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

Been sitting in Evanston WY since Thursday between high winds and snow and ice today. My load to NC only weighs 10k. Hoping to be able to get out tomorrow. Really wish they would give me nice 40k loads up here in winter instead of the lightweight stuff I always seem to get.

 

So I here Abilene is opening a new terminal in SC, I 85 mm 35 behind the pilot somewhere.

 

I thought the one in savannah was moving to Anderson?

 

Recent events, starting last Sunday:

Delivered a Hill-Phoenix load to Williamsport, PA. Address was for the current, existing Dollar Tree store and not the still-under-construction brand-new Dollar Tree store a quarter mile away. Got that sorted easily enough. Spent a lovely night behind the current, existing Dollar Tree and then delivered to the under-construction one at 6:00am.

From there, dispatch gave me a deadhead to Lancaster Leaf in Lancaster, PA, where I was to drop my empty dry van and hook a loaded reefer. Reefer to be set on continuous and -10F. My curiosity was piqued, since in my experience tobacco doesn't benefit from freezing.

Got there, no reefer. Puzzled, I called dispatch. Found out that the reefer I was picking up was a load I needed to rescue, and it wasn't there yet. Dude rolled in around 9:00pm and dropped his trailer next to me. Hooked the trailer and spent a lovely night parked in Lancaster Leaf's parking lot.

The reefer was full of frozen fish, to be delivered to Gordon's Foods in Springfield, OH. Receiving clerk said "You got a lot of pallets, so it's probably going to take a while." And so it did. Put in for 4 hours detention, and then spent the night on their lot.

Dropped the empty at BH Groveport and picked up a load heading to Greenville, SC. This is the place with the two BH distributors right next to each other, and I had deliveries for both. Parked in the dock of the first receiver and called it a night. Sadly, I was hauling a swing-door reefer, so they had to bang on my truck in order for me to pull up and open the doors. Last time I was here, I was in a roll-up and they just set to work without banging on the truck.

From there, my instructions were to drop my reefer off at the TJ Maxx DC in Charlotte, pick up an empty dry van there, then head to Gaffney, SC to pick up Volvo truck exteriors from Core Molding, which would be dropped on the West Memphis yard. Got to TJ Maxx and was told that I couldn't drop my reefer there 'cause they ain't a drop yard. If I wanted to pick up the dry van, I would need to come back bobtail.

Further instructions followed: Go drop my reefer at the Food Lion DC in Elloree, SC, bobtail back to Charlotte, pick up the dry van from TJ Maxx, THEN go to Core Molding in Gaffney. And it was a 2.5-hour drive from Charlotte to Elloree, so what was looking like a short day suddenly got much, much longer.

Got down to Food Lion, dropped the reefer, and discovered that, lo and behold, there was an empty dry van already there. Got approval from dispatch to hook that dry van instead, and was able to go directly to Gaffney and the shipper, thus saving me about an hour and a half of driving. Got loaded, and then spent the night at the nearby Circle K.

After arriving and dropping my trailer at the West Memphis yard, was instructed to pick up a pre-loaded trailer and take it to the WalMart DC in Harrisonville, MO. Was due yesterday, which was when I got the load assignment, and I only had 1hr 20min of drive time left. Seven-hour drive from West Memphis to Harrisonville, so no chance of making on-time delivery. Parked bobtail at the West Memphis Petro for the night.

Got up this morning, hooked the loaded trailer, dropped it off at the WalMart DC. Found an empty, and am now parked at the Sapp Brothers just down the road. Current instructions are to pick up a pre-load tomorrow in Topeka, giving me a rare trip to Kansas. (I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've been to Kansas in 4.5 years.) Load delivers in Sealy, TX on Tuesday.

From there, they're gonna hafta find a way to get me back home, 'cause I got hometime starting Friday.

And that brings us to the present day.

 

Who is going to manage the West Memphis location?

 

Daniel C who was the planner down there is now the terminal manager in WM.

 

Not looking forward to this version of the future.

 

A legitimate question, does anybody know why they're putting these terminals so close together?

Heading to Ca,be the first time out here in more than a year.