Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

i wonder if the TA has direct tv... we can watch ice road truckers tomorrow night.

 

The next time you need a load resent, call fontana. When you dial the main number, it's usually option 2, unless they're using the tricky system. There's only one guy there nights or weekends, but if you go "Hey, could I get my load resent? I requested it from salt lake an hour ago but no one's sent anything." they'll usually send it to you. I know the three night/weekend guys, and they're all nice, and willing to do something like that.

 

There is no big dog status at Central. If there really were, it's be those new Cascadias since there's only a few of them. What you drive is a lot less important than how you drive it, I'd take a volvo over a w9 any day for the quiet ride and the turning radius. And I've been in both.

 

I wouldn't take a laptop if you can help it, with all the moving around and whatnot, there's a chance of it getting broken or stolen. Once you have your own truck it's a different story. iPod if you wish, especially if you trainer likes to listen to things loudly while you sleep (mine did) or if your trainer requires silence while you drive. I'm sure that having headphones in isn't technically legal, but you'll see a lot of drivers doing this.

Take yourself a book if you're the reading type, or a book of puzzles you like, and limit the fun stuff. Not because you should be bored the entire time, but often you're only going to get 10 hours off, and some of that's going to be showering and eating. So, you'll find you take as much sleep as you can get. a Laptop will keep you up and not sleeping, like I'm doing right now Thankfully, I don't have to drive for 16 hours.

 

I think it's also a problem of Conley never bothers with the messages. I went through WVC for the ICON going out on my system, and Conley had no idea what was going on. I had the okay to take my truck to the shop, UNTIL I got to Conley. Then I had to fight for 3 hours to get them to okay it. I think part of my problem is I never go to Conley. I've been there maybe a half dozen times in 3 years.

Getting the Dms and OTR to let you repair AC is a huge pain, for some reason they're convinced you can live without it in 95 degree heat. I'd like to make them live in their cars for a couple of days, then they'd know what it's like for us out here with no ac.

 

From experience, 3 weeks isn't bad to go home. You can go home as soon as 9 days, but when you do that, it's go out, get in the groove, go home. Money sucks. and at 2 weeks it sucks too. My co-driver and I have been on the 2 week schedule, and it's tough to make money when you're always fighting to get home. Thankfully we should be off it in September, so we can go back to 3 weeks at a time.

The good thing about 3 weeks is that if they keep you out longer than expected (which happens), you can decide to take 4 days off and they won't hassle you. However, if you stay out 4 weeks at a time, and they take a week to get you home, they don't usually want to give you 5 days off. How firm they are about 4 days max, without a special exception, depends on your Driver manager. But, if they're consistantly getting you home at 5 weeks, they'll not consistantly let you take 5 days off.

 

Being new to trucking and all, I kind of figured 3 weeks was about where you could make decent money and still get home to see my kids every once in a while.

 

OOOH OOOH, I have Direct TV in my trk. Don't think it will help you much tho since I am in Glendale, AZ. I'm on a nice little 1650 mile jaunt, with 3 drops plus an extra pick up. Cha ching, cha ching!!!
Am in need of the run too. Came out off of HT and did 11 hrs then got a reset right off the bat. Not unhappy bout it tho since I did get my trk PM'd and blah blah. Don't have to worry bout that now for 30k miles.

 

nice... i broke my 34 about 80 miles from my receiver to trade the 80 miles for a 380 mile repower. leave it to weekend dispatch!

 

I would have said hell no, I am getting my restart.
As a company driver I could not do that, but since you are a glorified company driver that pays to work you can do that lol.