Good night from...

Did my laundry ... parts of TN are nice, but you can have Memphis.

My wife doesn't seen my settlements. I used to just hand my check over to her. We went through a rough patch 15 years ago. One of the things that came out of that was I give her a fixed amount every 2 weeks.

Some little truck stop in some little town, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in VA. Deliver tomorrow, then pick up and hump over to Colombus. Probably going to stop in Martinsburg to fuel.

 

I agree with you about Memphis. Never been and don't want to. Love the eastern part of the state though!

 

Got delayed a half hour getting out of the truckstop in Fernley this morning due to a dozen of the NASCAR traveling circus trucks rolling in at 2am and blocking everything. I got to see most of the last part of the trip from Susanville, CA on to Medford as the sun came up. A lot of bittersweet memories going through the backroad to Mt. Shasta. Got a load before I got to Shasta, pick-up in Medford, #44k of wood shavings (horse stall bedding), going to Paicines, CA to the J&L Ranch near Hollister out in the boonies between 101 and I-5.

I bought a blue roan saddle horse from that ranch in 1985 whose name, oddly enough, was Blue. Great horse except he had an evil, maybe playful for him, habit of waiting until you weren't paying attention and then explode bucking and jumping. You had to ride Blue really relaxed or get launched.

Anyhow, the load picked up a few miles from the Walmart I delivered to in Medford except when I got there I found out I actually had to go to the sawmill, 145 miles north in Cottage Grove. Called my new DM and he got the CSR on a conference call immediately and the load was redispatched with the correct information. I was told by the CSR to send my loaded call and after it was received/updated to send a mac22 with my delivery date and time. So a 456 mile load in the wrong direction turned into 750 with 145 empty, zippy, eat my dust miles. If I can snag another one day on Wednesday it will add to what will be a 3200 mile week. Cool.

At a Pilot in Oakland, OR, I-5 exit 148.

Frank

 

Speaking of Paicines, I worked on an emergency bridge job out there in the 90's. Evidently the old bridge washed out in a storm and they needed the bridge rebuilt asap. We worked a lot of 12-16 hour days and drank beer and barbequed all night on that job since it was out in the 'boonies' lol. I remember the company was so cheap they only rented 2 hotel rooms and put 8 guys in each room. I just used the shower every day and slept on the job in a beat up old camper.
One day this cowboy shows up and asked us to turn off all the generators, air compressors, cranes, welders, and equipment as he had some more cowboys coming thru with a herd of cows soon. It was like turning the clock back 100 years seeing these cowboys punching these cows thru the jobsite to get to another pasture.

I made it up into Pennsylvania finally after all day of fighting steep mountains of I68. Pulling hazmat again, so big target on the trailer, of course not to disappoint Mr. DOT throws up the red light on the scale and had me shut 'er down right then and there for a full on inspection. I think he did it for dramatic affect on the other truck drivers who had to go around my truck thru the scale. So everything passed and was allowed to proceed. Aiming for Grand Rapids Michigan tomorrow night....

 

Edwardsville terminal. Would you believe that this load weighed all of 7K and they made me scale it here because the load info said that it was supposed to be 41K. It was a Costco load that is delivering 2 miles up the road on Thursday, but because it was still a t-call. Oh well. Everytime that I tried to do a MAC 30 today kept getting back message that PTA was more than 18 hours. Did MAC 34 today at least 4 times and the system kept changing me. Finally was able to do a MAC 30 tonight and received a offer, pu 120 miles and take to Odessa. No weight on the offer, delivery time said 0000 on the 28th. I think that it was a Dollar General load, but 674 miles in 2 days, nope, plus with that hurricane flying around there, did not want to be there.

You would not believe the mess that this terminal is in. there are trailers double parked all over out in the aisles.

 

At a rest area on I-80 a few miles north of Dunnigan, CA because the Pilot was gridlocked. I tried to pull through the fuel island to get my morning coffee and grab some of the crap they call pizza for supper and trucks were stacked three deep. I would have run out of hours in an area with absolutely no truck stops so had to stop short and finish the last 200 miles in the morning.

I spent most of the day climbing mountains in 5th gear at 25mph/1450rpm wishing I had a 13 speed in this truck. My mpg is 5.6 and I never get that low even heavy. Due to the 40' bs I have way too much weight on the tandems compared to drives and it is freaky squirrelly going downhill; I jaked down a bunch of steep, curvy hills in 7th and under 45mph and the trailer was still trying to shove the truck out of the way.

Frank

 

Welcome to California... Ugh... What a long day of sitting and waiting... Finished my live unload, took 4.5 hrs and pu next load in Green Bay at B&G... Support to be preloaded, nope. Waited 3.5 hours to get in the dock and another two to get loaded... So, if you do the math, I got to drive less than four hours today! Also both loads kept
me up way past my bed time...

 

OK, where to begin.... We made it to Grand Rapids Michigan in fine shape, only the receiver said Swift had set the appointment time for the next afternoon (we were 26 hours early all of a sudden unbeknownst to me). Thanks for being such an upstanding business partner Swift and letting me know that pertinent information lol. I know I thought it was funny too driving hammer down to make ontime delivery, wasting fuel and extra wear and tear, not to mention stress of rolling into the place with 45 minutes left for a live unload.

Well, no harm, they unloaded and Abby and I finished the 10 hour break right on their lot, cooked up some soup, bread and butter and the last few bites of cottage cheese was dinner.

So the only load offering was a pickup 200 miles north in Petosky Michigan going to a Walmart DC in up-mid-state New York. About 20% deadhead, I accepted because I had two loads last week that were zero percent deadhead so it averages out pretty nicely.

Critical low on hours- 9.5 for yesterday, 0 falling off today and 5 tonight at midnite and 10 falling off the next midnite so I used about 7 today, 7 tomorrow then kick around til midnite Friday morning and try to deliver asap so I can be in position for a weekend load out hopefully with enough time for a 34, or not.

 

Abby is so pretty! I love dogs!

 

She is actually looking clean, not like the first time that I met her. Oops, Sorry Scotty, forgot that you also read these.