CRETE - A Year in Review

It feels like a loosing battle, but I'm still fighting it. I'm determined to catch up. Here's week 36.


WEEK THIRTY SIX
Monday, September 7th through Sunday, September 13th

I didn’t have high hopes for this week. It started out by spending my Monday in a TA truck stop because it was Labor Day and my receiver wasn’t open. I got as close as I could last Sunday afternoon and held up about 100 miles short of my final destination because my choice of parking in the area was questionable and I wanted to spend my down time in an area that provided me with something to do. Therefore, I started out my work week first thing Tuesday morning so that I would arrive shortly before the customer opened. I had an open delivery window of 07:00 to 15:00 and hoped that I could be the first one unloaded in the event there where a number of loads scheduled for that day. I knew of at least one Crete truck that was headed this way. He had pulled out of the shipper about an hour before me the other day. I never did see him again.

This place was located in the middle of nowhere SC and the last part of the trip was on tight and winding roads and made it difficult to make good time. Even though it was predawn and little traffic was on the road there were occasions where traffic backed up a little bit behind me until an opportunity to pass presented itself. It was during one of these backups of traffic (not really, there were only two cars behind me) that one of the four wheelers got a bit impatient and decided to pass me in a “no passing” zone. From his point of view everything looked just dandy. We were on a straight stretch of road and there appeared to be plenty of room available to pass safely.

Under normal conditions that would have been correct but today would find me making split second decisions that would either cost an idiot his life or spare him to live on and continue to bless this world with his presence. I can only hope that this particular driver learned something on this day. I would like to say that I did, but in reality, it was just another bonehead move on the part of yet another moron, (or perhaps I should rephrase that and just say he was a person that was notably stupid and lacking in good judgment). This time it was just a little more hair raising than your standard run of the mill close call.



When the driver began the pass it appeared to him that all was clear, after all, there was no oncoming traffic and he thought he had all the room he needed to pass me. What he chose to ignore was the fact that we were in a no passing zone and one would think that he might have made a mental inquiry as to why that was. I did not have to wonder why it was a no passing zone because I could see that there was a blind intersection just ahead and I also knew that there was a car that had just pulled up to a stop sign at the intersection at a high rate of spend and was showing every intention of making a California stop and then pulling out in front of me.

That in itself was no big deal because he too, like the driver that had just started to pass me, had plenty of time to cross my lane of traffic (with a second or two to spare, but then that is nothing new to a truck driver) and turn into the opposing lane of traffic and continue on his marry way in the opposite direction of my travel.

So here I am, on a very narrow rural SC two lane road. There is zero room for maneuverability because the slightest movement to the right would put me on a soft shoulder and would undoubtedly result in a roll over. The left lane wasn’t an option because it was currently occupied by the knucklehead currently passing me and was a split second away from turning into what I like to call “over capacity”. Oh yeah, there was also one more car to throw in the mix. That would be the other trailing car that had pulled up to my rear bumper as he positioned himself to pass me.

Now, although it has taken me a fair amount of rambling and time to set the scene giving the impression that I had plenty of time to adjust to the situation, in real time all that I have conveyed conspired in all of one, maybe two seconds. I had one driver passing me with his accelerator on the floor and going at least 70mph. The other driver had begun his pull out to get in that very same lane. Neither of the drives had a clue that the other existed because my truck was quite effective at blocking their view of one another.

All I can say is that both of those drivers should be thanking me in their prayers because I had been watching my mirrors and was aware of what was transpiring. Not that there was all that much that I could do other than roll the truck or slam on the brakes and hope for the best. I’ve always said that if a situation like this came up and I was the instigator (moron) I would be the one to take the ditch and hope for the best, but if the other driver was the culprit, I would do my part to get out of the mess, but I would be the one alive to tell the story, so breaks it is. Let’s find out how fast we can stop this 45,000# load at 55mph.

The foot went to the break and the left hand grabbed the air horn to hopefully get everyone’s attention and the whole scene played out in slow motion. It may sound cliché, but the world slowed to a crawl. Everything that was loose in my cab started flying around, the passing driver finally realized what was transpiring and thankfully didn’t just panic and slam on the breaks and swerved back into my lane with little room to spare and the headlights of the car following me disappeared. I was sure that one was going to end up under my ICC bar. I don’t think the car coming off the side road ever really realized what was happening until the passing car whizzed by, missing him by a hair. Then just like that, everything was back to normal. No head on collision, no rear end, no nothing. I had definitely felt a good jolt from behind, but the car that was tailing me was just fine and passed me shortly there after and showed no signs of damage. That could only mean one thing; I knew what I was hauling and I had a pretty good idea what that load now looked like. It’s a good thing I’m only a handful of miles away from the customer.

