09/29/07
Not much to report today. It was a good day for driving and unfortunately due to the slow speed for big trucks in Ohio I could not get as far as I would have liked to. I shut it down in Clayton, IN which is just a few miles west of Indianapolis.

 

I have it working fine for now and will just rip it down on my table saw when I get home.

 

DD/GFI,

While you two have been playing around back east, I have been explorer Waterton/Glacier National Parks. Well enough of my fun camping out around the Rockies and enjoying the the beautiful fall weather, it time for me to get back to work and pay my taxes! :sad: Today I stopped in Kalispell, doing my laundry, and I will sleep in a real bed tonight. Tomorrow I am headed to Missoula to start orientation on Monday.

I hope to soon see you out there. Take care until then.

 

Good luck, and glad to see a bear didn't eat you :wink:

 

09/30/07
Yet another day with noting much to report. It was a great day for driving except for a short rain storm I Kansas City.

I did come across one big truck that was rolled over on the west bound right shoulder but it was facing east! There was no way it could have come across the median because there were trees and brush that separated the 2 direction. Then there was a major accident around the 182mm in Missouri involving a Crete truck and another truck. It looked horrific and I certainly hope no one was seriously injured. This was one time where listening to the CB paid off as a local driver gave us a alternate route that ended up saving us that followed it many hours of sitting on the highway waiting for the accident to be cleared.

I shut down in Lebo, KS tonight which is about a 100 miles from my 1st drop and then another 200 miles after that to my 2nd drop. I only stopped here because I did not get a hold of my customer Friday and therefore I do not have directions to them or know what their receiving hours are. I will hit the road about 5am and call them just before I reach Wichita.

If all goes as I plan, I will have all 5 of these loads off 2 days early!!

 

Thanks. Funny thing happened Friday night when I was campout in Glacier National Park. At 5am I woke to something small running over my head and scurrying around the back on my pickup truck with me. It found an old chocolate kiss and ate half of it. It may have been a chipmunk because there was one in my campsite before I went to bed. Fortunately, I didn't get eaten by a chipmunk! :shock:

I checked into the Days Inn this afternoon. When I was in the parking lot behind the hotel, 2 Davis trucks pulled in. The truck numbers were T337 and T426. The second truck had 2 guys so it may have been a trainer's truck. I was going to introduce myself, but one of them(don't which of the 3 guys) sounded mad about something so it didn't seem like the right time.

I was pleasantly surprised when I checked into the hotel to get a big pile of material from Davis. The nice surprise was there was package mailed to me from a friend who had knitted me a scarf. I thought it was very good of Davis to see to it that my mail was waiting for me at the hotel.

Well off to bed for me. Plenty to do tomorrow. Hope you are happier now that you are off the East Coast. Night.

 

You'll like the staff at the Days Inn. Nice folks. There will be new Davis Trucks there every night. A lot of Interstate Dist. too. Just spent 2 weeks there going to school. Good Luck

Rick

 

10/01/07
So far so good. I got off my first 2 drops in Wichita, KS and Tulsa, OK and made it to my 3rd drop in Richardson, TX. I will offload this part and roll down the road about 5 miles and offload the 4th part. The first 2 drops only took off about 1600lbs and this 3rd drop will be an additional 2,000lbs. My 4th drop is where the bulk of my deck will be empty with over 35,000lbs coming off.

As long as everything continues to move along smoothly, I will have my 5th and final drop in Houston off tomorrow afternoon and that will mean I delivered the entire load 2 days early(safely and legally I might add). This makes me look good in Davis’s eyes, and makes Davis look good in the Shippers eyes, and of course the consignee is happy they got their load early. So it’s a “win-win” situation for everyone.

 

DD,

Good deal. How long are you planning to TAH? You have been out about 3 weeks this time?

Finishing orientation tomorrow and should be meeting my trainer. Pat hasn't indicated who I will be going with yet. I understand you had been talking to your trainer GD for months. That must have been nice.

Be safe and enjoy your time at the house.

 

I was out for 3, maybe 4 weeks this time. I will be home for at least 2 days and if there is no load for me on Friday, then I'll be here for the weekend.

Yeah I keep in touch with my trainer, be it to ask questions or just to say hello. He is a great guy.

Congrats on getting orientaion behind you, you're one step closer.