You know, there are not many people out there with as much patience as you have. I'm so glad to hear there are still patient people out there. Delays are part of the job, even though they are never at the right time. Even when my wife starts complaining about something, I manage to tell her "thats truck drivin'".

 

WEEK THIRTY THREE
Monday, August 11th through Sunday, August 17th


Well, I am coming off of another reset which means I have a fresh 70 hrs clock to run with. The only problem I have with this reset is that it is now Tuesday. It took me 7 days to burn my hours last week which forced me to take my reset on Monday. More often than not this results in lower miles in the following week because in all likelihood I’ll get a load at the end of the week that delivers on a Monday with an excessive amount of downtime on it which will either force me or at least encourage me to fit in a reset during the weekend in the hopes of increasing my miles in the following week. This isn’t always the case, but it seems to be more of a rule than not. Time will tell.

Prior to going to bed on Monday night I had sent a message into dispatch to let them know, “I’ll be ready to run by 2:30am, do you have a load offer or a load you need shagged in the morn, or should I check back in the morning?” I could have simply sent a ready call in at 2:30 (or waited until a more civil hour) to let them know I was ready to go at that time, but if I did that and there would be a good chance that no loads would be available until 6am or so anyway and I would find myself wide awake much earlier than need be.

The early ready call helps me in many ways. First, I will know when I have to wake up and therefore I can plan out my sleep time frame. Second, it puts me further up on the load board. If I wait until the morning it may take longer to get a load out. Third, it opens me up to the possibility of doing a shag load. Basically, there are seldom loads available to run at 2 in the morning and I would find myself sitting until 6 or 7 waiting to pickup a load anyway. If there was a shag load in the yard, I could spend the early morning hours doing one of those and pick up a few extra dollars and be empty and ready for my next load by 5am or so. It also puts the dispatchers in a good frame of mind when it comes time to offer me a load out. I don’t ask for a good load out at times like this, but I firmly believe that it puts me in their good graces. More often than not it seems to work out to my benefit.

Sure enough, within a few minutes I received a load offer and it was a shag. There was a trailer sitting in the yard that needed to be delivered 50mi west of town by 5am. That offer was followed by a message from dispatch, “This is a hot load that must be delivered on time (that means dispatch was thrilled to find someone to dump this load onto), if you can cover this load for me, I’ll get you a good load out when you are empty.” Just what the doctor ordered. I accepted the load and sent off a message to the effect of, “You got it, load will be delivered on time.” Ten minutes later I was sent a preplan for a load that was sitting on a preloaded trailer here in town and destine for Pauls Valley, OK (1035mi) with a wonderful drop/hook delivery that I would be able to drop a day early. Great way to start out the week.

One other thing I should note that I forgot to mention in last weeks update. Last Thursday I had sent a message off to my Fleet manager inquiring about getting my APU. Letters had been posted in the terminals to address the subject. What it basically said was that all 2007 trucks would be getting APUs along with a select number of 2006 trucks that had less than 250,000 miles on them. Prior to that I had know that all 2007 trucks would be getting them, but the mileage limit thing was news to me. This threw up a red flag to me because my 2007 truck currently had around 235,000 miles on it. Up to this point I had been content on waiting my turn for an APU because the better part of summer was over and I don’t do any idling during the fall and winter months anyway, but I sure was looking forward to the inverter function and wouldn’t mind the ability to utilize the A/C either. I have not had a problem staying under the company mandated 30% idle time, but there were nights when I would have enjoyed A/C over a fan.


Anyways, I was worried that even though I had a 2007 truck, that if my truck was to reach 250,000mi before receiving an APU I might not get one. I didn’t want to take that chance and decided to be proactive about getting one installed as soon as possible. With that I sent off a message to my Fleet Manager pointing out my concerns. The response was quick and he let me know that he would see what he could do. I assumed that would be the last I would hear of it for awhile, but within 30mins I got another message stating, “Sorry, APUs and pets don’t mix.” This one threw me for a loop, was he calling me an animal? Because I sure don’t have any pets on this truck. It then occurred to me that the previous driver of this truck had a small dog and the computer must show that there is still a pet on this truck. I sent off another message assuring him that I do not have a pet, never have and never will, but that the previous driver did have one. That was answered with a “That’s what I was thinking, I’ll take care of it”, and that was the last I had heard of it. Update from the future: after getting my APU, the statement regarding the pet thing still didn’t make any sense because when I was getting my APU installed there was a driver there with a dog that was also having an APU installed. Maybe the company didn’t know he had one or maybe my Fleet Manager was mistaken about the policy.

Back to my work week. My reset was up and I hooked to the shag load and headed on over to Springfield where I was to live unload at a grocery store warehouse. I considered myself lucky to be in and out in 2hrs (lightning speed for one of these places, and an easy $55) and headed back to Columbus to pickup my preloaded trailer. It was ready to go as promised and the rest of my day was a peaceful drive towards my final destination and I shut down south of St Louis with a solid 600 miles for the day.