I was simply left with a realization of “Holy %$#*, I can’t’ believe that just happened”. I wish I had a dash camera for times like these. If I had one mounted from day one I would have one hell of a compilation of “Can you believe this idiot”.

So, I arrive at the customer about an hour early and pulled out my phone. My load assignment had given me instruction to park in a dirt lot near the entrance and call ahead before proceeding. That dirt lot was actually a BBQ joint’s truck parking and I wasn’t all that sure I was in the right place. A quick phone call assured me that I was where I needed to be and they would call me back when they were ready for me. They only allowed one truck on the property at a time and even though I was early, two other trucks had spent the night in the lot and would be unloaded before me.

My load info had also gone into great detail about how tight this yard was and twice instructed me to slide my tandem as far forward as possible along with warnings about hitting things in said yard while getting into position to dock. I can’t wait to see this one. I got out of the truck and slid the tandems and awaited my turn which came about an hour later. The other trucks were unloaded quickly and I assumed mine would also take little time. After all, I only had six spools of copper wire. It was just a matter of getting to the dock and I was about to find out just how tight this place was. I had expected the worst, but once inside I found that it wasn’t at all that bad. Tight yes, but not New York tight if you know what I mean. The flip around to back to the dock was a little tricky along with the blind back, but nothing that a little caution and patience couldn’t overcome. Once I was lined up I set the breaks and walked around to the back of the truck and opened up the doors.

My close call earlier that morning had produced one ill side effect. I had left the shipper with three spools of cooper on the front of the trailer and three spools on the back of the trailer. I was now looking at six shinny spools of cooper neatly pack in the front of the trailer. It garnered me an odd look from the forklift driver and I did my best to convey the events of the morning. I felt some strange need to explain myself, but he didn’t really seem to care, and why should he. Fifteen minutes later I was empty and headed back to the dirt lot to find out where I would be headed next.

It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to get my next load offer. I was to head on over to GA and pickup a preloaded trailer that was headed to TX(977mi) and delivered Thursday morning. Nothing to complain about with that one. The holiday weekend had crawled by and I was looking forward to putting in some miles in an attempt to salvage this week. This would be a good start.

The drop and hook pickup went by without complications and the next couple of days passed without incident. I arrived at my customer the afternoon before it was scheduled to deliver. There was a truck stop less than a mile away so I thought I would give it a shot. It was only 3pm and if they got me unloaded I could be on my way with my next load. If not, I could just shut down for the night at the truck stop and be the first one in the following morning. A quick chat with the receiving clerk let me know that the truck stop would be my home until the following morning. No early unloads at this place. Oh well, it happens.

Thursday morning found me at their gate the usual one hour early and I was assigned my door. I had a trailer of insulation that was floor loaded and they took their time getting it off my truck. It only took two hours, but it was an inter company shipment and they were well equipped to unload this stuff. I don’t think their coffee had kicked in yet. I was finally set free and in went the MT call. I had one good run in so far this week and was hopeful of creating a trend. NO!

Instead of a nice long run, I’m hit up with a 111mi run down to Fort Worth. Ugh! At least there is 82 miles of deadhead attached to it. I’m not a happy camper at this point but do as told. I know the company makes good money on these short hops and realize that is why they run them, but from a drivers point of view, Ouch! It wouldn’t be all that bad if they preplanned me one a load to keep me moving once empty, but I already know how this is going to work out. I’ll deliver the load this after noon and by that time all of today’s freight will be gone and I’ll spend the rest of the day sitting in a truck stop waiting to pickup my load the following day. I contemplated contacting dispatch and pointing out how crappy this load was and see if I could talk them into a preplan, but instead I decided to let the chips fall where they may. What a stupid idea that was. I was a direct violation of my proactive policy and would pay for it.

