CRETE - A Year in Review

Don't get dizzy going in circles...e-log...no e-log...e-log.... And you may be in a Century a bit longer than planned. When they were fighting about what truck to put me in after my crash... I was told that, once again, our International deliveries will be delayed. It seems that either someone in Lincoln forgot to check off 'pre-wire for Qualcomm' on this years order forms, or International neglected to install the wiring before putting in the interior. The 1st 300 showed up, no Qualcomm wiring harness. So, I was told, an outside place is being brought in to install it before they can be put into service. I am not sure if they made it all the way to the Lincoln terminal before they noticed, or if International caught it on their final inspection before delivery, but the new trucks will be late again.

I did see one of the new double bunk Cascadias while I was sitting in Marietta. It seems as though they have the 'hang out the back' style no-idle a/c system as well. It's not just the mid-roof's. I didn't get to see how it was ducted inside, but if it's just an open vent on the inside, and it's a team or trainer with a trainee...I would hate to be the one in front of the unit, at least most of the year.

 

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannakah, Happy Kwanza, Joy Noel, Frolische Weinacthen, Feliz Navidad, Boun Natale to all. I hope this finds everyone in the best of health and a good long run under them. Stay safe and keep the shiny side up to all.

 

Well, my streak of leaving Social Circle on 1 try has ended...only because my load was loaded on a Shaffer trailer for some reason, it would have been legal on a Crete trailer. Maybe Crete ran out of empty trailers, and it was load it on a Shaffer, or on another company's trailer...so Shaffer it is. Which now presents me with another problem. What do I do with the reefer once I get empty. Only thing I can say is take it to Deland. Every time I've been in Deland lately it has been nothing but empties.

 

It appears that I am hauling a reefer for a while. After empty in Lakeland, pu a Shaffer load to Bessemer, AL. Since there isn't a terminal around, it looks like it'll be at least 1 more load of reefer freight. Doesn't really matter to me as long as they keep me moving on something and not treat me like a Shaffer driver and give me 9000 mile a month.

 

Im thinking about coming to Crete 6 days out 34 at home, is the miles and money there?

 

Hey fellas. Long time no see, been a while, yada yada.

I figured you guys might like this little tale, so here goes.

I called Debbie (contractor relations lady at Crete) back just after Thanksgiving, to set it up in the system to show me needing home on 12/23 for a week at home. I was determined to be home for Christmas this year, come hell or high water. Maybe I should have mentioned "blizzards" in addition to hell and high water.

On 12/17 I delivered to a farmer's market in Houston. I had to restack 3 skids of dried beans that had fallen over because the shipper in Sterling, CO had put a single layer of stretch wrap over them and that was nowhere near enough. Seventy-five 100lb bags of beans. Yay. I got done there about 1500.

So, I told dispatch I was exhausted, filthy, sweaty, and in pain, and that I was going straight to the truck stop for a shower and to lie in bed for 10 hours. Which is exactly what I did. While in the shower, I got a load offer. Pickup at 1700 on 12/18 in Terrell, TX (245 deadhead miles). Deliver at 0830 on 12/20 in Denver, CO. It's a tire load going to Wingfoot Commercial Tire just up the street from the Pilot in Denver. Okay, I can do that. Don't wanna start my 14 too early on Sunday though, because I don't wanna run out of hours sitting at the shipper. But I had to start early enough to get a trailer tire replaced at Wilmer. It wasn't flat, but did have a split in the sidewall that would burst as soon as it was loaded and put on a highway. The load offer was followed up by 2 preplans: Denver, CO to Edmond, OK for delivery on 12/21 and Miami, OK to Kennesaw, GA for delivery on 12/23. Sweet!

Sunday morning, at the Flying Pilot on the north side of Houston, I was eating breakfast when I saw the weather forecast. I kind of freaked out, finished my breakfast in a hurry, sent off a message to dispatch saying "Blizzard on the way to where my load is going, headed to shipper to try for early pickup so maybe I can beat the blizzard." I put 'er in gear at 0900 and pulled into the Wilmer yard at noon. 2 hours later I had the tire replaced and headed for the shipper. Got there at 1445 - and found that my pre-loaded trailer had been pre-loaded since the day before. Niiiice. It would have been nicer to have this piece of info quite a bit earlier, which would have had me leaving Houston at 0300. This would have saved my home time, as you will see shortly.

I realized at this point that I would not get much further than Amarillo on Sunday night, and that running till I was out of hours would have me looking for a parking spot somewhere between Amarillo and Stratford, TX at 11pm. So, I drove to a truck stop in Bowie, TX where I like the food and spent the night there. I left before dawn, filled up in Wichita Falls, and was on my way again. It started raining between there and Amarillo, and was raining pretty hard in Amarillo. Somewhere between Amarillo and Dumas, it switched to snow. By the time I was headed out of Dumas, the snow was falling hard and heavy. I made it to Stratford (US-287 at US-54) and was going to just take a short break, hit the restroom, grab a bite, then go to Boise City, OK and check the weather again.

