Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

That's what most schools and companies say. WS actually teaches you how to shift in mountains and it makes you much more confident. If you know how to shift on a steep grade, you won't panic if the truck pops out of gear or you have to slow/stop in an emergency.

 

This load had two stops, at our terminal in Phoenix, AZ and the terminal in Santa Fe Springs, CA.

After I dropped the trailer in Santa Fe Springs, I drover over to our shop in La Mirada to have a few things on my truck looked at. I somehow have a talent for getting trucks with dodgy fuel gauges. I also asked them to replace the radio. Mine broke a week ago. A week of no music at all..... I started developing a Tom Hanks/Wilson the Volleyball relationship with the truck. Not healthy. At all.

The new radio has an iPod input, which is awesome. I am loving it.

There were two women at the driver's lounge that I had a lot of fun talking with. One rides with her husband and the other teams with hers. They were really fun. It's nice to get to know some of the other drivers.

I spent the night in La Mirada and ran errands the next morning. So much easier to go shopping when you're not pulling a trailer. That afternoon, the dispatcher asked for help dropping empty trailers at various customers, so that's what I did. My next load wasn't ready yet and I had nothing better to do, so why not? I took a load early the next morning up around Yosemite National Park. It had stops in a couple of small towns, the last of which was at the top of a mountain and it was a ski resort town. I was wearing a long-sleeve tshirt, capri pants and loafers.... it was kinda funny to get out of my truck and see the looks on the faces of the people walking down the street all geared up for snowboarding. I was only going to be there long enough to drop off three pieces of furniture, so I thought it was pretty pointless to put on my winter gear. I don't mind the cold. The tiny little side street was really hard to maneuver into.... They wanted me to back up (about a meter away from the line of personal vehicles) to the door of their shop.... I parked on the other side of the street and said I'd happily dolly all the furniture into their building from there rather than risk hitting one of their cars. One of the guys who worked there had come out to direct me as I was backing so that I wouldn't hit anything as I turned the truck around (one block long dead-end street) so that I wouldn't hit anything, which was very nice of him.

Left there and was told to drive back to the Santa Fe Springs terminal. It was a 6% grade for the first 8 miles down the mountain.... and it was windy as ####. Pulling an empty trailer down that road was like trying to fly a kite in a wind tunnel. I only had about three hours left on my clock for the day, so I drove as far as I could and then pulled into a rest stop for the night. I've still not made it back to the terminal. I had to find a truck stop with wifi so that I could make some bill payments online (that I can't do over the phone or through my phone's internet). I really need to get something worked out so that I can have internet in the truck.
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Do any of you do the thing through Verizon where you can use your phone as a mobile hotspot? If so, how much data do you use? Do you stream video (I have Amazon Prime) or does that just eat up way too much data? I may have to get that set up when I'm home over Christmas.

 

I'm not going to put any specific info about the customer on the forum.