Wednesday had me looking at about 500mi to my drop and I got an early start at 2:30am or so. I could have started later in the day, but an early start would get me to my drop before noon and greatly increase my chances of getting a load out on the same day. If I were to show up later in the afternoon I might have to contend with a pickup the following morning. Even if that were to happen, I would have 500mi for the day, but if I can fit in 650mi, all the better.

I did arrive before noon and put in my MT call and received yet another single load offer. How I miss the multi load offers of more prosperous days. This load was to pickup the next day, but it was in Muskogee 165 miles away and I would just be able to make it there tonight before running out of hours. The interesting thing about this load is that at first glance it wasn’t a particularly good run. I was to deliver it in Omaha on Friday morning resulting in a whopping 440mi for Thursday. I was surprised to get a load going to Omaha because for what ever reason I never get a load going in that direction because most of those runs go to drivers that run out of Lincoln. Then it occurred to me, APUs are installed at the Carrier dealership in Omaha. I hadn’t heard anything from my Fleet manager, but I was getting a little excited.

With that, I sent a message off to him asking if that was indeed the reason I was going to Omaha. The reply, “I’ve routed you thru Omaha to get your APU, you will be getting instructions shortly”. Hot damn!

Thursday was an effortless day in which I picked up my preloaded trailer and headed on over to Omaha. I was allowed to drop my trailer at the customer which was two blocks away from the Carrier dealer. I stopped by to drop off my truck but was told that I wasn’t scheduled for an install until the following day. Normally they would have taken me then, but they had an abnormally large number of Crete trucks in that day (12 I believe), so I headed over to the truckstop for the night. First thing Friday morning I went back to Carriers and dropped off the truck. At that time I was told that the shuttle would be there to take us to the hotel at 11am (would have been nice to get that little bit of info yesterday). No big deal I guess, I would be sitting around in the truck regardless of where I was at. At least I had plenty of time to relocate my belongings. I knew a lot of stuff would have to be moved, but I wasn’t exactly prepared for how much area needed to be clean out. Not only did I have to pull everything out of the center cubby under the bunk, but also everything from the passenger side cubby and all belongings from the passenger side closet area (ground to ceiling). Apparently they need that cleared out in order to run ventilation hoses. It sure made for a large pile of stuff on the top bunk, but I was all for it. The idea of having an APU was worth it.

This was going to be a 24hr process and we were told that we would be picked up from the hotel at 11am the following morning. Fine with me, I’ll be getting a hotel room and won’t have to pay for it. They set us up at the Roadway Inn on the other side of the interstate. Not the grandest place, but it was clean and it got me out of the truck for a day.

Saturday morning came around soon enough and I was anxious to get going. Weekends are always questionable when it comes to getting a decent load and I didn’t really want to wait until noon to put in my ready call. The Carrier dealer had eight Crete trucks to work on and I realized that they had to finish one before the other, so I hoped that there might be a chance that mine was ready to go and made a call to find out. No luck, mine was still under construction. Oh well, I’ll just sit it out and see what happens. The shuttle finally showed up and we made our way over to see what our new homes where like. We were all curious as to how much room we had left under our bunks (not much). Since my truck was one of the first ones in the previous days, I assumed it would be ready to go, but oddly enough, seven trucks were done and one was still in the shop, yup, mine. It was another hour before I got the keys, but I was once again ready to roll.

APU


Space usage underbunk


I had low expectations when I put in my ready call, but was delighted when I got a run going to Oakdale, CA (1609mi). Not only did it have great miles, it was on a preloaded trailer sitting in our Lincoln yard and it had an anytime Tuesday delivery. If it could be delivered anytime Tuesday I assumed it could be delivered Monday and set out to do just that. No downtime and I now had a truck with an APU. No more worrying about California’s idling laws.

I arrived in Lincoln to get my trailer and was not at all pleased to find that it was nowhere on the lot. My mindset was that this could mean one of two things. The driver that was to Tcall this load here had not arrived yet or someone else had picked up the load either through their own mistake or dispatch may have put in on someone else. Either way, I was screwed. I made another pass (three actually) and came up with the same results. No trailer. A message to dispatch confirmed that the trailer had not been dispatched to someone else, “It should be there, it was Tcalled two days ago”. Just as I was about to give up hope it occurred to me that I had failed to look in one place, the shop. Sure enough, there it was in a shop bay with a bunch of wiring and airlines pulled out of it. Apparently the previous driver had wrote it up for some problems, (probably the reason it was Tcalled) and the shop was just now getting to it. Even though I was looking at a couple of hours of down time, the mystery was solved and it provided me with ample time to readjust the contents of my truck to fit in around my new APU. I was also able to read through the manual and figure out how the thing worked and wondered around the yard for a while to check out the new trucks on the lot. There were a few hundred new trucks lined up ready for assignment and included the new Freightliners and Internationals. The interiors of both trucks seem to be greatly improved, especially the latter. I had assumed I would get one of these when I traded in my old truck, but the new trucks were not yet in when my truck came up for trade in. As a result I ended up in a used truck. I was annoyed at the time, but since all the new trucks are outfitted with battery packs for auxiliary power, I am now much happier with my APU.

