Maverick .... from a wife's perspective

Latest update.

Redcoat made his delivery on time this morning at 0800. He says Ridgerunner was right, the place was in the middle of nowhere.

After he sent in the QC message for job complete, he got a message from his new FM that he was "sixth in line" for another dispatch. This is the first time he's gotten any information on where he was in the queue so that was kind of nice. The only thing is he has no idea if being 6th is a good number meaning he'll get something pretty quick or if 6th is not so good a number meaning it's going to be a while. Guess he'll find out when the next dispatch comes through.

For now he's hanging out at the Pilot at exit 4 on I-81.

Stay tuned.

 

Latest update.

OK so that only took a couple hours. Redcoat got his next dispatch. He's picking up a load from Alcoa, TN and taking it to Steel Wheel Transfers on Getwell Rd. in Memphis. He just pulled in to the town of Alcoa and he sees this HUGE plant with ALCOA on the side of it. Gee, I wonder if that's the place....

Redcoat talked to his buddy from orientation this morning and the dude mentioned they are looking for someone to take a load from Charlotte to somewhere in Canada. Redcoat is like, ME ME ME!!! When he gets to his shipper, he's going to see if that job is something he can get since he already has his passport. I kind of doubt it though since he's already got a dispatch.

Stay tuned.

 

Yes he does although his battery isn't the best and he doesn't want to idle the truck just for some juice. So he doesn't get online very much.

You should see the coordination we do to trip plan. He uses his map book and the Magellan and I use Google maps and then we compare routes.

I check out the snapshots to survey intersections to make sure there are no issues and that it's not some residential-looking area that probably won't be a truck route. Like today. The Google route to his con in Memphis took him around the block to come up from the south. When I had a look at the road in Google I could see why. There was a concrete median strip between the lanes on Getwell Rd. so you can't make the left turn coming down from the north. But Google had him going through a neighborhood so we decided that it would be better to go on down 78 highway then cut across on Shelby there by the Pilot and then up Getwell from the south. That should work a lot better.

Between the two of us, he gets where he needs to go.

 

Latest update.

OMG. Redcoat definitely had an adventure at Alcoa. It took him 45 minutes to tell me all about it this morning on the phone and I will try to remember it all here but I will probably leave something out or get something out of order but newbies will get the gist of it.

Redcoat arrives at Alcoa around 1200 and has to park at the staging area while he goes to watch a video about safety measures they expect all drivers to do while on the property. Everybody has to do this if you've never been there before. Then he waits until he's called to go "up the hill." Once he gets up there, he scales and then receives his paperwork. Then he goes to an area where they give him the rails that need to be put onto the side and rear of the trailer. This is protection for ONE guy who loads the trailer. So this is a bit of grunt work putting on the rails. They also give him a bunch of rope to use to tie down the tarp because drivers are not allowed to use any bungees within 6 inches of an aluminum coil. There is a man there who measures the trailer and marks exactly where this coil is going to go. Redcoat gets his straps and tarps out and tosses them up onto the trailer to have them at hand and ready to go.

Next he has to back into a shed. He is the first truck in so that means he will be the last truck out as they are all in a line. The backing in part takes him several tries because he's still working on getting the hang of backing a spread-axle trailer. Meanwhile, others are waiting so that gets a bit frustrating for him. The problem was he was in the dark trying to back into a brightly lit area and he was having trouble seeing. He said it was pretty tight but do-able. Finally he gets it in and then has to sit for an hour and a half while the loading crew go to dinner.

When they all come back, they start to load all the trucks. Since Redcoat was the first one to back in, he is the last one to get loaded. The fork-lift driver puts the coil on the deck where the load master says and then Redcoat is ready to pull out. While in the dock you are not allowed to walk on to the front 4 feet of the trailer which is where he put his tarp and straps. So he has to get down off the dock, walk to the front, get his stuff, and then climb back up the dock to put on the straps and tarp. He made the mistake of getting out his lumber tarp but it ended up being too big. In the end, he had to use his steel tarp and folded the front and back around the sides to gift-wrap it. Anyway, after they get the coil on, you have to go back to the place to remove all the side rails and give them back. Then he had to go over to another place to secure the coil.

This is another tight back into an area that leaves you only a couple inches on each side so you can walk evenly from the dock to the trailer. Redcoat says he sees what they are trying to do here safety-wise but since the level of the dock is the same as the trailer, that means you can't tighten down the straps because you can't get to the ratchets. So you have to pull forward far enough to get to the ratchets, and then back into the dock again every time you want to get back up onto the trailer which is a pain. He said if they'd have just lowered the level of the dock about 8 inches or so you could get to the ratchets and you wouldn't have to keep pulling up and then reversing again to do what you had to do. Also you are not allowed to use your ladder or anything that puts you more than 4 feet above the level of the trailer deck. So it takes some doing to get the tarp over the coil without being able to climb up on anything to do it.

Once you get your load secured, it has to be inspected. When the man approves of the job you've done using just straps and rope, he sends you back to the top of the hill where you wait until called to come down.

So Redcoat is sitting up there waiting....and waiting....and waiting. It's just him and a TMC truck. Redcoat calls them on the CB trying to find out how much longer as he's almost out of hours. By now it is almost 2100. When you get no response, you start to wonder if your radio is not working. Since there is just him and the TMC truck and no other traffic, he starts to make his way down the hill to see if he can leave. He gets halfway down and the man on the radio barks for him to stay where he is, that he can't leave until 2200 because they are going through shift change. So he stops. He's not in the way or anything and he puts on his flashers and turns off the truck. A few minutes later this guy comes out in a pick-up and tells him to "move your a#$!". Redcoat says the man on the radio told him to wait right there but pick-up dude yells that he doesn't care and that Redcoat needs to move his darn truck.

Well it takes a couple minutes after you start the truck for the air to come up but it wasn't fast enough for this guy and he starts screaming at Redcoat to move his butt out. Redcoat told him he didn't have to be so nasty and proceeded to leave. Then the guy zips around in front of him to make him stop and asks him where the heck does he think he's going. By now Redcoat is getting tired of him and snaps back that dude told him to move his ### so that's what he's doing. That's when the man says he needs to scale before he can go so Redcoat makes a loop around, scales, and THEN he finally gets out of there.

What a day. Not a place he's dying to go back to. I asked Redcoat if there was anything he'd do differently if he had to go back and he said the only thing was he'd not bother with the big lumber tarp because he couldn't use it without bungees and he'd try to do a better job of backing into the shed. Other from that, not much he could have changed.

Thanks Ridgerunner for the heads up on where Steel Wheel is. I called Redcoat and told him about Crowfarn Rd. so he can watch for it.

Stay tuned.