Good night from...

At the TA in Hurricane, WV. One my way to Roanoke with the syrup load I previously turned down. When they resent it they stacked it with a load headed to New Iberia, LA, so of course I took it.

Then Coke took 3 1/2 hours to load me then another hour+ heading to the Pilot in Columbus to weigh it. Didn't start down the road til 5:00 pm. Stopped and sent a Mac 22 as my GPS had me at final @ 11:30 pm. Add a 10 hour break and no way can I make my 8:00 am delivery.

At least the next load is a drop-n-hook with a generous window.

Oh well.

 

Where are you at? Except for the NC part that's my route as ell.

 

So I leased my shinny new 2014 freightliner cascadia last week. Lots of stuff to take in, and get used to. Set it up so i'd be running with my student the last 3 weeks of his training to take advantage of the 21 days without a truck payment. 3 days later he gets sick with bronchitis. Takes a bus home 3000 miles away. So there goes my plan. To top it with a cherry, some old timer backed into me at the J 10 minutes ago. Scratched the hoooole side of my truck, and took a piece of the rubber off the very top. There goes shiney and new for me. The funny part is. The guy got out, looked at his fine work, got back in his truck, and left. I'm disliking murphy with a passion today.

 

I ended up taking it when they sent me a back up. Delivered Detroit Engines to troutdale, then pu in Mocksville, going back to SLC, and of course, heavy.

 

Sorry to hear about that. Sent you a pplan. Have some questions.

 

Hotel in Lincoln, NE for the next 2 nights. Truck is back in KW again. Another DPF problem, fuel power pressure, and a fuel rail pressure problem. They put it on the computer and said that it was running okay, but that it was showing a problem that they need to wait for the Cummins specialist to come in Monday. Of course, another KW dealer that closes early on a SAT and closed on Monday. Breakdown told me to call IEL on Monday. Way to many breakdowns this year, and three with the same problem, DPF/DEF. One of two things will happen, a new truck and get out of this lemon, or routed to PHX and have a thourogh check up and find out what is going on. Student is doing good. He is up to 110 hours already, way ahead of schedule.

 

At the Petro SW of Birmingham, AL, enroute to New Iberia, LA with 44,985 lbs of beer.

Since I have plenty of time I decided to slow down and take my time. Last night, running 65 into a headwind on I-81 in VA (rolling hills) plus 51 minutes of sitting in a traffic jam....5.7 mpg (OUCH).
Today, running 62 where I could and 57 in the 55 mph zones....up to 6.9. The further south I go, the flatter it gets. I'm guessing 7.5 by final.

 

So that load that picked up in Wichita... didn't.
It was relocated to Olathe, just below Edwardsville, picking up at the same time but with a delivery 1.5 hours later than the original pplan.
It meant backtracking 40 miles with almost 200 more loaded miles.
3.5 hours for the loading, the last hour of which was just waiting for the paperwork.

I had mac9'd the original pplan with a delivery of 1800, which was accepted. But with the new pick up location they just made up a time.
No way to deliver it tomorrow, so mac22 time telling them 0900 on the 22nd.
The customer window is until midnight of the 22nd, so no worries.

 

I love dyslexia ... I read that as "Since I have plenty of beer, I decided to slow down and enjoy myself."
Louisiana for the night ...

 

As last reported I had tcalled a load in Las Vegas and accepted another load coming in from Los Angeles to pick up on the tcall yard and take it to SLC. Ended up doing a 34 hour reset waitng for this load to come in, sent a message about its whereabouts, they replied it was still sitting in LA.

Had it removed and got different load going up to Umatilla Oregon.