New trucks sitting at the Lincoln yard:
;

Once my trailer made its way out of the shop I hooked to it and took off. My schedule was pretty much open for the next few days. I could take my time and have it there anytime Tuesday or push it and be there somewhere around noon on Monday with enough time left to get started on my next load. As custom I was all for the “get there as soon as possible” approach, although I did make time to stop off at the nearest Wal-Mart to pickup some new supplies to go with my APU. First on the list was a Microwave (no more cold meals for me) at the barn burning price of $35. I also grabbed a toaster and a small hotplate and a number of supporting implements to make my life on the road a little more pleasurable. The ability to cook a meal in the truck greatly increases my options when I’m shopping for food.

Sunday was a day of mindless driving that ended 670mi later somewhere in NV and culminated with a nice hot meal in the truck. There was a restaurant available, but my self prepared meal saved me a good chuck of change, as will many in the future.






WEEK THIRTY THREE
Monday, August 11th through Sunday, August 17th
Miles include deadhead

Columbus, OH to Springfield, OH...............................45mi
Obetz, OH to Pauls Valley, OH................................1035mi
Muskogee, OK to Omaha, NE...................................605mi
Lincoln, NE to Battle Mountain, NV(first leg).............1231mi


Total Paid Miles............................................. ......2916 Miles (lost day to APU install)

Actual Miles………….2973 Miles

2916 x .42 = $1224.72

Not my greatest week by any stretch of the imagination, but considering I had to take my reset on Monday and I lost a day in Omaha while my APU was being installed I am more that content with the results, not bad after sitting idle for two days. Next week may suffer though because I will be running out of hour in the middle of the week which may end up biting me in the butt.

 

WEEK THIRTY FOUR
Monday, August 18th through Sunday, August 24th

It’s a new week, but the same grind. My Monday is just an extension of my current trip. I have a load scheduled to deliver anytime Tuesday, but I’m in a position to have it there sometime around 3pm today. I have a very heavy load of plate tin going to a can making factory and even though it has an anytime delivery, I have to assume it’s going to be a live unload. I just don’t get the feeling that I will be dropping this trailer. Not a big deal, I will arrive with enough time to deal with a live unload and still have time to get started on a new load or find a good parking spot if need be.

My drive over Donner pass is actually quit enjoyable which is in stark contrast to my previous trip over it last winter. I could get used to this no snow thing. My only complain would be the occasional 20mph hills that I had to deal with. These low horsepower trucks work fine on the flatlands, but the mountains tend to make a tedious day of it.

I eventually made it to the downhill side and once again found myself at 20mph with my 80,000# load, (don’t want the breaks to heat up). It’s kind of fun to get into real mountains again, especially during the summer months. Crete usually waits until the dead of winter to send me in that direction. Those Appellations on the other side of the country just don’t offer up much of a challenge. My progress was further hampered by two construction zones (the truck chains on this road really chew it up) that ended up costing me about an hour of delay and I finally found myself at the receiver a little later than I would have liked, But I still had plenty of time to work on getting another load if one was available.

As I had suspected, this was a live unload and after going to the wrong warehouse (the one I had directions too) I made my way to the other one and backed into their only dock and waited for the forklift driver. I wish I had taken a picture of this load, but I didn’t think of it in time and didn’t want to go back out to the truck to get the camera. This was one of the smallest maxed out loads I had ever hauled. I was grossed out at #80,000, but I had a total of 8 pallets in the trailer. Four up front and four over the tandems. Each pallet had a stack of tin plates that were no more than 18” high and maybe 3 ft square at best. Heavy stuff!

The unload went very quickly, as most 8 pallet loads do and I put in my MT call. This was answered with a single load offer that picked up in Sacramento, 75 miles up the road, drop/hook, and delivered to UT (784mi) in the early morning hours of Wednesday. For the most part a very good run with one small exception; it had a pickup time of 10:30 to Midnight. My problem is that I was currently looking at my watch and its 4pm and my 14hrs will be up at 8pm. Oh, what to do. I could have refused the load at this time simply by telling them it picked up after my 14hrs was up, but I will usually try to come up with a plan of action before doing that, especially when it is a favorable load. It’s a Campbell’s soup load, so I realize it is probably a drop and hook load (every load I have pulled for Crete from other Campbell’s has been). I was also going under the assumption that it is a preloaded trailer and if I show up early I will probably be able to pick it up and still have enough hours to get out of town and find a place to park on one of the pull out on Donner Pass. They are all over the place and commonly used by drivers for overnight parking. If the load isn’t ready I can always drop my empty trailer and bobtail out (if they don’t have parking available) and find a corner to hide in somewhere in the sounding area. If it’s a live load and if they won’t load me early I will have a problem. I accept the load and head that way.

Upon arriving at the shipper I was instructed where to drop my empty, (yeah, it is drop/hook) and pointed toward the shippers office. I learned that my trailer was not ready and probably would not be until its scheduled time, but I could park on their lot and they would pound on the door when it was loaded. An inquiry as to me being able to take a 10hr break and was greeted with an affirmative and I ask that I not be disturbed and I would return to the office at 3am to get my paperwork after my break. They had no problem with that and everything was set, it all worked out just dandy.

