CRETE - A Year in Review

Just made a few trips across Wy over the last couple of weeks. Beautiful weather as usual in December.



Slow and easy as usual gets me through, but for those that think trucks are built on ice skates it doesn't go so well. A little advise, the right lane of a well traveled snow packed road is often a shinny sheet of ice while the left lane has all kinds soft snow that provides better traction, you just have to keep an eye out for the speed demons so that you have time to get out of the way before they slam into your backside. Here are a few shots that I was able to take on that trip. (The first two were in WY the other two were in NE). I went by some others that I felt road conditions were too nasty to bother taking a picture at the time.

 

I'm going to quote myself. This is from about two weeks ago.

Evertruckerr wrote:

It would appear that I was seeing into the future when I made this little statement, for mere hours after posting it i was put on a load from Ft Dodge, IA going to Modesto, CA. That meant a trip across WY and a hop over Donner pass. There was a short reprieve as I was put on a run down to the LA area but after being allowed to Tcall in Fontana I was immediately pointed back to the snow country with a load going to Boise. Then from there I get to to to Wisconsin(wow, who saw that coming?).

From that point it looked like I would be getting back into the routine of middle america with a load to Kansas City, but what do you know. My MT call was answered with a load to San Bernardino. Fortunately there wasn't any bad weather to deal with across I-40. I got to enjoy an unwanted layover in sunny Southern Cali for a day while waiting for another load and was thrilled to get a load going to Phx. That allowed me to spend a night at the house and I was all gung ho about getting a load to Texas or someplace like that, but NOOOOO! Looks like I'm headed to Seattle. So now I get to play on Cabbage and Snowqualmie along with other fun spots along the way.

Apparently I've been put on a western regional fleet. Sure would be nice to get these runs in the middle of the summer.

I haven't exactly been enjoying the snow, but it has made for some amazing scenery.

Here's a shot from northern Nevada on I-80


Fire on the Mountain a little north of SLC


More Rocky Mountains in Nevada.


North of SLC

 

I have been plagued by this for the last few weeks, specifically ever since Thanksgiving. I'm getting an endless stream of loads that have me sitting around for a day to either pick it up or more often than not, waiting to deliver.

I expected to sit around on turkey day, which I did. After making my delivery on Friday morning I had to wait a few hours to get my next load that didn't pickup until after midnight. I took a shot at showing up early, but my trailer wasn't ready. So for the most part those two days were shot, but once again, that was somewhat expected on a holiday.

But not only did I have to sit for a day to pickup the load, it was only gong 700mi and I would be arriving 25hrs before my appointment time. Of course I tried to deliver early, but that was a no go, so another day shot. Delivered that load at 5pm only to find out that my next load didn't pickup until 11am the next day. But at least it was a 1900mi run going to Cali.

But, But, But. Again!!! I would have this load to the customer some 30+ hours before the set appointment delivery time. I made a request to operations immediatly after picking up the load asking to have the appointment bumped up a day. That was ignored. The following day I sent off a message to dispatch confirming my ETA and once again asked for a new appointment time. Ignored.

Day three I sent of a very detailed message about my previous attempts and how they had been ignored along with my ETA. This time I actually got a response in short order and eventually got my appointment bumped up a day. Great! A bit of a pain in the back side, but the final result made it worth while.

Next load. (keep in mind that I put my MT call in at 8am or so). Pickup less than 2mi away at 3:30pm going 350mi to the LA area with a 5pm delivery the next day.

OK! I WANT TO SCREAM!

A few messages back and forth trying to get out of this load or to have the delivery time moved up failed miserably and I ended up taking the load. The best I could get out of dispatch was "try to pickup load early and we'll see what we can do".

I didn't think much of this load, but the communications between myself and Cali dispatch was amazingly timely and sufficiently informative that I didn't really feel like I had been steam rolled and a few hours later I actually got a message to "go ahead and Tcall load when you get to Fontana" Wow! That was followed by a preplan going 879mi to Boise, ID. Double WOW! BUT of course, the delivery appointment was set for 9pm on a Saturday and I would be there by noon. Could be worse I guess. I was content not to be sitting in LA all day waiting to deliver a 5pm load.

I ended up waisting a good part of the day waiting to get loaded, but showing up early did get me out of the shippers gate many hours ahead of schedule and I was able to make it to our drop yard before running my 14hrs out and even had some time left once I had dropped the trailer. Unfortunately there were no empty trailers to be found.

