CRETE - A Year in Review

It looks like I have finally gotten out of the bad freight cycle and started getting to the right places at the right time...or else my constant nagging has gotten to them finally, and they figured out the best way to shut me up is put me to work. On the way to the Chicagoland delivery they sent me a preplan(at 4 am while I was sleeping, but let it sit there until I saw it when I woke up). My Chicagoland load was oversized paper bags for lawn debris. The next load was out of the Menards D/C in Plano going to Clio, MI. Even though this isn't the longest run(355 mi with deadhead) it was up to me to set the delivery time. I like the way the D/C is doing things now. If your load is ready, drop in one lot, cross the driveway to the other lot, pick up, weigh on site, then head for the guard shack. They are even using a tablet computer to do all the paperwork signing before they print it and leave it up to you to tell them what time you'll deliver, and when they enter it in the tablet, the store gets the info automatically...very cool! I kinda felt like James T Kirk signing the forms from the yeoman. This week won't top 3000, but after some of the weeks I've had, 2700 miles seems big. And I still haven't heard a peep out of my A/M, tomorrow is 7 days w/o speaking...I guess it's "no news is good news" so I'll shut up and enjoy it. After all, you can't complain when they don't give you anything to complain about...unless you complain about having nothing to complain about...if that make any sense.

I am kinda getting worried about my truck. Both the last Maxxfarce and this one have occasional issues when it's doing a passive regen (doing it while your rolling). The last one would every once in a while do one when I first took off for the day, and many times going down a road with a lot of redlights. When I would stop, the exhaust temp light would come on, then when I pulled away, a big puff of blue smoke would come out. I figured that stop and go traffic didn't allow me to build enough heat in the DPF to burn the fuel it injects to incinerate the soot to ash. But this truck, at least once a week puts out so much smoke when that happens, that it looks like I'm on fire. I was stopped in construction traffic in Mt Vernon, IL yesterday when it happened...I almost got out and took a look to see if it was about to cause an even bigger traffic jam by catching fire.

 

One pet peeve about the load of recycling bags I delivered up by Chicago. I'm not ever going to be confused or accused of being green (as in environmentally friendly). And I especially don't get these new paper recycling bags. What is their thinking..."let's chop down some trees, then send them to a huge paper mill that uses millions of gallons of water, and millions of kilowatts of electricity to make these huge rolls of paper, then send that paper to another factory that uses thousands of gallons of water and thousands of kilowatts of electricity to make these biodegradable paper bags so that people don't use plastic bags". I mean, plastic takes for ever to break down, but how much damage are they doing to the environment making, trucking, and warehousing a paper bag? Again, maybe I should shut up...trucking that stuff makes me money....never mind...forget I said anything.

 

I don't know how you do it? I don't know how anyone does it? I don't know how drivers are happy working for an OTR company? I picked up a truckstop mag today and saw the famous "Crete...There are no shortcuts" phrase. It seems like you have been given the shortcut path. I feel for you sir. I really do.

Are you OTR guys a glutten for punishment?

 

I didn't mean to give the impression that everything related to my curse is Crete's fault. Most of my recent nightmares have just been just that ... part of a curse. I was just sharing for interest sake and don't blame Crete for what's happening (this time). Since I last posted, it got a lot worse too. The Int'l dealer said they found some stuff improperly installed that had cut half way into one of the fuel tanks. My truck will be down now for quite a while with major work. I will probably end this month with less than 5K. On the other hand, I'm really dreading when Crete tells me they want me to switch yet again into another truck. I'm not even sure how I can do that with my truck dismantled inside a shop.

 

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. If things were that poorly installed, there's no telling what else might fall off or blow up, possibly taking you with it.

 

Some of us choose to run OTR. I have taken local jobs on three occasions and after about 6 months each time I couldn't wait to get back OTR. Don't bash people that prefer OTR.

 

Many of us have the same feelings about driving local...like I mentioned a page or so ago, I'm not putting down local drivers, but it's a part of trucking that most OTR drivers don't care for...call it the love of the open road. Seeing the same general area day after day, week after week without even a short change of scenery would be so boring and redundant...for me at least, local or even regional would be torture.

 

I just read a news report that Cleburne and Ennis, TX got hit by tornados...geez...I was just there(Cleburne) earlier this week, and through Ennis on my way out...I hope this isn't another one of those years when it's a constant game of 'dodge the storms'.

 

my home town is right in between Cleburne and Ennis. My mom said the storms split as they approached and all we got was about an inch of rain but no damage.

 

very fortunate! I heard that Cleburne got hit by 2 tornados not just 1. Many people were coming out of their shelter/safe room only to have to run right back in.