Starting at May Trucking...

good deal Drive!!! Then it looks good for me, I leave for Brooks tomarrow afternoon. 5/3..
I hope to see you and Larch on the road Soon!

 

what a week i arrived # brooks last night and i am starting a 34 Restart.

took my truck in for some minor maint. did a review w/ safety.

in the past week i have got some awesome miles, used up all my hours in the process.

 

UPDATE
UPDATE
UPDATE

 

My turn again.

Went out with Darryl as my trainer. Yeah. First load was frozen tater tots - had to be kept at -10F. In Georgia. In June. That reefer unit never did shut off.

Of course, as expected, I drove the whole way. Stopped one night in St Louis, then headed down to Atlanta.

Deadheaded the next day to Macon and picked up a load of ceiling tiles for Minneapolis and Fargo. You'd expect those things to be light, ne? ha! Not as bad as 44,000 pounds of tater tots, but not a lot less, either.

Drove north to .. Oak Grove, Il one day, then to Ottowa IL the next. Third day to a truck stop just outside Minneapolis. Made the first half delivery no problem - even backing into a blind side angle dock. A little back and fill, and she was in. (Note: directions from dispatch were.. not quite right. Took a bit to find the place)

Off to Fargo. Directions were wrong, but we found the place anyway. Was in the same business mall.. Dock was a stone PITA. Combine a 45 degree blind side split dock (two levels - one for rigs, one for small straight trucks) and a VERY small parking lot, and I could just NOT put the trailer where I wanted it.

I don't feel bad, much, though. Darryl took 20 minutes to park it his own self.

Dead headed 300 miles to Silver Cloud MN for a load of Energy drinks. To Macon. Aw, man!

Back we went. Saw flooded highways in IL.

Dropped load and took new load - a pick up from some place called Pennington AL. I've been there and I STILL don't know where it is! Population of about 6 - and a Georgia Pacific plant.

600 miles of deadhead - through a NASTY storm. Rain so hard I could not see the road in front of the truck, wind blowing branches off trees and bouncing them off the cab... gah! Drop-hooked a trailer full of paper towels and toilet paper and headed off to Topeka. Had to team drive to make the delivery appointment.

Arrived in plenty of time, and opted to drop the trailer while we bobbed off to breakfast. Load was deck loaded. No pallets. We dropped the trailer at 08:45. Told it would be about 3 hours and that they'd call us. 5 hours later I poked my head in the dock office and politely asked about the trailer (which was sitting empty in the lot across from the office - right next to the tractor). "OH! we were just about to call you! All done. Need help finding the trailer?" Yeah, and I'll respect you in the morning, too.

Grabbed trailer and headed back to Kansas City where we were late for a pickup. Didn't help that directions from dispatch were flat wrong, but we found the place anyway )pure accident(. They were accommodating - told us the load was still staged and would be loaded as soon as we hit the dock. Another impossible dock - a 70-foot driveway to the dockplate, and a 2 lane street in which to maneuver. I was about there when Darryl decided he was impatient and wanted to do it himself... who am I to argue?

It wasn't loaded quite as quickly as promised, but they did get us out of there in an hour or so. I sat in the cab watching a couple of landscape guys make a complete mess of felling a dead tree (I used to fell trees for firewood - so I have SOME experience.). It was like monkeys with a football. Dull teeth on the chainsaw, not notching the trunk, not cutting with the side of the blade (that is, they used the point of the blade and drove straight into the trunk. I have NO idea what they were thinking)

Finally, loaded with 29,000 pounds of ... pizza boxes. No pizza - just boxes. Headed to SLC.

Got to Grand Island NE that first night. Lots of fantastic lightning around Lincoln, along with heavy rain. Flooded highways along the Missouri river. Passed at least one truck up to the trailer deck in the mud and muck of the median. Still upright, but gonna be a chore to yank him out.

Grand Island - aaah, blessed cool air. Slept with all the vents open for the first time since Minneapolis.

