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

Lets see, got empty yesterday at 10am in Roswell Ga. Sent in my empty call and 15 minutes later I had my reload info. I dead headed 36 miles to Marblehill Ga, (been there before), was loaded by 1pm, then headed to South Hill Va (been here also) for this morning. Had an open delivery between 7am and 3pm. I got there at 9:30 and was empty at 10am. I sent in my empty call and in 15 minutes got a dead head move to drop my empty at our customer in Chester. We are instructed to pick up any loaded trailer that is destined north or west and bring it back to the yard. I picked up a loaded trailer that was going to Michigan and dropped it in the yard. Now the fun part.

I stopped off at the Pilot to take a shower and scan my paperwork in. When I got back to the truck and started to leave my Qualcomm went off like gangbusters. I stopped at the fuel island to check my messages. The first line on the computer tells me how many pages associated with this load, 4, the next line tells me how many miles for the trip, 2925. I looked through the pages to see this trip that was sent to me has 5 drops on it, first one in Lame Deer Montana, second one in Lander Wyoming, third and fourth one in SLC Utah, then the last one in Twin falls Idaho. The first 2 are scheduled for Monday morning and afternoon, the next 3 are for Tuesday. After reading all the dispatch info, and seeing it's one of our LTL loads that is put together at our dock, and seeing that the load is ready to go, what do you think I did? I called into dispatch and asked Jonathan if he sent me the wrong load. Nope came his response, it's mine. Cool, I guess after a little over 4 months here I finally earned a good load. When I got to the yard I fueled the truck, topped off the DEF tank, dropped the trailer I had and put my truck into the wash bay. I walked up to dispatch and Jonathan gave me all the paperwork for my load. While there the head of the dispatchers (Don) asked me if I could do a favor and run down to where I dropped my empty and pick up a trailer that had a partial load on it that they needed at our dock to put more freight on. Not a problem, I had enough time left for my day to do that, then leave with my load and get to Raphine Va to shut down. That's where I'm at, my 10 hour break is up at 5am so I'll be up and rolling then, I plan on getting to Lame Deer Mt around 4pm Local time on Sunday so I can make sure all my drops are worked into the right delivery times. Oh, one other thing, I have 11.75 hours left on my 70, but pick up all the right hours off my recap to be able to run this load out, and come back without taking a reset. Time for bed, I have a busy few days ahead of me.

 

On average, with all my extra pay for Northeast, NYC, extra stop pay, and whatever else extra i get, my average pay per mile has come out to .39 per mile every pay period. Add into that my hometime and it works out just right, for me.

 

I was convinced that I would eventually get a load like this, in January. 30 minute break is up, time to continue on.

 

I'm going to keep my opinion about your question off the blog. Lets just say in the four months I've been here I have worked very hard to adapt to the system, gotten along with every person in every department, have never turned down or question any load I was dispatched on and have always done any favor asked of me. I think Jonathan has seen that and now I've been accepted in the long haul club...lol. Like I've always said, I make good coin here running where I have been. Just for me to close the doors and ride for four straight days is relaxing for me, even if I am up at 2:30 in the morning getting ready to drive through Chicago.