Beep Beep Roadrunner

As promised my Xtralease trailer was back at the Seattle terminal when I got there. They were already preloading it for St Paul MN terminal for me. 29 hours left on the 70 and about 1600+ miles. Left this morning (Friday) term is closed Sunday so will deliver early Monday morning with recap hours. Monday's and Tuesday typically being slow around terminals will probably be calling the RR agents to book a load out for me.

Feels so good to be back under my own trailer again lol. I know they are all pretty much the same even across manufacturers but I swear I can feel the familiarity of my own trailer

Have to transflo trips in by noon on Fridays to be paid the following Friday. So this morning was filling out the paperwork, taping receipts and trip reports and made a mistake on the trip report-- forgot a state in the middle of the page. Thought about just adding it to the bottom of the list out of order, not sure how they would view that although the miles would be accurate.

So made up a new trip report and was inputting all the odometer miles state border crossings from my little notebook and again made a mistake of putting two trips worth of miles on one trip sheet. We are supposed to make a new trip sheet for each manifest (trip). At this point I just walked it in and transfloed it hoping for the best. The IFTA miles are accurate even if they were split on two trip reports would come out exactly the same. Hopefully they will accept it as is and pay me next week.

It's my own lazy fault too, normally when I finish a trip right away I grab the trip sheet and write down the final odo miles on the bottom of the sheet then grab a fresh sheet and put those same miles at the top of that sheet. The trip sheets are in with my paper logs, as I get a new trip the trip sheets separate one load trip from another like bookmarks. In this case I hadn't made up a new trip sheet and just put off doing my 'homework'.

In other news, while at the St Regis Weigh Station in Montana I90 a truck was being pulled out of the ditch there, evidently the driver parked and forgot to set the parking brakes.

 

We should be closer to St Paul MN by now but due to high winds in Montana yesterday afternoon had to shut down in Livingston. Will still be making delivery ontime. The big highway sign directed high profile vehicles to Exit Now so I got off and the trucks behind me kept going east in those high winds. As I was getting off the exit saw 2 emergency vehicles getting on eastbound. Found out later several crashes and at least 1 truck blown over on I90. If you're going to be around next week, the Yellowstone Truck Stop is having a movie crew come in and do some location filming there in Livingston.

 

Thought I was gaining 9.5 hours at 0001 Monday morning (yesterday) to be able to make delivery. Well, when I was making out the new day's log page and adding up the recaps, was only gaining a big fat goose egg. So started off Monday with 5 hours available on the 70 and 454 miles to go. Totally do-able at 90 miles an hour.

No big deal, delivering today (Tuesday) instead although I was a little mad at myself and the universe because there likely wouldn't be time to turn in one more trip by Friday noon. Then I remembered this load represents a net of over $3200 bucks on the settlement plus the several thousand dollars that have amassed on the fuel card over the past few months with the fuel prices coming down and fuel surcharges trending behind.

When I got dispatched the load delivery time was listed as 99:99 which just means get it there legally but of course hastily. Love that delivery time. Customer is open 0700 to 1900 daily just get in during that time it's all good. The other carrier I was leased to would figure the minimum time to get there and make that the appointment time even it if was 0200 in the morning. I had the hardest time prying the delivery time windows out of them.
Oftentimes on a multistop load though they will have a delivery time set for the first stop then 99:99 for each stop after. Just love that they don't push push push.
Getting calls daily from RR agents wanting to book me from whereever to whereever. Called the local St. Paul MN terminal first dibs and they have a reload tonight going to Portland-Seattle, or Portland or Seattle. I'm all over it baby. Bumping the 70, running my own pace, no pressure loving it. Wondering and speculating that with the new contract denying us the ablility to book our own freight is the reason for the mega calls from RR agents so much plus terminals having so much available freight was caused by a lot of owners quitting.

 

I think it is every week. In other news got an email yesterday effective immediately transflo deadline has been extended from Friday's at noon til Friday's at midnight.

I was trying to score some free tickets to MATS from RR but never heard back anything about it. Now I'm gonna be in Sumner WA Monday looking for reload that night, if not will see about a RR agent booking me a load out Monday morning. I wouldn't mind a St Louis or Chicago load, from there I would just deadhead to MATS.

The affiliate terminal in Portland OR is closed Saturdays so chilling right here in Pendleton OR for a 34 hour reset doing a quick load of laundry then over to the casino to play some craps. I would just love to have a couple beers tonight then come back and sleep like a rock in my truck, just worried about black helicopters swooping down and taking me to Gitmo.

 

I haven't tried it yet to see if it works-- finding a load then using a RR agent to go ahead and book it. I know an owner op who has 2 reefers. He had an owner op leased to him to run one then he ran the other. But the other guy retired so he had to look around for another owner op to run the idle reefer for him. Not sure if I could get those runs occasionally insurance wise or whatnot, would have to be booked through RR agent as well.

I did see a good load once, bobtail into Port of Oakland and pick up an intermodal loaded can and chassis, take it to Washington state and return a differnet empty can and chassis back to Oakland CA $4 bucks a mile round trip. Biggest problem was where to stash my trailer for a few days and not sure again about insurance stuff with the chassis and RR etc.

But even if we did do the legwork and found a $3 bucks a mile load then called a RR agent to book it, it wouldn't surprise me if all they said was 'it's already gone' while they are looking for some schmuck to run it for $1.5