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

Don't ya just love it!?!? At least it happened at home and not on the road!

 

That used to happen frequently with my current company. After lots of listening to me, ummm, fuss about it, it doesn't happen hardly at all anymore.

 

Just passed my one-year anniversary as a solo driver a few days ago. I got in this truck Oct. 7 of last year. Been a heck of a year.

And for my anniversary present, I get to tackle Battery Dantzler for the first time ever. I am powerful excited.

 

Dantzler's not to bad,if all the doors are full it can get tight.

 

Last time I had to put it in a dock there I struggled so much that I swore I wouldn't never go through that again. I would rather bring it the whopping 3 miles to the yard and leave it for a day cab or yard jockey than damage the truck or trailer.

 

Congratulations on passing the 1 year milestone. Always hear of the many new drivers that don't make it even 6 months.

Also hear people say to get a year in then move on to better, but browsing through the various company threads I'm not seeing better when it comes to general freight OTR. I can easily envision hitting the 2, 3 or 5 year mark here unless personal circumstances change and I need to be home weekly or daily.

 

Heck, some of @JohnBoy 's trainees don't even make two weeks!

Battery Dantzler was every bit as obnoxious as I'd been led to believe. The docks were empty, and it still took me 30 minutes and a fair amount of going off-road to get the trailer square in the dock. I can only imagine what a pain in the keister it is to try and bump a dock there between two other trailers on either side.

Currently sitting on the yard. They had me hump a reefer back here from Sabra, but they didn't leave me on it. Don't imagine they're gonna throw anything else at me tonight.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't expect anything after 7pm either. I don't even bother trying to get a load before 8 in the mornings when I'm on the road. Things got a lot easier once I got the hang of how things work here...and stopped caring when they didn't go the way I would have liked or thought they should.

 

...unless you're in or near West Memphis. I swear AKJ never sleeps. I've gotten load assignments at 12:10am from him. I've learned to turn the volume on my QC to max before hitting the bed if I'm in range of West Memphis.

 

Night dispatch sometimes has loads if all haven't been covered, but they usually aren't god ones.