Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Hey yall, sorry for not updating things for a while... I'll try to update it a little more often now.

So, last I updated I was still stuck up in Indiana... honestly I've forgotten any adventures from that far back so I'll try to update starting back as far as I can remember...

I was finally taken off the 0-90 day DBL and put on a board with a "regular" DBL that one of the head guys at Charlotte told me he was going try to get me on with. He kept his promise there, I'll give him that. I don't want to name names, but he's a good guy.

Miles and loads I have not really seen much of an improvement with... but I should give it a little more time I guess.

I stayed out for a full 4 weeks and took 5 full days off which was nice.

I headed back out last week, as stevep1977 guessed I went straight back up into the Northeast, lol. Picked up a P&G load out of Henderson and headed up to Delaware. Then played around in PA for a couple days, then got a load that took me down to South Carolina. Ah yes, Georgia Pacific in Big Island, Virginia. I've been there before, probably got there by taking some roads that I probably should NOT have been on. Thank God I was empty. Out of all the places to put a paper mill, I don't think there could be a worse place to put one when it comes to access roads in and out. I decided to call and get directions so I could get there safely this time. After spending 15 minutes navigating through their 1400 phone menu options I finally get directions from 81 south. I tried to get them from 29, as that was what my Qualcomm was trying to route me down, but the automated directions weren't working for that, and I couldn't get ahold of a person, so the route from 81 south it is. My internet is too slow to load Google maps, but if I remember correctly it was 81 South to 220 to 460 to 122 to 501... maybe. Anyway, it was pouring rain the whole way there, and I was empty, man that last stretch on what I think was 122 was one heck of a white knuckle ride. Finally got there, oh wait, no I'm about to cruise past the entrance at 45MPH, roads are wet and I'm empty so I can't slam the brakes and slow down fast enough to turn in, I yell words I can't post on here, there is NO WHERE to turn around and of course the road starts heading up steep grades, I'm having to get into the other lane to keep my trailer out of the ditch, FINALLY miles down the road I find a spot to pull off to the side and get turned so that Schneider wouldn't "technically" be able to get after me for making a U-Turn, and head back and finally get in the gate. Me, the Ugly Pumpkin, and the paper rolls crawl back to I-81 and finally head south.

After I got down to South Carolina I got a preassignment for a run to Ohio, but it was odd in that it wasn't ready until 10pm the following day. They also had me taking an empty to a K-Mart in Charlotte, NC, dropping that empty, picking up another empty, and then going back down to South Carolina to pick up my main load. WAT. Called in and got told that maybe the trailer had been sitting there for too long and they needed to cycle another one through. Whatever, a good enough excuse to head to the OC for night and get some food. When I got to the OC I took my trailer by the shop to have the brakes looked at as they weren't holding with the trailer emergency brakes applied very well, making sliding the tandems a lot of fun, until I finally realized I could the Brake Hold switch on the dashboard. Wish I had figured that out before wasting 5 minutes rolling back and fourth fighting them, lol. I'm guessing the purpose for this switch was mainly for older trailers before they had spring-applied parking brakes?

So, I get to Charlotte that evening and look at the timing of stuff and look at my times and realize that I should just sit there for 34 and take a restart. My restart would finish around 5am and then I could go pick up that load. Perfect. Take my trailer to the shop, they decide instead to steal it from me because it has other repairs that need to be made, I reluctantly give up my nice new trailer and go look for another, finally after cruising around the lot 3 times I find one, hook up to it, go and park for the night.

The following morning, I'm sitting inside the OC watching the NCIS re-runs when I get a phone call, oh look its from the OC, I bet its someone calling to complain about me taking a restart without asking even though there is nothing else I can do since I'm already sitting for a minimum of 26 hours before I can pick----- YOU WHAT? WANT TO OFFER ME A NEWER TRUCK? Without any hesitation I tell them that would be AWESOME, they tell me someone is looking at trucks now and to just wait in the cafeteria. Finally, one of the DBLs comes out holding some keys and hands them to me, I thank him profusely and walk out quickly to go check out my next truck. I wasn't expecting much, I mean I liked the Ugly Pumpkin, it was reliable powertrain wise, never left me stranded with a major breakdown, but at its age lots of little issues plagued it and in the heat the AC couldn't keep up, it was getting uncomfortable...

I get to the end of the row and don't see this truck, finally I glance down one row and THERE SHE IS.

2012 Freightliner Cascadia with only 144k miles. Detroit DD15, 10 speed. The only thing its missing is the EPU, but hey, you won't hear me complain for a second. I LOVE MY NEW TRUCK. Its so comfortable, its so nice to shift on a transmission that has gears that haven't been torn up by new drivers for the past 800,000 miles. Very little damage other than a very slight bend to the drivers fairing you can't even see unless you look hard, and a few little knicks on some of the plastic bumper and skirts here and there. The interior is very nice, in almost perfect shape, all the shelves are there and the doors close. The old mattress had some guys butt imprinted on it, so I got a new one from the shop. I've got more 12v ports than I know what to do with, a bunk heater that should actually keep me warm in the winter, and GREAT AC. And my absolute favorite part, NO WHEEL COVERS. So i can polish them up and have this truck looking real nice. The only thing I still need to do is figure out how to mount my antenna for my 3G/4G usb modem since it can't clamp to a mirror bar directly any more.

Here is a picture taken the morning I left the OC.



The torque curve of the DD15 works extremely well with what Schneider was trying to accomplish with the 10 speed and tall rear gears. It took me a while to get used to driving it, but its very very nice compared the Series 60 with the same transmission/rear gear combination. With my old truck, when pulling hills as soon as I'd hit 57MPH I'd have to stomp the throttle, throw it up in 9th and repeat for every single gear down to climb hills and attempt to keep it from bogging down. This DD15 pulls like a dream all the way down to about 1100-1000 RPM and then I will usually shift at that point. Schneider says to go down to 900, that's a bit low for my liking.

The only thing I don't like about this new truck is tapping the clutch with the cruise/jake on no longer immediately deactivates them. I'm getting used to turning them off when necessary with the steering wheel buttons, but I do wish they would just auto cancel as soon as the clutch was pressed.

Anyway, I'm very proud of my new truck and hopefully it will serve me well. I'm laying in the bunk now, idling quietly at 750 RPM with my ice-cold AC on. I just finished my first trip with the new truck today, grossing 78.5k, it did an awesome job pulling tons of nasty hills all the way up from Charlotte, through VA, WV, to OH. I picked up another load headed to IL, crap miles but whatever I'm just enjoying driving my new truck, of course got 30 miles away and scaled it and am over by 1700 on the trailer axles and can't go back any further. This one weighs in at 79360. Looks like I better not fuel at all on the way there... lol. So hopefully it won't take too long to get re-worked in the morning and I can make my delivery on time. I'm tired of setbacks, the trailer I brought up from SC had OOS defects I had to run through the Charlotte OC for 3 hours for them to fix the roof...

SO, OVERALL:

Miles - NOT IMPROVING
Truck - OH GOD YES
Loads - HEAVY AS HECK BUT MY NEW TRUCK HANDLES THEM GREAT
Overall - Despite my complaints still "content" working with Schneider. Still want to go O/O IC but just haven't gotten the guts to start talking with someone about it yet.

Until next time...