Epes drivers weekly report

This was a load of mattresses. Not real sure why the unusual delivery time. Not much fun being in their parking lot at 1830 waiting on that 0300 delivery time. Place was deserted, no food / restrooms or anything. Like primitive camping....ah, the life of a trucker huh?

 

I'm planning to eat in the truck mostly, too expensive on the road. One trainer didn't eat really, one ate snack crap in the truck, Denny's, Popeyes and Wendy's - nothing else. The last trainer I had knew all the really good home cooking places to stop that weren't all that expensive.
I bought a cooler last weekend so all I need now is the truck to put it in. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

Got my truck and haven't had time to get back on here to give any updates. Here is a quick one til I can get time for a better one.
I got a '09 Freightliner Columbia with 373k miles on it. Definitely not my choice of trucks. It has alot of little things wrong with it but so far nothing major. It rattles and shakes pretty bad, is real noisy inside and needs to be washed badly. For an Epes truck, it's at the bottom of the pile, for a truck in any other fleet it would be considered almost top of the line so I can't really complain. I am on paper logs and hate every single day having to draw the stupid little lines and count the little marks to see how much time I have left for the day. It is MUCH easier on elogs. I bet that comment will stir up a hornets nest huh?
I had some pretty good medium length runs my first week out, was headed toward home for the weekend on Friday and decided to get the shop to fix some of the minor things in my truck. BIG mistake, got to shop at 10am left shop at 6pm. Had to spend an extra night out, didn't get a restart and almost ran out of hours last week because of it.
Second week, got dispatched on a few runs that local drivers probably wouldn't even take. Lots of work but no miles. I ran them and didn't say anything this time. Later in the week I got one to North Vernon, IN. Wound up with around 1700+ miles for the week. I didn't think that was too awful bad considering I spent about 1 1/2 days on the short runs.
Got home Friday afternoon and leaving again after lunch today. I could wait and leave early tomorrow morning but I want to be sitting at the consignee when the sun comes up tomorrow, fresh and ready for my next run. More adventures later....

 

You are probably right about it being helpful for a new driver. There is so much more to trucking than just driving and if I don't have to worry about the stupid paper log....just one thing less on my plate. I have gotten caught on the "false start" thing a couple times already. Wound up not driving but about 2-3 hours both times then ran out of my 14. I like to get in early to appointments and have found out that ain't always a good thing. Example - got to truck stop the night before, about 30 min. from consignee. They were calling for sleet and snow that night and the next day. Appointment was 1030, up early, weather starting to get worse, arrived at 0730. It didn't take as long as I thought to get there. Guy backed me into a dock immediately. However, didn't start unloading me until 1030 and took about an three hours. Weather continuing to get bad, shipper about 45 min. down the road got there about 1400, appointment was for 1730. They wouldn't even let me sign in until 1700. Didn't take very long to load once I finally got a dock. But after having trouble sliding tandems in the snow and sleet, a crooked trailer door that didn't want to close and roads getting bad, my day ended about another 30 to 45 minutes down the road at the nearest truck stop. But that's trucking right?
And no, I'm not in a local truck or day cab. I am otr, in a Freightliner Columbia right now. Hope to get assigned a newer Cascadia sometime soon.