Once my 10hrs were up I signed off on the BOL and hooked to the trailer. My Tuesday started out with me be a little behind the 8ball. Due to my late start out of the Campbell’s plant I was tight on time, but with minimal stops I would still be able to make it with about 30mins to spare. Other than another slow crawl over the mountains the day went by uneventfully and I was able to pull into Salt Lake City for the night.

I got started as soon as legally possible on Thursday and made it to my customer with 20mins to spare. A little tighter than I like things to be, but on time none the less. It was a Wal-Mart and we all know what happen when you try delivering late to one of these places. It’s definitely to ones advantage to be there on time. I was surprise to be given drop instructions because this load had a specific delivery time of 05:15 attached to it which usually denotes a live unload, but I wasn’t about to stir the waters and did as told and put in my empty call.

A load offer followed shortly and I was all giggly from it. A drop/hook load nearby going to South Carolina (2100mi) with an open delivery anytime Sunday. That means I will get killer miles for the week, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3800mi and I would be able to get my reset in along the way. My hours were starting to get tight and this was the perfect load. I could run out every single hour, reset, and then drop my load early Sunday with a substantial number of hours left in my day to rack up the miles. Hot Damn! Life is good.

I headed out to get my trailer and spent the rest of the day whistling a happy tune as I counted my blessings and enjoyed the scenic drive through Utah and Wyoming. This drive is so much more enjoyable in the summertime.

;

I managed to make it to Sydney, NE for the night and parked at a Wal-Mart and went in to restock my supplies.

The next day brought a whole new attitude into my world; all the joy that I had been immersed in during the previous day was soon to become a distant memory. When I woke up on this fine morning I noticed that I had a message waiting for me on the QualComm. Apparently the customer had called Crete and requested that my load be delivered ASAP. They were out of stock and it was a “we need it yesterday” kind of thing. Well a hot load and a reset doesn’t work out too well and the message was asking me “how far can you get this load today, we need to re-power it for an earlier delivery”. My plan had been to make it to Kansas City to do my reset and then finish off my delivery. Now it was looking like I would be Tcalling my load there and then be stuck looking for a new load out Saturaday morning. I went from looking at a week with 3800 miles to a week where I would be asking for a load out of KC on a Saturday morning and a very strong possibility of getting a much shorter load out that didn’t deliver until the Monday. This has always been the biggest problem with doing resets in the middle of the week. It doesn’t make for a very productive week when it works out like that. I didn’t have any choice in the matter. There was no way I would be able to get this load to its’ destination when they wanted it there, so I drove out the remaining 550mi to KC and
Tcalled the load and started my reset. I have never had a load pulled out from under me here at Crete and the first time it happened hurt. That’s truck driving.

I spent my Friday at the KC yard and caught up on my laundry and later in the evening I went looking for an empty trailer so that I could get a load out Saturday morning. There were a few in the yard and I hooked to what appeared to be the cleanest one available and sent a message off to dispatch. “I’ll be ready to go at 02:30, do you have a load to offer or need a shag done in the morning (little chance of a shag on a Saturday morning)”. The reply was slow in coming (bad sign) and just what I had expected. “No loads available at this time, check back in the morning.” This had all the signs of a bad day ahead and the feeling was only compounded by the fact that if my load hadn’t been pulled from me I would have had a worry free 670mi day. Instead I was looking at a doubtful Saturday.


There was no point in worrying about it, just roll with the punches and see what happens. Who knows, maybe it will work out anyway. So I pulled out of the yard and headed over to the casino just down the road. I tried my luck for a couple of hours and walked away no richer, but I didn’t loose anything either, so I will chalk that up as a good thing and stopped off at one of the local restaurants in the casino and had them pull out a nice big live crab and throw it in a pot of boiling water. From the Crab’s point of view, I guess I was having a better day than him.

I woke up nice and early, 4am in the hopes of getting one of the first loads out, but there were a number of drivers waiting for a load and I must have been a long ways down on the list because I was once again told no morning loads were available and about an hour later I received a load offer that picked up in town, AT 3PM! Son of a @&^%! All my fears had just be justified. And to top it off with a final insult, it was going to TN (794mi). Anyone care to guess when it delivered. Yup, Monday! Oh yeah, slap me in the face before your done, it didn’t deliver until 3pm. That will make for a couple of whopping 350mi days. Whoa is me. I did send in a request for an earlier run considering I had already been down for 34hrs, but that is all they had and I accepted the load.

I was definitely in no hurry and didn’t even bother showing up to get loaded early. When I did arrive to get loaded I found out that I could have been loaded earlier, but it would have served no purpose because I had a set appointment delivery with strict instructions not to deliver early and that this load could not be Tcalled for any reason (that didn’t stop me from trying). Since I had loaded so late in the day I was content with putting in a short 200 mile day and putting in for the night. I just tried to put the 670 miles I would have had with my other load out of my mind (with little success).