I headed on over to Ocean Spray to get my preloaded trailer, which was nothing more than wishful thinking as I soon found out with instructions to dock at door whatever for a live load. I settled in for what I assumed would be a two hour loading process but got a green light within 30mins of docking. Not bad at all, I might just get lucky and deliver this load early enough to get a load out of town today.

Two hours later I was at the consignee’s door with my load and this time it was a drop and hook and the MT call went in moments later with the highest of hopes. The load offer presents itself and depression sets in. That may be a little bit of an exaggeration; after all, I saw the writing on the wall this morning and wasn’t at all surprised by what I was looking at. I would be picking up a load in Ft Worth tomorrow. That I had expected, along with a morning appointment. Instead I’m hit up with a 1:30pm pickup. I can always show up a couple of hours early, but I’m still looking at spending the better part of 20hrs in a Pilot with nothing to entertain me in the area. After all, how many times a guy walk around a Cabala’s and fain interest.

Tomorrow finally turned into today and I made my way to the shipper. I was early but they assigned me a door and told me they would get to me as soon as they could. They were true to their word and I was headed down the road at about the time my original appointment had been set for and I started my day of driving at the fine hour of 2pm. That means that I will be on the road until 2am or so if I chose to do so, once again putting me on a perpetual night driving schedule and going to bed at a time that I much more prefer to be a waking up time.

Another downfall to this awful load is that it is all of 1117 miles and is set to deliver in WY Monday morning and my last load delivered Thursday afternoon. It may be a nice long run, but when you stretch it out over four days it kind of loses its appeal if you know what I mean. The only glimmer of light that I am able to take out of it is that there is just enough time to fit in an unwanted 34hr reset along the way and start out next week with a fresh 70hrs. The end result would be a 2400mi week. I guess that’s not all that bad after loosing Monday to a holiday and sitting for most of a day in Ft Worth waiting for this load. Of course, I wasn’t ready to give up that easily. I also zeroed my thought onto the Denver drop yard. I’ve always had very good luck Tcalling loads in Denver. It seems like there is always plenty of freight that needs to be moved and I pointed my truck in that direction. I was looking forward to seeing the western end of the country. I don’t get that way much these days and it was a special treat to get a load going that way when snow wasn’t in the forcast. I don’t usually start getting these loads until winter had fully established itself. I imagine it has something to do with many of the nation’s owner operators not wanting to run in the mountains during that time of the year, leaving the larger trucking companies with more freight up there.

I drove out the rest of the day and could have pushed on until 2am but decided to call it a day at midnight. I found a truck stop with available parking and was unsure of availability further down the road at this time of night and thought it would be prudent to shut down now. I had also put enough miles behind me and had gotten close enough to Denver so that I would arrive the following day with plenty of hours available to work with in the event a Tcall could be arranged.

I pulled into Denver by 2pm and made a beeline to the drop yard. I was supposed to fill up with fuel at the TA on the East end of town but bypassed it for now because if I was successful at arranging a Tcall I would be picking up a load in the area and the vast majority of the freight around here that we haul is very heavy. A full tank of fuel and a load of beer can put me over the 80,000# mark in short order.

I put in the Tcall request along with an offer to shag a local load or repower something in the yard and waited, and waited, and waited, and…

I now found myself in an uncertain position. My current load had enough time on it to put in a 34hr reset, but that window of opportunity was quickly closing. It had come to the point where I had about one hour to spare. Spending any more time than that here in Denver would negate the reset and most likely result in running out of hours sometime during the following week. I don’t want the reset at this time, but if I’m under a load that affords me the opportunity, it would be inexcusable to squander the option if I were to find myself stuck with this load.

I had made a futile attempt at calling dispatch but the call immediately went to the voice mail system and my call was disconnected about 10mins later. I don’t know if calls are automatically disconnected after that time frame or if some dispatcher just cleared the calls on hold, but whatever the reason, the phone wasn’t doing it for me. By this point an hour had passed and I had accepted the fact that I would probably be delivering this load and headed back out of the yard to get my fuel. I was still hoping for the best and only put in enough fuel to get me to the ¾ mark. That would give me plenty of fuel to make it to Wyoming and should still leave me light enough to pickup a heavy load if my fortune were to take a turn for the better.

