Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Beware anyone or anything with "classy" in the description.

 

I'll wager a fiver on the notion that the Customs paperwork person at Hewlitt Packard moonlights in Traffic over at Hill Phoenix.

 

Tuesday morning came in and got a nice easy run to bethel pa. It was short but was happy because the last 3 trips had been manhattan manhattan and a suburb just ne of nyc.

However.....got a call and had to swap loads with 1 driver in pa, then swap with another driver in nj, to then take his load to brooklyn. Dispatch wanted us to all swap at same time and place, but that wasnt gonna work so i just made it happen.

It was extra annoying because BOTH other drivers told me they dont do nyc. So much for that all points within the usa. Very few people like going to brooklyn, but i go when im told because thats my job. But i really hate when i have to do other peoples work because they just dont want to.

O well. Got a nice run to groveport this afternoon.

 

Now I know who to call next time I get that 4am to Brooklyn.

 

39 years ago, when I first started in this business, my second load ever in a big truck was picking up at 24 Rock St. after all these years, I'm still going there. I wonder if I told Kimberley I don't do Brooklyn, what her response would be. That sign on the wall next to dispatch? Must be for some, because it sure isn't for all.

 

I'm sitting at the TA in Wilsonville Oregon. Got my 5th and final stop off at 7am after driving 495 miles over night. I have 24 minutes left on my 70, but start good recapping at midnight. For now, bedtime.

 

If I owned the company and a driver dictated to me where he/she would or wouldn't go after being hired, I would promptly route them back to Richmond and say clean out your truck.

 

There's that driver shortage, dontcha know?

But I'm with you guys. I go where they ask me to go. I'm dreading the day they ask me to drive to Brooklyn, because I go where they ask me to go, and if they ask me to go to Brooklyn, then I go to Brooklyn.

Currently, I am driving a load of some kind of black rubber safety equipment, like for speed bumps in parking lots and such. And it's wet. So it weighs more than the 44,800 listed on the BOL. There was a plant a half-mile from where I got loaded that let me use their scales. I just checked the gross. Came in at 79,780. And that was with the fuel gage about halfway between 1/4 tank and 1/2 tank.

I just pulled in to a Pilot to use their CAT scale for a more accurate reading. But I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to spend most of this trip (going to San Antonio) riding the fuel gage.

 

@ExtremeUnction -live and learn. If you know the load is going to be heavy, or even suspect that it is, go in fully fueled.