Starting with J. Grady Randolph on Monday.

Yeah, they been running me ragged. Which is good. I haven't had a day without a load since I started and have spent my home time, resting.

Here's a little more intel for anyone looking to hire on. Don't know if I mentioned it, but you don't take your truck home. It comes back to the yard, if you're not on the road. I live 12 miles from the Greenville, SC yard, so it's working great for me.

Most times, you deliver the Metromont load and deadhead back. On occasion, they'll get you a back haul. You're paid round trip, for the Metromont load, plus the back haul, if that happens, because they charge Metromont round trip. So that's 35 cpm out and 70 cpm back, if you get a back haul. They don't spend a lot of time looking for back hauls though. It does happen now and then, but not very regular.

They're hiring within 50 miles of Greenville, SC, Richmond, VA, Hiram, GA, Charlotte, NC and LaVergne, TN. That's where the Metromont facilities are located and Randolph is the only carrier for Metromont. They have been for 35 years. If you live a ways from either the LaVergne, TN, Gaffney, NC or Greenville, SC, J. Grady Randolph yards, you'll come in on Monday morning and stay the nights on the yard, or one of the Metromont sites. Then drive your own car home for the weekend, or lay over at the yard, or one of the Metromont sites. Right now the Richmond site is really booming, with jobs in Gaithersburg, MD, Wilminton, NC, Raleigh, NC and Laurinburg, NC.

Last week, I spent the whole week in Atlanta, working hourly at $15/hour. The Greenville Metromont was slow and 10 of us went over there to move containers from the south side of Atlanta to Jefferson, GA on I-85. My brother in law hired on at the LaVergne, TN yard and he and nine other drivers from there came down also for a couple of those days. Three containers a day, six trips around the southeast side of Atlanta a day. That's right, 30 times on the "Watermelon 500" last week. This past week, I was up in Richmond, hauling out of Metromont there. I made two trips through DC into Gaithersburg, MD, one to Wilmington, NC and one to Laurinburg, SC. Both weeks, I made about $2000 total.

Monday, I'll pick up an empty trailer at Metromont in Greenville, drop it at Metromont in Charlotte, pick up a loaded trailer there and go to Wilmington. Odds are, I'll go up to Richmond again after that.

My 387 seemed to be a "shop lover". It'd been in the shop twice before I got it and twice since then. Today, I went to the yard and swapped my stuff into an older International. It's a shorter wheelbase, so less comfortable riding, but has more sleeper room and without the DPF that the '08's have, it's less prone to going in the shop. That was the problem each time with the 387.

Again, the job is hauling oversized concrete panels to construction jobs. Not for the faint of heart or lazy. It's hard work and stressful at times. The loads are up to 90' long, up to 14' wide, and/or up to 120,000 gross weight. The construction sites are sometimes in the middle of large cities, like the new Convention Center in downtown Wilmington.

Metromont has a brand new facility opening later this year, in Bartow, FL.

 

Been a while since I've been on here. I'm still with Randolph, still running mostly OTR, but whenever there's work out of the Greenville yard, they yank me back for a week or two.

We picked up a new account about a year ago. Hauling huge tires out of Michelin in Lexington, SC to the big pit mines way out west. These tires are laid flat on the trailer and are 10' to 14' wide. The company pays an additional 8 cpm for these loads, which puts me at 45 cpm, with an average length of haul of 2000 miles. They've had me on this account pretty much all the time, since last spring. With just a couple weeks left in the year, I'm going to clear $50K this year.

Still driving the same International 9400 and haven't had any major problems. We're replacing a lot of the older trucks with new Prostars, going to the most senior drivers. I was offered one, but told them I'd stay in this truck until they get one in with a pony pack. There's several on order with pony packs installed, so I'll be changing trucks soon.

The new plant in Bartow, FL is open now and we're planning to move back to FL next summer. I talked with the owner and he's going to allow me to stay on and take my truck home when I move. But, he says I'll still be hauling tires, up to two weeks out. No big deal, that's what I'm doing now.

Sodbuster, you still with the company?