From School to Superior Carriers

Good luck to you!

 

3/6-3/8

Today was uneventful for the most part other than traffic was terrible between Houston and Baton Rouge. I even got to exit right before the back up for the bridge over the big muddy. I averaged a whopping 52 MPH today with all the wrecks and construction.

Fortunately I left 1.5 hours earlier than I thought I needed to. Made it to the truck stop to weigh light 15 minutes early. Unloading took about 4.5 hours. That was cool since it was after rush hour and I was able to cruise right over the bridge no problem. I could see I- 10 from the hole they had me backed into. Only problem was it was dark and I had never been to the truck wash I was qualcommed to.

I chose to exit at the bridge and drive La 30 to our terminal rather than fight I-10 traffic. That proved to be an excellent move except for 2 idiot 4 wheelers. One car was pushing another. This was through through the LSU campus. I was taking it easy and they actually passed me right before the road went to 2 lanes. They would speed up to 45 MPH then slow to about 5 so the push car could engage again. I just backed way off. Pretty soon cars started to pass me and soon realized I wasn't the major problem when they had to slam on brakes behind those idiots. After about 10 miles of this nonsense they turned off.

I thought I had driven past the truck wash so I pulled into this parking lot to turn around. I checked my mapping program for the address and walked over to the building to see what the address was so I would know which way to turn. LOL it was exactly where I needed to be. I was in the 4 wheeler lot for the tank wash. I dropped my trailer, bobtailed to the terminal and turned in my paperwork.

I am now at the company hotel. I will load Sunday morning headed to a plant 20 miles from my home terminal that delivers Tuesday at 8:00 AM. I went to this little joint with my trainer. He had to back the truck in. Its a nasty little blindside into a tote canyon. Should ba a good challenge. I am looking forward to some home time. I have also put in for some vacation time the end of March. Now that I have been with Superior for a year I have 2 weeks of paid vacation.

 

3/8-3/11

Got up Sunday morning, ate a free breakfast at the hotel and bobtailed on down to the terminal to hook up to my trailer. I had checked the trailer Friday before heading to the hotel in case it needed something so I didn't have to look for it and got backed under it with plenty of time. I got my logs in order, travel order filled out, then made sure I had enough hoses. One of my hoses had caps on the ends and might be dirty so I threw another one on there.

It started to rain right about the time I needed to work outside the truck. I saw a flash of light and half the lights went out in the parking lot. I figured it was a thunderstorm and thought nothing of it. Once I finished my pretrip I pulled around to the gate, inched up to it closer and closer....nothing. I backed up took a different angle to the gate but it still wouldn't open. There was another driver there from the home terminal and after talking to him I called the terminal manager at the emergency number.

I had given mysely 45 minutes to drive 6 miles expecting to be early for my appointment. I have never been to this plant before and they all have safety videos you have to watch thattakes about 30 minutes. The gate has a keypad on the other side but I am not about to climb an 8 foot fence with barbed wire on top. Thats a little beyond the call of duty. The supervisor got there about 30 minutes later, punched in the keypad code and still nothing.

She called the shop forman who told us about a lever on the front of the gate motor that releases the chain from the motor. Thats good information to have since I bet most gate systems have a similar release. This one was hidden up underneath on the front of the unit. It allowed us to push the gate open and I was off to load for home.

I got to the plant about 30 minutes late through no fault of mine. That proved to be a costly mistake. This rack loads every hour and they had trucks scheduled up until 1300. Since I was late they pushed me to the back of the line and made me sit at the gate for 6 hours. They also made me wear my fire retardant nomex suit the whole time. It was about then that I discovered that my air conditioning wasn't working too well. Finally got loaded and made it to our terminal in Axis Alabama before running out of hours. I was still close enough to make it home the next day since I didn't deliver until 8:00 Tuesday and this customer is only about 20 miles from my home terminal.

Mother nature had another idea. I woke up about 3 AM with a stomach ache and diarrhea. I went back to bed and finally left about 9:30 AM the next morning. I am pretty sure I was running a fever since it was 80+ degrees in the cab yet I had cold chills. I drove 2 hours rest area to rest area then took a 30 minute nap. I decided to get around the Atlanta loop, shut down, get some sleep and hope this was a 24 hour food related sickness. I hardly ate anything for about 24 hours. It took me 2 hours to get a pack of crackers down. I shut down right at the Georgia SC line and went to bed about 6:00 PM about 180 miles away from my delivery point.

I got up the next morning feeling a little better. At least I wasn't a drowsy. I made it to the customer about 45 minutes early and was delighted to learn that it was a customer unload and I wouldn't need to throw 3 inch hoses around. I still had diarrhea but food wasn't quite a repulsive as it had been the day before and after a couple of breakfast bars I began to feel better. Got unloaded and back to the terminal by 11:00. I am off at least until Friday. I considered taking the whole weekend and they would have been fine with that but I am taking a vacation week the end of March and would just as soon run some miles until then. Checks have been good. I have had 4 straight weeks of 1200 plus.

