From School to Superior Carriers

11/22-12/3

Got home from N Chicago Tuesday night without incident and had a great 5 day weekend off. I was offered another long snot load from Greensboro to Carlin Nevada leaving 12/2. I had to turn it down because I scheduled some Dr's appointments and routine procedures the second week of December. I figured this is the slow time of year and would be a good time. That load would have been good money right up until the week before Christmas.

As it is now I will probably have a couple of short weeks. I left Monday and did a run up to Huguenot, NY. Its a dedicated dry bulk load for P&G but I had never done it before. At 550 miles you should be able to run it in 2 days with 1 10 hour break. I had never been there before and didn't know the layout of the plant so I stopped at the truck stop where we weigh light and heavy about 45 miles away. It took them 6 hours to load me and that threw me into another 10 hour break. If I get this run again I will run it up to the plant and park under the rack for the night. That way even with a delay I should be able to get back the next day.

I got a call from dispatch about 30 minutes before I planned to stop for a shower on the way back. He wanted me to load in Winder Ga at 6:00 PM Wed after I dropped my load at P&G. That made for a pretty tight time line that required me to max out my 14. No shower for me. I shut down 230 miles from P&G which is 310 miles from Winder.

I figured that was manageable and ran the load there as fast as I could only to discover the Winder load had been canceled. I was actually sort of glad I didn't have to drive through all that rain on a tight loading window only to run out of hours at the plant that night. I got home around 2:30 PM Wednesday. Today I am loading in Greensboro at 1:00PM and running down to Mauldin SC and back. Short week but lots of home time.

I was expecting a slow down this time of year. The good thing is my YTD pay on last Friday's check was about 3K more than 2008's year end total. In this economy I really can't complain.

 

I don't cross paths with Charlotte drivers. There is one that posts on another board who complains a lot about the miles he gets. I have been to that yard once. Its at a large 3rd party tank wash and is real small. The mechanics at our yard have hinted that I shouldn't get my truck worked on there.

Living just south of Charlotte you could also look at Greer SC. That is a much larger terminal and is where the training school is located.

 

They may be fine. The guy who posts on the other board may be someone who will complain no matter what.

I have only been there once to pick up a load going to High Point. They had me pull it rather than a local driver because the trailer had to be tested at our facility and it saved them 76 miles on the local drivers return trip. I was sort of ticked off because they sat me for 14 hours waiting for the load. It delivered the next day(Friday) and I had nothing after that. 76 miles one day and a delivery the next.

Once system freight picks up it will not matter as much what terminal you work out of.

 

12/8-12/13

Dedicated Holland Mi paint load for this week. Fortunately they have been running ahead of schedule making paint and the load was waiting for me on the yard Tuesday morning. It had a delivery window of 14-16:00 but there were blizzard warnings for that part of Mi due to that big winter storm that Hit Iowa so hard this week. I got an early start and shut down just south of Ft Wayne In anout 180 miles from the customer.

Looking at the weather reports on the computer I noticed that the temps weren't supposed to drop below freezing in Holland until late that afternoon. I took 10 hours and ran the load on up there pulling under the racks at around 12:45. I figured the unloaders wouldn't mind not having to work in a blizzard. They were happy to see me early. It still took 6.5 hours and I was ready to leave by around 7:00 PM.

It was just beginning to snow and since I had about 3.25 hours left to drive I decided to try and make it home on 2 10 hour breaks. The weather report showed it snowing down 131, across I-94 and down to MM25 or so on I-69. I figured I could make it no problem. When I left Holland the temp was 33 F and it was 31 across I-94.

Everything went fine until I hit 131. It was near white out conditions so I had to drive real slow. It took around 2 hours to go 60 miles and i had to stop twice to clean the ice off my wipers. I had no problem with traction. It was mainly visibility. I realized I wasn't going to make it far enough south to get home without 2 more breaks so I shut down in Battle Creek Mi with about 30 minutes left on my 14. I should have just stayed in Holland and headed out in the daylight.

About 8 inches of snow fell that night and temps dropped to 5 F. I had kept my trailer brakes off that night except for the first 30 minutes after I got there. One of my wheels was frozen up the next morning but a couple of whacks with a hammer fixed that. Many trucks were not able to leave the truck stop that morning.

I had a leisurely drive down to Beckley WV and stopped at the travel plaza since I didn't have another load this week. I got home around 10:00 AM and am off until Monday.

Headed to a coal mine in Indiana next week. I am glad I didn't get my truck washed Friday.

