Dreams are what makes life worth while.
Great journey Daytona45.
Have to start somewhere
Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by daytona45, Jul 5, 2007.
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Making the decision to give up our house, putting everything we could fit into storage (throwing away the rest), moving our 18 year old in with her older sister and quitting both our jobs to head off across the country to attend CDL school and start training was the hardest decision we ever made. It was absolutely a "We Cannot Fail" decision that cost us some sleep. I had some experience driving fire trucks and I used a flat bed wrecker to pick up things occasionally at my old job, but my wife had never driven anything bigger than a pickup.
Most of our non-driving friends still think we were crazy but so far I have no regrets other than falling a bit behind on our bills after 7 weeks with no pay. The only folks that understood our decision and were supportive were those that have driven before. But training is progressing, we are now getting paychecks every week and as soon as we get our own truck and start making full pay everything will be right again. Even Capital One will forgive us I bet when we start doubling up our car payments to pay them off fast
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I don't know if Daytona agrees or not, but so far one of the hardest parts of driving for me has been getting used to all the changing time zones and different sleeping hours. My body got so used to day shift after so many years, that staying up till 3am or so on demand while driving the interstates is really tough. The other night I had to set the cruise, put on the tunes and had my feet dancing on the floor boards to stay alert until I got a second wind. Candy helped a bit too LOL. Of course we are training as a team so we drive 14 hours a day right now until we complete our first 100 hours of driving each. -
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Hey Daytona... do you think you will still be in the Southeast this week? We are leaving Texas tomorrow bound for TN and hopefully FL before we head out to lord knows where
. It would be neat to run into you at a truckstop some where. We are training in a Volvo 101447 if you happen to see us.
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Hey guys I am back I got hung out last weekend some confusion on my part about how far out of route I could drive so I ended up doing a reset in the Maverick yard in Madison Illinois instead of driving to Little Rock. See I am only allowed to go 200 miles out of route to get home.My dispatcher said it was 198 but I ain't buying that long story short I didn't make it home any way Will post more tomorrow. It is just good to be home. I am still having the time of my life.If you see a maverick truck with a cactus on the driver side antenna wave it is me.Ya ll be safe later
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Well lets see I started two weeks ago in Alabama with a load of steel got down there about two am found a nice place to park. Got a good ten hours of sleep before my appointment time so I am killing time cleaning my truck scraping the bugs off the mirrors and windows oiling my binders and I hear this splashing sound I come around the side of the truck. There is this lady emptying a can of what I can only assume is pee onto the ground from the cab of her truck. Well she sees me and stops starts the truck up and speeds off talk about gross all she had to do was get out of her truck walk ten feet and throw it in the dumpster. I never know what makes people tick.
I drop my load of steel in Alabama and they give me a three drop load of vinyl siding out of Tennessee that has to be tarped and retarped what a pain that was.I do all three drops and get an heavy load of lumber I am taking from West Virginia to northern Pennsylvania. Man I didn't know how hard climbing those mountains with 78k of lumber was going to be. I was glad to be out of West Virginia and to get rid of that load oh and I got my first flat tire in what would be a series of three. Turns out I find out later my truck has some test tires on the trailer well they aren't working out all that well.
I get this long run from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma city real nice when I get my second flat tire the guy comes out sticks a block of wood under the good tire and tells me to drive up on it. I do he pops the dead tire off and in five minutes he is done then he turns to me and says "If you pull off my wood you can go"I said there are some thing I never wanted to hear a man say to me and I am pretty sure that was one of them.So after we both have a good laugh I am rolling again.
Now I am starting to run out of hours for the week I am close to our yard in Madison Illinois so I decide I will do my reset there since it is to far to get home with hours.Well it turns out my dispatcher thought I should of gone home. I am not sure if we are on the same page sometimes but maybe it is just that I am still new.
I get 60 miles the other side of St Louis and I hear a very loud bang since I have heard it twice before I pull to the side and make the call except this time that tire took out 1/4 of my mud-flap and a taillight. I call dispatch they push my delivery back one day and tell me to go to Madison and get it fixed.
While I am there they tell me to call this guy seems as if my trailer has test tires on it and this guy want to know when he can look at it.I tell him they ain't doing so well and buy the time I get back to Little Rock I may not have any left.On the plus side they have the much needed harness for my inverter they fix everything hook up my inverter and now I am as happy as a clam I can microwave and watch TV.
I have dropped twenty pounds in two weeks and I don't have twenty pounds to spare so hopefully this will help me keep my weight up.I almost always have my CB on while I am driving and I have noticed that allot of drivers really give the swift guys a hard time I feel kind of bad for them because they are guys just like us who are just trying to make a living.
One night in Ohio I approach the sign to the scale just as it was closing they clicked the close sign on well two swift guys where already in line when it closed my god you should of heard them talking about these two guys finally one of the swift guys spoke up for himself then they really poured it on him.
Kind of a funny story I am in the pilot fuel line I wait to get fuel everywhere I go and I have a knack for picking the slowest line anyway I am sitting there waiting and this guy comes on the CB asking for a dollar so he can go inside and get an ice cream well this other fellow gets on and says are you serious driver well now I am laughing and he says no I am not serious I just wanted to give that maverick driver a good laugh he was looking way to serious.
I have a load of grey bar on my truck and I am headed to Detroit another good run I have a air-card for my laptop now we will see how well it works out on the road guess thats about it you guys be safe out there talk to you later
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Flatbed is a physical job. You do sit and drive but tarping and securing takes time and effort. As one guy at Maverick said you will loose about 20 lbs your first month and gain 30 your next.
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