Crete Carrier - A Year In Review - Fall 2013 Going Forward

Took it easy today, ran 425 miles and stopped in Amarillo about 13:00, heading to flagstaff tomorrow and Hesperia for Wednesday night. Beats sitting at a dock.

 

Knocked out the miles on this FCFS 950 mile/804 paid miles load with half my 2nd day clock left. Of course Consignee says "FCFS, uh No! Try 06:30 live offload Tomorrow!" So another 7:30 on the 14 an05:30 of available drivetime wasted. The miles differential primarily due to having to detour to my Terminal to pickup permits that they said via qualcomm would be mailed but weren't. 100% unpaid miles. Been having a lot to rant about lately.

 

After my freezing experience in Minnesota I went and bought me a nice Carhartt jacket today. Darn those things are expensive! There was a Gander Mountain next door so I made the mistake of going in to look for the CCW I've been wanting. I wished I hadn't! They had it in stock; Glock36. Man oh man was I glad the sales dude was way on the other end of the massive gun counter. I escaped with out my hide-em but I did keep my $619

 

I have had my Walls Blizzard Proof jacket & bib-coveralls for several years now and I am impressed with the warmth, was all suited up last week putting chains on at 0430, snow was about a foot in -13 degree weather, just to get out of the Pilot truck stop.....

 

Any hints on keeping the windshield from icing up? Tried defrost on high, tried floor heat only, didn't have much success either way. Ended up destroying the drivers side wiper trying to get the chunks of ice off. I did find a nice little Kwik Trip/Super Shell off I39 at Plover WI.

 

I haven't figured out the icy window solution yet either. Perhaps a colder rated wiper fluid might help if we can find some.

 

Come to think of it, I have my wife along this trip and she brought a blow dryer.....hmmm....

 

I keep a good coat of Rain X on and wear a heavy sweatshirt and sock cap. I keep the heat off and crack the passenger window. Most time I never need the wiper, but if the road spray freezes up the wiper, I reach out and grab the wiper blade. Seems the passenger side never freezes up.

 

Dump 8-12 oz of rubbing alcohol into the washer fluid reservoir, the freeze point is -100 for rubbing alcohol.

 

I actually used 1 bottle of alcohol per gallon of washerfluid...then mixed a heavy saltwater solution in the alcohol bottle with a small hole in the cap just before this last trip across WY. I still had some freezing on the blade and the top corner of the windshield still collected ice...but in between wind gusts, I would open the window and squirt warm salt water as far as I could on the windshield. It seemed to help some...these aero body styles suck for windshield cleaning. The reason the passenger side doesn't freeze as bad is because the wiper isn't getting to the curved part of the windshield. These trucks need wipers like on the Greyhound bus. Built with some sort of lever mechinism that causes the wiper to stay totally vertical. I've even tried the expensive 1 piece bar type wiper...it was some better in the wind, but the K/C shop took it off and put on another of the company's cheap winter blades with the condom on it. Didn't matter to me, they paid for the $25 blade a month before he did it and a month later...I left for greener pastures