 

12/14-12/18

Pretty laid back week. My load to Petersburg In was ready by noon Monday so I headed down to the terminal around 12 and was on the road with it by 1:00. It was a whopping 8,900 lbs/1000 gallons and pulled like an empty tank The load actually didn't deliver until Wednesday but I had dispatch call and ask if they could take it Tuesday. Got the reply "no problem after noon". My paperwork had me dispatched out of Cincinnati next so I decided to shut down after around 400 miles at 8:00PM rather than push it there and start my day at noon all week.

I headed out aroung 8:00 the next morning and arrived at the mine around 12:00. This one was pretty typical. You back up to a garage door and no matter which way you set up for it end up parking with the cab sitting in a mud hole that covers your boot top when you get out. My paperwork called for 40 feet 0f 2 inch hose. There was a shortage of 3 inch hoses at the terminal so that was all I had.

They had a 1000 gallon tank that was around 1/3 full. Next to it was a 350 gallon tote and 2 55 gallon drums. They guy assigned to me wanted me to fill up the 55 gallon drums and the tote first. I didn't have enough hose on the truck to reach the tote. I told him I could turn it on and off at the truck but he would have to man the drumming fitting per company policy. We filled up the 2 55 gallon drums and then he hooked me up to the big tank. I asked him several times if it would hold all the product and made him sign my paperwork saying that it would. Then he disappeared.

There was a site glass on the tank and I could watch the product go in. When it got close to the top I grabbed another guy and asked him how close to the top it was. I told him my hoses wouldn't reach the tote and they would have to move it to get the rest of the product if I didn't blow dry soon. Right about then the tank topped off. I immediately hit the internal valve to stop the flow. Only a little product ran down the tank.

I drained my hose into a 5 gallon bucket under my blowdown fitting to avoid a big mess when we unhooked the hose from the tank while the plant guy found 4 other guys to move the 1/3 full tote. They got it close enough and fortunately I blew dry before it filled up. All in all it wasn't too bad of a delivery. It took 2.75 hours but with only 8900 lbs I was expecting something a lot quicker.

The good news was I had a preloaded tank headed back to High Point waiting for me in Memphis. It wasn't supposed to be ready until 4:00 PM Wednesday but the tank was spotted the day before and this plant is pretty good. I shut down around 9:00Pm about 120 miles N of Memphis at a Loves on I-55. I headed out the next morning around 11:00 to give myself some driving time after I grabbed my load. This trailer was dropped at Grace tankwash in West Memphis behind the Petro and I bobtailed over to the terminal. My load was ready so I imediately grabbed an empty they wanted spotted and headed over to the plant for a 30 minute drop and hook and I was headed home. I shut down at the Loves in Cookeville Tn past Nashville about 9:00 PM. That left me an easy 400 miles back to the terminal. Its a pretty laid back day trucking when you run between 400-450 miles a day. Thats what this week has been. I didn't even have to set an alarm clock since all my appointments were windows.

I got home around 5:00 PM Thursday. They had me come in and do local work for about 7 hours on Friday. I am doing the same on Monday and then will be off for the week of Christmas. I had 2 vacation/personal days left that I am taking Tues and Wed. We get holiday pay Thursday and Friday.

I also was told that our terminal is running 20-30 more loads per week this year than we were last year at this time. That should keep us busy into the New Year.

 

12/19-12/31

I was off Tuesday through the weekend of Christmas after one day of local work on Monday. The vacation was a little more stress filled than normal. My mother in law was having some problems with her leg. She waited until Dec 23 evening to decide she needed to go to the doctor. We took her to to a prime care place for x rays that night.

They couldn't tell us anything except to see her specialist. We got an appointment for her there the next day and they told her she had a cracked bone in her femer head where it seats in the hip socket, prescribed her some pain pills and we settled her in for the night.

Around 1:00 AM Christmas eve we got a call from my father in law saying she had slipped to the floor going from a recliner to her powered wheelchair and that he had been trying 1.5 hours to get her up. We called 911 and headed over there. The EMS folks were real nice. They had her back in the recliner. She seemed fine so we went home.

We got another call around 7:00 AM Christmas morning saying she had done the same thing and EMS had taken her to the hospital. Turns out her femer bone had broken all the way across. She had surgery Dec 26. My wife has also had to go through all the choosing a rehab center for her this week. Its been crazy.

On the trucking front I ran a dedicated load up to N Chicago. I left Sunday afternoon to avoid the snow and was able to get in and out with no problems though I did run it a bit easier than normal using 3 10 hour breaks rather than the normal 2. I got back Wednesday by around 3 PM and am off until Monday. I am actually kind of glad for the extra time off since my wife is real stressed out and I can take some of the load off of her. My check to start the new year will still be better than last years and I made around 6.5K more this year than last. Not bad in a crappy economy.