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

My miles haven't changed at all, even with the raise. I do get an occasional crappy load, that will disrupt my whole week, but overall everything has been status quo.

 

I'm home, got here yesterday at 4pm after getting empty in Orlando. Was a pretty difficult week though. I got in to the yard Sunday evening. I had 2 drops to do 3 miles from the yard at 4am and 5 am. I got them both off by 3am then went to bed. I woke up and brought my truck into the shop for the continuing fan issue. Joe, our shop manager sent me up to KW. I was there a total of 1 hour and the issue was completely resolved, 1 fan hub solenoid and 2 updates and my 2 month long issues were fixed.

I got back to the yard and got a call from dispatch. Jarrat Va to Groveport Oh picking up at 1am and delivering by 2pm. Night shift....urghhhhh. I rested all day, woke up at 11pm, took a shower then left. I got to the shipper at 12:30 and was hooked and rolling at 1 am. After stopping at the Davis T/S to weigh out using my new weigh my truck app and grab some coffee, I was wide awake and ready for a nice 9 hour drive. 2.5 hours later, at 3:15 am, it went to hell in a hand basket. At the 130mm on 64 I was passing a truck, as I was right along side of him there was something in my lane, I couldn't swerve or slow down in time and ran it over. One mile later I was on the shoulder with no air, no wheel sensor and the remnants of what turned out to be a rolled up mattress topper wrapped around every part of my suspension and driveshaft.

After calling into breakdown, covering my bases with dispatch, I sat until 5:15. At that time, the first State Patrol showed up to make sure I was ok, then at 5:30 road service showed up. At 6:30 I was fixed and put back on the road. I got to Groveport an hour late. As I was dropping my trailer, I got a message from the load planner who handles the BH account thanking me for a good job, and to take my break there and that I would be picking up a loaded trailer in the morning headed to Florida.

At 8am Wednesday morning my load info came across the QC. The load to Orlando was loaded and ready to ride. This is were I become somewhat PO'd, I pre-tripped the truck and trailer, truck? good to go. Trailer? not really, it had one tire flat and off the rim, and the one next to it missing half it's tread. So, someone's laziness now became my headache, like I had nothing else to do with my time. I called into breakdown, had road service come out to BH and put on 2 new tires. Let me put this out there, if someone does a post trip, wouldn't they have noticed this? The procedure for this is to drop the trailer, tell BH the number and not to load the trailer, call breakdown and make the arrangements for them to come out and do the tire work. The system in place really does work, only if the driver does his/her part. But hey, I had absolutely nothing to do with my time except to deal with someone else's issues. Oh, I did call into dispatch and safety to voice my displeasure. They listened to me, but who know's were it'll go.

Anyway, I'm home until Monday, leaving out on Tuesday, you all be safe. I'm going to play with the dogs and pet my wife.

 

I too have those apps. The ones I use the most are, PFJ to check my points I have accumulated, fuel stop locations after 36 years are embedded in my brain, weigh my truck, just for the sheer ease of the process. I don't use the transflo app. Truckers path I have, used, and have it for a backup. The EFS app I have used once in the year we've been using it. Buy the truckstop book for $4.95, it's small, handy and up to date. I do use google maps and google earth quite a bit, in conjunction with my atlas and GPS.

 

Tough getting old, isn't it Pete?