Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Well its been an interesting couple days to say the least. Last I updated I was sitting at the truckstop with an overweight trailer waiting to return to the shipping in the morning to get it fixed.

So, morning comes, 30 miles from the truckstop back into Tiffin, OH. Get to the shipper, they apologize for the trouble and attempt to fix it. Unload entire trailer, reload entire trailer, reseal everything up, and head back to the scale 30 miles away.

STILL OVERWEIGHT ON THE TANDEMS. Its over by 360lbs, I'm running 2-lanes pretty much the entire route 'cause Schneider doesn't want to pay the tolls on the IN/OH Turnpikes... So I consider just running but, but then I remember SOME HOW, SOME WAY I will get a ticket, Schneider will pitch a fit, my DBL will throw a fit, etc. etc. etc. so no, I better call in and ask.

So, I call in, get a DBL, he sends me over to claims, claims sends me back to the DBL, DBL brings in customer service, CS gets on the batphone and gets mad at the shipper, tells me they won't let me run it, and back I go... 30 miles again. Before I hang up I ask the DBL for some help with these miles because now I'm spending 120 miles running back and fourth to the shipper and the scale on a 300 mile trip. He says he would and did something that may or may not have given me the miles, who knows. So, get back to the shipper, they're apologizing profusely now, the guys that load the trailer are asking me what I would do, I tell them I have zero experience loading the trailers, but that it seems to me that if they would just move some of the weight forward, if I'm overweight on the drives then I have PLENTY of room to work with sliding the tandems forward. I could tell they were feeling bad so I joked with them that "what do I care, I'm getting paid for the miles, and this is a nice trip back and fourth so I'm happy to keep running this all day". This seemed to lighten their mood a bit and they told me that if I come back again they'll just go ahead and put me on the payroll.

So, after they go back and fourth on ideas they unload the entire trailer a second time, reload it, reseal a second time, print out a new set of bills since they've crossed out the seal twice now (LOL), and I go back to the scale.

STILL OVERWEIGHT ON THE TANDEMS.

So, at this point, I'm done fighing this crap. I decided to slide my 5th wheel forward a tiny bit to close up the gap between the drives and the tandems a tiny bit even though this probably wouldn't do anything for removing the weight on the tandems. Scale again and I'm over by about 120lbs on the tandems. WHATEVER, CLOSE ENOUGH. Finally, I head out for K-Mart in IL.

Get to K-Mart, in and out quick there with a drop, I heard them remove the pickup empty assignment on the Qualcomm on the way there, so I check it and they have me picking up a relay out of the Gary, IN OC, I don't feel like fighting traffic back in to IN with 2 hours left on my clock, so I park at the K-Mart for the night and headed into Gary this morning.

Got to Gary, ran my truck through the wash bay, went to look for my relay, attached 150lbs of dust to my still-wet truck, finally found the relay, and... OF COURSE THE DRIVER THAT DROPPED IT DIDN'T SCALE IT. AM I THE _ONLY_ ONE THAT SCALES RELAYS BEFORE I DROP THEM SO SOMEONE ELSE ISN'T STUCK WITH AN OVERWEIGHT OR INCORRECTLY LOADED TRAILER? Seriously, of all the relays I've picked up only about 1/3 are scaled. So, went inside, took a shower, got a bite to eat and headed back to my truck. Went through the wash bay a second time, this time there is a giant mud puddle outside the control panel so although the outside of the truck is clean I'm tracking globs of mud into my truck now, finally get out of Gary and head about 4 miles away to scale this load.

And, GUESS WHAT? OVERWEIGHT ON THE DRIVES THIS TIME!!! Tandems already slid all the way forward, front axle at 11820. Call in, sit on hold for 15 minutes since its the weekend, finally get a DBL and he tells me to go over on the front axle a little bit and run it. So, slid the 5th wheel forward one notch, and off we go to Gas City.

Got the Wal-Mart DC in Gas City, of course I've got a preassignment that requires me to magically drive 100 miles in 30 minutes, oh well hopefully I'll get in and out quick. Nope. Get to the window, apparently we can drop there but still have to pay for the lumper service, so after sitting on hold with them for a while, FINALLY get my EFS check approved for the lumpers, run back inside, finally get my empty assignment (oh boy its the last empty there so we know its gonna be a great trailer!!!) and hop back in my truck. Hook up to this trailer that looks like it might fall apart being loaded with styrafoam let alone a full load of water bottles. Oh well, it pre-trips good enough to run empty so we'll try. I debated calling the DBLs and explaining there is no way I can be on time, but I realized that after I spent 30 minutes on hold by the time they got through to CS and CS got through to the customer, I could be halfway there. So I chance it and head south.