Sunday was another lack luster day with no urgency to it so I hung around until late morning and then headed out with our Knoxville terminal as a final destination. That would leave me with a short 60mi hop to my 3pm appointment the next day. Wow, the miles are really adding up, not! This trailer needed a service, as most of them do these days and I know that our Knoxville yard is one of the best at getting you in. I had plenty of time and checked with the shop when I got there. Unlike most of our shops, the guys at Knoxville are first rate and told me to pull up to the bay and they would get me in next. Once inside they had the trailer serviced, four new tires and a fresh set of breaks in 30 minutes flat. Love these guys! I also noticed that the next service due date for the trailer was set for 3 months out instead of the standard 2 months. Looks like another cost cutting measure has been instituted. I then wiggled my trailer into the final available slot (very small yard) and bobtailed to the area shopping center to catch a movie. I was also able to catch up on a little shopping and decided to spend the night in a dark corner of a nearby Wal-Mart so that I could get nice quite nights sleep.

Another week down.


WEEK THIRTY FOUR
Monday, August 18th through Sunday, August 24th
Miles include deadhead

Battle Mountain, NV to Oakdale, CA(last leg)..............................419mi
Sacramento, CA to Corinne, UT................................................ 784mi
Ogden, UT to Kansas City, MO................................................ .1094mi
Kansas City, KS to Knoxville, TN (first leg).................................742mi


Total Paid Miles............................................. ...2994 Miles

Actual Miles...............................3094 Miles

2994 x .42 = $1257.48

Again, like last week, not a bad for miles. It’s just that it was set to be a perfect week, but it came crashing down in the final days. Oh well, that’s truck driving. That’s starting to be my favorite saying. It seems to cover all the bases.

 

I've been out from the house for 6 days now and I have used up exactly 35 of my 70 hrs. Never been in this situation before. The problem has been having to wait 20-24 hrs between loads. Empty today get loaded tomorrow. Had a pretty nasty conversation with my terminal manager last week. He basically told me to deal with it on my own or turn in my truck. He didn't care which. That pretty much ended the conversation because I couldn't come up with anything to say to that. :sad: I'm 10,000 miles below where I was this time last year but he says so is everybody else. I almost wish this economy would tank and take the decision whether to quit or not out of my hands. If I was spending my weekends at home instead of sitting at a TS things would be different.

 

double tap.

 

Sheesh, my first triple tap. Actually I'm trying to pad my post count. 8)

 

WEEK THIRTY FIVE (part one)
Monday, August 25th through Sunday, August 31st


Another Monday has rolled around with the hopes of a better week. Not that last week was all that bad, but it didn’t exactly end the way I had hoped. I was currently under a less than desirable load that didn’t deliver until 3pm. I had already wasted a couple of days on it and was anxious to get rid of it. I had strict instructions not to deliver this load before its’ appointment time and I had also been informed that this load could not be Tcalled. I was none to please with either directive, but there are times when nothing can be done to improve the situation. This was one of those. When I was in the yard yesterday I did a quick check of the trailers that had been Tcalled and was a bit surprised to find another load there that contained the same product going to the same place with a delivery time that was a four of hours ahead of mine. Apparently they were willing to Tcall these loads and I saw a little glimmer of hope. With that I had sent in a message requesting a Tcall so that I could keep moving, but I was told that no other loads were available. Next I asked if I could at least pull out the other load with the same payload going to the same customer since it had an earlier delivery time. That suggestion was also shot down with a “that load has already been assigned to another driver”, so I was stuck with what I had. Given no other option I resigned myself to delivering this load and putting it behind me. Even though I had instructions not to deliver this before its assigned date and time I figured I could get away with showing up 2 hours early without ruffling any feathers and went over to the yard to get my trailer.

Once there I spotted my trailer (number 2180**), right were I had left it, and hooked up and prepared to head on down the road. I was going to pull the lock off of it before heading out so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it when I got to the customer, but the end of the trailer was backed up into a bunch of tree limbs that made it impossible to get to without pulling the trailer up and I decided to put it off until I got to where I was going. I also did a hap hazard pretrip, you know, kick the tires and make sure nothing is hanging from it. This would prove to be my undoing a little latter in the day.

Anyway, down the road I go with my very light trailer. This was a load of plastic catsup bottles going to a Conagra plant and weighed a whole 5000#. At least that’s what the BOL said; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was less than that. Sure made the hills easy to get up, it’s not very often that I can pass almost every truck on the road going up hills. Does anyone see where this is going yet?

With my late delivery appointment I hadn’t exactly been in a hurry getting out of town and by the time I made it to Conagra I was about an hour and fifteen minutes early instead of my planned two hours which was no big deal. I didn’t really want to push my luck that much anyway. I pulled into the gate and headed over to the guard shack to check in and got my instructions which amounted to “pull over on the side and we’ll let you know when we are ready for you", Back to the truck I go. As I approached my truck from the back side I pulled out my keys with the intention of taking my lock off on my way back to the cab. I was still a fair distance away as I started to set my sights on the lock. But even from this distance the confusion began to set in. There is no lock, “What, where, who took my lock off”, were some of the first thoughts. Next I started to get mad, someone from the shop must have pulled my lock off thinking I had tried to save an empty trailer (has been know to happen in Crete yards). My mind was racing and then I looked at the trailer number. Oh my God! It’s the wrong trailer. I had dropped trailer #218064 last night. Now here I am, 60 miles away looking at trailer #218053. “This can’t be happening!” Oh, sure it can.

