Good night from...

Temple, GA, at the J.

I decided to take a 34 here to get full hours back, on a load with way too much time.
Planners 'special instructions' were to pick up the load and deliver on-time.
And I've read others saying that they could not get loads t-called, so I figure I'll keep it and get my 70 back for next week.

Could be worse.
Come Monday morning I'll have 1300 miles, with room for another 1,000+ before the pay period ends.

 

Last week was a good one, 3500+ loaded miles and got to spend time with my daughter and meet my granddaughter as well.

At the J in Big Springs, NE, on my way to Portland & Wilsonville, OR with a load of office furniture. Nearly turned it down because of the "driver unload" part, then I found out what it was and that all I have to do is push the boxes to the back of the trailer. I can do that for $65 (or whatever it is that they pay O/Os for "driver assist"). Cannot deliver til Wed the 18th. That's OK, I'm running off of reset, planning to be at the Troutdale TA Monday afternoon where I'll take a 34 then deliver on Wed. Depending on my hours and how I feel I may see if Troutdale will let me t-call it and deliver something they have local instead.

 

the shipper loaded me pretty quick. went to truckstop few miles away to weigh the load. had to keep kingpin at 41' and was 300 pounds over on trailer tandems. went back to reload and manager came over with yarddog. yarddog said only calif. has a 41' kingpin. told him he was wrong, that there's 11 states that have that and calif. is 40'. he said to move it back or tix was on me,. i told the manager i wasn't moving since its not legal to run . manager said it be tomorrow morning before they get to it. called my dl and explained and he called csr who in turn called the shipper. hpour later manager said he has someone coming over to fix it. he said i could move my fifthwheel forward to move trailer tandems weigh forward. i said that won't do anything to them. they seem to want to argue and they don't know anything. anyways, they got the load rearranged and weight are good. funny thing, yarddog said he had 20 yrs experience driving, i said SO. i have 15 lol

 

anyways, tcalling this load at columbus ohio terminaldue to not have to be in pittsburg till monday and my truck has a yellow engine light on, so onroad said to take it to a terminal shop. sitting at a pilot off us71 ex28 somewhere north of i-64 in ky

 

Hotel in Laredo. Yesterday was told that short 66 trucks. This morning all of sudden, the freight is tight. Guess that they moved a lot of trucks from Lancaster down here, plus using the flat bedders since their fr8 is slow due to Mexican holiday on Monday. Well, woke this morning to see a pplan and removed. I would have refused anyway. PU in yard and del 1800 miles on Thursday. Well, then sent the same plan again and this time refuses, too much time. Sent a 3rd time and did a MAC 9 with new del window, and found out that MAC 9 will not work on multiple stop loads. Forgot, have a stop in Perry, GA on Monday. Now we start to work on getting it t-called in Decatur. Then I was asked if go ahead an pu and will keep working on getting it t-called. Been there, done that, and not again. Finally about almost 4 hours later, pplan sent again, with t-call in Decatur. By then, I have burned up almost 10 on 14, so decided, just leave in morning. GPS has me going us 59 up to Houston, looked at MapQuest, and up 35 to 10. All of 10 miles farther and about 2 hours faster. Now I get to deal with Decatur, one of my least fav terminals, especially since I will not have a mt.

Now I must say, I think that my DM knows that something is up. He has done a 180 turn, and actually helping a lot more. I think that it just might be too late. Not sure. I still have 2 weeks to make a decision, and I think that he knows that after I had to DH 400 miles home, not happy.

 

yeah that area in weed is nice

dropped my load at a medical place with a tight dock then returned to terminal to drop my mt then bobtailed to Bellemont for an mt there, then went to purina to pick up my heavy load which was 45737 and I had a hell of a time to scale it. I moved my tandems all the way forward and moved the 5th wheel up a notch and still 180lbs over on drives so i figured I could burn that off in fuel before a scale.
The 5th wheel was a mfer, first time I had to move it and the pins would not retract and no drivers would help so after struggling banging on them etc I got smart and used duck tape to tape the switch then got out and hit them loose, had to dump suspension because of the weight to get it to move but finally got it done. I couldnt move another notch since rescale steers were 11800 ish. The brightside the lady didnt charge for my scale ticket, she said she forgot to ring it up but would get me on the re weigh, she didnt bother with the re weigh either so theres a free 10 bucks from swift.

Stopped for the night at the rest area in Yucca, AZ. Went and used the restroom and saw a sign an old man maybe around 70 put up that he was stranded with no food and funds and looked like he was sleeping in his old beat up car so I gave him all the cash I had which was only $1.70 then went back to my truck and heated him up a roast beef and mash potato meal (hormel completes) and gave that to him with a dr pepper since I ran out of water earlier today besides whats left in my gallon, never seen an old man so happy. I know what its like to be stranded with no food or money so I didnt hesitate to help the man out.

 

You didn't have to dump the suspension ... you're supposed to dump the suspension ... you don't want any weight on the 5th wheel when you slide it.

Also you have room on your steers. On the Prostar one notch of the 5th wheel is roughly 250lbs on to the steers. You can't exceed the load weight of the steer tires, each tire is rated for 6175lbs so you can go to 12350 on the steers and still be legal.

On my way to Miami ... got whole extra day on this load, but going run easy tomorrow, stop and get an axle alignment and do some housekeeping tomorrow and Sunday.

Oh and Weed is not one of the prettiest truck stops ... it is THE prettiest truck stop.

 

Went to pick up a preload last night. Gate guard said the yard seal did not match the paperwork, that I had to go back to shipping and get a new seal put on. So I did that, shipping gave me a new seal. I just drove back to guard and handed him the seal. He cut off the old seal and put the new seal on. Then he cut the new seal off and reached into the manila envelope and got the final seal out and applied that. "Following procedure driver" , wow this place is like the US government lol.

 

at columbus terminal. tcalled the load and waited in shop line for 2 hrs to get checked. all it needed was a parked regen. said it take about 45 min. to finish. so walked to lounge to get laundry started. walked back in about an hour, now they said it had a bad airleak in the back somewhere. they can hear it. must have just broke when the moved truck out to start the regen. dang my luck with shops lol

 

stuck on the side of the road in north reno as load I had to pick up was a big screw up by csr or planner(whoever booked the load)...1. no live loads for swift on Saturdays (jc penny dc) 2.if pu no trl num in dispatch and security says nothing going to the location I had...gates were locked with a chain...they don't move freight on Saturdays! 3.waited 20 hrs coz nothing else in the area to plan me on.....4.fueled my truck in anticipation of the load..so can only accept light freight...5. after writing a nice note to ect,and asking to take off of me and have planners do the right thing by me.....have heard nothing in over an hour...