An Easterner (ME) headed West (WA) - to live.

LoL...by the looks of your avatar, I think you died a horrible death a long time ago.

 

LoL! You are the only one here that got that. You must be a Quintet player.

 

@KillingTime, I don't have specifics on what companies to look for. I grew up in the Seattle area, living there for most of my first sixty years. Summers often featured working my uncle's dairy farm just north of Spokane as a boy, bucking hay bales. The Spokane area is beautiful.

For home every night jobs I would look into grain hauling (there is winter wheat harvest in the Spring and summer wheat in the Fall), milk tanker, wood chip or lumber, gasoline or diesel delivery, or the Sysco type of "stay on pavement" jobs. There very well might be some shuttles running between Spokane and Seattle, I witnessed a few trailer swaps in Cle Elum on I-90.

Fuggedabout the political comments. These come from folks that are completely unaware of Washington politics. The Cascade Mountains form a political divide. Actually that divide is pretty much Seattle versus the rest of the state. Kudos to you sir, for not taking that chaotic topic into account. It really has nothing at all to do with the basics of deciding on where to locate for a job.

For less expensive living out of Spokane, look west or north. South started getting built up with McMansions a while ago. Cour de Lane is premium real estate. West and you start running out of pine trees quickly, getting into the open plains of The Palouse (wheat farming land). North and you are in rolling hills, streams, and pine forest.

 

Jesus guys, you're killing me.
Lol.[/QUOTE]
Well, you may not like me for this, then.
I drove for James J. Williams, albeit briefly, in 1993 (briefly because I had an incident with some faulty equipment that nearlu cost me my life. Suffice to say, JJ Williams ended up suing a tanker repair company for less than quality repairs to the plastic fittings on my trailer.) I hauled mostly industrial grade bleach, but also handled methanol, aqua ammonia, fluoride, and a couple others I can't remember. Back then, the company had two divisions, the eastside being JJ Williams, run by the dad, and the west side (where I worked) being known as Transchem/BJ West, which was run by his son. I was a rookie, fresh out of school only a few months before. Their training was practically nonexistent back then. It consisted of mostly of something like this, when they sent me for a load of methanol by myself, never having hauled it before:
"Don't forget to put your ground bucket down. Oh, and you'll know you're on fire when your skin starts turning black! Yuk-yuk-yuk..."
Now, there's only one company now, and they appear to run much better equipment now, but as @flyby1971 said, just be cautious if you apply. They may be the place to be now, just do your research.

 

I know people who run from there, it's not a bad gig. Merely throwing the option out there, do with it what you will.

I think you're foolish to throw regional out the window. Yes, some of it sucks, but if you choose to live somewhere where you're not on top of a daily gig, it can work out quite nicely. I'll trade commuting every day (because I'm not living in anything bigger than a small town, no suburbia for me for a 5 day a week deal where I'm home every weekend. Those jobs aren't always easy to find, but they're there. Of course, I haven't run general freight in a lot of years, either. I'll tell you like I tell everyone: if you're making trucking a career, find a niche. Too many trucking jobs are largely commoditized, as far as drivers go, and there's little to no satisfaction working under those conditions.

And trust me, if I wanted to be insulting, you'd know it!

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that in this area most of the good jobs at the smaller carriers are already taken. The only reason I got my old job back when I sold my truck was because he was putting another truck on the road.

 

I'll vouch for that.

 

I think we can all agree that you should do your investigation on JJ Williams. Just be known that we have heard alot of pro's and con's about them.
Wa state has a serious political divide, Basicly the Cascades is the boundry. So keep that in mind IF it is an issue for you. There is talk ( haven't heard how serious, Mostly yammering about the previous election) about splitting the state in two.
Id. not so much of a political divide as a "send your money down south and forget about it" type situation going on.
Keep the questions coming.