From School to Superior Carriers

5/10-5/13

Left Sunday afternoon around 2:30 after church and taking the family out to lunch for Mothers Day. It was a 3 compartment hazmat paint load that we pull up there loaded and come back empty. Its around 1500 miles round trip. This one was spotted on the yard for me so it wasn't one of the 24 hour turnarounds we normally do. Because of the unloading time always taking longer than 4 hours I had never made the trip in 2 sleeper berths. Since I wasn't rushed I decided to shoot for that this time. I ran 400 miles through the mountains and shut down Sunday night around 11:30 PM.

Left the next morning at 9:30AM, drove straight to the plant weighed and backed under the rack in Holland Mi about 4:30 PM. They were better than average getting me unloaded and I was on my way home around 9:00PM with about 3 hours to drive left on my 14. I shut down around 11:00 PM about 620 miles from home.

Got in last night at 9:45PM with 15 minutes to spare on my 11. I am glad I ran it this way rather than leaving Sunday night. Since I got in early enough they are putting me on another paint run leaving today delivering Friday around 3:00 AM. I will probably take my break at the plant on this one and come back Saturday morning depending on how early I can get on the road. This will be about a 3200 mile week with a night sleeping in my own bed halfway through.

Superior Carriers seems to be a lot busier at least along the route I drove. I counted 8 of our trucks as I drove home yesterday. Usually I see 2 or 3 at the most when I am on the road. Only one of our terminals trucks was on the yard when I got back and there were about 5 out of terminal drivers idling or hooked to trailers when I got there.

 

Nope. I felt kind of sorry for him.

 

5/13-5/16

Did the typical paint company waiting game on this one. I headed over to the plant around 17:00. This load I had to spot an empty. It was finally ready around 20:45 and I was on the road by 21:45 by the time I did the drop and hook 4 times to spot my empty in the hole where my load was. I drove to the first travel plaza on the WVa turnpike and shut down about 1:30 after fueling in Wytheville.

My load appointment wasn't until 2:00 AM the next day so I took a full 10 hour break and left around 11:45 the next morning. I usually take 8 in the sleeper and split break for a 2 hour lunch/shower halfway but I was on schedule to be early so I decided to make a couple of stops cutting into my 14. I knew it would be tight on my 11 since I didn't get as far down the road as I like.

Everything was going great until I got to I-94 in Michigan and saw they were detouring everyone into downtown Battle Creek. I only had about 30-40 minutes to spare over what I knew it would take to get to Holland. There were no detour signs and I found myself driving N on Mi 66. Fortunately the first time I ran this load to Holland a year ago I took a wrong turn on Mi 89 and wound up in downtown Battle Creek. I knew I could pick that road up and not lose much time back tracking to the interstate. I pulled into a Walgreens parking lot and checked out the laptop for a street name to get me to 89. I was just a few blocks from it and was able to get to the customer with 15 minutes to spare on my 11 hour clock.

They let me stay under the rack for 8 hours so I was able to make it to the truck stop by 9:00 the next morning for another 2 hour breakfast and a fresh 10:45 hours to drive. I got home Saturday around 14:00.

 

5/17-5/22

Took Sunday and Monday off and left Tuesday on a dry bulk run up to N Chicago and back. Pretty cut and dried though this run did require a 4:00 AM start time the second day to get to the customer by my appointment time. It was a straightforward run where we pull an empty up there, spot it in the garage where they load it and bring the empty back to P@G at Brown Summit NC. Nice thing about this run is they let us drop the trailer for delivery any time so its low stress. All we do is drop weigh it, print the weigh reciept and put the paperwork on the guys desk in the plant. No waiting around for lab samples or unloading, just drop the trailer and go.

I got back to the yard around 20:00 Thursday. I had asked for this weekend off and am getting a bonus honey-do-list day today. Will probably go out Monday or Tuesday. We get Holiday pay Monday anyway so it could be a long weekend.

