After I had dinner with my friends in Billings, I went to Laurel to fuel. I drove to Three Forks that night, but I thought of you as I passed the Livingston exit.

This morning I got and drove into Missoula at 9:30. The parking situation is a mad house with many trucks and trailers. There are plenty people there turning equipment in and others signing L/P agreements. All the shop and office staff were asking me if I was staying and indicating that I would be missed when I told I was not.

I talked to the president about the issue I discuss with you; But no dice. His only option was if I was leasing then there was a way to deal. It was good that I got to seat down and talk to him, thou.

I am in Coeur d'Alene right now parked behind the Guesthouse Hotel as they have free Internet(I stayed here when I was going to Sage in Sept). I stopped by Sage and talked to the Director and instructors. They were all encouraging. I did get the skinny on a couple companies both good and bad. My decision is narrowing thou I am waiting for a couple callbacks on some. I will decide either next week or after Christmas. It is nice to be in the driver seat with the offers I have before me.

Well tomorrow I have to check in with the customer here for them to inspect the load then I go to Wallace, ID(Back over 4th of July Pass). It snowed last night, but it was only wet this afternoon.

The dispatcher is looking for a load to the Midwest as that it about as far as I can go and make it back before Christmas to clean out the truck. Hopefully, the weather doesn't hold me up somewhere.

 

UPDATE:
The customer called me about 11am local time and said everything was good to go and he would meet me at the t/s where I was in about 30 minutes. This particular load I was carrying was structural steel that will make a private riding arena for some rather wealthy people. It filled my entire deck and was about 12’6” to 13’ high and weighed in at 43,910lbs. I wanted to mention that before I tell you about the experience I went through, so keep it in mind as you read on.

After the introductions, he told me that I was to follow him. He also stated that it had been snowing in Gardiner and that the last 5 miles or so I would have to put my chains on. Not what I wanted to hear, but oh well you got to do what you got to do right.

We go about 50 miles south on hwy 89 and then turn off onto a dirt road. The road we are on is a dirt gravel road that is about 20 feet wide and so far I can not see any reason why I would need to put chains on and just continue to follow his pick-up.

Soon the road narrows to about 12 feet wide and I can see signs of snow ahead. We pull over and he advises me I had better go ahead and put the chains on as it will get worse further up. Well that was an under statement.

This place was on top of a mountain and the road was nothing but an uphill climb. To add to the fun it is snow/ice covered and is constantly turning sharp to the left then the right and at times the curves will slope to one side or the other. But it gets better……..on one side of me is the mountain with jagged rocks sticking out and the other side it ranged from flat ground (snow covered so not sure what the terrain was like under the snow) to several hundred foot drops!!!

It was a constant battle ensuring that I did not put my steers into the mountain or over the edge as I turned as wide as I possibly could on the 12’ wide snow packed/ice cover road to prevent the trailer from rubbing the rocks or worse slipping over the edge and taking me, my dog, the truck, and the load with it. With a 45 foot trailer and swinging as wide as I could, I was literally coming within inches of the rocks or cliff (depending on which way the road curved). On top of all this, there were spot where I had to build up speed to climb a hill or risk getting stuck and or sliding back down and possibly over the edge.

All of this is NOT an exaggeration, it was to say the least a nail biting, hair raising experience I hope I never have to do again. I took some picks with my phone but have no way or idea of how to up load it to my pc. By the way, it took over 4 hours for us to climb some 7 miles of this mountain. Part of that time was we stopped and waited for a sand truck to arrive which they called in specifically for us. The driver of the sand truck said that he will double sand it over the next few days.

As I got back down to the bottom, I stopped to remove my chains and chatted with the sand truck driver for a minute. He goes on to tell me that when that road is clear and dry, there is no way he would drive a tractor trailer up there and definitely not with the current conditions. He went on to say that after his initial sanding, when he went to reload, he chained up his bull dozer (or some heavy equipment) as he knew for sure he would have to come rescue me. At least he was considerate enough to tell me all this AFTER the fact and not when I was a nervous wreck.

I think all of what hair I have left on my head is now completely gray. I am either a damn good driver or one lucky S.O.B. to have made it up and down that mountain safely. I suspect I am just lucky.

I did call into Davis to inform them about the situation as there are about 9 other Davis trucks scheduled to go there over the next several days. I pray that they all make it up and down as safely as I did.

Anyways, the dispatcher told me that she wants to load out of Butte tomorrow and bring the load to Missoula where it will be re-powered since I am cleaning out the truck and heading home. So I bounced over to Rocker and shut down for the night at the Pilot. After that ordeal today I am EXHAUSTED!!!!!!

 

Sounds like fun :P I don't know what everybody else does but to get a pic off my phone I send it from my phone to my email address and then save it to my computer when I log onto my email. 8) 8)

 

I kicked off the load of fencing in Wallace Monday at noon. I was assigned to pickup in Kamiah, ID for Tuesday morning. It was a nice drive thru the backroads of Idaho and along the Clearwater River. I enjoy the winter landscape as long as there isn't snow on the road.

After picking up in Kamiah, I had to drive over Lolo Pass on US12 to Missoula. It was snowing, so it was slow going and took about 4 hours to go 155 miles. The Clearwater and Lochsa Rivers was snow and ice covered and there were some great views from the road. I saw quail and wild turkeys along the way.

This load doesn't deliver until Tuesday at the earlier in Pella, ID. I am going to spend a couple nights in Billings with my friends, help cut some firewood, do my Christmas shopping, and follow up on my job search. This will still give me plenty of time to get there. Maybe this allow the weather to improve in the Midwest.

