Calex Express....My New Home!

To simplify your question OTR and regional is all the same, OTR. Regional is east of Denver. I call myself a regional OTR driver that mainly runs back and forth between Pa and Fl.

Ontario East and Ontario West as they are called are basically the same, except the east one has a sit down restaurant. The west TA use to be a 76 back in the day. Picking up? I run the same miles every week. I'm now loading in Santa Maria Ca heading back to Pa.

 

Well this is a first. After leaving Pa Friday at 5am and with a fresh 70 hours I get out here, get my 2 drops off yesterday and have enough hours to get me until midnight Friday night when I start picking up new hours. What this has allowed me to do is not take a reset. I called Louie first thing yesterday morning to let him know that I could load back 2 day's earlier and he told me he would call me back later in the day. On my way to my second drop he sent me a message on my computer to let me know I would be loading today. I called him to see where he wanted me to spend the night, Salinas or Santa Nella, he said he wasn't sure where the loads would be coming out of and to go to Santa Nella. So that's where I spent the night last night.

My trip out was pretty easy, except that I had some real bad back spasms that required me buying a heating pad and running down the road for 4 day's with it on high while driving. I get these every once in a blue moon but this time was the worst. When I finally made it to Lodi Ca 2pm on Monday I was 76 miles to my first drop so I spent the whole day and night resting on the pad. I woke up early Tuesday like the previous 4 day's never happened. I got to Hayward at 5am for my 6am appt. Finally at 9am they backed me in. I called Eddie to let him know I got held up and to call my second stop to let them know. I was only 26 miles to my second drop. He called me back about 45 minutes later as I was leaving the dock to let me know that the second drop will charge us $30 per hour for every hour we are late. I just dropped 24 pallets of product off in 45 minute then hauled tail to Livermore and got there 15 minutes late. The sign by her window did indeed say $30 per hour late fee, it also said the cash register starts ringing after the appointment is an hour late. Here's where it now becomes somewhat comical, but in the same sense principal comes into play. I get to Roma Foods and check in, the very nice and sweet lady.....(NOT)! tells me that I beat the clock but had to hire a lumper. No problem, I only had 253 cases on 4 pallets. She told me it would be $140. I told her that she couldn't force me to hire a lumper, then she said I had to be done in an hour. No problem, I threw the freight off my trailer that wound up being 12 pallets in 45 minutes. In fact I had to wait on them to check me out. After I had my signed paperwork in hand I asked Ms. Personality if Roma Foods pay's detention pay to drivers waiting on paperwork. Needless to say she pointed to the door and told me to make sure it doesn't hit me in my ### on the way out. All I can say is California absolutely deserves the financial distress they are in.

I got to Santa Nella about 2pm and called it a night. I must have been tired because I slept for 11 hours. I got up, showered, had breakfast then went back out to my truck. Louie sent me a message to give him a call. I called him and he told me I had a one p/u load of strawberries that loaded in Santa Maria today and to start heading down there and that he would send me the load info as soon as he got it. It was 240 miles down there. I fueled then headed south. I got here at 3pm, waited about 6 hours then got loaded. Time to head east with my 27,000lbs of strawberries.
Be safe all, God Bless.