Roehl Transport 2/15/10 blog

Yes, I am training flatbed. I've been running split-axle trailers the whole time except my second day, where we were pulling a totliner (curtainside). Sliding the tandems on that was fun, since they were frozen and the handle wouldn't lock out once we broke it free. I had to sit there holding the silly thing while my trainer pulled it up to the proper slot. Fun times...
So 11 days out now. I'm officially EVO 2 as of today... getting a whopping $5 more a day now. But honestly, every bit helps. I'm BROKE!!! All in all though, I'm liking this job a lot. Been up in the UP, which is gorgeous, been through Chicago more times than I'd care to remember but Chicago from I-94 on a sunny Sunday afternoon is actually somewhat pretty... but surprisingly (to me, at least) I haven't been out of the Great Lakes states. MI, WI, IL, IN, OH, PA... that's all I've seen on this first run. We're dropping a load tomorrow morning at Kaukauna and heading home hopefully. They're looking for a load for us now to get us that way. I've averaged a whopping 230 miles a day, but that's definitely not my trainer's fault. Customer service doesn't seem to know which way is up at the moment. We've been double dispatched, ended up running over 450 miles deadhead, and amusingly, when we filled up last and sent in our full call our mpg was 7.7. We were both laughing hysterically at them thanking us for being "Top Fuel Managers" when they deadhead us so much and then give us an LTL load weighing a whopping 2,074 lbs for a 730mi run. Yah.... it's been highly amusing, at least.

So thus far, the mileage hasn't been spectacular. Done plenty of tarping/untarping so I can see pay coming in for that and my trainer keeps telling me this is some of the crappiest stuff he's seen in a while. Maybe I jinxed him, I dunno. It's been great for training, learning how to deal with all the weird, small things that can happen.

I'm honestly really pumped about this job right now and am considering ways to further myself within the company and the industry already, but I'm keeping a bit of hesitancy as well... I really like this right now, but I've not seen it as the norm in my life yet, not been acclimated to how it's going to function with me on the long-term and I do find myself wanting to be home to go do things with the wife and the friends. Simultaneously, being out on the road, seeing new places and meeting new people daily... I haven't felt this alive in ages. Being cooped up in artificial lighting in a hot kitchen for too long made me forget some of the wonders of the great outdoors. I feel positively vibrant and energetic. It comes now to seeing as time passes which will outweigh the other and whether either of them tries to topple me over, making me either totally obsessed with the job or bail out of it entirely. I'll run my year at least, for certain, quite possibly 2 just to see what being a trainer is like (current semi-short-term goal) and probably do a more thorough assessment then. For now though, it's just an interesting quandry. I'm glad I did it though, took that leap and got out here. Just the experience itself was worth it.

 

Man, time has been flying. I went out on my second Evo with a van trainer, and a very good one at that. We ran team most of the time, which was interesting. We knocked out over 4000 miles in just over 5 days. But we showed up in Ellenwood last night and crashed and I road tested today with Steve LaPoint, nonetheless, and got issued my truck. #3976. I am pumped! It's an old trainer truck, so condo, relatively clean, two full-sized side boxes and a headache rack AND an apu. I got #### lucky. 516k on the odometer, but that's tolerable. Seems to be sweet so far, but we'll see what happens when I get a load behind me. But yeah, been a busy day, I'm happy and going to bed. Feb 15th to Apr 7th for my own truck... not bad.