Hey upsizer! You were in my neck of the woods in Butler and Meadville, PA.

I'm convinced that Meadville and Erie, PA must get snow in July! Sure seems that way when every time I go up there it's a new winter storm! I hate the winter!!!!

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"Haulin' mail from New Castle, PA!!!"

^ LOL Yeah. I had planned to stop at the Petro in Claysville the day before delivery in Butler, but decided to burn up some more time, take it on in, and sit in the consignee's lot all night when I saw they were closing schools in the area. Got around three inches of snow that night. Ice wasn't a problem, though.

Nice to be out of the northeast and the slow states, now. It's sixty-two degrees in West Memphis with no need to (opti) idle. Gonna sleep gooood tonight.

Also, got the okay from dispatch to deliver early in Soccoro Monday morning. Hopefully, I'll be sitting by the gate when they open up all ready to go with fresh hours. It'll be nice to finally have that 11.5 hour monstrosity of an opening day of this run off my back. That's my only real setback on this run so far. Wasted about an hour and a half off my log going to get an empty and then running though the woods to my first pickup.

delivered in flagstaff the 28th at 1800 there time, shoot over to little america, and get offered phx to plainfield IN. p/u 9 am deliver any time sunday, i get there at 845, the cons is on the phone with the shipper as theyve screwed up the order (the consignee, not the shipper) the consignee calls crete and cancels the load, and rescehdules a new one for 1700, is informed it doesnt quite work that way, and i get 8 hours detention

i hear alot of "experienced" guys whining about the lower cpm guys getting all the miles. not true. i make less than 90 percent of you and averaged 1970 miles a week in jan. its the luck of the draw, want a good load? be empty right before 7 9 or 11 am cst when dispatch gets new loads. other than that dont be empty in michigan ever.... ugh 39th in line anyone?

Most likely you'll be picking back up in Soccorro. Same place. What you hauled in, goes over the border, gets unloaded, the trailer gets reloaded with finished product, and brought back. Last two times I've been there, it was Gansvoort, NY and Ontario, CA. Both are drop-hook at other end. I've also picked up at the same warehouse, but on the other side. The ladder plant. Both are light loads. Which means if your luck is like mine, you will be getting one of these loads and headed into an ice or snow or a major wind storm. The usual way my luck runs.

Guess my temper tantrum got things stirred up in Lincoln. Once empty in Rock Hill, SC (drop-hook) took empty to Orangeburg, SC., dropped there and bobtailed to Lafayette, IN yard to pick up a new trailer. That's over 700 miles bobtail. Not that I'm not grateful for the miles, but they had a problem with me deadheading/bobtailing from Atlanta to N. Florida for a funeral, but they don't have a problem doing this. After getting my new trailer, I was offered 3 out of the Lafayette area. Picked a load out of Monticello, IN to Tulsa, OK. A word of warning for any Crete drivers that pick up a new trailer out of our Lafayette yard and are picking up a load in Monticello.(a usual spot to pick up when doing the run I'm doing) Stop in at the Walmart S/S on the edge of town and pick up a pound of cheap coffee. If your trailer is new, it has a bad paint odor from the new paint they use. The shipper won't load you since they are loading m/t beverage cans and it will contaminate the cans, and the consignee will refuse the load. They told me that the only thing they have found that deodorizes the trailer is coffee grounds(unused). Especially on the front of the trailer on the inside,(the inside part of the 5th wheel plate) and on the rear around the deck plate. You can pick up the coffee and show up at shipper, and if they tell you to go get some coffee, just tell them you have some, and they will do the rest. Or sprinkle coffee in these areas, shut trailer doors, and wait 45 min. Then sweep it out. I just happened to have a pound of coffee that I carry so when I get to a terminal that has a donated coffee maker, I can make a fresh pot of coffee instead of the machine stuff.

It happens driver, whether you choose to believe it or not. I've been on both sides of the cheaper driver gets the load and if you don't think company's keep lots of data on how trucks operate and how much they cost to use and try to use them economically, you would be mistaken also. Not all freight pays the same, so naturally if substantial money can be saved on certain customers that are needed to keep the trucks rolling, but don't pay so good by utilizing drivers costing less to run then the company might do so.

1970 miles for the week is bad any time of the year getting paid any amount, for any company in my book since I drove thats in a little over 3 days of operation even here on the slow west coast. Should make it well known to any company that this is not acceptable when giving them 24/7 away from the house. You let these OTR outfits think it is ok to put you on a P/T schedule to please someone like me who won't take that kind of driver abuse and they will keep telling you the freight is slow because it is January. There is always freight somewhere. Their motivation to get you to it, is all that is needed.

It's true--when you get past about 3 years' experience, many companies will cut your miles a bit. Some people see a big ol' cut.

__________________
--Paved Dudley--

Yeah I drive a Swift truck
And that means one thing
It means she's slow
It's a typical company truck
It's just all show and no go

I'm gettin' passed by Yella
And even Overnite
I'm gettin' passed by ever' body in sight
46 days on the road
And I'm not gettin' home tonight

No, my hometown's nowhere in sight
And if you think I'm pissed off
You're right
46 days on the road
And I'm not gettin' home tonight


Love pissing off those trucking company insiders.

