Career Change at 53

Started out by getting my patience tested. Met my mentor at the terminal after he fueled up he parked in the bobtail lot so I could get my stuff aboard his truck. he is a O/O and has a Kenworth Very small cab, glad I packed light.

We went to hook up to the van and found a red tag on it, it was over due for a PM inspection so, we hooked up took it to the trailer shop to get it done, they said we are about to go off duty don't have time to do go to the fuel island they can do it there. went to the fuel island, and they did do however, they discovered a bad brake chamber and red tagged so we had to drop it there they said the trail shop would pick it up and fix it as soon as they could get to it.

So we went to the T-Call window (planners were gone for the day) and managed to get another load, another van preloaded at a home depot going to a home depot in Montrose CO. even said we could pick it up early, at 4 am so, since it was only midnight I got to spend my first night in the cab 50 miles from home.

Got up at 3:45 to find out we had to take an empty trailer to swap out, no empty trailers so we wait at 6:30 still no empties but, our previous load with the bad brake chamber on the trailer was repaired and ready to go so, back to the T-Call window to get switched back to that load. Finally on the road at around 8 after doing our pre-trip.

right now we are just south of Denver with a flat bed load of shingles head back to phoenix, have some pictures (no to great will take more when the sun comes up)

 

Arrived in Phoenix at 9:00 am Tried to T-Call our load and pick up another so we could keep rolling, no luck, all local drivers are booked tomorrow so we have to deliver it ourselves plus, there were no loads available today.

Even tried to get a local load just keep rolling again no luck.

So, I get to spend one night at home, (hopefully only one night).

I have better pics of our load but they are on my laptop which is still on the truck I will try to post them tomorrow.

 

I agree with you however, it is only as frustrating as you let get, take things with a grain of salt and it's not so bad and, eventually I may get the attitude of not making enough money for the bull you put up with but, I gotta tell you, after 2 years of averaging 000 I am will to put up with a lot. No matter what, until I financially recover anyway, I will grin and bear it.

We delivered our load 18 pallets of shingles





Went back to the terminal and sat around until 1 pm, got a new pre-plan at 1 a load of pipes going to Shafter Ca. went to find the trailer.... Yup it was in the trailer shop red tagged for brakes, suspension, and tires they said it would be done by four. Well at five they said everything was completed except tires, to get new tires we had to hook up and take it to the tire shop (tires were an odd ball size cause the trailer was a drop deck, Sorry no pics) after three hours we finally hit the road.

I got to get in almost 8 hours of night driving, started out driving at 8 pm and drove until 4 am, arrived at the consignee at 7am had to wait until 8 to unload.

Now we are at a flying J awaiting a new pre-plan (this drop deck trailer may cause problems) I will try to get some pics of it before we drop it.

My mentor is still sleeping don't want to wake him, I think we are going to drop the trailer at the Fontana terminal.