My journey with Jim Palmer Trucking

45 cpm straight up for regional. I believe 48 state, which is the refer side, carrying Prime loads under contract is 40 cpm plus. 05 for fuel.

I'm regional and getting 45 cpm.

 

Oregon is easy for home time if you're regional.

 

Update on solo week.

Ended up doing something like 4 back and forth trips between Spokane and Tacoma. Had two more roadside breakdowns. Waiting for service trucks to come out and costing me hours. First one was a air fitting in the shifter coming loose. Took 5 minutes to fix, 3.5 hrs downtime. The second was 20 miles from leaving shippers in Tacoma, lost all the trailer lights in the pouring rain. Seven pin connector was bad, service truck took 2 hrs + to get there, 15 mins testing to figure out and replace my electrical lines from truck to trailer.

They routed me on a load from Spokane repowering a driver out of hours while I was sitting in the same truck stop, to Kalispell, Montana. From there I went back to the yard, doing laundry, 10 hr break, etc. Fleet mgr gave me a load to Phoenix and told me after that they'd be routing me north back towards Missoula to complete my A seat upgrade, then head towards Springfield, Missouri to replace this truck.

Loaded 42k lbs of flour out of Great Falls, Montana the next morning to begin my run to Phoenix. Arrived ahead of schedule by about 5 hours, and spent 30 minutes docking! Well it seemed to take forever. It was a very weird 70 degree or so with a 53 ft container on the ground totally blocking drivers side view. Basically a double blind and offset past 90 by about half the width of a trailer. Got it. But it humbled me a little too.

Next they wanted me to deadhead to drop lot in Rialto, Ca. swap for a loaded trailer carrying 42k lbs of paper to drop at 5am the next morning. Got there on time, but what a effed up spot for a full size sleeper! Fortunately a driver in a day cab offered to spot my blind side front, because they had 4500lb paper rolls where they weren't supposed to be and in my way. Definitely took at least 20 mins on this one, but didn't hit anything. Dock supervisor later said they should have moved them out of that spot. Told the boys on the dock I was short on my hours and they unloaded me in 10 mins flat. THANKS GUYS. It pays to have a dynamic personality like me.

Short on hours now, I'm taking a break across from shipper. My load will be ready late tonight, going to Portland from SoCal. After that they have me pre planned for Coke to Billings, Mt. That's gonna put me in Missoula for A seat upgrade on Monday I guess.

The training journey is almost over. I'm still a rookie, and I won't forget that. It's been a long 16 weeks. But my paycheck is going to make it better. I look forward to trading in this 2014 manual Pete. No telling what I'll get in Springfield. A 2019 would be nice! But I don't expect that.

Given a choice, I'll probably say Freightliner. More storage, better cup holders, better turning radius. But now that I've been backing with this Pete, I don't oversteer so much. And the mirrors are bigger!

 

Be driving past in 90 mind. Wave

 

I've blown through already. Loves in Cedar City might be a good place. But if you msg me I'll give you my number and you can ask away.