My life at Millis

That is not even close to typical, don't let it scare you away. 5-7 weeks is what you can expect depending on your trainer.

 

I should restate my previous post. Most students, from what I've been hearing from other drivers, typically have their miles completed around 6-7 weeks. You'll still have to get your hard copy of your license, and then test out with an instructor. That can add another week. I was with my trainer for 8 weeks, to the day. 15k miles is what's required, I ended up with 17,500 by the time I tested out. If you feel that you need more time in the truck before you test, they'll allow for it. Also, if you don't pass your CDL test the first time around (like me), that will obviously add to your time. Just remember, as your going through your time with your trainer, keep your eye on the prize. It's very easy and very common to feel both discouraged and frustrated during this time. But man, once you step into your own truck for the first time, it's all worth it. You can't imagine how free you'll feel.

 

Yup, he's with Millis.

 

Tomorrow should prove to be an interesting day. I got a beer load this morning heading to New York. I like the challenge of tightly scheduled loads, because I enjoy the challenge. But holy cow, this one is super tight. If you are a student, file this story away in your memory bank, because I guarantee you that you'll need to do this some day. When I got my load assigned to me, I was at the terminal. The beer load was at the drop yard. Instead of waiting till I hooked up to the load trailer, I got my GPS set up at the terminal. According to the GPS I had a 2 hour buffer. By the time I dropped my empty, hooked up to the load, hunted for the bill of lading, went BACK to the terminal to fuel up and go over the scale, I was down to one hour. Add a very quick coffee stop, and a quick bathroom stop, I'm down to a half hour. When I got to the point where I had to take a 30 minutes break, I had to just park for the night. If I had taken a 30 and kept going, the load is guaranteed to be late. If I stay here and take a 10 hour break, I still have that 30 minute buffer. And, it's a guarantee that I'll need at least one stop because I have 300 miles to go. So, hopefully nothing unexpected goes wrong. Once I reach the final, I'll have around 5.5 hours left for the day. Hopefully my next load will come fast when I let dispatch know I'm unloaded, and hopefully it isn't too far away. New York is woefully lacking in places to park, just like Florida. I'd like to sail out of that state as soon as possible. Fingers crossed. Talk to y'all tomorrow. Time for a shower and some shut-eye.

 

It's been a rough couple days. I woke up early yesterday morning, and almost immediately threw up. Not sure what the deal was (bad gas station food maybe?). I ended up being an hour late to my delivery as a result. Awesome. Got unloaded, and headed to my next pickup. Not only was the load not ready, it took the shipping manager 30 minutes to tell me. Unbelievable. So I got assigned a Budweiser load heading to Ohio. As a side note, there was a storm rolling in that was supposed to drop up to 30 inches of snow where I was. And now I'm about to head right through it. I got parked about 40 miles west of the Budweiser plant, so it seemed that I was about to get buried. I woke up this morning and got moving around 2:30. It had snowed a little, but the major snow hadn't come yet. I jumped on 90 and headed west. The roads were pretty bad, I was averaging about 50. I was expecting worse. As I continued on, it gradually got a little worse. The visibility was decreasing, and my speed slowed a little. Then came Pennsylvania, much of the same. Then, about 5 miles before the Ohio line, whiteout conditions. I never would've guessed it would be worse there than in New York. All told, it took 6.5 hours to go 300 miles, which is ridiculous. And I made it through just in time. A ban was posted for semis on 90 shortly after I hit 271. When I got to my final, I messaged Opie and let him know that I wanted to get off the road when I was unloaded. He agreed to it, so I headed to my home truck stop for the night. So now I'm sitting across the street at one of my favorite local places enjoying a well-earned beer, happy to be of the road. Until tomorrow, peace y'all. And cheers!

 

When I parked last night Opie indicated that he didn't have any loads in mind for today, which means that he'd have to wait until freight was released this morning. That also meant sleep. Oh, glorious sleep. Man did that feel good. He gave me a load heading to Georgia. Can I get a Hallelujah! I am quite familiar with the shipper, this is typically where I get sent after coming back from home time. Nice 700 mile run. Something weird happened to me, please feel free to chime in if it's happened to you, I'm a little befuddled. I went to drop my empty trailer and made a discovery. When I went to fold up the tails, I noticed a load seal on the latch. I had to do a double-take. My trailer is empty, what's the seal doing there? I didn't put it there. I broke the seal and opened the trailer. Yup, still empty. Was it the work of overzealous security at the truck stop marking my truck? Or some random bored trucker? No idea, but that was odd. Has that happened to anyone else here? I stopped in Lexington Kentucky for the night. So much nicer here than Ohio, weather-wise. Beautiful, sunny, calm wind. Looking forward to the warm temps in Georgia. C'mon Spring, hurry up already. Hope you all had a good day out there in Truckerland. Catch y'all tomorrow.