Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Yep,.that's one of the trucks i was offered.

 

whats your take on Kevin Rutheford? Interesting show. His fave motor is a detroit , finding the dd15 when spec'd right to be the best ,most reliable motor. he puts the paccar mx15 next . dead last due to problems is the isx.

All of them of course, depend on specs

 

Detroit has always been the best for reliability and mpg

 

MX is a 13liter not a 15.

 

I knew it I knew it I knew it, lol. Before I even got in the truck this morning. As soon as I saw that NJ load I knew there was going to be hell to pay.

So, after sitting around for about an hour waiting for them to decide to tell me to just bobtail into the shipper, I got there and was told my load was not ready. Awesome, Qualcomm said it was supposed to be ready yesterday. Ok, whatever, park and sit around for an hour. They said to just watch for the trailer to brought in by a yard jockey.

So, I go back to the security office to check on the load and ask where I need to go to pick up a permit that I needed. Get told that the load is ready. Ok, I must have just missed it being pulled. Drive around, drive around, drive around, still can't find the fricking trailer. Go drive by the docks and... there it is. Still at at the dock. Rules specifically say we're not supposed to hook to or pull trailers from the dock.

Next I go to the place that I'm told to pick up the permit at. Grab the permit, ask him about my trailer being ready but still at the door. He makes a call and then gets on the CB and tells the jockeys not to pull it, that I'm going to.

Go back to the trailer, back up to it then stop short and get out because I can tell someone dropped the trailer with the legs WAY to high (what a surprise).

Spend 10 minutes cranking it down in low gear, finally get enough weight off of it to put it in high-gear and he-man it around a couple more times to get this crap over with.

Sit around another 30 minutes to back up to the staging area so they can throw in some plastic guards on the kegs and then I secured the load with both load bars and straps. Not taking any chances, lol.

Another 30 minutes later I'm finally out the gate and calling a phone number to get a prepayed scale code to enter at a scale near the shipper. Grossed out at around 78.5k.

Headed North. Rain. Stoplights. Traffic. Hills. Schneider truck. Ya'll know the drill.

Drove until I saw a tiny truck stop. Made myself a spot along the side. I'm done.

Sent a message to support shift letting them know I can't make the delivery appointment due to all the delays.

3 hour live unload tomorrow! I don't care, I have my 14 set to end by 7pm. I don't care if I get only 250 miles tomorrow, I'm not playing lets-try-to-find-a-place-to-park games up in the NJ area.

Sure hope this isn't a sign of things to come for the rest of the month!

 

Misheard that on that show then. Caller was debating between a newer paccar MX and an ISX. Jusy was still out on the paccar but was shaping up to be a relatively trouble free motor. According to his opinion, of course. Being a company driver as long as I get to point B from point A in a reasonable amount of time without trouble , I'm good.

 

Could save time and just pay cash for that scale.

 

Just think! When you get to choice you will never have go NJ again if you don't want to! Although on choice the loads going Jersy are high paying tempting ones. : )

 

I'll do it as long as there are loads out.. Honestly I don't mind the northeast as long as I'm in and out and not running circles around it.

Spent about 4 hours getting 100 miles around DC and Maryland... My God what a ****show that was in the pouring rain. Couldn't go 5 miles without seeing a four wheeler in the ditch or wrecked.

67 miles from the delivery. Support shift never got back to me. What a surprise. Just gonna show up and see if they'll take me I don't even care at this point. After that, unloaded or not I'm headed to the truck stop. It's such a mess up here right now it's unreal.

 

Good news is showed up and am getting unloaded! Bad news is... no preassignment and can't decide if I just want to leave my NAT set for tomorrow or get going again tonight...