I have been driving for over 10 years and have never pulled a bonehead move like this. Well I guess there was that time I left my Enforcer lock on and had to rent a car and drive 175 miles back to get it, but I’ll go ahead and rank that one at #2 now. I was so annoyed at myself. As soon as I had realize what I had done I did a flip and let the guards know what had happened and tried not to look like a total tool (with little luck) and let them know that my load would be a little late. If I had arrived 2hrs early I would have been a little better off, but as it stood, I told them I was headed back to get the correct trailer and would be back about 1˝ hrs past my original appointment.


Now it was time to fess up to dispatch. I wasn’t looking forward to this little chat. I put the call in and let them know what had transpired over the recent past. I let them know that my loaded trailer was still sitting in the Knoxville yard and if they had someone nearby who could pick it up the load could still be delivered on time. If not I would be able to do it with a minimal delay. I was surprised how understanding they were and was told to get it there as soon as I could and that was the last I heard of it. I was some what expecting to be back charged for the additional miles, but they told not to worry about it.

Back to Knoxville I went. I was still confused as to how this trailer ended up in the spot where I had dropped my trailer, but upon arriving at the yard I found that my trailer had been move to the other side of the yard sometime during the night and by some amazing coincidence, an empty trailer with almost identical numbers had been dropped in its place. I clearly remember looking at the trailer number as I pulled into the yard earlier that morning and saw the 2180 before my mind wonder off to other things. Also, if my load hadn’t had such a light load I would have noticed it immediately, but as it where all the ducks feel in a row and the result was a very embarrassing conclusion. All in all, just plain stupid on my part, at least I wasn’t hundreds of miles away when I made the discovery.

Back to Conagra I went, this time with a loaded trailer. I arrived 1 1/2hrs late as promised and waited for a door. There was one truck being unloaded in front of me, but he was almost empty and the fork lift driver was working at a good clip. As I sat there I got a message from dispatch, “have they started unloading you yet, when will you be ready for your next load?” This means that there is a load nearby that needed to get going. Very encouraging given the events of the day. It was starting to get late and I was worried that I would be stuck here until morning before getting a load out. I let them know that I would be ready to go within the hour, but that apparently wasn’t soon enough and I never heard anything else from them.

I was unloaded within the hour (after the fork lift driver made it a point to ask me if I was the driver that brought the empty trailer) and sent in my MT call hoping I would get a load out of here. We have a number of preloaded trailer going out of this plant and it would be nice to get a quick drop and hook so I could get out of this mess and put the last few days behind me. Whatever hot load dispatch had going must have been given to another driver because I was sent a load offer that picked up 120mi from here anytime today or tomorrow morning(no urgency in that) and it was headed to the freight waist land of PA (768mi) with a 9am appointment delivery Wednesday morning. Not a bad run considering this day was already shot due to my incompetence. I could run over and pick it up tonight and put in a good run tomorrow and have it at the customer Wednesday morning and be ready to go with most of my 11hrs of drive time available.

Back through Knoxville I went for my forth time today and on to Calhoun to get my load. As a final insult for the day the skies opened up and I did my drop/hook in a nice little downpour in a horribly lit yard. My trailer wasn’t where it was suppose to be and it took me a good 30mins to track it down (but I got the right trailer, damn it anyway). It was in an overflow lot that the shipping office failed to tell me about. Not a pleasant experience, but I finally manage to get everything in order and drove a short distance up the road and shut down. I actually had a number of hours left on my log, but I was a whipped pup for the day. Enough is enough; I couldn’t stand the thought of driving through Knoxville for the fifth time in one day. Good night!

Tuesday was a fresh new day and I started it with a new attitude. As the Jamaicans like to put it, “Evrytings Irie” I had a solid 600+ mile day ahead of me and set out to put it behind me. I decided to hold up short at our New Kingstown terminal and dropped my trailer in the yard and headed over to the local Outback for a nice steak dinner. Little did I know that would be my last decent meal for some time to come.

 

It seems there is a new restriction on the size of posts, so I will have to break this up a bit and will try to keep future posts shorter.

And hopefully not have to reset my pasword for the 3rd time this week.


Week 35 (part 2)

Wednesday started out innocently enough. I had a short hop to get my load to its final destination and was there within an hour. I had arrived a little better than an hour early, ever hopeful of getting my day under way. The forklift driver was quick to point out that I was early and he was expecting an 8am truck, but if that truck was late he would unload me when he finished with the truck in the dock. That was fine with me. The other truck never did show up and I was allowed to take his appointment time and I found myself unloaded shortly there after. The MT call went in and I waited, and waited and waited. I’m really starting to dislike PA. I had been sitting at the dock door and realized I needed to get out of the way. There were no truck stops in the area and I pulled out into the street and parked next to a “no parking” sign and hoped for a load offer soon. About 30 minutes had passed when I noticed another Crete truck parked in what looked like an employee parking lot off in the distance on the other side of building and decided to join him. What he told me sent shivers down my spine.

