Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

I think I'm more nervous than you.

Remember to post about your day if you can. It will help keep your energies focused on the immediate challenge.

Good luck Bryan!

 

Lockset is around $100, loadlocks I don't recall since my truck already had a few on it.

There are way to many central trucks here at Dads T/S here in Idaho Falls. I almost feel like I'm at a terminal.

 

As far as school goes, stay focused on the tasks at hand. Once you get past the written tests, use your freetime to concentrate on the pretrip. Break it up into segments and be able to start it at any point and still be able to complete it all. Pretrip is difficult for most people because you don't have a lot of time to work on it and there are a lot of steps to remember. Don't count on having the luxury of visual cues to help remind you.

 

Ditto on the hometime. When you take that much time off it takes a while to back in the swing and keep the cash flowing.

 

I look at it like being deployed in the military. Mission after mission, eventually ya find yourself in the middle of nowhere with dim hopes of ever getting home alive, then they pull ya out and ya go home. Biggest difference is most of us aren't armed and the hookers aren't as good (unless you're in a W9).

 

Lol, that's ok, I'm probably not top notch clientele myself.

Well, leaving for big Nashvegas TN arrive at 4:30pm, then to a changeover somewhere's, and then hopfully in SLC around 9:40pm

 

Sigh... I get to my 01 to pickup a preloaded to find that it wasn't preloaded because the ####head who dropped the trailer didn't get the chicken blood washed out! Ironically there is a blue beacon 20mi from here. So now I get to wait to be loaded at their convienence. No big deal if it wasn't one of the pieces of the puzzle that gets me back to SoCal.

What is it with all the cute gal drivers driving black 386's? I'm not sayin... I'm just sayin.

 

I just finished the program, and will be picking up my CDL Tuesday, then leaving with a trainer Thursday.

I'll tell you first of all to make sure all your ducks are in a row. Bring your birth certificate, SS card and whatever else they ask for. The Utah DOT needs a whole stack of paperwork to grant you a permit. Also, make sure you have a squeaky clean criminal record, or else ask your recruiter if you'll be accepted. Also, make sure your decently healthy. One guy in my class got sent home due to having too much sugar in his urine - even though he wasn't diabetic! Don't forget about the work-well test either, one (very overweight, like 400lbs on a 5'8" body) was sent home because he couldn't complete it.

The written tests are tricky, as you only have 2 days to study the book, but they review it heavily with you.

The pre-trip inspection is a lot to remember, but you do one every morning like 6 days in a row, so most of it sticks with you when you go to test. Just take your time.

Backing can be a big problem for most people, so get in as much practice time as you can.

The road test seems may seem daunting too, but you'll be driving for 4 days prior, and will be suprised at how fast you can pick up basic driving skills.

 

How difficult is it to comprehend that if ya have a trailer full of BLOOD from your previous load, that you should just maybe wash the #### thing out before you drop it at a shipper???

Not only has this persons laziness or stupidity inconvienced the shipper, but also inconvienenced me by jeopardizing my preset that gets me some off time after 14 weeks on the road, but also the driver who is preset to pick up this load if I get to still drop it.

If ya gotta be late because you're getting blood washed out of the trailer, everyone will understand.

 

Must me pretty hard the guy that dropped that one couldn't seem to do it