So, finally arrive at the shipper in a town just outside of Indianapolis 2 hours late, luckily they're willing to load me. Get loaded, and headed to a truckstop just down the highway. Weighed it, over on the drives, luckily I can come forward with the tandems so it shouldn't be a problem.

I guess they decided to give me this newer truck so they could just throw a bunch of heavy loads at me and it'd pull a little better than the last one LOL.

For the last 3 loads this is what I've grossed:

79,360 - over on trailer tandems
77,260 - over on drives
79,320 - hopefully it'll be OK when I re-weight tomorrow morning

Well... thats all for now, until next time...

 

Well I made it to the Kroger DC in Memphis TN with my bottled water load today, stopped for fuel on the way in but only filled with 50 gallons so I wouldn't be overweight, I couldn't remember if there was a DOT scale on the other side of the bridge or not, so I decided not to chance it. I'm having a hard time judging my fuel level on this new truck, I filled it up the best I could last time I fueled and reset the fuel counter, and at 100 gallons burned it was reading 1/4 of a tank on the gauge. Normally I would have run it to 140 gallons or so before I would start worrying, but until I get a feel for how much fuel I can actually hold in these tanks I'll play it safe I guess. I never trust the fuel gauge, but when its reading 1/4 full and I'm not familiar with how low my fuel actually is, I'm not going to push my luck! Also, does anyone know how the fuel system works on these Cascadias? Is fuel pumped from one tank into another, or evenly from both tanks? Where is the sender located? If I weren't so comfortable in my bunk right now I'd climb out and go have a look myself... lol.

Anyway, my load wasn't supposed to deliver until 2300. I could have had it to the West Memphis OC much earlier, I asked to relay it, but they didn't want to. So I got here early but left enough time on my 14 to be able to still be on the clock when they start unloading. I'll have to park here for the night after they finish unloading though. I'm hoping I'll get a door several hours early and then maybe I could make it to the West Memphis OC to sleep for the night, but I have my doubts that will happen with this Kroger load. I'll probably be up till 4am by the time they are finished.

Having any kind of an irregular schedule is the #1 thing I struggle with when it comes to trucking. I am a creature of habit when it comes to my sleep, I like to start early and end early, usually start my pre-trip at 0530 and try to shut down by 1800-1900 while I can still find a place to park. I can't just fall asleep for my break whenever and wake up ready to go whenever the time is up, my body just doesn't want to work like that. That's why I don't like these kinds of loads that deliver late at night, because then I have to start my next day late, and then hope I get a load where I can cut that day short to get back on my "regular" schedule. Oh well, that's how it goes I guess, could be worse.

My truck did a great job with this load, I don't think I had to pull it out of 10th gear the entire way from outside of Indianapolis even though I was grossing 79,360lbs, except when I stopped at a rest stop or fuel, of course. Last time I fueled I was about 30 miles outside of Gary, IN, so from Gary to Gas City to Plainfield to Memphis TN I averaged 6.95 MPG according to the trucks computer. Not bad considering the only time I was below 77k was when I bobtailed the 30 miles into the Gary, IN OC.

I bought a new CB today, Loves had the Bearcat 880 on sale for $70 off, I think it was 79.99 after the cut. I had been using a cheapo Cobra 19 that I used to have in my pickup truck, and it just didn't work all that great. Pretty impressed with the 880, we'll see how it holds up.

Other than that, nothing new to report, no preassignments yet. I need to find a Wal-Mart along my next route hopefully so I can do some grocery shopping, I'm out of bread. Whenever I start running out of food I get lazy and start eating a truck stops a lot, and next thing you know thats several hundred dollars a month straight down the drain, vs. the pennies it costs to eat my usual PB&J and ham and cheese sandwiches. Getting really tired now, and its only 20:15 here now. This is gonna be a LONG night.

 

Sure wish I could make it to the OC tonight but the 14 is ticking away its final minutes and I'm still against the dock here at Kroger. Good news is my lumper fee was prepaid apparently so I don't have to try to get through to someone in Green Bay tonight to get an EFS check approved. Hopefully there are still some parking spaces left in the staging lot by the time I'm done, otherwise I'll have to squeeze in on the street somewhere. Can't wait to throw this thing up on high idle, set the AC to "arctic winter" and get some sleep. I'm exhausted.

Have a safe trip to Indiana stevep, I just came from there today, I enjoyed the drive, nice smooth trip except for that stretch of concrete coming through Arkansas that I was afraid would shake my truck apart.