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

Thankfully not. But I did have to deploy the fifth wheel latch puller on the first one, because it was pouring down rain and the tandems were far enough up that I was having trouble working around the trailer skirt to get enough leverage.

 

I note that we must've finally sold off a bunch of our old trucks, because it's been a lot easier to find parking on the lot on the weekends lately. Even my old brown KW is finally gone.

 

Paper load up to WI for the morning, been a good week.

 

Just had my third trailer tire blowout in two months. First one was two months ago, on March 8th. Had another one three weeks ago on April 15th.

I'm beginning to think our new "retread only" policy isn't a very good idea. I've had more trailer tire blowouts in the past two months than I had in the previous 8+ years of driving for Abilene.

 

I always say you get what you pay for….Id never use retreads for that very reason and summer coming up with the heat and hot pavement Id wager there is gonna be a lot more blowouts and tread separation going on.

 

Come out of the house yesterday. Had stuff switched up on me three times. There was a lady driver of ours that broke down where I live and her truck went to the freightliner dealer there. They were originally going to have me pick her up at the hotel then grab her empty trailer and get her to Richmond or Piedmont for another truck then that cancelled due to her truck going to be ready today so they decided to have her stay there until fixed and was going to have me take her empty and get loaded in Morgantown going to Byhalia for a drop then changed that for some reason, probably somebody else decided to haul it cheaper I bet. Finally got sent to Lancaster, Pa to Kellogg’s for a D&H going to Harrisonburg, Va for a LuL at Sysco 1100 today where Im at currently. Glad to be finally moved into my house. Got my security system set up with ADT which I got a huge discount through Safe Haven being a veteran. Neighbors were happy I got a camera watching the back alley coming towards my garage door. Guess there was some drug deals going on back there little while ago. Got another camera watching my back yard and back door as well plus my doorbell camera and sensors on my windows and a glass break sensor near my sky light windows in my living room ceiling. Already tested the fire alarm portion when I burnt part of my breakfast Tuesday morning and filled the place with smoke and the fire dept showed up automatically with lights and siren, lol! Got to do some painting and filling in holes with drywall mud as my next project and replace the garage door and motor as well as have a lock smith switch all my locks out.

 

Spent 8 hours on the side of the road yesterday before I finally got fixed. Nearest truck stop with a repair truck was an hour away, and the day shift decided they didn't wanna deal with me so they blew me off and made it the night shift's problem. Night shift dude called me after I'd been waiting 5 hours and change and said "Uh, do you still need roadside service? I just got here and someone just handed me your sheet, but it's like 5 hours old." He had some choice words for the day shift after I explained the situation. Really, the man was a master of the F-word. I was impressed, and I'm certainly no stranger to that kind of language.

Anyways, he finally got me squared away, but by that point there was no chance of me making on-time delivery, so my load has been rescheduled. In true Abilene fashion, absolutely nobody called me to let me know the new appointment time, so I drove to the receiver and asked them. Turns out my new appointment is 7:00pm...tomorrow.

They say there's an outside chance that they may be able to work me in tonight, so I am parked out front of their warehouse until then. They start taking check-ins at 4:30pm, so I'm gonna hang out here until then and see what they say. If they can work me in, great. If not, I'll hit the PFJ in Mount Comfort until tomorrow and put in for a day of layover.

 

Some folks need to be fired

 

Loaner truck started spraying coolant all over the left side of the engine this morning. Waiting on the Richmond shop to fix it.