Kivi Bro's Open Deck done Right

Well the first week back after my summer break ( I typically take a couple of weeks off in the summer to spend with the family) was fairly successful. I decided to come out on Tuesday so I could see my great niece at her softball tournament and I was able to make it back home for the weekend.

I ran three short runs for the week, and then ran into @supersnackbar kind of luck. I pulled into my shipper Thursday night ready to pick up first thing on Friday and then head home to deliver on Monday. Well when walking around my truck I noticed a I had a flat drive tire, and then another and then a flat trailer tire! All on the drivers side inside, ran over something, and I was in the middle of the woods on the upper peninsula in MI!

Fortunately after a few frantic calls I was able to find a tire shop who had both tires and workers available, and I got loaded and repaired by 1 pm (keep in mind I rolled through the gates at 0600) which got me home by Sat afternoon, Kivi wanted to old tires returned so I ended up running to our KY yard to drop them off.

Overall a good week, made OK money ($1400) and was home for the weekend, pre-planned on a trip to GA after my drop on Monday and we'll have to see what next week brings! Truck safe ya'll!

 

Things over the past two weeks have been going fairly well here at Kivi, after dealing with the flat tires I was able to get a run taking equipment from IL down to GA (pieces of a mining truck headed to Singapore) and then pick up more equipment headed to the East Coast.

I decided to run hard to get to upstate NY and NH hoping to load cable and head back to the Midwest, but wouldn’t you know it the customer shipped everything they had produced and nada left for me, in retrospect I should have done a 34 at home and then headed to the East, but hey I ended up enjoying a nice weekend in RI, doing some walking and enjoying great seafood!

On the following Monday I picked up cable with two stops in NJ finishing up in Louisiana. Whenever we have open deck there’s an option (customer permitting) to fill the deck with more freight and I was able to do another pickup in GA on the way to Louisiana. It made for a decent week and kept me on the $1400-$1500 per week rate. It also set me up for an easy two pickup run from Louisiana consisting of cable and a nice block of granite heading to IA and MN – easy money. The sweetener was a route that allowed me to get a 34 at home before delivering Monday and Tuesday. Even better the run set me up this week to pick up from a solid customer in MN and do an interplant shuttle down to Tulsa paying high dollars – and leaving me plenty of time to get another run in before the week ends.

All in all things are doing OK at good ole Kivi and I’m getting home more that I expected, I did have to turn down a run to Alaska (celebrating the youngest son’s birthday on the 21st) but I’ll eventually get up there. At this point in my life hometime is king! Ya’ll run safe out there!

 

Gross, I never talk about net because everyone’s taxes and deductions differ.

 

Yeah we are not forced to, the driver lets their DM know the route they’re taking and they look for freight that would be a good fit.

We have some customers who pay enough to stipulate no LTL, but for the most part it’s a great way to earn extra cash.

 

Well this week definitely has been interesting, since last Friday pretty much everything has resembled a @supersnackbar type of run, I may be following his thread a bit to closely because some of his karma is starting to rub off on me - and I don't like it one bit LOL.

There are lot of equipment shipments being made now as manufacturers work to catch up on their backlogs following the shutdowns. I was asked if I could help out and take a load from IL to the port in Charleston SC - an easy job giving me an opportunity to stop at home for a quick 34 and deliver on Monday and then run to GA and pick up more equipment, simple right?

I pulled in Friday around 0940 and was loaded fairly quickly, really nice load only 8K and I figured cool I'll be able to take the wife out for dinner and then get on the road Sunday afternoon to be in position for my delivery on Monday morning. As the fork lift operator puts the last piece on my bed he tells me I need to go over the the main yard for one additional piece, I say no problem and head back over... and I wait,,,and wait...and wait. After flashbacks of my reefer days I asked what the holdup was, our customer as it turns out wants to add a parts crate to the load and then were packing it as the machine was broken down for shipment - OK maybe miss dinner but I'll be home after my wife's hair appointment. Yeah right...

After finally getting loaded with the crate, the forklift driver tells me he forgot to tell me I needed to wait for yet another piece, and this turns out to be a doozie. At this point it's nearly 1500 and they want to add a canopy to the load, the piece that covers the drivers cab on a large mining truck which now turns my load into a oversized load, no stopping at home, routed, and hey please visit every open weigh station along your route. They also didn't want to add any $'s to the load which become a no-go for the company ( and it's driver ). So I ended up dropping my trailer and got to wait over the weekend for the customer's headshead to come back in on Monday and approve the extra charges, which now included detention for Friday and layover for the weekend. All in all, I ended up getting a week's pay for the job - OK looking a bit better.

Unfortunately SC decided to throw their two cents into the karma soup and took forever to approve my permit for a 10 foot wide load. I ended up having to shut down in NC yesterday waiting on SC to finally give their permission for me to take this "super load" across the state line into their wonderful territory. I've never been so happy to see something lifted off my deck.

One more equipment load headed to IA, CO and MT and I think its going to be cable or crane parts for a bit...oh yeah, this one's 9'6" as far as IA so it's off to the land of permits once more...maybe my karma demons have been exercised - gonna have to ask old snackbar for some advice

 

Ah what a welcome feeing finally doing a load that does not involve dropping at a port or over dimensional freight…

I was able to drop my last two excavators off on Monday in Billings, MT where by the way it was a balmy 101 degrees! And here I hoped to not idle my truck for a change.

My reload was somewhat of a negotiation, we had a load headed to Southern California, unfortunately the weight was 46,500 lbs - not going to work on a step deck with an empty weight of 34,300 lbs especially with my spread closed. Instead we settled on a load weighing 45K headed to MD.

Of course when I arrived at the customer they told me the load was in fact 46,500, I gladly rolled onto their scale and weighed in at 34,100 - they were kind enough to reduce the load, funny how cooperative folks can be when they really want something shipped.

So two tarps later and I’m on the road to Baltimore, hopefully I’ll be able to get a reload worth taking Friday - if not there’s always Monday at the port and a weekend in DC.