Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

Sitting in Conover, NC terminal and enjoying some free wifi at a McDonald's. Ice coffee and free wifi... you can't beat that with a stick.

I finished my load from Montana to Pennsylvania, then took another load from there to South Carolina. I had another incident that is really embarrassing in retrospect. Did you know that some shippers actually anchor you to the dock when they load you? I didn't. There's a red/green light that tells you when you can go. I just thought it indicated when someone was still in the trailer. I had been called into the shipping office, given my Bill of Lading and a seal and told I was good to go.

So I went.

I thought the reason that the truck wasn't moving was because I had just been loaded with 44k lbs of cargo and there was an incline down to the loading dock. Not so. My bumper was anchored to the dock. The bumper itself is fine, but the part of the trailer where it is anchored is bent. It needs to be bent back and welded.

I called Missoula and reported it to Safety and then talked to the shop about when/where to fix it. I was told to continue to my consignee and then call them back to make arrangements to get it fixed. The bottom of the bumper was about a foot further out from the truck than it should be. Luckily, the design of the dock at the delivery place was such that it wasn't a problem.

I unloaded and then since I was almost out of hours, I drove 5 miles to a Flying J to park for the night and have dinner. There was a shop there, but Missoula told me to talk to my dispatcher to see whether I should have it fixed there or drive the 3 hours to the Conover terminal and have them fix it. I was told to bring it to the terminal.

I arrived a little before noon yesterday (there isn't a shop at that terminal, but there is a local shop that does all the repair work). I had one of the shop guys (whom I passed coming in the gate) take a look and tell me whether I should bring the trailer to them or drop it in the terminal yard. He told me to drop it at the terminal. I called the shop to arrange for them to fix it.

It was such a dumb rookie mistake and now that I know that they anchor your bumper to the dock, I will not be making that mistake again.

And I'm still waiting for a load out. This is the longest I've had to sit waiting for a load. I think it's due to the fact that Thanksgiving is next week and a lot of drivers are taking home-time, so it makes dispatching more complicated because they're trying to make sure everyone ends up at home when they need to be. I didn't ask for time off at Thanksgiving, but I am going home at Christmas.

It's been a nice little break though. I bobtailed to Walmart to stock up on food. There's a skating rink about 2 miles from the terminal (I used to play roller derby and I've been dying to skate at a rink, but where do you park a giant truck?) I stopped in when they were closed yesterday just so that I could get their hours from the sign. The manager came out while I was taking a picture of their sign and I talked to her. She went into the office to get me a printed out schedule and told me that I was welcome to park my truck there anytime I wanted to skate. There's an empty gravel/grassy lot right next to their actual parking lot. She said I could park there even if I had a trailer (I wouldn't. This close to the terminal I'd just drop the trailer at the yard rather than try to maneuver it into that lot because there's not enough room to turn around, so I'd have to jack-knife back into it).

So I got to go skating and it was awesome. I've got outdoor skates and wheels (okay, but not as nice as my indoor skates. I don't want to wear my expensive skates outdoors), but skating in a parking lot is never as fun as skating on a rink floor in my derby skates. It was really great.

I just bought a window mount for my smart phone. I'm still using that not so much to navigate, but more to be able to see where my shipers/receivers are located. I can get to the general area, but I need the GPS to find the exact location. My receiver in South Carolina was a warehouse in a string of warehouses with no sign and no number on the building. That was fun. Stuck with just the phone GPS for a while longer because catching up on bills means I still haven't bought a trucking GPS. For those of you who are drivers, what kind of trucking GPS do you have and why did you choose that one? I'm trying to decide between Garmin and Rand McNally. Does the Rand McNally tell you which lane you need to be in ahead of time? I know that the Garmin does and that's an awesome feature.

I'm hoping to get a load going out west or to the southwest. I absolutely hated driving in Pennsylvania (so much road construction and I was routed on tiny highways with hills so steep I had to climb some of them in 3rd gear) or Maryland (where there are so few rest areas or truck stops that there was nowhere to park). You'd see like 80 trucks in a rest stop designed to hold like 30. Ridiculous.

