and the truck will turn over about 3-5 times very slowly, not even close to starting. So he realizes that's not going to work, so he hooks up his truck(just a regular size half ton truck) to the batteries and tries to boost me off, nope, well, let it sit a few minutes, 20 minutes later, not even close.

So he decides to leave, to go and pick up a bigger battery charger with a 100 amp boost(again, Chris has one just like it, lol) Half an hour later, he is back, 45 minutes later, the truck finally starts. But something is different this time, it's not charging like normal, it's actually dis-charging a little. I am freaking out thinking that I will be stuck here, and not get home for mother's day weekend. But he tightens all the battery posts again, and it started acting normal, whew, HOME HERE I COME!

So looking back on it, I could have spent an hour looking for another driver to boost me, then another 45 charge time, and I would have been gone in less than 2 hours, like usual. But since that way was too slow, I did it the "proper" way according to dispatch in order to save time, and it only took me 6 hours to get on the road(4am to just almost 10am).

Still, that's no big deal, the guy was trying, he just didn't come prepared(isn't that the point?) and did the best he could, plus it shows that my way was faster in most cases. But one problem it did create was the fact I wouldn't be home in time for a 34 reset, but I didn't realize it at the time, so I just head to the house with my load of hoods.

I get home around 5pm, pay for my parking, and call Chris to come pick me up, I didn't feel like driving the truck home. Well, after the dead battery incident earlier that morning, the rest of the day was wonderful, and we had some awesome weather, and since it was so pretty out, he drove his nova, and that's usually pretty fun, we met and dated in that car(met at a race track) and we both love it, so it was a great day. We had errands to run, some cell phone problems to take care of, and hit the local sonic, ahh, nerves are settled.................

We finally make our way home after a couple of much needed alone time, and that's when I sent the pictures of the construction site. My delivery time was Monday morning in AL. so I knew that I would need to leave sometime Sunday, and realized that there wasn't enough time for my 34. I also knew that they planned on working on my truck, and would most likely make me get my 34 there at the terminal, and that would mean me losing too many hours, so again I called weekend dispatch, thinking that nothing would happen.

Now, I have 2 choices, wait till my 34 reset, and leave around 3am, and get there with around 6 hours of drive time left, which the company doesn't like, or leave early, miss my 34 and pull a reset while the truck is in the terminal which I figure is a waste since I was only a few hours away from my 34 here at the house. So I more or less call and see if it's ok for me to wait for the clock to reset before I leave, and arrive at the consignee with only 6 hours of drive time left, besides I would probably wind up being at the terminal for that long(2 hour drive to ellenwood from the consignee).

He tries to get me to do the reset at the terminal, but then realizes how close I am to the reset here at the house, and he helps me out and says it's ok, and this time I made sure to have him write a note about him ok'ing it for me so I won't get in trouble for it.

So for the first time since I started weekend dispatch actually helped me out, and didn't tell me to wait till regular dispatch got there. So I leave around 4am and much to my amazement, the truck actually started, whoo hoo, I am on a good luck streak now! THEN I make it to the consignee 45 minutes early, THEN they actually let me unload early, and get it done quickly, whoo hoo!

So as expected, they route me through ellenwood, and instead of putting me in a crappy loaner truck, tell me to hang out and let them fix the problem, and do a pm since it was over due for one. This rules, I hate the whole loaner truck deal, no I just hope that they can get it done in a timely manner.

Well, they work on the truck, pull it outside and tell me I can head out. I hadn't got my dispatch yet, so I figured I would grab the truck wash right quick and clean some of those bug guts everyone seen on the windshield and the front of the truck washed off.

Guess what, THE TRUCK WON'T START!!! after they just finished "fixing it" the truck won't start. I go back in and tell them, and their reaction was, "are you serious?". I say yep, and they pull it in and start working on it again. An hour later, she pulls back out under her own power and again they tell me it's ready to go. Still no dispatch(I had been inside talking with them about it) so again I figure I will wash it.

It actually starts this time, and I get it washed, get back in the truck after I was finished and she fired right up again, whew! I had got a message over the q/c while I was washing, and what do you know.................it's a over 800 mile run GOING TO TEXAS!!! I only had about 2 hours left for the day, and grabbed my trailer of spooled cable and started hauling a$$ baby! lol

Atlanta traffic was a mother, but I finally made it through, got on 20 and starting laying down the miles. I was shooting for a pilot I stay at a lot and when I arrived I had about 15 minutes left of my day, whew, that was perfect, grabbed a groovy parking space and hit the sack. I am waking up just now, and I usually don't sleep that long, so you know I was tired.

So that's where I am at, having a good luck streak, awesome load, and should be able to put 3000 miles in my pocket this week, if everything goes ok, only time will tell. I just hope the truck keeps starting good, that would be my biggest problem right now, but as it stands, I should be in Fort Worth on Wednesday in the am, so wish me luck. Now lets head to Texas!