That was this past Thursday night,

Friday - drove to a little town outside SLC called Wanship. Dump of a truck stop, but we just wanted sleep - had to be up at 04:00 to meet the 06:00 delivery appointment. I actually pulled out my comforter - it was about 25 deg F that night.

Woke up, complained loudly (both of us) and fired up. Darryl was tired of not driving, so he grabbed the wheel while I was inside... um.. doing what we all do in the morning.

5 miles out of the stop, we had to pull way over in the left lane. Big sheets of thick ice on the right two lanes of the highway. Not a natural feature, and well marked by flares, cones, and pretty blue lights. Seems fire department had (intentionally) spilled a lot of water right there - on an Old Dominion truck. Tractor was completely gone - "Burned to the ground" as Darryl put it. Nothing left at all but metal parts. Front part of the first of the wiggle trailers was gutted too. Didn't see ambulance or coronor - so hope driver was essentially ok.

Get to SysCo at 05:30. 12 rigs lined up at the gate, and no guard shack. WTF? how does this work?

Turns out this plant opens the gate at 05:45. You drive up, announce yourself to one of them apartment speaker thingies, give your PO number and they buzz you in. They also direct you immediately to your door. I had high hopes we'd be out of there in time to grab out next load and make it back to Denver fairly early that evening (fairly early means "before 22:00)

Optimism is forever crushed by the real world, isn't it? I backed in, got the red light and went in to hand over the bills. While in the office, this guy comes in and asks if I'm in the May truck. When I answer in the affirmative, he asks "are you hiring?". Well, hell - I'm just a trainee - I have no idea at all if May is hiring in the SLC area. I let him know - and he looks at me funny and says "No, are you hiring?"

yeah - I'm lost. "Do you want to hire lumpers?" (a voice through the glass of the dock office). OH! well, duh! Got that straightened out, got the approval from dispatch, and got the load unloaded. right?

ha! everything but the unloading went like clockwork. Typical of such places, it was pull a pallet and sort. Pull a pallet and sort. Took 'em three hours to give us the green light. Popped away from the dock a foot or so and confirmed. MT.

Sign in the dock office said the lumpers would bring our bills out to us when done. SO we sat. And sat. We finally got our bills at 14:15. They sat on our paperwork for 5 #### hours. (yes, we checked on it every hour and a half or so. Politely. VERY politely)

Good thing our next load was only an hour away. Directions from dispatch were dead-on accurate (were for Sysco, too). Got to the location, spun around and dropped the trailer right on the dockplate. Yeah, I feel good!

Took them maybe 45 minutes to load us. 17 pallets of.. I'm not sure, it looks like drywall mud - in 5 gallon tubs. 42,000 pounds. They did a nice job of loading too - well ballanced. Didn't even have to adjust the tandems.

Routed back to Denver via HWY 6 and I-70. Oh, frelling joy. Hwy 6 was, I admit beautiful drive.. would have been more fun if I'd not been behind this alimentory orifice who kept stopping in the middle of the road to see if this was his exit. On the climb - so there's no way I can get around him. Then, south of Price, we were behind an RV that would speed up whenever I tried to pass. Eventually just sat back and watched 4-wheelers tempt fate by passing 2 rigs and that RV in one go...

I-70, finally. Got around that RV and burned up the miles heading east. well, smouldering the miles - can't do much else at 62mph. Passed the spot where I spent the night on the side of the road in 1998 when my van blew a tire and it was cold enough that my 4-way broke. Hit the Colorado port of entry at Grand Junction. Rolled in behind a sharp looking (clean, etc) Pride rig. As she rolled over the scale pads, the arrow pointed to the parking area. Problem was, there were already 10-12 rigs in there, parked in complete disarray. Pride was having a hell of a time squeezing her rig in there, but she made it.

Oh great! a 100% scale (they're checking EVERY truck). Where the hell am I going to park? Darryl and I are still looking for a place to park when I roll over the pad... steers... drives... tandems... waiting for the stop and park signal. YAY! green arrow. I was out of there so fast I think I burned rubber.

