Adventures of a Flatbedder at Roehl

Here's an update.

I delivered on Monday in Virginia Beach. Moved to a nice hole in the wall truck stop nearby. Can't remember name, but lets say it could use a face lift... or 3. Sat for 6 hours waiting for a load assignment. Not too concerned as my 70 hour clock was a little short.

Finally get my instructions to start moving to Winchester, VA. Half way there I finally get load instructions. Headed to Des Moines, IA (stp 1) and Omaha, NE.

I finally have had a chance to do the 70 hour dance. Run as hard as I can and place myself in a position to benefit from the hours I get back at midnight. Then do it again. Ran myself to Des Moines today with 45 minutes to spare. Get enough tomorrow to drop and head to Omaha and drop.

Now what happens after that.... That's another update.

 

I need to ask two questions before my update.
1. Any other way to get our trip sheets in if we are in the middle of nowhere? Don't say mail either.
2. Any other flatbedders having to sit for hours in between loads? I have had to sit from anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours in between assignments. Not very efficient I would think.

So my update.
Delivered in Des Moines, IA at 0700, even though the consignee didn't open until 0730 so I and a Crete guy sat for 45 minutes waiting. Also, got my first taste of frost covered tarps... Man it was a bit nippy this morning.
So then headed to Omaha, NE and got there in time and was unloaded, again after a Crete driver... trend here? So sitting blocking there dock with no preplan or a plan. I move to the closest truck stop. Sit for an hour and get moving to Norfolk, NE. NUCOR Steel.
Get there, scale, and walk-in to the shipping office and find out I get SLINKIES... First time getting to haul those. Of course, the guy at the desk asks "do I know how to set up my bunks?" I tell him truth, not really as I have never done it. He gets all flustered and pulls up his sheet of paper and says do it this way blah blah blah. (I'll get back to that later.)
Get loaded up with 11 coils, 45k pounds. Yippee, gonna be fun.
So back to the inexperience. I drive over to the loading area and there is a guy from another company. (Yellow trucks that run van and flatbed. #### if I forgot their name.) "Hey you ever done these before?" LOL He had never done them either. He said he had been out 12 years and never picked them up before. So we both get all loaded and strapped up. Looks good from everything I remember on how to do it. Scale it and walk up to the office again. Another guy walks in just before me to get his load assignment. Guy asks him same question, "Do you know how to set the bunks up?" He says same thing, nope never did it.
I say to him as I get my BOL's, seems like today is your day for newbies. He just laughed. So alls well that ends well.

Of course, I miss getting my load sent into Roehl cuz I am out in BF NE. So that nice 1k run has to wait another week. On my way to Holly, MI now.