When I got back to the Terminal there were 2 brand new trucks sitting on the yard. Looks like a couple of drivers are going to get a nice truck upgrade:

 

5/25-5/26

Had a great weekend off. Got a load Monday that was spotted over at Ashland in Greensboro. Had to go in there when the plant was closed for the holidays. The guard at the gate didn't want to let me in but with some level headed conversation I finally convinced her. The turning point seemed to be giving her the demurage copy of my travel order so she had some paperwork on the load to turn in.

This load delivered to Canton NC to a paper mill about 1 mile off I-40 at exit 31. Had no problem finding it. After scaling was another story. The scale guy told me to follow some railroad tracks and it would take me right to the unloading station. What he failed to say was that I was driving straddling the tracks. It looked like you were driving into a rail car unloading rack, I followed beside the wrong set and wound up around back. Once they sent someone to get me unloading only took a little over an hour. Customer air, customer 3 inch hose into tanks they let you blow all the air off the tank into.

I got home around 7:00 PM with around 400 miles and 2 l/ul payments.

I am preplanned on another Holland Michigan load that delivers at 13:00 Thursday. This one isn't a dedicated so I am subject to dispatch out of Markham afterwards. Worse case is they send me home empty with about a 2,000 mile week for working 4 days.

The load is sitting on the yard waiting for me. I plan to get a reset in, head out early in the morning and run 11 to get as close as I can. That way if they send me home I can still make it Friday night and if they want to send me out longer I will have plenty of hours to run.

 

5/27-5/28
Walked into the terminal and got surprised with a Hazmat test for my HM126F cretification card. I made an 86 on the test. All I had were the regulations and the questions were not directed to them. I remembered most of it but still would like to have been able to study a little before taking a written test. Showed me that I need to read up on the regulations on a regular basis.


Had a nice drive 550 mile in and out of thunderstorms. Shut down about 200 miles from the plant. I am sitting in the truck getting unloaded as I type this. Tankwash is for home so I should be able to run another 2-300 miles today and make it home for the weekend.

I have mixed feelings about it. I have a fresh 70 and was ready to run through the weekend. Can't complain though. Home time is always good and this will still be about a $900 gross week with the run I got Monday. More if they send me out Sunday. Maybe they have something to the west coast in the next couple of weeks.

 

5/31

This week is starting a little slow. I have a run I did with my trainer. Its out and back loading in Charleston WVa delivering in Brown Summit NC Tuesday at 6:00 AM.

That means a 5:00 AM start 2 days in a row which is really 4:00 AM since I live an hour away from the terminal. I asked my travel agent for something heading to the west coast. He seemed to think we might get a few of those in the next couple of weeks. I will probably get another Holland or N Chicago the end of this week. Makes for lots of home time so I can't complain.

 

6/1-6/5

Wow did I really type that this week was slow. I got one of the N Chicago runs like I expected. The fact that it turned as fast as it did was a bit of a surprise. I delivered the load I picked up Monday at P&G at 6:00 AM Tuesday and immediately headed out with an empty dry bulk tank to load at noon Wed in N Chicago. Did the turn and dropped it over at P&G Thursday night. I logged 48 hours and around 2100 miles those 4 days.

I am now at home getting a 34 hour restart in because I have a load from Greensboro NC to San Bernadino Ca that delivers Wed 6/10. I plan to head out with it Saturday morning.

Be careful out there. I experienced a butt pucker factor of around 8.5 yesterday coming through the mountains on I-77. I was between the two tunnels in Virginia when a rain storm blew up. It was raining pretty hard, I was loaded at around 44K and was coming down a medium size hill. Cars had pulled over on the shoulder to wait it out. I could still see pretty well so I kept a good following distance on the car in front of me and stayed in the granny lane running about 45mph. Another truck decides I am going two slow and runs up beside me. He couldn't get all the way past me because of a couple of 4 wheelers.

About then a burst of rain hit that was so hard I couldn't see past the end of the hood. I got on the brakes since I couldn't see the car in front of me while screaming brake check on the CB. The truck beside me did the same thing. We got down to 15 mph going down that hill. Fortunately the real hard rain only lasted about 10 seconds. Its unnerving to know there is a car in front of you that you can't see even for that short of a time.