 

Good luck, hope all of your problems are behind you for good.
I am in Gary now finishing orientation. I saw them getting some new trucks ready for flatbeds. Maybe you will get one.

 

It's been a good couple of days!

Let me start off with a question many have pm'ed me about, what did they do to my truck to fix it?

NOTHING! I got a PM done, they zip tied a rubber hose over one of the rear air ride hoses because it was rubbing on a frame bolt, and they checked the starter, batteries, and altenator. Of course they didn't find anything wrong with them, so I don't know what to think about that, but I must admit, other than a few "slow" starts(cranked slowly, just barely enough to start) it has been fine. So the only thing I can think of is they "fixed" it by checking the stuff, as in it was a bad connection or something, or I have simply been lucky, I don't know, lol.

Anyway, my trip to Texas went great as usual, I really like this state, the people are really great. Anyway, I made it within 4 hours of the consignee, and had to shut down for the night. I had to be there at noon, but was capable of being there by 7am, and I thought long and hard about that.

On one hand, there would be a chance of getting unloaded early, and maybe getting another good load since I was early. On the other hand, they may not even be open at that hour, and I could wind up getting up early, and wasting the day waiting for them to get to me. So I decided to shoot for a 9am arrival.

Well, I got there at 15 till 9 and what do you know, they don't start recieving until 9, so if I had left really early, it would have been a waste of time, whoo hoo, good decision! So I get un-chained and strapped and wait to get unloaded, but even though I was early, it still took them till 10:30 to get to me, but that's ok, got unloaded a hour and half early, cool. 8)

So I am finished and waiting on word from dispatch on where to head to and they got back with me pretty quick, yet another good thing to chalk up for the day. But it gets even better, it's over a thousand mile trip!!!! :shock:

They wanted me to to got about 250 miles south down to Cleveland Tx. to pick up a load of plywood and run it up to a town close to Knoxville Tn. Cool, that puts me driving right past the house, but sadly I won't be able to stop, not even to have lunch or something like that, but it's cool, just being close seems good for some reason.

I made it down to Cleveland in about 5 hours due to slow traffic, and a wreck, but nothing bad, just a hold up around 15 minutes off the trip. The people there were pretty nice as well, but again they were giving me grief over the way I wanted the truck loaded. I tried everything in the world to load the truck the way he wanted to, but I simply said "look, I don't want to do this twice like in the past, so if you don't want to do it my way, you need to pay me since I will be losing time and money coming back to get it redone". Of course that wasn't even an option, but I stood my ground and he loaded it the way I wanted.

But even though he loaded me my way, he put too much on the trailer, and I know it would have been over gross, but he kept on stacking it with me telling him he is wasting his time, but he knew what he was doing, so when he was finished, I scaled out and am over by 1800 lbs. So he took the part I plainly told him would put over back off, and put on a smaller bundle, and it was just right.

So, by that time, I was pretty much out of hours, but they wouldn't let me park there, so I got directions to the nearest place to shut down, and half an hour later, I am in a parking spot, no internet access which is why I didn't update.

I sleep, and get a early start the next morning(yesterday morning) and drove up to west Memphis Arkansas where I had to shut down last night. I got up bright(well it was dark actually) and early this morning, and now I am at a fuel stop watching a guy wash his truck in the fuel island. I don't mean the windows, or a fuel spill, he is taking the water hose, and the windshield washer squeegee and washing his entire truck(not the trailer lol). Oh well, to each his own I guess, shoot its free and there isn't anyone behind him, so more power to him.

Got more good news yesterday, dispatch called and more or less gave me a choice of loads(this would be my first choice of loads ever!) and both of them being high miles to boot. I would have to pick up one of 2 loads out of Ky, and either go to Nebraska, or up to Marshfield, miles are about the same, around 825 loaded, so with the empty miles that would be yet another thousand mile run, whoo hoo, 2 in a row baby!

My check was only 488 this week, wasn't able to turn in miles in time, so I only got payed for 1930. But that will give next weeks a huge boost, and put me just over 3k for the week, plus this run I am on now will be a booster for next week with a thousand miles done by monday, with hopefully another thousand trip up north to add to it, plus what I can get done the rest of the week, and considering I would have to be back down south, that would mean I would have a minumum of 2300-2500 for next week, and while most of you laugh at that, it sounds really good to me.

Anyway, just one more thing, if this update is hard to follow I am sorry, I had to write bits and pieces here and there, so I didn't get to write all at once, plus the spellcheck isn't working for me either, so good luck!

 

Aarrrgghh!!! How can I follow you around, if you don't tell me where you went??? :lol:

I hope you took the Nebraska run!

 

??????

 

You are really touched aren't you? Stop chasin' them skirts....going to get yourself in trouble. :P

 

Hi Novacane is your truck still running ok if not try and get it up to Iron Mt. . I've had my truck for a little over a month and pulled in there to get ABS on trailer looked at and told them about batteries and they changed all four I had old ones used from other trucks. look at the dates on your batteries and truck numbers that will let you know how old they are. keep us posted and hope to see you in a terminal soon