Stopped in Grand Junction for dinner... we were in a fast food mood. Wendys! walked in the door - only a party of two at the counter ahead of us. 15 minutes later, there was STILL only a party of two at the counter ahead of us. What with the new staff behind the counter, and the fact that the twosome kept adding to and changing their order, it was taking forever. When we heard the total of $48 for their order, I about laughed. It would have been mean - cuz I think that entire order was for the two of them. Obese doesn't begin to describe it.

Wait staff started work on their order then - and did NOT take our order. We walked out and went across the street to McDonalds. I warned Darryl about the fries (I can't eat McD fries - I will become sick). He ordered them anyway. Not even heatlamp warm - COLD and limp. Sigh. replaced them with fresh. Scarffed and got the heck out of dodge.

Asked dispatch for fuel. We've plenty to get home, but would be nice to fuel, anyway. They come back, "sure- auth 100 gal in Laramie". You have got to be kidding! that's 350 miles, round trip, out of our way. We let it ride.

200 miles to denver at 19:00. Figger we'll be home at .. say.. 22:30? right Hah! forgot those huge hills around Vail. Climbed ... and climbed... and climbed. At about 15mph. Rode down on the Jake at about 25. Passed Vail. and climbed.. (you get the image, right?)

Sent message to dispatch- want to fuel reefer in the morning. Will be in Denver then. No known Pilots between here and Denver on I-70. Could feel that sheepish look all the way through the Q-comm. Approved for denver Pilot.

Through the Eisenhower tunnel at about midnight. Really rough road for a mile or so. Smoothed out and we jaked it down to 470 where I geared up and hummed over to the yard. Yard is packed with trailers. Two open spots.. It took a couple back/fill but I got her put away and shut down at 12:59. No time left on my 11.

Went to crawl into my bunk for a few hours (my wife would pick me up after her shift - call it 07:00). Remember those rough roads up near the tunnel? Dumped my water bottle on my bunk. Normally not a problem, as I keep it closed. Jarring was so bad that it popped the lid. Can't sleep in the seats.. not gonna share a bunk with Darryl (I like him but not that much)

Headed into the terminal and watched TV for a couple hours (first tv I've watched since December. Finally shut down and got a couple hours.

Here I sit - Darryl's taking 5 days (been out for 6 weeks). Doing nothing until Thursday - and getting paid. Going back out with Darryl - I need work on my shifting. Finally have the pattern and all - but need to work on my timing. I'm not awful with a load on, but when you run light, empty, or bobbed, you have to slow down.. and I'm not good at that. yet.

Even so, I think we'll likely go west, come Thursday. I don't care - just as long as it stays cool.

 

hehe, yeah penington hole in the wall and then you got this huge factory here, its like where did these ppl come from.

i've done the macon thing too, but i have'nt made it to mn. yet still missing about 14 states.

you can write lurch, kept me interested. good job. you'll be solo in no time.

 

Okay....... now if someone teases me for writing too much in one post I am putting a link to this!

Actually, it was great............... thanks for taking the time to write it..... you gave a great picture of what it is like.......

The hiring thing was funny! And now that you were kind enough to share your "misunderstanding"....... I won't have to look like I am as clueless as a new GUY out there!!! (Just kidding.... kinda...)

I always have loved learning from OTHER people's mistakes...... makes me look smarter!!

Thanks again for the update.......... it was great........ and you actually made it through unscathed!!! Kuddo's to you!!

 

Drivefor5 - Where did you earn your CDL? May doesn't have a school but it sounds like you're out or have been out a long time. I'm down to a couple of cos and May is one of them but would like more info.

 

Lurchgs - YOu sound like yo've been out a long time also. Where did you get your CDL, May doesn't have a school? So how long is the training w/ a trainer if you bring a CDL with you? May is on my short list and I need to make a decision this week where to earn my CDL.