According to him, he had delivered his load at 9pm the previous night and he was still waiting for a load offer. Ouch, this isn’t going to be a good day. He then informed me that he was waiting on a load to get him home. That eased my worries a little. If he was waiting for a load going in a specific direction, maybe the situation wasn’t quit as bad as I had first though. Wishful thinking on my part. Time was passing slowly as it usually does when one doesn’t know his fate and it was approaching noon. I felt a little twinge of hunger and it occurred to me that the other driver might be getting a little hungry too, after all, he had been here since last night. He was also a very large man who I assumed was used to eating on somewhat of a regular schedule. Well, here I sat with my newly acquired microwave and a fully stocked pantry. I hollered out the window to get his attention and asked if he was hungry, stupid question, more of a formality really.

Not that it was a gourmet meal, but I cooked up a few hotdogs for him and threw on some cheese, chili and chopped onions. A large handful of chips and some pickles on the side and lunch was served. He appeared to be very grateful in any event.

It was another hour before I heard from dispatch and it wasn’t what I was hoping for. Apparently Crete was looking at a severe shortage of freight over the holiday weekend. Something in the neighborhood of 200+ loads short over the next four days. As an alternative to sitting around waiting for something, I was offered the fine opportunity of spending the rest of the week running dedicated loads for the Wal-Mart out of the Pottsville DC. I’ve been stuck with this kind of thing when we had the Sterling account and I didn’t care for one bit. The actual work wasn’t a big deal, but the hours and miles were horrible. There was one difference this time around however. Crete was now guaranteeing $175/day, regardless of the miles run and if I ran more miles in any 24hr period to garnish better pay, I would get the extra money. It sounded better than sitting idle so I said sure.

I received the load info and directions and was told to arrive at the Wal-Mart as close to 6pm as possible and be ready for dispatch when I arrived. Oh, that’s just great. I’m going to be wide awake all day and then be expected to run all night long. I was also forced to sit where I was at so that I could fit in a 10 break before heading out so that I would have as much of my 14hrs available as possible. One last note, “pick up a long shank paddle lock before you get to Wal-Mart, you will not be allowed out of their yard without one.”

Definitely not the kind of thing I had in mind to finish out the week, but at least I would be relatively busy. I got what sleep I could during the day, nothing more than a short nap, and pulled out when my ten hours were up. My first dilemma was in choosing a route to get me there. The interstate would be the easiest, but it was about 60 miles out of route. The more direct route was through the back roads of PA. In the interest of keeping my out of route miles in line I went with the back roads and regretted every mile of it. This was a great route if you were on a sight seeing tour, but not all that pleasurable from the seat of a big truck. Things really got interesting when I came across the small town of Cressona, I believe it was. As I approached the fine little community I was greeted by a very large warning sign that informed me of a low clearance bridge 2 miles ahead at the trailer shaving height of 11’ 6”. Panic set in shortly thereafter, very shortly, and I started looking for an out. The whole thing made no sense to me, the map showed this as a truck route, but this wouldn’t be the first time I was mislead by go ol’ Rand McNally. There was absolutely no place to turn around so onward I went. The next sign gave me some hope however, because after the low clearance warning was a “follow detour” sign. That’s a relief!

Sure enough, just before getting to the bridge there was a truck detour. I’ve been on narrow roads before, but this was by far the narrowest track of asphalt that I’ve ever had to navigate as far as a “main” thorough fare goes. There were a number of places where I had to pull over so that oncoming cars could squeeze by and this was also were I meet a truck for the first time in 30 minuets. Wow was that a squeaker. I saw him coming and pulled over as far as I could when he was still a couple of blocks away and even with that effort there was little more than a couple of inches between our mirror. It was about that time I heard the QualComm beep. Dispatch wanted to know if I was lost. Arg! It ended up being a 65mi trip and I made it there in 2hrs flat.

Upon arriving at the Wal-Mart I made a bee line for the short line (Wal-Mart trucks only) because that’s the lane I always used when doing the dedicated thing at the other DC and was immediately approached by the guards and told I was not allowed to use this lane, it was for dedicated trucks only. My attempt to explain that I was in fact here to be just that didn’t seem to have much of an effect on his temper and he repeated his demands. At that time a real Wal-Mart truck pulled behind me. Now we had a problem, I couldn’t back up and the silly guard was still refusing to let me in. After a short stand off he relented and punched my truck and trailer number into his wand of power (taking all of 10 seconds) and I was on my way. I just love Wal-Mart.

Once in the gate, I dropped my trailer and headed into the traffic office to start my little stint as a Wal-Mart dude. Dispatch had made it sound imperative that I be there by 6pm and ready to roll, but upon checking in I was told to have a seat, “orientation would start in 2hrs”. Of course it will, why would I have expected anything different? There were 4 other Crete drivers there and some one of them had been there since 4pm and were waiting for the same orientation class. So much for the hurry up and get there.