While fueling I sent in one more Qcom message and once finished in the fuel line I found a place to park and calculated just how much longer I could sit here before missing out on the reset. The clouds were thick, a light rain was falling and the Qcom was getting no signal and my second message was still sitting in queue and had not gone through. I was looking at about 30mins and decided to make one more phone call. This time I got through and was able to make a direct request. It was meet with noticeable distain from the dispatcher, not the Tcall itself, but the fact that I was calling instead of using the Qcom. He was particularly annoyed by the fact that I had just sent in my message 1 minute ago. Apparently message number two finally went through while I was placing this call. He didn’t seem all that impress with my explanation of “no signal” and the fact that my first message was sent over an hour ago and had received no reply.

The standard rebuttal to that has always been, “We are very busy and we will get to your message in the order that it was sent” (never a sure thing, they seem to be somewhat selective as to what messages they will respond too) along with, “Your phone call only slows us down that much more.” This is the very reason I almost never call in, but today I was under the gun clock wise and I didn’t think it would improve anyone’s mood to explain that I did just that last weekend while trying to set up a Tcall. That message was also ignored, it was never replied to in any way and I didn’t call in. The end result, an ignored message and a long weekend. I had every expectation that today’s message would end up with the same non-response. I could have explained this in detail but didn’t see that it would really do any good. Instead I just apologized and tried to give a quick explanation of my tight time frame if no Tcall could be arranged. He just told me he was working on it and hung up, how charming.

As abrupt and rude as that little exchange had been it gave me great comfort. Considering his mood a poignant “NO” might have been the expected response. That fact that a definite “no” was not thrown in my direction let me know that there was freight that needed to be moved in the area and I would be dropping this load in the Denver yard.

The Tcall and load offer followed shortly there after. I would be headed up to Ft. Collins (here after know as Balloon Boy Town) to pickup a load of beer (big surprise) headed to Oklahoma. The pickup time made it clear why I was allowed to Tcall my last load. It was now a little after 3:30pm and this load was supposed to be picked up by noon. They weren’t doing me any favors Tcalling my load, they were trying to cover their butts and get late freight moving. No shortage of freight up here.

I was still an hour away and made my way to Budweiser as quick as I could get there. That’s when things really got interesting. I’ve heard of such tails from other Crete drivers in Shaffer trucks in the past but have never been subjected to it first hand until today. I’ve picked up Bud loads with my Shaffer truck at almost every Bud brewery in the country and have never had this problem, but today it was about to become a major headache.

The very first thing the guard tells me upon check in was, “You will not be allowed to pull a Crete trailer out of their facility with a Shaffer truck”. Since I have heard of this in the past I wasn’t exactly thrown by this, but I thought these issues had been solved and said as much to the guard. It was obvious that he thought it was as ridiculous as I did but his hands were tied. We both knew what a stupid policy it was, but neither of us was in a position to do anything about it.

I flipped a U-turn and parked it outside their gate and started sending messages to dispatch. I can’t believe for a second that they weren’t aware of this situation but they put up a good front in denying it and I spent the next 90mins going back and forth between the guards and the Qcom. Phone calls were made and I was assured by dispatch that the warehouse floor manager would approve my truck and the guards continued to assure me that was not the case. Blah blah blah. It was during once of these little conversations with a guard that he told me I could drop my trailer, but could only pull out a Shaffer trailer, however, if you can get another red Crete truck to pickup your trailer, then I would be able to switch trailer outside of the gate. As long as it wasn’t on their property; good lord, how inane is that.

So there I sat waiting for another Crete driver to pull in. Just as the 2hr mark rolled around I hit the jackpot. Here came a Crete driver and I flagged him down. I turned out to be a regional driver and runs out of here on a regular basis and I didn’t even have the chance to explain my situation to him. He saw me coming from my blue truck and before I even had a chance to greet him he said, “So they won’t let you pull out a Crete trailer, eh!”

He knew the drill and was more than willing to help me out. Not exactly thrilled, but this wasn’t his first rodeo, as he put it. We went through the ridiculous process and I hooked up to my loaded trailer outside of their gate after the other driver pulled it out and signed for it.and was ready to roll. Now all I had to worry about was getting across the state scales there were no more than 3 miles away. The other driver had scaled out and all the weights were good for him, but he was sitting at about 33,800# on his drives and about 1200# to spare on the tandems. He only had a ½ tank of fuel and no APU. I had ¾ of a tank and an APU. An adjustment would have to be made but because of the situation I would not be able to scale out with my truck. I knew I would be fine as far as gross weight went but had to make an adjustment to get some weight off of my drives. I set it to where I felt it would be close but certainly not confident enough to take this 79,000# truck across a set of DOT scales. With no public scales in the area I had only one choice, I would have to avoid the first set of scales and drive smack dab through the middle of Ft Collins, excuse me, Balloon Boy Town and Loveland.