 

3/15-3/17

Had a great few days at home Tuesday afternoon through Saturday. Got over my sickness the day after I got home. Must have been some kind of virus going around because my wife has had identical symptoms the last couple of days.

Got a system load to start this week heading to Albany Ga delivering Monday at 8:00 AM. The load was spotted at a plant in Greensboro. Not a bad way to start the week about 500 miles. Dispatch told me I would probably be dropping the tank at the customer. The load required a kosher wash ticket so I assumed I wouldn't have to unload it. Most places that care about such things don't leave fitting and hose cleanliness to chance and have their own equipment.

I headed over to the yard around 8:30 Sunday morning. Truck wouldn't start. I got out my jumper cables and jumped it off my pick up truck for about an hour...still no go. Called the shop guys and they came out and put 3 brand new batteries in my box so I was good to go only about 2.5 hours behind schedule.

Got my load with only the normal amount of hassle. It was a hazmat load and I had to placard it in the rain. I noticed there were no hoses on it. Normally when I venture out into the system I take a standard set of hoses even if the load doesn't call for it. Travel orders can be wrong and someone else may get that trailer in the future and need them. I would have had to stop by the terminal which meant running bus 85 and would have cost me 30 minutes or so. I was worried about getting to the customer on time and decided not to grab hoses. That proved to be a mistake.

The rest of Sunday went without a hitch. I shut down at the 121 on I-75 at an old school truck stop around 9:00PM. It had a pretty good restaurant and was about 65 miles from the customer.

I left the next morning around 7:00 AM and arrived at the customer by 8:15. I drove by it twice because they had no signs anywhere. After calling a guy came out and flagged me down. I pulled into the drive and immediately knew this place was going to be a problem. They had a guy with 2 3,200 gallon plastic tanks on a trailer back there setting up the tank I was to unload into. Once this guy got out of the way I pullen in and tried to do a 3 point maneuver to get the rear of the trailer close to the tank they had just set up. It was just too tight so I backed it back out. Backed out into the road and turned around to back off the street to the gate.

Once I got the rear of the trailer lined up to back into the gate I got out to talk to the guys about where I needed to put the trailer. It was then that they told me I needed my own hoses and that I was unloading it with their help. We were to air it from the trailer to the top of this 15 foot tank. Someone had to hold the hose on top of the tank. Did I mention this was a corrosive acid hazmat load. I told him no way was I holding a hose on top of that tank. I called dispatch about hoses and they had some kosher cleaned in Atlanta and another driver was to bring them to me in a pick up truck. By then it was 10:00. Dispatch told me it would probably be about 2:00 so I settled into the sleeper and watched a little TV. Got another call about 1:30 saying it would be later than 2. Got another call about 3:30 with a phone number for the driver. The driver called about 5:30 saying he was on his way. Finally got 60 feet of hoses about 8:30 that night.

I got them all layed out and realized that I needed 80 feet. I had the plant guys move some junk with the fork lift and backed all the way into the gate. I then shortened up a few times until I could turn my tractor to the right and move the tank 20 feet closer. I knew it would be hell to get out of but decided to cross that bridge when I came too it.

We were just able to get the hoses to reach by laying them across empty totes, tying the hose to a ladder and tying it to the top of the tank. The plant guys did all that and I made sure to get my paperwork signed after adding a couple of sentences to the release about customer responsibility for any spill. It amazes me that they require a kosher washout of everything but my fittings are OK comming out of a side box thats pretty dirty. These fittings were washed out on the floor of some tank wash and they never get 100% clean. Mine were still slimey on the outside from the WWT Polymer from my last load.

I opened the valve real slow and everything held. We were unloaded within 45 minutes. I packed up and started jacking the truck around to get back out. I finally got it to the point that I could get the nose out the gate. I couldnt get underneath the trailer enough to get the front edge to clear though. After jacking back and forth a few times with the fence post between my stacks and the tires I decided it just wasn't going to make it. I backed up as far as I could into the fence, dropped my trailer then pulled the tractor out of the gate. I then had them move the front of my trailer over 5 feet with their fork lift. I was then able to hook up to it and be on my way. Fortunately I am the only driver who will ever experience this load as they are building a road around the plant with a spot to unload. Its supposed to be ready by the end of the week.

I had logged enough sleeper berth to get out of there so I headed back to the old school truck stop and shut down about midnight. They had tank washed me home but that got changed up today. I am sitting at the Atlanta Terminal with a load going back to Greensboro picking up at 7:00 AM Wed 3/17. I picked up 12 hours of accessorial pay yesterday so that helps make up for a 130 mile day