Yes Davis is doing the fuel taxes. And you know, I am not sure right off the top of my head if they do them individually or as a fleet :? I'll have to check into that.

Davis did not wait a minute to start taking deductions :sad: but at least i will see a very nice chunk of change next week

 

man i hope yer somewhere warm...its gonna be a few cold days here in the northwest

hey and what happened to updating this thing every few days??

you let the man buy a truck and now he doesnt think he has to do anything

 

01/25-29/08
I had someone ask me if that my lack of updating the thread was due to the fact that as an O/O now I am running harder just to make a living. Well the answer is no, I am running the same as I did when I was a company driver, just making a little more money. The reason for not updating more regularly is simply because I’ve become somewhat lazy lately to do so. Sorry.

Anyways, not much too really report. I loaded out of Priest River, ID as scheduled last Friday. I was a little concerned when I asked the guy loading me how much the total weight would be and he said 48k. Well I can only scale 47k max unless I play with my fuel. I told him to go ahead and load it and when I scale (there is a lumber scale next door) we’ll see where we’re at. Well I ended up scaling out at 79,760 and all was well. So I thought. The scale at the lumber mill just gives you the gross weight and not the axles. In order to get the axle weights, you would have to get out of the truck, run over to where the read out is, then move the truck and repeat the process for each axle. A little inconvenient, but not impossible. The only problem is that you have log trucks all sitting behind you waiting to get onto “their” scale. The nearest CAT scale in my direction that I could tell, was in Missoula.

I took a kind of round about way out of Priest River in order to avoid the scale in Idaho. This would leave me just the one in Montana to worry about before getting to Missoula. Of course the Montana scale was open and I rolled across. The green light stayed on the whole time so I continued on my way. By now I am thinking that my axles must be good.

The next morning after arriving in Missoula, I filled up and scaled the truck. Well turns out that with full tanks, I was 500lbs over on my trailer and 200lbs over on my drives. The drives are no big deal because I could slide the 5th wheel if I was really concerned, which at 200lbs I was not. But, there is nothing I can do with the trailer as I have a fixed spread axle. The only weight that I could move would be my steel tarps which are in the side box between the tandems. But this really won’t do much good as they only weigh about 150lbs combined and even if I moved them, it would not necessarily remove 150lbs off the axles.

I have over 2,000 miles to go so what do I do? The first thing was to examine the atlas to see where the scales were along my route. By doing so, I can see from experience which one are usually closed and which one are usually open and which one use “pre-pass. After looking over the atlas, I decided that I would just run my tanks down on fuel and then re-scale to see how much weight was removed from the axles. I was down to ¾ tank of fuel when I scaled and I went from 500lbs over down to 375, a little better. I knew that if I run the turnpikes in Indiana and Ohio, it would cost me about $50 but there are NO scales along there. Once out of Ohio, I am about 40 miles from my customer. So that is what I did.

I made it to my drop a day early and without any problems and was unloaded as soon as I rolled in. I was able to pull into the warehouse which made it nice to untarp and stow my equipment within the confines of the warm building.

When I called in my empty status, I got the usual “call me in a couple of hours” routine so I bounced down the road to the TA truck stop in Barkeysville, PA. After several call backs, I was told to call back in the morning. So here I sit in lovely Barkeysville for the night. I was really hoping (and praying) that I would get loaded and out of the area today as there is a storm that is supposed to hit tonight. Although it has been raining off and on since Iowa, the outside temps have been in the mid to upper 40’s. That is supposed to drop about 15-20 degrees and the rain will become freezing rain. That is the worst stuff in my opinion. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

 

I just posted an update, but almost didn't because of your post :wink: Besides, what are you doing on the site, aren't you supposed to be playing G.I.Joe or something? :lol: :lol:

hey talk about cold, the so called worst storm in years is supposed to hit this area tonight and I am stuck smack dab in the middle of it :sad:

 

You know, I really wonder about some of these "proffessionals" out here sometimes. I am NOT an expert but dang.

As I sit here updating my thread, I am watching a guy pull in next to me, not back in, it's a pull through spot, and twice now he has almost hit my truck trying to get his straight :roll:

lucky for me he is all done and shut down.

 

you know how the military is....hurry up and wait...
so yeah i have some freetime to surf and harrass

lol

 

I know what you mean by idiots....the the further east you go the worse they are!! :? .....most of the time....

We were in Pendleton the other day and the chain law was in so we were chaining up at the TS there before cabbage. This England driver is next to us and he gets out of his truck and says I dont have to chain up I weigh less than 10K..... :? :? I am empty....Oh geez. I just looked at him and walked away while Bo tried to explain that he DID need to chain up.

Bo could NOT convince him he had to chain up and the guy left.....one hour later he was pulled over on top of cabbage getting a healthy ticket. I would have loved to hear that conversation..... :lol: :lol:

tootie

 

Hey devildice,
Can't PM on this site. Fellow career Navy guy that has some questions for you. Shoot me an email at [email protected] when you have sometime.

 

Nice truck DD. Did you ever go after the place you bought the truck from for the money you spent on the turbo and manifold repair ? 8)

 

that is hilarious :lol: :lol: :lol: just when you think you've seen and heard it all.....