Just so you and anyone else reading this knows....There is a brand new Pilot on I-79 exit 99 (Butler) with a Subway and McDonald's. I saw you were gonna stop in Claysville, and I don't know how new that Pilot is, but I'm sure it's not in the truck stop guide's yet.

As for the snow, it seems like anything around Meadville and north is just miserable in the winter. I could drive up there and it'll be clear. Once I hit Meadville, it's a white out (with Penndot trucks sitting there doing nothing).

Reminds me of a joke I'm sure every state has...What's big, yellow, and sleeps on the side of the road during a snow storm? Penndot!

__________________
"Haulin' mail from New Castle, PA!!!"

I wish it had been that easy! I showed up right on time at 0700 mst and was told they wouldn't let anyone in until 0800. Then I get in and the guy in receiving said to sit outside and come back in at 0830 ... Then 0915. By then, they had twelve trucks stacked up waiting and all it was was a dang drop! No hook. No empties. Finally got out of there at 1011 mst and ran up to the El Paso Love's to send in my Trip Report and the J to eat. Had a load offering from El Paso to Forest City, IA before I got there with a message that I could bobtail to the pickup. 1400 - 1600 ... Got there at 1400, but was detained again ... By the time I got out, the farthest I could get with my hours was Alamogordo, NM. 194 miles for the day. I'm still playing catchup ...

Next Load ...

3/06 - 3/07
Waterloo, IA to Lebanon, IN
empty 115
loaded 417

Hopefully, I can get it there by 0800 and there'll be a nice weekend run home. It's day fifteen and I'm starting to get cranky.

I saw it coming in, but thought it would be better to just take it on in on account of the weather. Generally, I like to do that anyway unless a truck stop is less than seven miles from the consignee. I like to start the day with fresh hours if possible.

Well ... Looks like I'm gonna come up short on this run.

3/07 - 3/10
Middlebury, IN to Thomasville, NC
empty 163
loaded 634

That comes to 6713 miles over 17 days. Add to that the 140 miles I'll probably deadhead to the Spartanburg terminal for my A Service and it will be 6853. Average miles per day will be around 403. Well short of goal.

I can't blame that on anyone but myself, though. Had I followed my initial plan and taken it straight on in to Socorro instead of being overly conservative with my hours and stopping short, I wouldn't have needed to start my log on the 3rd until 1045 cst and could have gotten a lot farther the first day of the El Paso to Forest City run. I would have then been able to be sitting at the consignee the morning of the delivery date with fresh, well-balanced hours of service instead of having already driven over three. Then I would have been able to take a much longer run ... Oh, well ...

Note to self ... Get it to within seven miles the night before delivery if you can.

Well, it’s Monday again and time to get back to truck driving. I’ve sat at the Petro outside of Beaumont, TX and have had time to do a 34hr reset, although that was the last thing I needed at this point. But there was no freight in the area after my Saturday afternoon delivery and I had to wait until today to get loaded. I had an open PU time anytime after 8am and usually like to arrive at least one hour early but this shipper is just opening at 8am and if I show up too early I run the risk being turned away so I decided to arrive at 7:30am. I’m only 15 minutes away but run into heavy fogs almost as soon as I get started and a wrong turn finds me at the shipper at 8:15.

When I get there I find that there are two other drivers just coming out of the shipping office and am annoyed with myself for arriving too late. It turns out that there are only 2 loading docks and I will have to wait for an hour or so before I get my turn.

As things work out, I’m better off (for now) than the 7 other trucks that pull in behind me over the next 1/2hr.

Once the loading began I notice what was being put into the trucks at the dock and I was not at all please to see that not only was it a paper product (looked to be paper pulp in sheets), but it was being loaded on the floor of the trailer with NO pallets and even worse, NO slip sheets. Each bundle was simply wrapped with a heavy paper. This revelation sent shivers up my spin. Why, you may ask? I don’t know if you recall from last weeks recap but I had a very clear flashback relating to the somewhat formidable oil stain that I had discovered after delivering my load of insulation (that was a floor load and wrapped in plastic bundles) up in Montana.

This oil stain was of concern to me then, but there was nothing I could do at the time. My next load was bags of some kind of white powder (non toxic diatomaceous earth, or something along those lines) that was used to make plastic sheeting. When this was being unloaded the forklift operator had torn open one of the bags and a bit had spilled onto the floor. This worked out well at that moment because as I pushed it around with a broom it did what at the time seemed like a very good job of absorbing the oil on the floor of the trailer.

Now I get the feeling I’m about to pay for my lack of attention, or desire to deal with this problem effectively when I discovered it.

With this in mind I head back and open the door and jump up in the trailer to get a look at the problem area. Sure enough, the oil spot was still very obvious and right then and there I knew things were going to take a bad turn. I went into the warehouse and hunted down the supervisor to get my trailer inspected by him, there was no point in waiting another hour or so for the other trucks to get loaded only to back into my door and be refused then. The result was as expected and the trailer was rejected. Isn’t this great, sit all weekend and now here I sit with a trailer that can’t be loaded and a Monday morning dispatch that is probably being bombarded by a thousand unresolved weekend problems.

