May Trucking, My Newbie Adventure begins

Well spent today, Friday, with a local driver and went to a warehouse near the airport to get a load of canned peaches. All went well.

Then it was back to the terminal to wait for my trainer to call. He checked in and we agreed to meet at the terminal Saturday morning at 8am. We're going to leave by 10am. He said he'll do the first couple hours while I learn the QuallComm, then I'll drive the rest.

will post again soon.

Clutch

 

Dean, I'll be looking for yur truck. Paul, good to see you found me. I hope your trainer is doing good by you.

Well, alot to talk about since my last post. It's been crazy since I left with my trainer on Saturday. I asked my trainer if I can post his name on here, he said fine. Mark and I started from Layton late in the afternoon saturday and were headed to Omaha for our first drop of a four drop dispatch.

We drove to Cheyenne the first night. I drove about half of that stretch. I backed into the Flying J in Cheyenne in the dark with help from Mark.

We had to sdtay to get our ten off so that we'd have a fresh restart the next day. We drove straight through to Omaha to a Grocery Distribution center. We got there about 2:30 am for our three am appointment. I backed into my first dock, again with outside help from my trainer. It took a couple hours to get loaded, and by the time they were done, our 14 hour clock was up. We couldn't even leave the yard and had to pack it in for our 10 off to get a new 14 hour clock.

Once we had a new 14, it was off to Sterling, Illinois to make sure we got close enough to get there so that we could get another 10 off to get a reset before our Walmart Distribution center appointment.

We luckily found a burger king a few miles up the road to make our hours work. When we got to the wal-mart dist. center to check in, at 4am, it was pouring down rain. we still had to back in to the dock and got soaking wet in the process. walmart requires you to unhook, chock the wheels, and park your tractor in a special "bobtail" only area. we then checked in, and were told they would call us when we're loaded.

continued on next post.

clutch

 

After checking in, we headed back to the truck and had to change clothes. everything was comppletely drenched. unloading took a couple hours, We had to get right back on the road to make our next appt near downtown chicago u,. Directions told us to take an exit that didn't exist. had to get turned around on tight chicago streets. finally found receiver was unloaded and headed for a pilot truck stop about an hour south of chicago to take our next ten off so that we could get a fresh 14 hour clock after midnight so that we could head to our next appt in olney, ill. (another walmart dist center) tried to time it to make truck stop in olney so that we would take another 10 off, so that after our unload at walmart, we would have a full days driving ahead for a new dispatch.

it didn't quite work, we were a little late getting to olney, ill, so i had to keep my 14 going while my trainer went off so that after our dropoff at 3pm the next day, he could drive if we got a new dispatch.

that worked. i drove into walmart, we showed up early, as you always should with a walmart dist center. we again had to dock, unhook, chock, but just pull up a few feet and wait this time.

after unloading, updating our qualcomm, and getting ready to leave we got info for our next dispatch.

this time we were to take our empty trailer to franklin, indiana, just south of indianapolis, and pick up a loaded trailer for denver.

did a quick trip plan, and figured we better leave right away to hit franklin tonight so that when we pick up in the morning we can drive a full 10 to 11 hours toward denver. by the way, it's wednesday night, all of the above has been since saturday night.

training has been going good. i couldn't have asked for a better trainer. he's very patient, and explains everythjing very clearly. i'm getting better and smoother on shifting and backing, and hope to be ready to solo out after another week or so. We'll see if i can get everything down by thern. plus, we have to get routed back to a may terminal anyway.

will post again soon.

clutch

 

i need to correct that i said my trainer was off while drove. I meant to say that i was off, and that he still had another hour on his clock tomake it worked.

that being said, this shows how important it is to do very careful trip planning to make all of your drops/pickups work, so that you can keep rolling.

after all, you ain't rollin, you ain't earning.

also i'm trying to type all of this while we are bouncing down i-70 cvause we're empty. amazed i don't have more typos.

clutch