Millis OTR journal

No idea what Texas regional is like, but I have been impressed by Millis the last couple days. My one friends daughter had a baby last weekend and they got her home about 2 days after the birth. My other friend found out last night that her grandmother was in hospice. She sent qcom message in this morning, while at receiver and before she was unloaded they had her planned out to get to NC tomorrow morning where grandma lives.

 

It ended up being OK, especially the Steak and Shake. It was just really different from most of the places I stay at.
I usually stay in McLean at the Dixie truck stop, there's usually parking there and it's usually quiet. That new Roadys in Atlanta is nice, but I've never stayed there.

 

https://i.imgur.com/lXvFT3t.jpeg

Saw this and thought of the Crocs with argyle socks student

 

Smith has a terminal in ellenwood Georgia right off 675.

 

Yeah Crocs guy overplayed his hand, it was taking me awhile to get over to NJ to pick him back up. Since we don’t have any loads near my house to NJ, I spent a week getting worked over there. The day before I was supposed to pick him up, he started making phone calls and issuing demands. So I ended up in NJ for no good reason at all.

 

I'm not surprised. Good for you for sticking with him as long as you did.

 

So I get a panicked phone call today from a 1st year driver who lets be clear was not my trainee. A guy I met in Trenton who was struggling. Repeatedly I have told the guy to double check his routes. Google does come in handy I wouldn’t recommend following it but you sort of can compare it to your truck gps route to make sure you are in the ballpark.

Before I get into what happened today a few days ago he was trying to make it to TJ Maxx in University Park. It literally is right off Central avenue about a quarter mile away from DSC.
Anyway he was about 12 miles away trying to decide if he should go down some residential street that copilot was pointing him towards. The street dead ended into a junkyard. Anyway had to get him pointed towards 30 to head down to 57 and then steunkel. That took about an hr.
Well today he calls he picked up a load in Niagara Falls going to Wisconsin and copilot wanted to take him up through Canada. No biggie if you would just do a little planning. But you guessed it, he ended up having to deal with both Canadian and US customs for his re entry.

 

I was talking with a night dispatcher at the company I'm with now and he was telling me about the problems some drivers have with trip planning. I was pretty surprised as they advertised needing at least a year of driving experience. I don't see how you could have that much experience and not have an idea about planning.

I've driven to Canada twice, and the paperwork was all prepared and placed in an envelope for me before I went. The AP they have (arrivecan) really helped too, especially when I told the young woman working the immigration both that I had been to Canada before, and the last time was in 1979. I think that was way before she was born. He must have had a lot of trouble if he didn't get the help I did.

You must be a magnet for troubled drivers MIT, how do you do it?

 

They finally got rid of partial fill ups on fuel solutions. From now on every fuel solution is FILL. I don’t know why, just what we were told.

 

That'll be a nice change, for sure.