Good Night From II

Taking a quick break at home in Houston.

Have be a two stop Home Depot along the Gufl Coast tomorrow and a Home Depot back haul to Baytown after that.

 

Awake this morning, get out of truck and big puddle in front of truck. Start up truck and watch coolant just dripping. One side of coolant container empty. Now sitting in front of shop bay. Turns out fuel filter became loose.

 

Eloy, AZ. Was going to get a truck wash today, but looking a the weather map, think that let mother nature take care of it in the morning.

 

Doing a 10 at a small indie TS in Rayne LA

This morning on the way to my first Home Depot stop in Lafayette LA eastbound I-10 came to a standstill 18 miles from my exit at I-49. Accident between two 18-wheelers...a flatbed ran into the back of a Prime reefer. Flatbed tractor and Prime trailer burned to the chassis. What a mess.

Finished my second stop in Baton Rouge and come back to my first stop to pick up refrigerators going back to Home Depot DC in Baytown TX. While I'm being loaded two MORE semis ran into each other on I-10W and now THATS closed too...causing a big hazmat spill!! Ran back roads west for 20 miles and managed to get back on the freeway. Three miles later the police had it closed again. To heck with this..time to park and chill. Too many idiots driving trucks around here today.

 

Tailgating and/or texting?
If so, then one less dangerous driver is on the road.
I hope the Prime driver was OK.

 

Yeah, he's ok. His cab was parked a 100 yards so away so he had time to unhook before the fire consumed his trailer. Local news is only saying no injuries so I guess the flatbed driver had time to get out. His cab was nothing but charred chassis and rims. he was hauling drill pipe.

 

Getting ready to take 3 days home time, parked in the PreQual lane in Jurupa Valley. Instead of my plan to run home and take home time before taking on another trainee, when I was delivering a load near Edwardsville last Monday I received an urgent call from Driver Development in Edwardsville to immediately take on a trainee. I explained I had my home time request in and would need to put the trainee in a hotel during that time, she said okay.

Then it took a while of chasing my tail with loads in a circle. Since Edwardsville can't give any westbound loads they ran me north to Lincoln, then northeast to upper Illinois and THEN I got a load offer going back to Edwardsville!!??

I immediately got on the horn with my DM and said in no uncertain terms was NOT I going to take another load into Edwardsville only to get another circle jerk. He got on it and I was given another load to St. Louis, then on to Dallas before getting a load all the way home. At least my trainee was able to get 50 hours in before taking this home time, so we will have a reset and be ready to roll with full 70's when we start teaming.

 

Regarding Mac-30's...

... when I was in Dallas on a 10 I sent several Mac-30's and got back several different loads that all showed very short hauls, like 30 mile local deliveries.

Finally as our 10 was coming to a close I sent another Mac-30 and it showed origin Sanger, TX with destination Alliance, TX with 30 miles. I accepted it, thinking perhaps it would bring us in to at least get another load closer to Dallas...

... then immediately got the load assignment and...

... it was a Sanger pickup, close to where we parked with a delivery in Montebello, CA and 1376 miles!!???

Now I'm thinking the other "short" loads may have also been loads that might have been long hauls? Anyone else using Mac-30's that have run into this kind of problem, where load information in response to a Mac-30 has nothing at all to do with the actual load assignment?

 

Dropped a t-call load at Memphis, first thing in teh morning I'll drive down the street and get my APU checked out.

 

Yes. I have turned down loads because the miles did not fit with my hours, only to find out that it was showing total miles of the load, not the miles of the run, like a t-call in Laredo. It was showing the miles all the way into Mexico.