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

Only flash I ever received was from a guy, wearing a bra, fondling his right moob.

I get PTSD attacks every time I drive on that section of I64 now.

 

Never been flashed. Six years and still waiting.

 

Wow, from flashing to being flashed. Is this thread going X rated? LOL

As for flashing, I flash, wave and call out to every one of our trucks. Probably half of those that actually see me (we seem to fair amount of drones just staring out the windshield), will wave back. The ones that see me and don't? Screw em. Almost nobody answers the call out because only a few have a CB. That still boggles my mind.

As for being flashed, a few times now and of them, a couple I really wish I could forget. .... LOL

 

Went home for my 10 on Tuesday to see my honey, do some luandry and shower. I had 20 hours left and no recap in sight. Asked my DM Wednesday morning if they'd run me or should I reset. A couple minutes later he said take a HP load to Jacksonville to swap. Ok. Left about noon. On the way it got switched to swapping in Savannah. Ok. That went well.

Then I get an aluminum load in Goose Creek SC to deliver in Blacksburg for Friday at midnight?? Asked if I could drop in Wytheville but nope. Got the delivery changed to noon today but still a lot of sitting. Hit a rest area yesterday at about 5pm on 81N 15 miles from it with 6 hours left.

Now I have recap hours coming back at midnight and home time in Richmond starting on the 30th. Can anyone guess what I'll likely be doing from now to then? LOL

Really wish they had let me reset.

 

My friend and I got into a discussion about recaps and resets. I know it's a decisive topic like liberal or conservative to truckers. I'd just rather have my full 70 back. I'm not one to drive 5 hours one day, 3 the next, 8 the next, etc., just to keep going without a day off. Even if you could do 8 everyday, if you suddenly had to do 10, but couldn't, everything is messed up. It's like only having 5 bucks for the day, but access to your week's lunch money; and the pizza is 7. There goes your lunch allowance.

I don't get how dispatch could be so obtuse on the matter. 5 hours maybe a shortie to them, but it's less revenue for the driver. I would put it that way, and tell them to call in 34 hours with a worthy load.

 

Agreed. Recap is ok if and when the loads allow it but, it's still gonna mess up everything else about a driver's schedule. You know, the little things like sleep and stuff ... lol

Not for me. Give me 70, burn it up, give me 70. In the long run, it's far more productive for everyone. Company and driver.

 

Welp, my trip to the northeast has gone about like I figured.

My 10-hour reset ended at 4:18am yesterday, at which point I started my day. I had already done my pretrip, but I had to flag it on the QC for five minutes so it would show up on the graph. Rolled out of the yard at 4:23am.

After a conversation with 460/580, rolled up 301 instead of 95. Added 45 minutes to the drive time, but Google Maps indicated that going the other way would've added 2 hours and change.

460/580 told me that once I hit Baltimore, the traffic would be okay up until New York, and that turned out to be an accurate prediction.

BUT THEN:

There was a stalled military convoy vehicle on the GW Bridge. So that slowed traffic to even more of a crawl than usual. Took me about 30 minutes to reach the toll booths and another 20 to actually make it through them into clear traffic.

Long story short, the load I had to have delivered by noon wasn't going to get there until 2:30pm at the earliest. I spent most of the morning trying and failing to get a real human being at the receiver on the phone. Eventually I got someone at the shipper on the phone, and he called the receiver. And it turned out that the receiver stopped receiving at 2:00pm. So could I instead have the load at the receiver in the morning at 7:00am?

So I enjoyed a nice, leisurely evening at the TA in Waterbury, bumped the dock at 7:00am this morning on schedule, and am now here in Springfield, MA, getting loaded with recycled tires to drop at the Wytheville yard. And currently plotting my escape trajectory from this cramped yard and these tight little industrial streets. My GPS wants me to make a right turn up the street, but I don't think that's a good idea given how small the intersection is.

 

As someone who has probably been crying the most about running recap, I have to come clean and say I have just gotten my biggest ever paycheck here...hell, anywhere I have ever worked. Granted there was an inordinate amount of detention and NE miles on there plus the Canada stipend, but the numbers don't lie.

I still don't like running recap as it just makes me feel lazy or that I am not working as hard as I would like to, but my fear of recap affecting my pay hasn't borne true.

As I've mentioned before, miles/money won't be the impetus to leave Abilene if I ever do. I don't care how many people scoff when they hear 37 CPM, it certainly adds up in the end.

 

Actually, what bothers me most about running recap is having to wait until midnight for hours and then having to run all night. Now don't get me wrong, I actually prefer running at night. But I have been screaming for new headlights in this Volvo since the day I got in it a year ago and they keep refusing.

Well, that all came to a head yesterday when I refused to run a Gatorade load to Indy because of it. So now I'm dragging a slightly overweight Gatorade load to the Richmond yard. I have no idea what will happen when I get there. I only hope I don't have a ticket in hand when I do. Yes, the one and only VA scale is open st 3am Saturday morning. Go figure, eh?

 

There's a scale between Wytheville and Richmond?