Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

They did manage to dispatch me to the northwest at the end of my last trip. My current trip takes me from southern Mississippi to Washington state. I have a couple of stops in Montana, so hopefully I'll have the chance to get to the Missoula terminal at some point to trade trucks. I'm making good time. Getting more efficient at some things... like fueling... so it doesn't take forever and a day now (unless there's a line at the pump).

I am currently enjoying some free wifi courtesy of the Iowa DOT at a rest stop off of I-29. Leaving early in the morning for the long trek across South Dakota. Wall Drug, anyone?

 

Yes, it's a furniture load and my last stop is in Lakewood. I think I've done a better job of pacing myself this time, so I shouldn't need a reset. Only two of the stops had "must deliver by" dates on them and I'll be several days ahead of that date. I didn't absolutely have to take a reset last time, but I had a window of several days for delivery and I wanted to see my friends in Bowling Green.

 

I did stop in Wall, SD.... but only to walk around for a bit and have some ice cream at Dairy Queen. I drove about fifteen more miles west and stopped at a rest area for the night. I met another driver who had started her career at W&S and had only great things to say about them. She's pulling over-sized loads for another company now.

I crossed the border into Wyoming this morning and #### is it foggy! I pulled over at the first rest area/information center to wait out the fog. I'm having an easy day of driving today (I want to pace myself so I don't absolutely have to take a reset) and hopefully making it to our Billings terminal tonight.

For now, I'm waiting out the fog and enjoying some free wifi. I haven't had a data signal on my phone since I left Missouri, so it's nice to know the rest of the world still exists.

 

We were told in training that we should never *have* to take a reset. If we balance our hours, we can drive every day.

I was doing just that. I was only driving about 500 miles per day. I was delayed by fog on Thursday morning (I drove in the fog for an hour... then it got so thick I couldn't see 23 feet in front of the truck.... so at that point I pulled into the rest stop). My first stop was Billings and while I'd planned to get there earlier in the day, I ended up getting there at 5:30pm. Everyone was gone for the day.

Of my six stops, four are terminals. Only the two (non W/S) stops in Bozeman had any kind of "deliver by" date on the paperwork. The freight there had to be delivered no later than November 7th. Considering I was going to be delivering it on the 2nd, I thought I was doing good time-wise. Apparently not.

I went into the office early the next morning and the terminal manager was very unhappy with me. Apparently I was supposed to know that I should run my maximum hours every day and then take a reset. He (and another terminal later in my trip) had apparently been tracking the truck via satellite and wondering why I was taking so long. My question is this.... if I was so behind and everyone was wondering what was taking so long, why didn't anyone call or Qualcomm me? I'm more than willing to be where you want me to be when you want me to be there... but you have to tell me when that is.

I feel like I'm only getting half the information I need in order to do a good job. It's frustrating.

I'd gotten a Qualcomme message the night before asking me when I'd get to Helena. I told them late Friday or on Saturday morning. They responded, telling me they'd unload me at 8am Sunday and they'd send me my dock/bay number Friday night. I thought they were from the Helena terminal (and that I'd be held up in Helena until Sunday morning waiting to be unloaded). The Qualcomm message was from the Spokane terminal. Argh! At least now I know what day/time I need to be in Spokane. That's what I need: date and time.

The terminal manager in Billings told me he would unload my freight bound for the Helena terminal also, so I could skip that stop and make up some time (he had another truck going there that day anyway). I left Billings around 10am as soon as they finished unloading the Billings and Helena stuff.

I missed a fuel stop in Billings (13 miles before I got to the terminal and way too far to backtrack to). I called the company fuel guy and he told me to stop in Columbus, MT and warned me that I'd probably have problems with my card at that station. I did. It took me almost an hour to fuel up because the card was only letting me put a few cents of fuel in before it shut off. I had to call payroll for a T-check number to pay for the fuel and even with that, it took me and the fuel desk clerk forever to get the fuel going. That stop should have been 15 minutes and it took an hour. I grabbed something to eat when I went in for my receipt and pulled into a parking space.

Completely failing at my job at this point in the day, or at least that's how it felt.

I got a Qualcomm message from someone at the Helena terminal asking me to call him. I called and he told me that I needed to come to Helena (even though I didn't have any freight to drop off now) because he needed to add things to my load to go to one of the terminals in Washington. He asked what time I'd be getting to Helena. I told him it would be late in the day because I had two stops in Bozeman and something was wrong with the truck's engine. I asked if we had a shop in Helena and if it'd be open when I finally got there. He told me to skip my Bozeman stops (he would send them out with someone else on Monday) and drive straight to Helena.

I finally got there around 3:30. I spent the better part of an hour lost in Helena because I kept missing the turn for the terminal. I did eventually get there (just before they sent out someone to find me and lead me back. They'd been watching me do loop-dee-loops on the satellite tracker). I dropped my trailer at the loading dock (because the truck needed to go to the shop) and one of the shop guys came over to look at the truck.

Ever had a bad day that just wouldn't end? This one finally did. I had a shower and did a load of laundry while I waited for my truck to be fixed. The terminal car was gone, so I couldn't go anywhere.

Thursday night when I got to Billings, the truck was surging so roughly at an idle that it was dying repeatedly. No idle and a non-working bunk heater means it was a very cold night. Again. He opened the hood and turned on the engine... the piece of the engine that lifts the fuel from the tanks was leaking. (I do my pre-trip before I start the engine for the day and it doesn't leak when the engine is off, so that's why I missed it) He said they'd fix it and also look at one of the windshield wipers that wasn't making good contact with the windshield (the arm was bent). A very nice mechanic stayed late to finish fixing the fuel leak and he unbent the wiper arm too. I was out of hours by the time the truck was fixed, so I stayed at the terminal overnight.

Working truck!

I left early this morning to drive to Missoula. It's only about three hours from here to the Spokane terminal, so I'll leave late today and get there in plenty of time to be unloaded at 8am Sunday morning. A friend of mine is in Missoula and we're going to run errands (among other things, I need a few things for the truck and I need to stock up on food).