Starting the Squire Program 10/10/14

Alright, so this morning I got on a greyhound bus at 5 am and headed to Atlanta to meet up with my trainer. Got here and he was delayed today, so I am at a hotel tonight. I will say this though, my recruiter has always been easy to reach, easy going and tremendously helpful. I called her told her I needed a hotel and 5 minutes later I had a room and a ride over there.

My trainer has to come here and get a B service done on his truck, so I will be meeting him here at the terminal in the morning and we will be on the road tomorrow evening.

 

everything went well today. Met my trainer and he couldn't get his truck into the shop until about 230. it just got done and seeing that its almost 1700, we are just going to call it a night and start out fresh tomorrow morning. We are still waiting to see what dispatch will be getting us for a load. My trainer is really cool. Laid back, understanding, and will not yell, treat me like #### and does not like "team" driving. He said yes, he does get paid for ALL miles to the truck, but he wants to make sure my driving is where it needs to be and I am comfortable before he would even think about taking a load that would need both of us to use our hours.

Seems like its going to be a fun start to my new career.

 

Things have been rocking and rolling since my last post! We started out with a 300 or so mile run to Savannah, GA from Atlanta. From there we headed with that empty to get loaded at a warehouse in South Carolina (my first 300 mile drive). Get there for the warehouse to say "no load". So we bed down for the night and dispatch says go back. so we go over there load up and told to take it to the Charlotte Yard in NC so we can tcall it and pick up a 900 miler heading to the other side of Boston, MA. Hell yeah! So we get there pick it up and rock on up to MA. Get there today for the company to say "we don't accept any deliveries on the weekend". LOL, so they just sent up 900 miles to tell us that, so we now have to haul this 320 miles across NY to Syracuse to our drop yard. So all together I have driver about 1400 miles in 3 days and am kicking butt!

I have driven through cities (DC,Baltimore, Philly, NYC, and Boston) just to name a few. Its been an awesome experience. My trainer is estatic because he has a person that can actually drive. I have learned the qualcomm already and am sending in all the messages the right way without the trainer telling me anything. Its all starting to come back to me from my previous driving job!

I really like driving and can't wait to get my OWN truck!

 

Thanks guys, it was a fun day today. Got in the mountains of WV on I77 to find out (because there are no pre warning signs) that there was a high wind advisory (later heard it on the radio). So baptism by fire, 50 mph wind gusts and a really freaking nervous rookie after the trailer tandem on the drivers side decided to leave the ground for a few seconds while said gusts decided to surprise me coming down a not so steep grade (6%). ####eyed the trailer a bit across both lanes, got it under control and than stopped off a couple miles down the road at the rest area to make sure I didn't need to change my underpants!!!!

Crazy, yet ...well just crazy experience!!! Luckily no cars next to me so no injuries, and no damage to the trailer or 5th wheel! P.S. I now hate those mountains!!!!

So far first week down and after tomorrow will have about 3400 miles!

Time to pack it in for a few days and go see the family for some turkey!!!