 

And finally Week 35 (part 3)

The orientation was as exciting as you might imagine and an hour latter we were ready for our first dispatch. With that we were sent to our trucks and told to turn our CBs to channel 7 and wait for our truck to be called. OK, it’s 1:30am and I’m finally hooked to my first load of the night. The only thing keeping me from loosing my mind at this point is that I’m basically on the clock. $175 a day, guaranteed. (Much better than what the CR England guys were getting. There were close to 20 of them as best I could tell and they were all there for one week stints and were only being guaranteed $850) So I figure they can have me sitting around all they want. It’s all the same to me. My first load had me going to a Yellow Freight yard to pickup a loaded trailer and bring it back to the DC. This load was sitting less than 2 miles from where I had delivered my load this morning and sure enough, they had me routed over the exact same Hwy 61 that I had traversed to get here. Guess what route I took this time around, lets just say I wasn’t overly concerned about the out of route miles.

The rest of the week went by doing the same old thing. Work all night and sleep all day. I will give Wal-Mart a hand for their dispatching system. All I had to do was let them know when my 14hrs were up and how many driving hours I had available and they put me on loads that fit my schedule. Once I got going they kept me rolling and used every bit of my 14hrs. That’s a very efficient little system they have going. The deliveries were all but painless; all I had to do was bump the docks and watch the store employees unload the truck. The only effort I had to put into it was the task of pulling little stickers off of each pallet and sticking them onto the load sheet to prove it was taken off the truck were required.

The routing left a little to be desired, however. Each load sheet had directions to any given store with all directions originating from the DC. That worked fine for the first store, but getting to second and third stops got me into trouble more than once. You see, just because the map shows a Pennsylvania road as a truck route, it doesn’t necessarily mean your truck. I kept running into weight and length restricted roads (not listed in the back of my atlas) and of course there are no signs to warn you in advance, they like to save them for a little later on, like when you are already on the road with no options for turning around. I had one particularly bad night when I found myself on a 10ton limit road for a good 30 miles. I didn’t doubt for a moment that I would have a local yokel behind me looking for some revenue enhancement for a nearby municipality, but luck was with me. The fact that it was 3 in the morning might have had a hand in the luck.

And so my nights went for the next four days until I burned what remained of my 70hrs. Once I was down to about 7hrs they refused to dispatch me and released me from service. I can say that I wasn’t all that upset; I was more than ready to rid myself of that fun. One thing I did find very enjoyable was the sight seeing I got to do (as limited as it was by darkness). I would like to revisit these back roads at a more leisure pace some day in the future. There is a lot of character in all of those little towns.

Well, my release left me with no place to go on a Sunday night. Tomorrow was Labor Day and I wasn’t under any disillusions of actually being able to get a load going anywhere in the near future. None the less, I sent in a message to dispatch to inform them of my new found freedom and went to bed, which was a pointless endeavor considering my body had become somewhat accustom to sleeping during the day. Something told me I would have plenty of time to readjust my sleep pattern before I would have to worry about driving anywhere.







WEEK THIRTY FIVE
Monday, August 25th through Sunday, August 31st
Miles include deadhead

Knoxville, TN to Newport, TN (final leg)......................................52mi
Calhoun, TN to Lancaster, PA................................................ ..768mi
Lancaster, PA to Pottsville, PA................................................ ...70mi
Mindless wandering delivering Wal-Mart Dedicated...................1651mi (or so)

Total Paid Miles…………………………….. 2541 Miles (I was actually paid for more miles than I ran thanks to the guaranteed daily pay at Wal-Mart.)

Mileage pay would come out to $1092.63, but my actual pay for the week was $1161.30.

Actual Miles…………. 2738 Miles (130 mi due to my trailer blunder plus additional miles bobtailing to and from Wal-Mart during off time)

890 x .42 = $373.80 for miles

4 days @ $175.00 plus extra mileage pay during days that I exceeded the minimum mileage = $787.50 for Wal-Mart

$373.80 + $787.50.00 = $1161.30 (My lowest mile full week ever with Crete and I still managed to gross over $1100.)

 

Ok, I'm getting ahead of my updates with this post, but I wanted to post it while it was still relevant.

Here is a summary of my first nine months of 2008 with Crete.

This is a spreadsheet of miles run to date. Each trip is posted on the date that the load was delivered. This can result in a slight distortion of the monthly totals when the majority of the load was driven during the last day or two of a month and delivered on the first day of the next month (specifically June, where all but 200 miles of my last load of 1113 miles were completed in June, but were included in July's totals). There were also a couple of instances where I delivered two loads in one day. On these trips I listed the miles for the second trip on the next day to avoid distorting the length of haul numbers.

Also in regards to hub miles I just added the miles run in my new truck to the mileage on my old truck as opposed to figuring out a formula on the Spreadsheet. I wasn’t motivated enough to do that today.





And here is a quick breakdown of the above numbers:



It looks like my Drop/Hook % calculation is off for the 3rd quarter. I'll correct it before posting year end numbers.