My messages to dispatch are answered with silence, just as I had expected. I don’t hold dispatch responsible; my daily hassles on the road can be a real pain in the back side. I can’t imagine what it would be like sitting in an office and trying to solve the problems of hundreds of drivers every day with Monday mornings throwing an entire weekend worth of problems in your lap all at once. With this in mind I do my best to remain patient (very trying) and after about an hour I start to get some correspondence. I basically told dispatch that the trailer can’t be floor loaded and a wash out wasn’t going to be effective on an oil saturated wood floor. I could PU a palleted load, but dispatch would not do that because the next driver would then be put in the same situation I was in. I suggested that I could take the trailer to the Wilmer, TX (300+mi) yard outside of Dallas but dispatch couldn’t approve that and they told me to contact Breakdown.

A message off to dispatch was meet with the same speedy response and after all the info was repeated I was giving clearance to pull the empty trailer to Wilmer. I headed that way and arrived in the yard at 4pm and was informed shortly thereafter that no loads were available and to check back after 9am in the morning. The worst thing about the whole ordeal is that if I would have addressed it after unloading in Houston on Saturday it wouldn’t be a problem today. There is no one to blame but myself (and the driver who dropped this trailer before I came across it).

Tuesday started with the hope of better things to come and I sent a message off to dispatch at 5am. This was earlier than dispatch had told me, but I wanted to get a head start on the other drivers if possible. I also let them know that I had been empty since Saturday and my trailer had been refused at the shipper and I was sitting here without a load, boo hoo, feel sorry for me kind of message and topped it off with a “I’m trying to get to Phoenix for hometime if you have anything going in that direction.”

I was surprised to get a response, “No freight going to Phoenix, but here is a load to Salt Lake City (1414mi), you can take this load and try getting a load to Phoenix form there.” Well, I couldn’t ask for much more than that in this freight climate, so I thanked them and accepted the load. The one big problem with this load is that it was an appointment delivery Friday morning and I had to be in Phoenix by Saturday for my Grandmothers 90th B-Day celebration.

This load was a drop/hook PU scheduled for anytime after 3pm in Paris, TX. I knew from previous loads at this shipper that the trailer was in all likelihood ready to go. With this in mind I headed out and made it there by 10am and sure enough it was ready.

The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday was spent driving with the intent of getting to SLC ASAP so that I could talk dispatch into Tcalling this load in our yard. I was also able to shave off about 100mi by taking two lane roads through the interior of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah instead of the interstate routing that the company had suggested. This saved me a good amount of time (not to mention completely avoiding a wind swept I-80 across Wyoming in the process) and made for some great scenery along the way.

;

Travel went well and I found myself in SLC by 8am Thursday morning. I sent a message off to dispatch and was allowed to Tcall my load in the yard but was also informed that there was no freight available to get me to Phoenix (they might be able to get me something going that way Friday morning). I was disappointed by this but not surprised. I had somewhat assumed this would be the case. I told dispatch I would find a way home on my own and set my return PTA for the following Tuesday.

I was initially going to rent a car and drive down to Phoenix (I found a compact for $20 day). It was a 650 mile trip and figured it wouldn’t be all that bad of a trip. At least I knew it would be much faster in a car that the truck. Just for kicks I was checking out airline tickets, but with no notice flights were running around $400. As an after thought I checked out hotwire for flights one last time and was delighted to come across a supper saver fair that wasn’t there an hour ago of only $205, including all taxes. WOW, what a deal for a last minute booking. The big concern here was that I could only pick the departure and arrival dates, not the times. But for that price I wasn’t going to fret over it. I put in my info and bought the flight. The flight times turn out to be very agreeable and I was set for some time off.

I found myself with nothing to do for the rest of Thursday (my flight didn’t leave until late) and had already put my truck in the shop for a B service. The shop found all kinds of things that needed to be replaced on my 600,000 mile truck and said it would have to be in the shop for a couple of days. Perfect timing on that one, I just told them I’d pick up the keys next week.

Once I got things settled with the shop I called dispatch and let them know I had access to a yard truck if they had any shag loads that needed to be done. They had a load that needed to be delivered and I shuttled a couple of empty trailers around town to occupy the rest of my day.

As evening rolled around I called a cab and headed over to the airport.

I would have rather pulled a load down to Phoenix, but things don’t always work out perfectly. I was just thrilled to be able to pickup my wife at the airport the next day and spend some very pleasant time with our families. The 80° days were nice too.



WEEK NINE RESULTS
Monday, February 25th through Sunday, March 2nd
Miles include deadhead

Beaumont, TX to Salt Lake City, UT…………………..1849


Total Paid Miles………………………………..……….1949 miles(Monday through Thursday)
Home time Friday through Monday
Actual Miles………………………1849 (took two lane roads to cut miles)

1949mi x .42 = $818.58 (plus shag pay $35)

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"I REJECT YOUR REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN" Mythbusters