 

12/11-12/07
I got the wheels turning from Rocker at 7am on Tuesday morning. I only have to go about 5 miles down I-90 and then an addition 5 miles or so to the customer. Well just as I come off the exit, I start to lose power. The truck has no power and is “sputtering”. I pull over and read the display on the computer and it says “fuel pressure lower than normal”. Uh oh :shock: , I bet my fuel is gelled. I found this unsettling as I have been putting anti-gel in every time I filled up for the past week or so since the temps have been ranging from the mid 20’s to negative single digits. I have also been ensuring that I do not let the tank get before ½ a tank. I had just a hair over ¾ tank at the present time and I figured that would be plenty of volume to prevent gelling.

So after about 20 minutes or so of trying to let the truck idle, I go ahead and change the fuel filters. It takes several minutes for the electronic fuel injection to fill the new filters and eventually I get it started. For about 20 seconds she idles just fine and then once again starts sputtering. By now I know I am gelled and what I need is de-geller but the closest place to get any would be back in Rocker. So I call my dispatcher and tell her what is happening and asked her if there is anyone coming here, to have them pick me up some de-geller.

She calls me back about 5 minutes later and tells me that the driver that is currently loading at the Butte plant will come take me to rocker and back once he is done. While I am so sitting there, I can see that the sun is rising over the mountain and maybe that will help warm up the fuel. Long shot but it is wishful thinking.

As I am sitting there, I get a call from a different dispatcher telling me that there is a Davis driver that wants to talk to me and he gives me the drivers’ cell number. I give him a call and it turns out that he is the 2nd of about 10 drivers that are delivering in Gardiner. He was told (like I was) by the customer that he would be required to chain up the last 5 miles. The driver was curious as to why and wanted to talk to me. I tell this driver exactly what I experienced and suggested that he park at the bottom of the mountain and then ride in the customers pick up truck and see what the route is like.

Well to make a long story short, it turns out that the info I passed on to my truck manager never got out :x . He and I have the same truck manager and I was dumbfounded that the info was never passed along. We end our conversation and he is not thrilled at all, this is his last load and he does not want to leave the company with an accident or tarnish his perfect 5 year driving record.

He calls me back about 15 minutes later after talking to the truck manager and asking why the info was not passed on. He goes on to tell me that this person discredited what I had to say as a inexperienced rookie just exaggeration :evil: . This driver goes on to tell me that he told the truck manager that if this driver (me) said it’s treacherous, then he believes me and feels that the info should have and should be passed on to all the drivers going there.

Anyways, this driver decided to do as I suggested. He calls me back later that day and tells me that I was right on the money in my assessment of the conditions and that he relayed that to the truck manager, he also told him there was no way in hell he would be taking the load up there that it was nothing more than an accident waiting to happen.

Guess the truck manager took the word of the veteran over this “rookie” :roll: because they have decided to have all the drivers drop their trailers and let the construction contractor hook up some sort of heavy equipment to pull the load to the top.

This whole ordeal of not believing what I said because I don’t have years and years of experience under my belt pissed me off to say the least :x . If I had been in Missoula at the time I learned of all this who know what I might have done. Luckily I was in Butte and had a couple of hours to cool off.

I get to Missoula in the early afternoon on Tuesday and just relax the rest of the day. The earliest I can get my rental car to go home for the holidays is Friday so I planned on taking my time packing up all my stuff and cleaning the truck. Well the yard supervisor asked me if there was any way I could be out of the truck on Wednesday as he is going to be swamped over the next couple of days with other drivers leaving the company or leasing.

I pulled into one of the shops and spent the entire day Wednesday packing and cleaning. I was able to lock up most of my belonging in one of the storage rooms in the office until I return. I did not realize how much crap I accumulated while on the road. Anyways, I got the truck cleaned out and turned in. I guess I am now officially no longer a company driver, hell I guess you could say I am actually unemployed for the time being . I am currently sitting at the Days Inn and since I was a day ahead of schedule, I called the car rental place to see if there was a car available. They said no, but there are expecting one back in later and I might be able to get it if they can get it ready for me before they close. They will call me if so.

I will head home either today (if car is ready) or first thing tomorrow morning where I will spend a couple of weeks with my family . When it’s all done and said, I will have been gone from home for 2 ½ months, almost like a mini Navy deployment. I plan to leave home on or about the 2nd of January and head to Kansas City, MO to pick up my truck and trailer and bring it back to Missoula.

If, I don’t post until “next year” don’t worry I am not dead just enjoying my home time and want to go ahead and wish everyone that follows this thread a very safe and Happy Holidays!!!!!

 

that sounds like it would work just fine, but I guess I am a bit f a dumb azz ops: because I looked for the pics on my phone and they are not there, guess I did not hit the "save" button :?

 

if i have to post when im home so do you there buck-o

lol

yer old truck boss is a dink IMO, wait he's mine too isnt he....good thing i own mine and dont have to talk to him.....i wonder what he's gointo do when there aren't any more company truck's...hrmmmmm

glad to that in the end they actully listened to someone and avoided yet anouther wreck

 

:lol: :lol:

me too!!!

 

I do that too. I get in a hurry to take quick pictures and forget to hit the save button. I wish they had it programmed to automatically save. I've lost a lot of pics that way

 

dewercs2 gave me permision to post these. Below are pics of what is left of the truck after his accident. As you'll see, it's amazing that he walked away from it.