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

Today's excitement:

Woke up in the parking lot of one of our deli suppliers in Mableton, GA. We had delivered them a fresh set of lunch meat and cheese in the small hours of the morning and were looking for the load assignment that would start our driving day. Finally we got one: Take the empty reefer to that sketchy truck parking place on the south side of Atlanta and swap it for an empty dry van. Then take the dry van to some marble quarry in the boonies of north Georgia for a load to deliver tomorrow in Kenbridge, VA.

When I arrived at the sketchy truck parking place, I made a curious discovery: There weren't any empty dry vans.

I've been driving a truck now for four years, and have been with Abilene all that time, and I still don't understand how we just...don't seem to know where our empties are. Like, aren't those things expensive? Don't we want to keep track of them?

After informing dispatch of the situation, they instructed me to drive to Dick's Sporting Goods to seek an empty there. I did as instructed and arrived at the end of a line of trucks waiting to get in. Took me 45 minutes to get up to the front of the line, and another 20 minutes to get back out with my empty.

But escape with an empty I did, and I moseyed my way up to Tate, GA. Where I ran into a major traffic slowdown that added another 20 minutes to my ETA.

So when the shipping clerk here told me that my shipment wouldn't be ready until 7:00pm and could I please park over here on the side of the lot and wait, I just shrugged my shoulders and said "Sure." Just seemed to be how the day was going.

He told me he was just kidding, though, and gave me Dock Door 2. I backed in 45 minutes ago and they haven't even lowered the dock plate. Maybe he wasn't joking after all?

 

Deadhead all the way to San Bernardino from Yakima for HP load to Sandston, VA.

 

Pulled pork in Charleston tonight.

 

You’re making me jealous. All I had was a bologna sandwich.

 

My jealousy stops as soon as I think about cleaning up after cooking in the truck.

 

We don't really cook in the truck. Microwave is the extent of it, the meats are cooked at home.

 

We cook up a lot of meat, then freeze it in vacuum sealed bags. This is what our freezer looks like after 2 weeks on the road. We stay out for 4 weeks.

 

I hate when load isn't ready here at HP San Bernardino. Hot as hell and not allowed to idle.....thankfully all that military experience in the desert in all that gear has somewhat made me used to the heat with no air.....

 

I idle anyway, or I would leave. Lots of shippers say no idle. Not gonna happen.