Beginning the Long Awaited CDL Process

Sammycat, I was very happy to finally meet you. I hoped it wouldn't be 2 years before that happened. We've been posting back and forth for some time.

Of course the great American Trucker was right there with us all along the way. I hope he's not mad at me. AT is a great guy. Maybe I'll run into him out here one of these days (for a 3rd time ) and we can figure it out.

Anyway, home time is always too short to get everything done. And having friends from up north visiting made for less time to get everything done. I certainly didn't get much "me time" this go round.

 

OTR isn't bad once you get into it. The key is making sure your tractor is outfitted with the creature comforts that would make a longer run tolerable.

Being home on a regular basis is hard to give up. That's the one negative I have about the job, but I really enjoy the work.

The sights I've seen and the places I've been I consider one of the benefits of truck driving.

 

Out on the road again.

I'm sitting at the Petro Oak Grove 70 TS in Oak Grove, MO. This place seems to copy the Iowa 80 TS except it's smaller.

There's ample parking and the store has plenty of goodies for your truck. If I had a bag of money, I'd spend some in there, you can be sure. But the prelim on my taxes says I'll be paying Uncle Sammy big time this year so truck accessories will have to wait.


I got to play flatbed driver for a run from Hartselle, AL to Lawrence, KS. I pulled into the shipper and got in line. There were 7 flatbeds.........and me with my van.

I was picking up 9 wire reels about 90" tall and 70" wide. They rolled right in and the dock workers cleated them to the floor. Odd thing was, because I had walls, loading me was faster. Securing the reels with a framing nailer makes short work out of that.

They put a larger brace on the tail against the last reel about 6" high, and I used 2 straps to keep the last reel jammed down against the brace. The load only weighed in at 9000, but because these reels were so tall, I took it easy around corners just to be safe. It was a nice run.


I've been real busy since coming back out on Monday. I was dispatched within 30 minutes of the time my PTA was set for, and have been backed up with pre-assignments. That's why I haven't been on until now.


I deliver a 2 stop load, the first drops at 0600 tomorrow in Lees Summit, MO. I'm about 30 minutes away so I finally have a chance to relax a bit.




I've been running back and forth here in the KS, MO area. It's been very windy so I've been watching the weather like a hawk this being the start of tornado season. I'm not thrilled with being in the land of twisters, so it's best to pay close attention to changing weather patterns.





That's it for now.


Thanks for reading.

-Wedge