Calex Express....My New Home!

Great, six more hours of waiting.

 

Give me a shout over the weekend, I'll be in my office working the whole weekend.

 

We have one driver that lives in Aventura, the rest of us live north of WPB. We're home every 5-7 days. You will have to call into safety to find out about hiring from Miami.

 

At least for the weekend.

 

Well I'm empty in Vernon Ca. I got empty this morning and started my reset a day early. I now have the luxury of spending the next 24 hours here at the Vernon truck wash off Bandini Blvd. After all these years some things never change, and this is one of them. Oh well, at least I'm well stocked and have entertainment.

I left the yard Friday at 3pm with 7 hours left on my day. The last thing Louie said was that this consignee would take their product early if I could get there. I did some quick calculations and figured I could get there Tuesday at 7am. I made it to Lodi OH Friday night and took my 10 there.
Saturday I woke up and was happy as all get out that the Doomsday people where wrong and I was still alive.

I had to run very hard and long both Saturday and Sunday to stay on track for my delivery. I made it to Rolla Mo Saturday night and called it a night. I woke up Sunday morning and was on the road right at day break.
I kept the left door closed and made it to the new truck stop just inside the NM state line in San Jon and called it a night. Gary sent me a text a few hours earlier to tell me about a tornado touching down in Joplin as he knew I was going through there about the same time. As I got parked my wife called to make sure I was alright. I said sure why? Then she told me about all the fatalities in Joplin and that she saw all the big trucks blown over on 44. Through her tears and crying I told her that I was just fine and going to bed. I went on line to get the news and was astonished at all the wreckage and loss of life, no wonder she was so upset.

I woke up Monday and headed out. I needed to make it to the Petro in Kingman to have a shot at delivering the next day. I made it to the 9 mm in AZ to the Loves and was able to take my 10 and leave at 4am this morning. I called the receiver and explained to them I could arrive a day early if they could work me in, they took my number and said they would call me back by the end of the day with a confirmation. As I was leaving my fuel stop in Kingman they called and said to come in Tuesday at 8am. Great, nothing like LA traffic at 7am. I got to the Loves at 6pm, ate and went to bed. I got up at 3 this morning, showered and headed to Vernon.
I did a pretrip and saw I had a headlight out. The message said open circuit. This is the same issue I had with the other side back in January. You would think all it would take would be a new halogen bulb, nope, it has a bad wiring harness end that only Volvo can fix. I got to Barstow and made sure it wasn't just a bulb and of course it wasn't. I decided to stay there until it got light out just in case the fine folks at the Cajon scales were open. They were but at least it was daylight.

I got to the consignee at exactly 8am and was empty by 10. I started my reset as soon as I got there and figured out the mileage to the only place to spend the rest of my reset at. We are set up on our E-Logs to be able to drive 3 miles before our log automatically switches over to driving, unless you stop say for a red light then the mileage goes back to the 3 miles again. It was 4 miles to the truck wash and I made sure I hit every red light going there. I had only 1 hour left on my 70 but was 2 hours into my reset. I called Louie and told him when I would be ready to go, he said good, that I was already preplanned on a load back to Milton for a Monday delivery.

This trip right from the beginning shows why I do what I do. I knew I had the hours to deliver early, I planned my trip accordingly, and I was able to deliver a day early, which gets my reset done a day and a half early, which gets me loaded a day early, which gets me empty a day early then gets me home a day early. Gotta love the logic there.

My day tomorrow will be spent getting my headlight fixed at Volvo. I called into our after hours number to let the shop know what was going on and to get the authorization to get it done. The Volvo dealer is about 8 miles from here so I will need to get the ok from safety to drive there without losing my reset. I can't believe that Volvo designs a truck that requires a visit to the dealer to fix a headlight. That's it for now, be safe and say a prayer for the folks affected by the tornado in Joplin.

Here's a little side note. For those of you that follow my travels and wonder about E-Logs here's what I've done since leaving the house last Tuesday morning with a fresh 70:

Lake Worth Fl to Labelle Fl to Milton Pa to Valatie NY to Pittston Pa.........1610 miles
Pittston Pa to Vernon Ca.................................................................2650 miles

After my reset is up this is what I'll do going back.

Vernon Ca to Salinas Ca to Milton Pa to Pittston Pa...............................3125 miles
Pittston Pa to McElhattan Pa to Orlando Fl...........................................1155 miles

All this is done within the parameters of my E-Log. So for those that say you can't make money running on E-Logs, or you can't haul produce because of time constraints, show me why.