Good Night From II

does the ezpass work for the ks turnpike?

 

No, Kansas has its own toll pass

 

I have the KS pass in my truck and yet my truck never goes near there

 

Just tell your DM, to order the ktag Kansas toll and pike pass Oklahoma toll pass. He/she will put in a request to permits, and you should have both pass in about 3 week's.

 

will do thanks.

 

Great job!

My mentor turned me on to the concept of always asking at the dispatch window for work. I can't remember which terminal it was, but he told the story of seeing a bunch of drivers all complaining about lack of work. He went to the dispatch window and ran a full day, making $225, came back to the terminal and the same cast of characters were all sitting there complaining about the lack of work.

My driver manager also told me that anytime I'm without a dispatch for more than an hour I should call. Often this means that they simply message the planners, but it does put oil on the squeaky wheel.

Another hint: next time you are at a terminal ask to see the "Bubble Map" just for your education. It's a map of the USA on a flat screen TV that has bubbles for every major shipping area. Green bubbles mean there is more freight than available trucks in the area and red bubbles mean there are more trucks than available freight. The bigger the bubble the greater the discrepancy. The map constantly changes. Be aware of where freight is hot and where there will potentially be dead zones.

 

Well, there's something you don't see every day...

I started from Earle, AR at 4:30 am in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. At times the rain was so intense I had to slow to 35 mph headed west on I-40, but most of the time about 45-50 mph. The lightening was blinding, but also helpful to be able to illuminate the road.

I stopped at the Love's in Palestine, AR for a fuel stop. It was raining very hard at this point, I heard on the radio eastern Arkansas to Memphis was getting 4-6" of rain. I fueled up, then proceeded to pull out and had to come to a stop because a car was ahead of me, pulling out, but BACKING UP!? Then I noticed one of those big orange construction zone barrels passing me going the other way?????

Then it dawned on me why the car was backing up, it was a flash flood. The poor truckers that "made a parking space" in the exit area were already up to their hubs in water and it was rising fast. I was on a little higher ground and the water was rushing so fast I was leaving a wake standing still, in about a foot of water. Water was coming down into the Love's from the road and from the slope on the west side of the street.

I decided sticking around wasn't the best option, so after the car backed around out of the stream I moved forward in low gear and got onto the street and made my way to the on ramp. By then I was out of the flash flood, but then had to make my way around half a dozen trucks parked on the on ramp, most of them blocking up to half the narrow lane, forcing me to straddle down into the mud on the left side.

Now I'm taking a 30 just inside the Oklahoma border. Good thing I was able to get through all those Arkansas construction zones during night and early morning. I'll take a 10 tonight in Oklahoma City, visit with my brother (he's O/O hauling flatbed now, servicing the oil rigs).

 

If you call permits yourself instead of having your DM do it you should get them much faster than 3 weeks. It should only take 1-2 weeks. I got mine in my company truck in 1 week.

 

If you know what terminal you can stop at in 3 days you can call Phoenix and they will overnight your transponders to that terminal. I've had to have my windshield replaced twice in the last year and have quickly gotten replacements each time.

BTW, Kansas and Oklahoma now have a reciprocal agreement where either transponder works in either state.

 

jurupay valley terminal. got up an hour late(wanted to leave barstow at 0500)and got here. put truck in shop to get its 40000 bservice done. they said it be sometime today. going to try and get load tcalled. freddie at the window said to wait till trucks out of shop. sitting here watching the world cup