Superior Carriers 2012

I have stopped overnight twice in Cheyenne. The first time was at Little America right at I-80 and I-25. Great place but very limited truck parking. Its a hotel with a golf course. Pretty good food in the restaurant cloth table cloths and all. The other time I stopped down I-25 one exit at the Loves. Not so great. I also had an alternator put on the the TA exit 377 East of Cheyenne. It didn't seem too bad but it was early in the day and I was only there a couple of hours.

 

6/11-6/16

Headed out Monday afternoon after getting the Ca fire extinguisher mounted in my truck. I called the shop early and mentioned my idea of mounting it in one of the extra side boxes I saw laying around the shop and putting that on the drivers side where the steps are. I got to the yard to find my truck still in the shop with the fire extinguisher mounted in the front seat like before and a pissed off mechanic drilling holes in a side box. He had my step removed so I decided to wait for him to mount the box. Had I known what a pain in the butt it would be I never would have mentioned it but they misunderstood what I wanted anyway. It made them late for lunch and they were not happy.

I finally got on the road around 14:00 and ran until 2AM. From there I pretty much ran 10-11 and 10 off until my delivery Friday in Roseville Ca. It took about an hour and I was tankwashed to Pasadena Tx. I just checked into the Super 8 in Casa Grande Az a couple of hours ago. Pretty decent hotel for about $100 for 2 nights. I only have about 5 hours to run until Monday midnight. Its a good use of money for Superior to pay for hotels on resets. Its supposed to be 110F tomorrow with a low of 81 at night. Idling a truck for 34 hours would cost more than $100. I am surprised more companies don't realize that.

For once in my SPCR career I was disappointed about not being sent to Markham. I assumed since I delivered north of Sacramento I would be sent back across I-80. I was planning to take my 34 at one of the casinos in Utah. Dispatch told me Pasadena is still the closest terminal to where I delivered. Its all good. I got to play super trucker passing all the reefers up the grapevine in my empty 65MPH truck.

 

6/18-6/20

Pretty uneventful week so far. Ran 1150 empty miles to the Pasadena Tx terminal getting here around 7PM. Picked up 8 hours of layover pay and am loading at midnight with a load delivering Friday evening in Kansas City. Kankakee is the next dispatch terminal so it will probably be a Markham weekend and more layover pay.

I did get to meet the president of the company this morning. He came right into the drivers room and introduced himself while I was eating lunch. Seemed like a nice guy. Told me they were ready to sign the papers on the High Point new terminal/tank wash building project when the owner of the land died and things were put on hold while the lawyers sort out the estate. Interesting conversation.

 

6/21-6/22

Got loaded in exactly 2 hours at midnight on the 21st. I had gotten a pretty good nap in so I ran all night stopping in Oklahoma City 335 miles away around noon. It didn't deliver until 1900 on the 22nd so I took a 23 hour break, collected 8 hours of layover pay and headed out at 11:30 this morning. I still got to the plant 1.5 hours early. They held fast to the delivery appointment but there is plenty of room at the plant to wait.

Its kind of tricky to find the right gate at P&G in Kansas City. You have to drive underneath the overpass bridge for several hundred yards. Directions said "go under bridge, make hard left, go back under bridge and look for signs". I wound up on a service road that goes in front of the plant. After the hard left you actually need to stay right and drive under the bridge to the back of the plant.

As I thought I an being sent to Markham. This time they are turning me around pretty quick. I am 500 miles away and depending on how long this plant takes to uinload me should be there sometime Saturday. They are loading me out of Stepan for Baltimore at 10:30 Sunday delivering at 1900 Tuesday. Should be some layover pay on that one as well. I am at 30 hours and counting on this trip.

 

I hate those night runs too. I will probably be heading out around 9:30CT from Markham.

 

6/24-6/25

Easy 2 days of running. I slept in Sunday and headed down to Stepan around 9:30. This might be the first time I have ever loaded there during the day. That shift seemed to be in a better mood than the 3rd shift guys. Took about an hour to load me. I decided to split this one roughly in half. I ran 406 miles Sunday and 354 today. I got to the Baltimore terminal around 3PM Monday.

My delivery appointment isn't until 1900 Tuesday. I called Baltimore dispatch at 9:00 AM to see if they would take it today. They told me they would contact them to find out. When I got here and checked inside she told me she had just sent me a message asking if I had delivered early. I told her that I never heard back from anyone. She asked me if I still wanted to try and offered to call them. I asked her what they had for me tomorrow and was told nothing so I told her not to call. I figure if I am going to sit here I might as well pick up another 8 hours of layover pay. I plan to head over there about 14:00 hoping they take it and deadhead me home. Probably send me up to Paulsboro to sit some more.

 

6/26

Got a call from dispatch about 11:15 this morning saying Sun could take me anytime. Sitting under the rack now with a tankwash message for home. Got to meet Ped who was unloading here too.

It was well worth 3 hours of lost layover pay to miss DC rush hour traffic. Unloader told me 30 minutes max once the sample is approved.

I added up all my hourly and sleeper berth pay on the summary sheet I will turn in when I get back. It is over $750 so even if I take the rest of this week off I will still have a decent check next week with the 900 or so miles so far. Hopefully I will get a short dedicated to cap off this 3 week period.