Good Night From II

Usually its my blue line though once the red thankfully in a shippers yard. One of the other guys had both pull out going across a busy street to our drop yard. I'll see what the Volvo dealer has to say tomorrow. Whatever they say I'll pass to the planners because my DM is a complete idiot. That feeling is universal in our little intermodel fleet here.

 

Chambersburg PA on my 34. My load is sitting ready at Church & Dwight in York, so I will be hitting the road around 0430. Load is headed for Florida, but I'm going to T-call it in Greer to turn in this 2013 Volvo. I have no idea what they have in Greer; they had a load of Kenworths a couple of months ago, and rumor was that Swift was getting a bunch of Cascadias this past week.

 

let us know if you get a brand new truck. maybe you can be the one who has the first pic on here with the fancy camera in it. lol

 

When I did mentor orientation in Greer last summer all the trucks for assignment were brand new '15 T680's. Hopefully you will be able to snag one of those. I was hoping at the time for a Cascadia, as that was pretty much all I had driven since starting at Swift (other than a couple of older KW's that O/O's were giving up on), but I'm really impressed with the T680. Easy to drive, good turning radius, very stable in icy conditions, quiet, more comfortable seat, and lots of room inside. It's a good team truck.

 

jv terminal. done 3 trips(walking)around the yard looking for empties with no luck. walked up to dispatch window, called dm dm's number(someone else answerewd), walked up to see my dl in person, and then sent a message over qc. all asking for an mt and all i get is will let planners know. had 4.5 hrs left when i first asked. now i'm done looking for tonite. they can figure out the mt situation tomorrow and figure out the lateness of the load.

 

i dont get enough hours when i just do one trip. so i always ask for another local. which always get tcalled here. is the reason i dont have an empty.

 

Loves Kankakee IL. Got up late this morning (06:45), convinced I was going to take the day off doing a 34. On the way into the TA for brekkie and shower got a pplan notice on phone. Glanced at it and kept heading forward. Showered and ate when another phone notice hit. Got back to Cassie, had 15 messages. They took that first pplan off. Had two more. In between the last two, the planner had sent me three messages. First, this is a hot load for p/u and del please complete asap. Second, are you going to accept the load or not (I probably had a head full of shampoo when he sent that one)
Third, if you take the first load you can have the second as a package. LOL, lessons learned file, sometimes it pays to not answer quickly.

Anywho, first load was a tcalled p/u at Gary, l/u deliver 95 miles in Lafayette. Ugh. Second was preloaded p/u Joliet 527 miles l/u north Mississippi. Not great but it works.

Day was going well until the guard shack called Greer when I was 40 plus miles out to explain they didn't return my dl. BIG UGH. So instead of getting under next, and then making it here to fuel, just came str8 here, fueled and shut down for night.

 

You will get a 16 Cascadia and the Meritor Wabco on guard system sucks just traded my 13 Volvo yesterday for the carptastic Freightliner and I found out during this heavy rain going up I 75 that my windshield leaks. Oh also they all automatics which I don't mind I like automatics......no camera in mine but the wal Mart dedicated trucks had the cameras in them

 

Updating myself.

The mechanic got back with a new part, but not exactly the same. The hose is about 18" longer.
But it works, just the same. He just wanted to get me running, and he did.
The next time the truck is in the shop I will give them the old hose to match it correctly, if they even want to.

Total time involved pulling in to the truck stop and having the line rupture as I was backing in to get a bite to eat.
I went off duty, then went in and got MacD's and brought it to the truck to eat while I called on-road.
They called Ryder, who said they would get there in 2 hours. They got there a lot sooner.
He pulled out the hose and went back to the shop, got back and installed it.

I was off-duty for 2 hours and 6 minutes, and I was back rolling.
I was 45 minutes late for delivery, but got right in. I was unloaded in less than an hour.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better day.

Now, if only I can snag a load up to MN for my home time... But so far no pplans and nothing on Mac 30.

 

Taking a breather at a FlyJ in Belgrade MT on I-90.

After spending most of Tuesday sitting waiting on a load one finally came from a planner. Mac30 never had an offer. I'm finding over the last few months that Mac30 is really going downhill. Most often will only have one offer that sucks or nothing. Used to be you could always find a diamond. Now pretty much coal.

The load offer was a 400 mile D/H west to Superior MT for a live load Wed morning with a live unload Friday afternoon in Wichita KS. Good miles and gets me closer to Houston for hometime but won't get there Saturday. No weight given so you know what that means. After accepting waited another 3hrs for a trailer solution and was sent to the drop yard in Billings. I almost went there myself to look when I accepted but the last time I was in Billings all that was there was junk. The guy who got the repower on my load Saturday was bobtail cuz he said the trailers there were junk. When I went in though got lucky and found a solid 13-series and got the heck out of Billings.

30 miles from Bozeman the wind went berserk and I was seriously concerned about getting blown over with that empty behind me. Slowed way down and kept going. 15 miles from Bozeman the wind eased a bit and as I entered a mountain pass ran slam into a wall of heavy wet snow and freezing rain. I saw the snow on radar before I left but it didn't look this bad!! Couldn't see squat and trucks were bailing at every exit. Made it into the FlyJ as things turned to blizzard like. We'll see how it looks in the morning.