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

Started bugging 'em around 7:30am for a load. Long about 9:30am I get a call from my DM. They have another load of solar panels going to Mount Morris, NY. Someone else is picking it up and bringing it to the yard. Should be at the yard around 2:00pm. Listed delivery time is 7:30am tomorrow, but I confirmed with my DM that anytime before 3:00pm would be fine.

Twiddled thumbs until the load finally arrived on the yard, at 3:05pm instead of the original 2:00pm estimate. Hooked trailer and hit the road.

30 minutes later, just as I'm pulling in to the TA in Ashland to get fuel and a shower, I get a phone call from my DM. Load has been cancelled. Load of solar panels I'm hauling will need to go back to the shipper tomorrow morning. So turn around and bring it back to the yard, and put in for a day of layover since the load got cancelled.

Got fuel, got a shower, got a new load assignment picking up a trailer off the yard and taking it to a Wal-Mart DC in Grove City, OH. It's a drop, but cannot be dropped before 11:59pm tomorrow. So more thumb twiddling. Put in for a day of layover today, and told DM I would be putting in for another day of layover for the new load since it's got 24 hours of dead time built into it. He said that would be fine.

New load has a 24-hour delivery window, so my inclination is to leave the yard at 6:00am Wednesday and have it to the receiver Wednesday afternoon.

 

Well, there happened to be a tractor supply next to Loves here where Im parked so walked over and bought a 4 foot prybar and hammer and cleaned the mess out my trailer the darn Mexicans left in there. I honestly been wanting a longer prybar than the one I currently own in my Volvo anyway cuz with all the titanium in my lower back I can’t honestly be bent over trying to pry boards up anyway. They took too long to unload me and ran up my 14 so I couldn’t makre it to the next shipper which is 5 hrs away in the mountains of Co. Load of sodium bicarbonate going to Indiana.

 

You wouldn’t happen to be going to Rifle CO would you?

 

Yeah, that be where Im going

 

That was an interesting drive up the mountain to get loaded yesterday. Not as bad as I thought it might be, the two lane roads were plenty wide enough for trucks. Got there and the fork driver said they gave me the wrong address. Was supposed to go to the warehouse in town at the bottom of the mountain but he asked his supervisor about loading me there instead of sending me back down the mountain and got the ok to load me there since the product comes from there anyway. When he finished though, he said for future references if sent out there again to go to the warehouse if given the plant address instead of the warehouse address. The dock was up a steep incline and of course I slammed into it with this freightliner trying to go easy up the slope, lol! Unload in Indiana tomorrow. Hopefully my Volvo is done soon.

 

Pulled Ito Core Mouldind for that volvo load to Radford at 245,didn't get out till after 900.Suppose to unload at 10 in the am,good thing Radford will take it.

 

Radford doesn't actually have appointment times. They'll basically take it whenever.

 

Well, loaner freightliner derated outta nowhere no warning and gotta be towed to dealer to be looked at. Fortunately there were empty trucks on Wytheville yard and hopped into a 21 Volvo til my 23 Volvo is fixed in Ohio.

 

And the carousel keeps spinning.

 

Just noticed they changed the monthly safety bonus and took away the extra 250 for meeting all the requirements and replaced it with smart drive score must be 24 or less and meet all requirements to get the 1 cpm safety bonus. Made it a little more difficult with that smart drive computer score crap. What the hell happened to just not speeding, getting no violations and no accidents to assess safety?