Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Been an extremely uneventful weekend.

Was sitting at Groveport this past Friday. Was given my choice of four loads. All due Monday. All requiring less than 11 hours of drive time. So I picked the load that had the most miles, a Boar's Head two-stopper to St. Louis that I've run before. Bobtailed from BH Groveport to BH New Castle.

On the way there, got a call from our new Vice President in charge of something-or-other. I remember the "Vice President" part. Don't remember the rest. Nice fellow. He was calling all the drivers and getting the lay of the land. So I kept him on the phone for about an hour. Talked about how miles are super low, how we don't have any cross-country freight out of Richmond anymore, and all our short runs have so much extra time on 'em that we can't make up the miles by running multiple short runs in a day anymore. Used to be, I could get a 300 mile load in the morning at 8:00am that delivered the same day at 3:00pm. Then they'd put something else on me and keep me rolling to use up some or all of the remainder of my clock. These days, if they give you a 300 mile run at 8:00pm, it won't be due until the next day. (Or, if you get it on Friday, won't be due until Monday.)

Apparently he sent out an email while we were talking, telling them to find me a load with less dead time on it. Didn't know that until after we hung up and my DM called, offering me a different load, one that actually would've had me driving over the weekend instead of twiddling my thumbs. Unfortunately, I was already an hour and a half into the drive from Groveport to New Castle so I was not in a position to accept.

Load wasn't going to be ready until 7:00pm Friday night. So I got me some Indian food and parked at the truck stop just down the road from BH New Castle.

And then I didn't move the truck for 48 hours. That way, when I put in for layover (which I did), they could see that I sat idle for a full two days.

Picked up the trailer yesterday, drove to the first receiver, which was only 5 hours away. Slept on-site. Got unloaded this morning, delivered to the second receiver, and am back in New Castle, parked bobtail in the same spot I woke up in yesterday morning. Got another BH load picking up in the morning, delivering to Alpharetta.

 

Just dropped a Ridgeville to Lebanon load,4 parked at the Love's off the 840.Hometime this weekend.

 

I’ll bet Penske is unhappy. Been leasing trucks to Cardinal for years.

 

4000 miles the past 8 days,almost had to pull out my bottle of aspercreme.Raphine for the night,than heading down to Hill Phoenix for a Ga load next week,will be dropping at the Wilson yard,and going home for the weekend,everybody stay safe.

 

Dropped my volvo load on the WM yard Tuesday then scored a Reno on Wed morning. Load was ready first thing in the morning and planned on getting ahead of the snow then I get a call to return to turn around and come back to the yard cuz they needed someone to deliver a load of hangers to the correctional facility which destroyed my day and plans for getting ahead of snow. Ran into snow flurries at Gallup and got worse when hit Az until 20 miles in then it dried up until Flagstaff where hit snow again until about the 109 then rain into Kingman. Apparently some car called in on me and got a message from safety about making safe lane changes and using turn signals, I always use turn signals and I bet the jack wad car didn’t have his lights on so I didn’t see him in the hard snowy weather when I made a lane change.

 

Most safety departments would not even wasted their time in calling you. The call from the car would find its way to the trash can. Evidently the safety department at Abilene has someone who wants to act as his position is needed, LOL

 

This is what you get when you hire fresh college grads to fill your office. It’s the Knight way.

 

Hunkered down at the pilot in Fernley for a 34. Winter storm warning in effect from 2200 tonight until 2200 tomorrow night, possibly up to 8 inches of snow. Hoping not that much and able to drop Monday and get out of Dodge.

 

I thought you said you were in Fernley.