My Millis Transfer Experience Starting 9/19/11

The other thing about the Beer loads....makes you go really fast down the hills.....

 

Don't blame you.

 

Driver training Day 7..... The day from hell! Roll in to Kensington, Pa to unload our beer load. Mark drove us into Kensington and to our delivery point. I got to do the dock. It was really easy. Pretty much a straight line back. Took about 30 minutes to unload and before that happened we had another load going to Cherokee, Al. Easy ended and pain in the ##### begins. Mark tried to pull straight out of the dock up through another gate and out on the street. Problem being electrical poles and railroad tracks. Ended up backing back the way we came and going back out the way we came in. Tight tight tight! D/H to smithfield to pickup a paper load going to Cherokee, Al. After making a wrong turn and having to find some place to turn around and running into signs saying no truck turn around (something tells me that we were not the first to make the wrong turn in a truck). We finally got turned around and on our way. Arrived at shipper and I got to back again. I messed up on my setup and couldn't get positioned right to get in the dock. So I told Mark I wanted to do a blindside alley dock. He thought I was crazy, but he told me to go for it. I had about 3 or 4 pull ups but got it in there. After loading I was in the drivers seat. Came out of there and thought that I would go back the way I came, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I was in the left turn lane and had to let all the cars behind me go around so I could backup and get in my right lane. After that I got going on the correct road. This road is narrow and with lots of hills and tight curves and one switch back. After making it out to 79 it started to rain with high winds. We only had 6K in the box and we were being blown all over the road. Hit hard rain so bad that it was hard to see the front of the truck. Lucked out and found a little truck stop and found a place to park for the night. Didn't drive very much that day. I think I got about 70 miles in. I was sooooo glad to have that day over with.

 

Driver training Day 8.......Mark drove us down to the T/A in Hurricane, WVa and we got us a shower and I drove from there to Cherokee, Al. Nothing note worthy on the trip down. Did hit traffic in Nashville. There was road construction and a wreck just south of Nashville and it ate about an hour of our time. Ended up drive 548 miles today. Was able to drop and hook in Cherokee. We already have another run setup. Ran back to a Shell truck stop about 15 miles from our drop and crashed for the night.

 

Driver training Day 9.......Mark drove us over to Ecru, Ms to pick up a load of furniture from American Furniture. Ended up being a drop and hook and we were off with about 8K of furniture in the box going to JC Penny DC outside of Milwaukee, Wi. Stopped at a rest area in Missouri and I did my walk around and found to tires on the trailer with the centers gone, plus 3 tires with questionable tread. Ran up to a T/A about 60 miles away and had 5 tires replaced and it ate up 4 hours of our time. After getting the tires done I jumped in the drivers seat and drove us up to Effingham, Il for the night.

 

Driver training Day 10....... Made our drop at the JC Penny DC and they didn't have an empty so dispatch sent us over to West Allis to get a trailer. No trailer there so we headed over to Richfield to find a trailer. Finally we find a trailer and stop in to do some laundry. We get dispatched to Wis Rapids to get a paper load going to Baltimore. Two pickups and two drops on this load. After spending 4 hours waiting for clothes to dry I loaded my wet clothes in my bag and we head out. Mark drove us up to Wis Rapids and I did the docking there. Fog rolled in plus it was dark, but I got the trailer docked. 1st loading took maybe 10 minutes and rolled around to the other side of the building and got loaded in about the same time. Then we find out that the paper work is wrong and had to wait to get it corrected. About an hour later were ready to roll and the fog has cleared. It is 2 a.m. at this point so I drive us down to Madison for the night.

 

Driver training Day 11.....Left Madison heading to Baltimore, Md Mark drove for til about 8:40 p.m. and I took over driving duties and droves us the rest of the way into Baltimore. Was hoping to get there before morning traffic. No such luck. With 45k in the box and all the hills around Pittsburg it was slow going at times. Got really good on the down shifts on the hills....lol Baltimore drivers do not like to give you an inch when trying to merge. Arrived at our first dock early. Appointment was for 9 and we got there before 7 and we were able to dock and unload. Left from there and headed to our next stop which was 8 miles down the road. Called to see if we could unload early and was told that they have someone scheduled to come over and unload us at 11 since they don't have a permenant employee there. At 11:30 Mark calls to see where the guy is and we were told that he had came and gone. The lady on the phone said that she would have him come back over and that we were in the wrong place. We were where the first lady told us to be. So we end up backing to the end of the street and find out that there isn't a whole lot of room to back into the dock. Finally get docked and unloaded and head over to the T/A in Baltimore for our 10 and that is where I set now. Headed out to Philly in the morning for a 8 a.m. pickup and then off to Trenton. Going to take my CDL test on Wednesday morning. Ended up the week with a little over 3500 miles. I discovered driving all night is hard to do and dealing with rush hour traffic after driving all night is no fun. When you are tired all the things that you with out thought don't come so easy anymore. Good learning experience. Ok I'm caught up on my post now.....