It was a truck route, but I certainly wouldn’t suggest it to anyone that is interested in making any kind of time. It was all of 12 miles and took me a solid hour to negotiate a seemingly endless barrage of traffic lights. It actually looked like a nice place to visit if you are in a vacation frame of mind, but at the time, I wasn’t. There was plenty of frustration to deal with, but it was somewhat tempered with the fact that I was under a load going to Oklahoma instead of spending the weekend sitting in a truck stop waiting to deliver a load Monday morning.

When I finally made it back to the interstate I only had a few miles to cover to make it to the first truck stop with a scale and pulled on to see how I had done. As I had feared I was over weight on the drives, although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been. I was off by 500# and made the necessary adjustments. I don’t know that they would have given me any grief over it, especially since I have an APU and they tend to be lenient in just such a case, I guess I’ll never know. Whatever the case, I was now legal and ready to make my way to the OK state for my Monday morning delivery.

When all was said and done the Tcall didn’t exactly do all that much to improve my miles for the week. I had dropped my load in Denver with close to 400 miles left on it and gained an 800 mile run in return. So the net gain was only 400 miles, but a 2700+ mile week sure looks better than a 2300 something week. I’m just glad this one is in the books and I can get started on next week.









WEEK THIRTY SIX
Monday, Sep 7th through Sunday, Sep 13th
Miles include deadhead

Commerce, GA to Abbeville, SC(last leg)………………………….92mi
Athens, GA to Sherman, TX…………………………………………… 977mi
Sulphur Springs, TX to Ft Worth, TX………………………………193mi
(193mi x .43 = $82.99 + $15 short haul pay = 50.8cpm)
Fort Worth, TX to Denver, CO…………………………………………762mi
Fort Collins, CO to Perry, OK…………………………………………..739mi

Total Paid Miles…………………………………….2763 Miles
Actual Miles…………………………..2767 Miles

2763 Miles x .43 = $1188.09 + $15 Short Haul = $1203.09

 

Supersnake wrote:

you seem to have a talent for that kind of thing. You picked me out of a 10sec appearance in the Ottawa yard.

Steeling my loads eh? That's my favorite run to get me back to the house. Even in these bad times, Phoenix goes through a lot of A/C units. Unfortunately I just got off of home time and wont be getting one of those loads which is a bummer because I'm less than 100 miles away from Ft Smith doing a reset as I type.

Just missed you, pulled out of Phoenix Sunday morning. If you had come through a week earlier I could have thrown you in the attic to blow in the insulation instead of me. You even have enough hot air in you that I wouldn't have needed to rent the insulation blower.

That was good for a laugh. You crack me up. I couldn't help but recall and earlier post by you and was bound and determined to find it. It took a while, but here it is from July 13, 2009

Direct quote from SS

But then there is the post to end all post by our beloved SS

I wouldn't know what to do without your presence on this thread.

 

I haven't been so good about checking out the thread lately. Oddly enough because I've been #### busy. I just spent 6days at the house which is time that I don't pay any attention to the trucking world. The week before that was pretty much solid running and great miles. Since pulling out of the house I put in 3700+mi in 6 1/2 days and am currently doing a reset.

I even got a two load offer out of the house in Phoenix and just got another two load offer when I delivered my load Saturday morning. Now I'm headed to PA. Yeah, that's right. I had a choice of PA or SC and I actually picked that stupid state. It really wasn't a real choice though. They both delivered on Monday. The PA load had 200 extra miles on it an delivers 06:00 and the SC load didn't deliver until 6pm. So PA, here I come.

Has anyone been up there lately, how's the freight. I've had a pretty substantial northeast dryspell. I've only been up there one or twice in the last two plus months. What a wonder thing that is to say.

 

I haven't caught up with the weekly updates, but here is my third quarter mileage chart and breakdowns.


Mileage chart for 2009 YTD


and a breakdown of the numbers