An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Kinda like a prostate exam, only a quick subtle pain in the ###

 

Delivered successfully. Utter pain to get to(not just because of traffic). VERY tight city streets. The road I was delivering on was a 'No Trucks Over 2.5 Tons' residential street, but it was a one way road, and they were in the middle, so F-'em, I am going. Getting out was worse. The rigging crew had a tough time, and they were in a daycab pulling a landol trailer that could slide the axles way under the deck. While heading out of Mass, Toledo called and said to head for western NJ, I-80 near the PA line. Apparently, there was some sort of screwup of info. A shipper ordered a flatbed, but when they went to load it, they really needed a stepdeck (dimensions of the load 13' x 8'4" x 9'4"...18,000 lbs, pretty much the same dimensions and weight I just pulled to Boston). It's a pin delivery going to north central Michigan for Thursday morning. They want it at 0800, but she said she knows that'll be tough to do. We have 2 other trucks delivering there ahead of me, so we might have some time.

She also said that the reason she was trying to get me to Toledo is that they have a bunch of Spirit loads and she needs conestogas for those. I guess now that the Boeing strike is over, freight to their assembly plants is going to pick up for a while.

 

Some more misinformation on this load. Toledo told me they stopped shipping at 13:00, so I needed to get as close as I could tonight then head in tomorrow. So, there was a little half-Pilot across the street from the shipper. I get to the Pilot around 13:30. Was preparing to put on my jammies and chill for the night. At 14:30 my FM calls and asks if I am gonna make the pickup today, sales is freaking out. I told him that according to what I was told, they had already stopped shipping. He said not according to sales, they're waiting on you. So I hussle across the street and sure enough, they are waiting to load me. They're normal quitting time is 15:00, so we got with it and had it loaded and enough securement to pull out of the building a little after 15:00. I finished securing it in the parking lot. Had to split log some down time so I had time to get out of NJ. So now the delivery will be right on time on Thursday. I'll be just under 4000 paid miles after delivering on the 7th(in the morning)

 

I left home 10/6, today is 31 days out, and this is how many miles my odometer says I have traveled





To be honest, it doesn't seem like I have been running that hard...

 

Before they changed the pay package, I stayed out 7-10 weeks. But after they changed to this new package, for every hometime visit I took, I dropped over $1000 compared to the same time last year. After June, 2024 I had grossed $5200 less than thru June of 2023(with only an 1800 mile drop). July-Sept. I went home at the end of Sept., and was only planning about a 7 day hometime, but then the Hurricane came, and I was home for almost another week. I left early Oct. and plan to stay out until Christmas. Basically out 12-13 weeks now.