My life at Millis

Nothing exciting to report today. The load I picked up yesterday is getting dropped in Cartersville first thing in the morning. There's nothing better than a one-two punch of downtown Columbus followed by downtown Cincinnati. Insert sarcasm here. I had to do that yesterday and today. Except today, there were very heavy winds, and moderately heavy rain. I was grateful that I have a fairly heavy load. It was really nice to be home last night, and sleep in my bed. But I started later than normal, I got back to my truck around 7:45 this morning. There's always a tradeoff for hometime. Mine was traffic. Normally I don't have to deal with it much, because I start driving at 2 or 3 in the morning. Oh well, it was worth it. Here's a little trick for current and future students. Know your dispatcher's schedule. I'm timing this drop for 8am eastern. Opie gets in at 6am central.If there's a load available, that's great. If not, he'll have to wait until the day's freight gets released. That'll happen an hour or two later. I'm not worried about my 11, I'll have about 7 hours left. But, I don't want to unnecessarily waste part of my 14 sitting at the terminal. You never know how your day will go, and you always have to protect your potential run time. It's more profitable for me, and it makes me more useful and flexible for Opie. I'll probably say it a million times in this thread, always take care of your dispatcher. Always. That's your money maker.

 

Yup, I'm aware. My GPS is set for the quickest time, not shortest distance. I will periodically refresh it and make it recalculate. If it tells me it's faster to go through town based on traffic and accident reports, that's where I go.

 

Lol I hear ya. My Garmin is pretty good. But I'm always running Google Maps on my phone at the same time, in case there is a hiccup. Between the two of them, I'm golden. The only exception to that rule so far is Fort Worth. There is so much construction going on there that neither one of them can keep up. That's a frustrating city, but even with all that construction the traffic is really smooth, even during rush hour. Whoever designed that is Mensa-level brilliant.

 

I'm running into an issue that I hope a fellow driver can help me out with. I'm trying to put myself in a position to get my truck turned up when I'm eligible. I'm 100% compliant with fuel stops. My tails are always up.I'm trying not to idle but I'm running into an issue. My truck is waking me up in the middle of the night because an alarm is going off telling me my voltage is low. I have to start the truck and run it for 10 minutes or so, shut it back off, and go back to sleep. What gives? I don't want to idle, but this is getting old. Are my batteries weak or something?

 

By the way, this is what I have running: my fridge, an electric cooler, my bunk heater, and a phone charger.