Finally got my own truck

Yeah, I'm not going to NYC. In fact, I'm not going to NY state, either. No NY HUT sticker.

I'm parked at Huck's. When did this become a Flying J??? 4 years ago I came here every week, and there was always plenty of parking in the back even at 2am. Now, 10pm and yeah there's parking in the back but maybe half the parking spots there used to be. I used to be able to park without anybody within 10 spots of me.

P.S. Hucks is Mt. Vernon, IL x95

 

So I took the buck a mile coming outta GA going up to south central IL, then straight back down to Florida. For a little less than $3/mi. Tomorrow morning I have a load going home to MI for a whopping 92 cents per mile, but it unloads Monday morning 100 miles from home.

Parked a Polk City, FL. Showed up here at like 6:30 pm and I think I got the last parking spot. I had to slide my tandems almost to the back, but was able to squeeze myself in here without hitting anybody. It really does help being a switcher. Backing in hundreds and hundreds of trailers really helped.

Last week in Nebraska I went into a rest area and parallel parked the sucker between two other trucks in less than a minute. It wasn't perfect, but it was close. The parking spot was on my driver side, so I'm not sure if that's a blind side parallel or not, but since you have to turn to the blind side anyway no matter which way you're parking, I suppose it doesn't matter.

I talked with my boss. When I come back to work after next week, I'm gonna try dispatching myself for the week and see how it goes. I just have to text him the MC # of the broker to see if I'm allowed to use them. He says I can do that after I book the load, and if by chance we can't factor them, then he told me I can just tell them we can't do it, and cancel on them, unless they wanna pay up front, which I'm sure they never do.

The thing about it is that I think time management is a huge factor. If my dispatcher finds me this load going 850 miles up to eastern Wisconsin, that would mean I have to sit south of Chicago for the night, and then in the morning drive through all that BS, get to the customer, get empty at what, 1pm? And then what?

My goal is to park as close to the delivery point as possible, and get my box emptied as early as possible so that I can spend 2-3 hours finding the right load, and then have all day to drive.

Elogs are coming and honestly it's making me nervous. I've had to rip out a log sheet 3-4 times in 3 weeks just to give myself time to make it to where I needed to be. And also parking is becoming such a pain in the ##* at night. Last night in Dalton, GA I had to park in a no parking zone because there wasn't anything left. I stopped at Cochran's, that place is a sh**hole. I parked there once years ago. The place probably has more dropped trailers than live drivers in the lot. And it's still dirt/mud. The app said there was parking but there wasn't. Someone lied.
Rest areas full, Peelots full, and yes the lots do smell like ripe p*ss. Who can forget that smell? The smell of human urine mixed with oil and diesel fuel.

I tell you what, when everyone is on elogs at the end of this year, it's going to be a friggin mess. I hope Trump and his cabinet have something in mind, because this ain't working. We need truck highways. We need a highway that goes from south of Monteagle to Macon and bypass all that Atlanta crap. Just for trucks. Exits every 30 miles or so, so you can get where you need to go. Parking lots big enough to fit 300 trucks every 50 miles. We need parking and we need roads to run on. They're all excited for I-69 to be completed but really what will that accomplish? It will help somewhat for that particular lane, the automotive freight going to and from Mexico, but what's going to happen with NAFTA?

There's too many trucks, too many cars making too many problems. And not enough parking to go around. Can't you see this is a system of dysfunction?

See what I did there?