I really like driving and I sincerely hope I don't have any more incidents. I like this company and I really want to keep working here.

 

So I ended up waiting for more than 24 hours for a load out of Conover, which qualifies as a layover. I looked it up in the binder and layovers are $50 per 24 period. For the person who asked earlier and I didn't know how much the layover pay was.

I got my load Friday afternoon. It's a furniture load to Texas and there are ten stops. Eight are scheduled for Monday and two for Tuesday. I debated whether to wait in Conover another 10 hours (with the layover, that would be a 34-hour reset)... but I was so ready to go. I drove until almost 3am and ended up at a Love's in Alabama. I had tried several truck stops and rest stops during the hours leading up to when I finally did stop.... there were either no open spots or (in the case of the rest areas) signs posted everywhere saying "overnight parking prohibited". I'm not keen on getting a ticket... so I kept going. I'm glad I finally found a space because it was beginning to look like I'd have to park on an exit/entrance ramp and that can't possibly be safe (or legal) despite the fact that I see people doing it every day.

My first delivery is about half an hour over the border from Louisiana, which was (according to my phone gps) around 7.5 hours of driving from where I spent Friday night. I decided to drive most of it today (with minimal stopping so that I'd get to a truck stop early enough that I wouldn't have trouble finding an open spot). My fuel stop is near the border of Louisiana and Texas, so I hauled butt and got here just before 8pm (7pm local time). I fueled up and found a parking space close to the building (and well-lit!)

So I'm squeezing in a 34-hour reset and I'm less than an hour from my first delivery on Monday. Take that, time management!

I've just finished up my first month on the road. I'm going to go through my notes and figure out how many miles I've run so far. I bought a month's worth of wifi at Love's, so I should be online more in the next few weeks (and tomorrow, since there's noooooothing else to do off this exit and I'm sat here until Monday morning).

I don't like the radio in my truck. It doesn't have the input thing for an iPod and I tried playing a CD in it, but it scratched the brand new cd all to Hell.... so that's not an option. I just bought a set of "CB extension speakers" at the truck stop for about $15. They are designed to clip to the visor and have the right size input jack for my iPod (and don't require a power supply of their own). I wanted speakers for the iPod in the truck, but didn't want speakers and lots of cables plus an inverter clogging up my dash. This is a good solution.

My CB radio doesn't work. My best friend's dad used to be a truck driver and he gave me some of his old stuff (the 12v cooler is awesome!). I had one of the shop guys check the wiring in the truck. All the wires and antennae are good (and hot).... but the radio isn't working. I thought maybe I had hooked it up wrong. The shop guy suggested that either the radio was dead or that some CB radios have internal fuses that can go bad. I'll look into that when I have time/money to throw at it. So still no CB.

The windshield mount I got for my phone is great. Makes it really easy to see it for navigation and much easier to make hands-free calls on. I have a cheap hands-free headset (I'm not big on talking on the phone in general, let alone while driving. one more distraction I don't need)... but it's not a bluetooth or cordless. The cord was so short that the phone had to be in my pocket (wouldn't reach to the dash) while I used it. Not convenient. So that mount kit was $6 well spent.

Too bad this truck stop doesn't have laundry facilities. I need to find a place to do laundry in the next few days.

 

Would you get the 710 over the 510 priced as they are now? The 7" one just looks enormous to me.

And as far as the docking incident, there was a truck in the next bay over and the driver just sat there watching me and didn't say a word.

 

That's a really good idea. I looked it up on Google Maps streetview and I see what you're talking about. I don't particularly need a reset... I just figured I'd take one since I had the time. I have eight deliveries in eight different towns on Monday and I have a much better chance of making them all if I don't spend forever maneuvering into a dock on the first one.

I'll drive over there and park (it's less than an hour away) later today while it's still light out. Thanks!

 

I've driven over 10,000 miles in my first month. I have 31 days before I go home for Christmas... I'm going to see if I can hit 11k for my second month.