I did ask (knowing the answer) if I could bobtail to the customer to pickup my preloaded, preplanned trailer. Answer "No, you can't bobtail to customer, let us know when you find an empty". Grrrrr! There weren't any empties in the Fontana yard, but I held out hope that the Ontario yard would find me in good fortune. If not I could very easily be pulled off my preplan.

Luck was with me and I soon had an empty trailer and sent off a message to dispatch asking for my load info. Instead of that they chose to resend my preplan info after a 15min wait. "OK, thanks, but I already have that, may I have the load info." 20mins later another message goes in and I wait. Wait some more and send in another message. It only took an hour to get the info. I think it was my final request that started with "May I pretty please with a cherry on top have my load info"

I ran that load up to Boise and tried the early delivery thing, but was told I could only arrive 4hrs early. They had street parking and I spent the rest of the day waiting to delivery my load. They did allow me to check in early, but the unloading didn't start until 9pm and my MT call was answered by a silent qualcom. I did ask dispatch if they had a load offer to pickup the following morning, but that message was ignored. I just went to bed an asked again the following morning. "No Freight" check back later. I checked back after a few hours only to get a load that picked up 180mi away at 11am the next day. Great. Another day shot.

But that day of sitting was rewarded with a 1700mi run to Wisconsin. And guess what. I would be arriving a full 24hrs ahead of the delivery date, but at least this time around I was looking at a live unload with an open delivery window which lead me to believe I could get away with showing up a day early.

This I did and it turned out being a drop and hook. Once I let dispatch know I was ready for another load I was immediately put on a sweet little 600mi run down to Kansas City with a perfectly timed appointment delivery. FINALLY, a well planned run.

On the way down to KC I was informed that I had another 10day student waiting for me. I was able to pick him up on the way through and make my appointment with about 30mins to spare.

MT call goes in and I get what I didn't expect, "no freight". I head back to the terminal and eventually get a great 1580mi run load going to San Bernardino, CA. But guess what. It doesn't pickup until the following day at 11am and when I do get the load to Cali I'll be there by Sunday morning and it has a Monday 17:00 delivery.

Holly crap, it never ends. And what could possibly make my day worse. I'll tell you what. I find Supersnack sitting in the KC drivers lounge. Holy Crap! What did I do to deserve that. How's it goin' SS?

Time to start bugging dispatch again in an effort to deliver early or Tcall. I was pleased to get an immediate response from Cali dispatch yet again, but it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but it wasn't totally bad news either. I was simply told to "Attempt an early drop, customer has empty trailers on sight". Sounds good to me, if unsuccessful there is still the Tcall option.

The Tcall turned out to be unnecessary because the customer was more than happy to accept my dropped trailer 30hrs ahead of schedule, but that was where the good news ended. Why? Because they did indeed have empty trailers, but they were locked in a yard that the guards didn't have access to and the gates wouldn't be unlocked until the following day. So here I am in LA once again without and empty trailer and my request to bobtail to a loaded one was unsuccessful. A tour of the drop lots turned up nothing but about 20 loaded trailers, all of which appeared to be destine for various parts of LA sometime during the morning hours of Monday. I offered to re-power one of the Tcalled loads and was promptly put on a Shag load for the following morning. I guess delivering at 8am was a whole lot better than 5pm. Looks like a day off. I was bobtailing, so finding a parking spot near the Ontario mall was easy enough and entertainment options were bountiful.

This time around I wasn't all that bothered though because I was already at the 3600mi mark for the week and I was basically out of hours, even though the trainee could have done all the driving while I was sitting in the passenger seat as "on duty, not driving". The down day gave me a chance to pickup some hours.

So in closing. I've been dealing with an endless stream of these extended delivery schedules, but for the most part have been able to change appointments, pickup/delivery early or tcall/repower enough to keep things moving.

But then as I type this, I'm sitting at the SLC terminal with a Crete load on a Shaffer trailer headed to Seattle. And guess what, I would be there a full 24hrs before my appointment time. So I'm using the down time to get my truck in the shop for it's first oil change and having some battery problems taken care of.

I can't wait to deal with the headaches that will follow with an empty Shaffer trailer attached to me after delivering my load Friday morning. I did try to tcall the load in SLC so that it could be re-powered by a Shaffer driver, but dispatch doesn't want anything to do with that bit of common sense.

Side note. Had a great little drive through northern AZ yesterday. I still think US89A is on of the most beautiful drives in the country. Pictures just don't do it justice.



Sunset over Kanab, UT