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

Enjoy the ride and the view.

 

I’m home. Got here yesterday about 5pm. I deliver tomorrow in Pompano at 6am. I left the house 4 weeks to the day I got home. Here are my numbers.

16,395 paid miles.
My first trip leaving out was 1095 miles that went on March totals.

15,300 paid miles for April.

My trips in order were,

Lake Worth Fl to Doral Fl dropping in West Memphis.

West Memphis to Byhalia Ms to Reno Nv

Reno Nv to Minden Nv to West Memphis.

West Memphis to Byhalia Ms to Reno Nv

Reno Nv to Minden Nv to West Memphis

West Memphis to Reno Nv

Reno Nv to Carson Ca to Baltimore Md

Baltimore Md to Richmond Va to Pompano Beach Fl.

During these 4 weeks home, I’ve perfected, for myself, social distancing and not coming in contact with anyone. Showers were taken between 3am and 5am. At that time there’s no one in the truckstop. I used my points for incidental purchases, my credit card for other purchases, and only had to restock food once, in a Target at 2am. I left the house with $75 and came home with $70. I only had one live load and one live unload. The rest were drop and hook with minimal interaction with people.

In these 4 weeks gone, I’ve gone from a social distancing expert to a hermit. One good thing though, I’ve done a boatload of walking. In fact, I lost 7 pounds in these 4 weeks.

One alarming thing though, freight rates are tanking. There’s still freight, but much cheaper. The folks that made fun of drivers with swinging doors, O/O’s with dedicated customers, are feeling it the worst. Abilene, which is debt free, is also feeling it, not in freight volume, but in rates on our backhauls. Thank goodness we have our regular customers that are still shipping. From what I found out on my load back from California, our break even point is $1.41 per mile. My load back paid $1.51. This is only going to get worse.

I’ve heard rumblings, rumors and the locker room lawyers say it might get to the point of parking x amount of trucks. I’ve also heard that we will be getting another Publix contract. If that’s the case, I might consider doing it. Right now I’m enjoying my time off. I did have a knockdown fight, argument and meeting of the minds on Monday in Richmond pertaining to my yearly longevity raise. That will be another discussion for another day.

 

Im sitting out here in Ms watching my hours dwindling down.

Had a load got cancelled.

 

I swear on almost every 7 series trailer Im hooked to my glad hands come unhooked almost going down the road. Yesterday I made a turn in a truckstop and my blue glad hand came completely unhooked.

 

I’m glad I’m not the only one! My glad hands are bent a little so I usually have to use a mallet to get them on. Not on the 77 series.

 

It took me all the way to Reno with a 77xx series having the same issue to finally get my hammer out and bang the clips in a little so they would stop coming unhooked. Slow learner.

 

@JohnBoy I just ran into John T here at some truck stop in Kentucky. He's driving for Tyson now. He wanted me to tell you "Hi!"

He approached me out of the clear blue because he recognized me from my news appearance last month. Was kinda surreal.

 

I knew he went to Tyson. Haven’t spoke to him in over a year.

 

I thought about doing that with a hammer but wasn't sure if I should so I used electrical tape to wrap them, lol!

 

The one turn when mine came unhooked had me running for my hammer.