My Experience with Lone Star Transportation

Friday March 2nd 2012....0645 a Lone Star Truck pulls out of the Pilot in Duncan, SC heading to get loaded. 0654 a Lone Star Truck pulls out of the TA in Duncan, SC to go get loaded. 0700 I pull out of the TA to go get loaded. 0708 I pull into the shippers yard, 0709 the truck that left the TA at 0654 pulls in, 0714 the truck that left the Pilot at 0645 pulls in ........hmmm I guess im the only one who knows there way around Duncan, SC

So we all go in along with 2 other drivers that came in after them, from other companies, we watched a safety video, did some paper work and went outside to wait till 8am to get loaded.

Then they come over and escort us to differant areas to get loaded, and load us all at the same time, 1 layer at a time so we'd have time to throw our straps in between the layers.

Here's My load, my FIRST load thats BIGGER then the trailer!











So LST driver #3 got his own loader somehow, and after he was done he pulls up next to me and asked if i wanna run together, so i said sure if ya dont mind waiting a few min for me to finish strapping this, so he offered to help get the last 4 straps on.

Then we went back to the TA......MY WAY, so he could fuel. Then we head west. Our goal for the nigh Talulah, LA to the TA....a very long day but it NEEDED to be done....so off we went.

We made it to about halfway threw AL before we heard a guy on the radio crying about how the world was comeing to an end take shelter and BRING THE ROPE! he was saying baseball size hail, tornados...bla bla bla. We were seeing 75+* and sunny skies......Hamma down!

But since the National Weather service was saying something not quite so dramma queen like, i checked to see our backup options for TS's and Rest Areas just in case it got bad.

We ran into little to no issues even around atlanta, makeing our load checks without issue.

We get about halfway across MS by the TA (cant remember the town) BIG ol' Black V shapped cloud....still no rain though!

About 5 min later you could SEE a wall of rain, ok....so we drive into it the USA truck driver in front of me slams on his brakes as soon as the rain hits his windsheild and almost rolls over while trying to bail off the interstate at that exit (the rain was so heavy you couldnt see) .....BUT it was only 1/4mile deep! All the stupid 4 wheelers did the same, we kept it between the lines for 1/4 mile and back to sunny 70+* .... weird weather


Then were about 30 min from the TA in LA, when we hear, on the radio TORNADOS in Talulah, Baseball size hail, powers out at the TA and loves



Well at this point were SOL, so we keep going, and everything was fine till we got about 15 min away then it started to rain pretty steady, not bad though, we slowed down to 55-60 anyway since it was kinda windy too.

We get to our exit....BLACKNESS, luckily I knew what way to turn he was about to take a right off the exit. And then were like hmmm where the hello are the truck stops.....luckily lots of drivers parked there like to sleep with there marker lights on so we followed the glow .


Anyhoo, we pull in cant see SHEET! But we manage to get in and find to parking spots (handycapt) we didnt know until the power came back on...oh well. I Wanted to and needed to fuel but no powe = no fuel . Power didnt come on for 15 more min and i wasnt about to restart my 10 for that .

Saturday:

So we did our 10's, got up fueled i pumped 125ish GAL and we were off at 0545am!

And we basicly just hammered down drove 635 miles in 10 hours 3 min, doing the speed limit the whole way, didnt even see any traffic in Dallas/Fort Worth.

We made it to the TA in Big Spring, TX and i tried to top off my tanks since i was now low again, and after 60GAL the pump shut off! so yep.....aparently we cant pump 260ish gal in one day

whatever i guess i'll get to waste 15 min of my 70 fueling before i leave on monday morning.


Anyway after parking and doing our logbooks, we hunted out some good food since no food at the TA last night, we were hungry. And we found a little Seafood/steak place and had dinner. I bought and good lord this stuff aint cheap $51 for both of us for 2 stake dinners . We noted that they have 2 LARGE HDTVS just in case we cant take on the 50 guys in the lounge tomorrow when we wanna watch the race!



Anyway then i got my laundry done, showered up, and FINALLY got to post on here lol



So we managed to get out here, just a mear 37 min short of our receiver to do our resets!



I drove 3,183 miles this week, pretty good considering i spent all day Monday Sitting in Laredo, and then didnt do much on Thursday.




American Trucker

 

yep got the card. I cant stand these safety for idiots videos these places make you watch lol . This is a pretty easy load, no complaints here, would be nice if the straps would stop loosening up




American Trucker

 

Just got back from breakfest, we walked around town to see what there was to do, 5-6 little resteraunts all closed on sundays except this little mexican place. GREAT pancakes/bacon/scrammbled eggs, cheap too only like $4.99. Other LST driver treated this time.

Watching a movie now, till the race starts, fingers crossed we can get them to put the race on in the drivers lounge..if not i think a winch bar might persued them?




American Trucker

 

I got plugged again on YouTube, a YTTrucking.com promo vid made by Tex himself:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh-nhJgTAZc&feature=g-u&context=G253a55eFUAAAAAAAAAA[/ame]

He used a clip from my TX to MS in hyperdrive video





American Trucker

 

hold on,.................

 

argggggggg stupid computers!!!!!!!