TennMan and beyond !

I grew up in Florida, south Florida actually.. probably the absolute worst place to be for an OTR driver lol.
Knew what I wanted to do and I picked Tennessee for two big reasons.
1: It's cheap to live there: I got a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bathroom remodeled cabin about 1350 square feet on a 1/2 acre in Pigeon Forge/ Gatlinburg area of Tennessee. Or 40 miles southeast of Knoxville in the smokey mountains area.
Cost $109,000. My yearly taxes are about $540 and no state income tax. Plus I purposely picked a tourist town in case I ever decided to put the house on a vacation rental program being I'm rarely home anyway.
2: The location.. where as easy to get a truck driving job and to get home plus when I looked at a map I saw this:




It might sound silly but I saw Knoxville somewhat in the middle of all big cities around it in a circle with I40, I75 and I81 all pretty much meeting up right there.
I didn't ever think I'd end up leasing a truck and going the route I went BUT when I was a company driver I never had any problem getting home or with "no freight".
You know I was with Shaffer, they had a terminal 1 hour on from my home. 9 times out of 10 when I was due to come home they had me bring a load into Lenoir City to T-Call on it and then I'd bobtail home.
It worked great for them and for me as well they didn't have to find me a load going home.. just through the direction towards their terminal making a connection.
As for Schneider now, again I don't have to find a load going to knoxville... a lot of freight has open window appointments. I can and have taken a load through knoxville to Schneider's drop lot there, bobtail out and spent a day at home.
If I lived in some corner of the freight market or down south it wouldn't work out as well but for me it has being I'm sorta in the middle of it all.

 

Nice man, one of the reasons I thought knoxville would work out, im loving it way more than florida in every way possible

 

yeah man everything is here.. plus there's tons of fun things 40 miles my way at the tourist trap. Got the smokey mountain national park, dollywood and even a casino a hour across the mountain into NC for example.
Plus overall it's pretty much cheap to live here. Sales tax is a little bit higher though but you can't have everything.

 

You're doing all that in Texas?
That's very good!

I've been noticing rates been going up lately... almost peeed myself when I saw this

Over 600 miles into New Hampshire for nearly $2.80
and then
Over 700 miles leaving New Hampshire for $1.90 going to Ohio



and people think Schneider only leaves us cheap freight! think again!

 

RIP Roscoe P. Coltrane. James Best passed away last night at age 88