Instant O/O and Load boards

thanks guys!

Well I got up this morning and unloaded. I actually had to get INTO the hopper this time and shovel it down... man I was WASTED. I guess I'm going to get into some kind of shape soon my arms felt like they were going to fall off. And ammonium sulfate poured into my Nike's and it was a couple hours before I could change shoes and socks, so the moisture had melted the ammonia and my socks smelled like urine! Ick. Another pair of socks in the garbage. Luckily I just brought two new packs of socks with me, the bad news is those were new and worn for 2 hours lol.

Found a shop and got my muffler and stack replaced. Run down beaten up shop in the middle of nowhere, had a muffler in the shed and gave me a used stack with a blue clamp around it. Nothing matches and it's ugly but I'm patched up and it was $232 for the job. About half what a new peterbilt ordered muffler and installation would be.

On the way to the shop I got pulled over by DOT for the first time! Nice guy in the end, said I didn't do anything wrong but he ran my DOT number and I didn't have UCR??? Apparently it stands for Universal carrier registration and it is a federal requirement for vehicles over 10k weight that travel interstate. I don't remember anything about this in the "So you want..." thread, and no one ever pointed it out. Anyway he let me go with a warning (written), didn't even ask for my log book (a good thing), and said he was sure I had a current tractor inspection somewhere in my cab (wink), which I guess I don't. He took pity on me, obviously I was new.
UCR was $39 and I did it online while they installed my muffler. Couple extra bucks for using a credit/debit card.

Then I had to find a trailer wash, passed my turns twice putting me OOR on a prayer again, passed the place itself once too. Turns out it's just a truck with a pressure sprayer at the Citgo, so there was really nothing to see from the road.

Ok from there I did my deadhead (70 miles) from Dothan, AL to Cuthbert, GA where I am now. I again really enjoyed driving empty and that trip went well and relaxing. Now I get here and they tell me my load is scheduled for tomorrow even though they are open 24/7... pretty strict about it, but said I could start loading at midnight. I guess that's good but there's about 5 more trucks in this waiting area ahead of me. So I guess I have to try to sleep for a few hours here and do something with my logs if I'm going to be able to drive it. I've only driven for about 2 hours today as it is.

So here's hoping I can sleep. Load delivers in Columbia SC and I'd like to knock it out in the morning. But this time I'm taking the big half circle on the main highways at night and loaded!

 

3dogsnacat I did jot down the odom reading when entering SC, then GA, then AL. I'm not organized yet but the info is around here somewhere.

Also, is it normal to be trucking for a week and never seeing a scale?? Haven't done this yet. There was one on I-20 but it was closed.

Everywhere I've been (ok, 2 places) though has had scales and verified leaving and coming to make sure they got what they paid for.

 

Oh Wayne, where I'm at there are 0 bars on my cell signal so I'm in a dead zone. Also the phone is saying "Emergency calls only" too. It did this once before and I had to replace the phone. I hope it's just the lack of signal this time. This phone has taken a couple leaps out the cab bouncing down the steps the last couple of days.

 

Nice! We'll be watching with great interest, keep us informed. You should get the fuel mileage I was looking for with that century hopefully. Yeah the lease-on's require as much as a job application does because they have to insure you so they all want experience. I ran into that too.

You can still pull for any of them with your own authority though, just click the "motor carrier" links at the websites, Schneider, werner, Landstar, any of them, or you can use boards if they start paying anything. Best of luck to you too.

 

A picture says 1,000 words... my day: