JCT

:smt046

Thats funny right there...

 

Chicken Killers!

 

Post from my blog:

I-10 east bound of El Paso

Unusual weather for south Texas we ran into today... snow! We even saw snow in Mexico! No, we weren't there, we could see it from I-10.

We got our first paycheck this week (Woohoo!)so we made a Walmart shop in Deming, NM to stock up the truck. The miles weren't a lot as we only had half a week on it... 2 trips, one was a local pickup so we are talking about 1200 miles, but with the first 200 gallons free plus no truck payment (for the first month) we still had a decent check!

We were glad we stopped when we did last night as we missed the worst of this storm. It just blowing wind and just starting to snow when we stopped in New Mexico just before the Texas border. We stopped at the NTS - National Truck Stop and luck out as we got in to the restaurant just before they stopped serving. The food was great... we got the chimchanga special $5.50, the enchiladas and an order of chicken quesadillas. plus tea and coffee for $17.00.

We're on a produce run... 5 pick ups... two in CA and 3 in AZ and one drop in TX. We had to wait on the first pick up as the veggies hadn't even come in from the fields yet. So about 10:30pm we got our first pickup and then headed down state for the second in Coachella, CA in the early morning hours. Securing that pickup we headed to Yuma, AZ where our other three pickups were... 2 in the evening and on the next morning... all of which went without a hitch except for the last... one pallet.

We got there on time and they told us we must have the wrong place as the order number wasn't right,,, oh we must want next door. Well.. after going back and forth 3 times... a few phones, talks with the first shipper we finally confirm we "were" at the right place the first time! Why the order numbers didn't match we don't know.

OK... so after a long 24 plus hours of pickups and stopping to sleep, grab food and go with about 1200 miles to go... we headed out to cross AZ, NM and TX.

We are in TX and almost there... the roads are clear, it is cold, but make good time.

Where we go next...?

Tell ya tomorrow!

 

Ok, any JCT driver going to be in fl anytime soon? I need some tips prior to going off to truck driving school.

KH

 

Nope the jct convoy has left ur rainy state lol jarbo was supposed to set up for us to all come to ur house lol guess he chose not to. Anyways what did u wanna know? There's not much to driving school. Especially these private trucking schools. I went with my first company for schooling and that was like going to college. U got class work then hands on training

 

How do you parallel park a truck? When backing up do you need keep your foot on the clutch or keep it off it? when taking the road test, what are the parameters? How long does a proper pretrip take? I know a lot of questions but I am yearning to learn.

 

Parallel: basically line your truck up with the curb. if you r parking in between two trks like at a rest area make sure the spot is big enugh for one and a half trucks. Then pull up to where your back of the trailer is even with the truck that is in the front spot. Now turn the wheel one full turn to the opposite way of the direction u need ur trailer to go. Start backing up until u r about at a 25-30 degree angle. Stop and turn the wheel in the opposit direct two full turns. Back up till the tractor is lined up with trailer. Keep backing til ur trailer tires r close to curb. Now turn ur wheel all the way towards the curb and pull forward. You should be perfect in the spot. Might need to do some tweeking but that's the basics of parallel.

Now while backing try not to make it a habit to keep ur foot depressed halfway on clutch. Either depressed it fully or let it go. Or else u'll b doing faster wear to it. Same as starting forward at a stop. Don't gas on it like a car. Just release the clutch until its fully released before accelerating or u'll damage the idler gear. Trucks are supposed to increase the idle speed when u release the clutch in gear

Road test is different in every state. For texas they ask you about the basic controls like horn, air brake, legal air leak rate when engine off. When the low air alarm should come on. Then they take you on a route where you do left and right turns. They make sure you can control the truck with traffic. Not run over curbs and stuff

You can do a pretrip in 15 minutes