10 minutes after I set my brakes in Stratford, I was checking the road conditions while eating, and found that 287 was closed from the Oklahoma/Colorado line to Lamar, Colorado due to "high winds and blowing snow, reducing visibility to zero" and "ice-covered roads, making travel dangerous if not impossible" which added up to "life-threatening weather conditions". These phrases were actually in the National Weather Service's bulletin for the area where I needed to go. Not good. Had I known my trailer was already loaded, I would have been in Amarillo by 1700 on Sunday, and in Limon, Colorado by noon on Monday, with all interstate for the last 80 miles to Denver on Tuesday morning.

The blizzard did its thing all Monday afternoon and night, into Tuesday morning. There was over a foot of snow on the ground on top of a thin layer of ice. About 1500 on Tuesday, Texas finally reopened 287 between Stratford and the Oklahoma line, at least according to the TXDOT website. The sign was still out there on the road. Colorado had also opened 287 for northbound traffic. Oklahoma's mobile site doesn't list specific road closures, just which counties have highways in them that are closed. Weird. So I and 3 other drivers left Stratford headed north about 1530 and made it all the way to Boise City, OK - and the DOT was closing the gates over the road. So we spent the night at the Love's there.

Finally, Wednesday at about noon, everything was opened back up. We took off and the road was nice and clear - until we got to the Colorado line. From Campo to Lamar it was ice-road-trucking to the extreme. 73 miles of conditions ranging from thick snow-pack on top of ice, to bare black ice. The only constant was the ice itself. Does the state of Colorado not know about this cool substance called sodium chloride??

Anyway, I tell dispatch that I'm able to roll again when I head out of Boise City. Just after I take off, I get a message from dispatch which I am unable to stop and read until I get to Lamar - no place safe to pull off and stop, not even in Campo or Springfield, thanks to all the 4-wheelers filling up all the places where I could normally pull off to drain the vein or grab a cup o' joe. So when I get to Lamar, I see that it's a message asking me, "WHAT IS YOUR ETA TO DENVER?" - I reply with "about 1800 MST if the weather holds." I hear nothing back from dispatch that day, and arrive at my consignee at 1815 MST. They were closed for the day and the Pilot was full, so I went to bed parked out in front of the consignee. It snowed another foot that night.

Next morning, it took me about 30 minutes to get unstuck because of the fresh snow and the low curb I had to drive over. Then it took the guys at the tire shop about 3 hours to plow their lot so I could back in. While I waited for that, I got a message from dispatch saying "Your appointment was moved to 0800 Friday. That's why I asked your ETA yesterday, so we could T-Call this load at the dropyard in Denver." I wanted to reply with "Sorry guys, my telepathy helmet isn't working this week. You had 5 hours from the time I replied with my ETA to tell me about this whole T-Call thing." But I didn't. I was nice about it. Besides, the guys at the tire shop seemed glad to see me on Thursday morning.

Needless to say, I lost my preplan to get me home. Not that I could have made it home on Friday anyway. I was empty at 1300 and got a load offer from Nestle Purina Pet Care in Denver, to their place in Edmond, Oklahoma. This looks suspiciously like the pre-plan that was originally supposed to be picked up on Tuesday. I picked up my pre-loaded trailer, took it to the Pilot, scaled it, and went back with a scale ticket showing my gross weight at 81,920 pounds. The shipper said they'd be glad to take some off - right after I knocked all the ice and snow off my trailer and reweighed. No way am I going to climb onto a 13'6" high, ice-covered trailer. Not happening. So dispatch had me take it to the Beacon at the Pilot, so I could pay for a trailer wash because Crete doesn't have an account there for anything but trailer washouts (Crete reimbursed me for that, BTW). The thing is, they wouldn't touch the roof either. So I reweighed, went back, and told them I'd done what I was willing to do, and they could take some off or I could drop the trailer right where it sat, and it could sit there till spring for all I cared. They took some off and I reweighed. Gross weight was 79,820 pounds and with the tandems slid all the way back to the bumper, the axle weights were just barely legal.

On the way out of Denver, I got a preplan. Pick up in Sapulpa, OK by noon on 12/24 and deliver in Cartersville, GA at 1300 on 12/26.

Delivery and pickup in Oklahoma went without incident, and I got home at 8pm on Christmas. Made my delivery Monday and now I'm home until January 2.

I think maybe God just doesn't want me to be home all day on any Christmas. No matter how well-planned my Christmas home time is, I never make it here for the whole day.

 

By what I've heard from the '6 day out' drivers, a simple -no - is the only acceptable answer that would appear on this forum...the rest of what they said would just be ##'s because of the profanity filter software. That's how unhappy most are with that division. I talked to one new driver, who hasn't been home in 3 months like he was promised(I didn't ask if he just didn't get the 1 day per week off, or if he just hadn't been home at all in the last 3 months), and they weren't going to get him home for Christmas. Which would suck. I have only talked to a few that are happy with it, only because they either had no family or no bills at home, and really didn't need a great deal of money to survive.

 

What about Crete's Kelloggs account or 12 days out, any money and miles there?

 

I have been on the home weekly fleet for over a year now. I usually stay out 6-8 days then home for a restart. I avg between 2000 and 2500 miles aweek and make about $800 before taxes. It works for me.

 

You're right. The simple answer is no.