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

We have a winner! I've had the house for 10 years, the bike for 9. My wife said I work for the house, not the bike. I think she's right.

 

Larry, same to you buddy. I keep looking out for you, it hard not to notice your truck/trailer. Hope it's all working out for you. Take care and God Bless.

 

I arrived home Friday about 7pm. I was done at the shop back in Richmond about 5pm Thursday. I wasn't able to leave until my 10 was up at 6pm. I checked over my truck, after the complete servicing I got I made sure everything was buttoned up. They put a complete new set of shocks on, a full service, fixed my armrest yet again and put new wiper blades on. Abilene just raised their servicing interval from 30K to 50k on our Freightliners. That's a little scary, they only service the truck once, no A, B or C service in between, just an oil lube and filter every 50K. It just worries me that at minimum, my drive line is taking such a beating that it doesn't get greased at least once during that time. I hope they know what they are doing, I'd hate to be on the side of the road because a U-joint went south along with an airbag and a few airlines. I check my truck all the time when I stop, thoroughly, just because of the service interval. I'm not hard on my truck and I have a good ear for sound and vibration. I put on 52k between these last two services and used less than a half gallon of oil. The engine can handle it, the rest of the moving parts are another story.

When I left the terminal on Thursday evening after my 10 I only had 3 hours left on my 70. I need 13.5 to get to the house. I picked up 11.5 midnight Thursday night. This plan was put in motion last week while taking that 34 in Albuquerque. I knew last week when it was up that last Thursday was what I would need to get home with this week, last Thursday I ran 710 miles knowing I would need that to get home. I got home with 28 minutes left on my 70. I deliver Wednesday here in West Palm Beach, 6 miles from the house to a new Walmart food store.

I did run into some pretty heavy feeder bands of rain from the Hurricane. What did stop me was the alerts I was getting on my phone about a few tornados that had touched down just south of where I was. I called it a night at the Loves at the 77mm, got up right after my 10 then hauled tail to the house. I'm still trying to decide if this training deal is really worth it to me. I keep a detailed spread sheet on what I do, and every time I run my full 2 weeks of a pay period as a solo, 1 make very good coin, and not have to put up with the brain damage, when I train, I make about 350-500 more per week and am mentally spent when I get home and never look forward to leaving. We'll see how this plays out. I don't think I can spend another winter training in Wyoming, because God only knows, Abilene's freight is always up in the boonies out there.