Holidays

Well I didn't quite make it home for Christmas this year, I got stuck running a load of cheese,furniture,doors, and veal to KS and CA. I got pulled over in TX on US54 on the way, got a warning for doing 75 in 70. The Trooper said he was just looking for something to do to show his Sgt. that he was working, so it didn't mean anything. He didn't even do an inspection, so it won't even show up on CSA.

I got all my stops off in two days except for the San Diego, which was just a few doors which are strapped to the walls, so I picked up a partial load of oranges in Riverside then went down to San Diego the next morning and delivered there and headed to Yuma to finish loading. I crossed the scale in CA on 15 and they didn't say anything, but when I got to Yuma they said I was 35,300 on my drives. He told me to pull over and adjust it and go ahead, so I did. When I CAT scaled it at the Love's before loading I was still over on my drives, ended up having to slide the fifth wheel all the way forward. Good thing I did scale though because I was 70k lbs gross and they wanted to load another seven pallets! So they ended up cutting one pallet of broccoli and I scaled out 79,940. 80k is the limit for a standard tractor trailer configuration like mine.

I ended up making it home the day after Christmas. I delivered my load Monday and was supposed to be off the rest of the week, but the next day they called me and sent me out to NC.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Off to San Diego

After I left Vern's house I headed out to the Pilot and filled up my thermos with the go-go juice and hit the road. Jumped on I-10 west to the highway 85 south to I-8 west. I ran out across AZ and stopped at the CA line and got the go-go juice for the truck at Loves. I like to fuel at Loves as much as possible because if you buy 1000 gallons a month,the next month you get unlimited showers and free drink refills. So I pretty much never have to pay for coffee or worry if I have any shower credits.

Anyway after navigating through the sea of trucks in and out of there I pulled back on I-8 and headed into CA. I crossed through the check point & weigh station no problems and proceeded across the desert until I came to the first border patrol check point.

I pulled up and rolled down my window and the officer asked me to open my door,so I did. He asked all the usual questions like " are you a US citizen?", "anyone else in the truck"...then he asked if the truck was mine, I said no I'm a company driver. He then asked "what company is that?" I'm thinking the one on the door dumbass, but I said B&L Transport. Then he looks at the door. Then he asked "what are you hauling?" So I said "doors" he was like HUH?!? ...I said DOORS, like the thing you put on your house. He's like oh ok....go ahead. Sleep better tonight America knowing your national security is in good hands!

So I proceeded down the road through the second border patrol station to the Acorn casino & travel plaza and went to bed about an hour east of San Diego. I got up in the morning and called the customers cell phone per instructions since it was black Friday they were on a skeleton crew. The guy tells me he is at the office and he will meet me out front if I call him when I get close.

So I did and no answer. So when I got there the young lady tells me he just left to go to a job site and only her and another young lady are there. They called him and he said for me to just unload them and they could sign for it. So I backed down there drive,blind sided around the building to there back door and brought out the big guns and unloaded the two doors myself. I was pretty proud of myself for that! On my way to San Diego I got a call from the produce broker saying he had a load ready for me to pick up over in Yuma AZ backhaul to Ohio.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Thanksgiving at Vern's

After delivering my four stops in the Phoenix area on Wed. I returned to the Flying J truck stop where I spent the night relaxing in my truck. On Thursday morning I called my buddy Vern and got directions to where I could park my truck near his house. When I got there I was met by his girlfriend Constance who gave me a ride back to the house while Vern finished his shower.

It was Vern,Constance,his mother and there four kids, 3 girls and one boy ages 2-7. While we were waiting on the food to finish we took the kids to a local park to play and then Vern and I went back to see my new truck and we sat and had trucker talk for awhile. After his mother called and said the turkey was done we went back to the park,picked everyone up and headed back to the house.

It was then I somehow became the "horse" of the house giving all the kids piggy back rides and being attacked by all. We had a great time, I love playing with kids. We then ate dinner and I went back to playing games and reading books to the kids until it was desert time,ice cream and pie! After that they all got ready to go to the zoo and I left out for San Diego. I was very happy to be able to spend the day with my good friends.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Adventures of Jake Brake & Sleepy - Part 1

This is the first in a series of stories that I will be writing to describe the friendship between “Jake Brake” and “Sleepy”. It’s a story of how fate and trucking brought two young kids just out of truck driving school together and created an inseparable bond and lifelong friendship. Jake Brake and Sleepy started out fresh in trucking on the same day, and each one had strengths and weaknesses, in order to succeed they had to learn from each other, and overcome the obstacles along the way. All the while inevitably ending up in some form of misadventure, but all the while strengthening their friendship. Sometimes fun, and sometimes sad, it sure to keep you interested and always wandering what will happen next.
Our story begins in February of 2002 with Sleepy who was fresh out of trucking school and had gotten hired by his first trucking company and was in the process of the three week training program. This is not a very long training program at all, and the learning is very fast paced, the main objective of the trainers here is to get there student passed by the companies safety department so they can get there five hundred dollar bonus and get their next student, the emphasis on safely training new drivers is secondary as far as most the trainers here are concerned.
Sleepy however was having a little trouble picking up everything in this short amount of time, especially with the shifting, because the Volvo truck he learned on at the school was a ten speed, and this Freightliner FLD 120 was a “super ten speed”, and the concept is a little more difficult for a new driver to pick up on. He also had some issues in following the correct highways and would often get lost and confused on back roads. Near the end of his training his trainer told him that he may not be able to pass the final test, and thus would be terminated from the company. This affected Sleepy in a very deep and emotional way, because driving a truck was his childhood dream and he had come so far, the thought of failing now made him very sad. He went into the truck stop and got a shower, while in the shower he broke down and started crying. He is not a really sensitive type of guy, but the thought of failure and not becoming a trucker was a very deep blow to his dreams.
His trainer never saw him cry, but he could tell that his comment had affected Sleepy and made him very depressed. He decided the best thing to do was take him to the French Camp, CA terminal because the safety department here was the most lenient and he would have the best chance of passing. At the end of the three week training period Sleepy and his trainer headed to French Camp, along the way the trainer made a suggestion that Sleepy meet up with another student and run teams for awhile to improve his skills before going solo. It was Sleepy’s goal to be a solo driver, but he was very nervous about doing it right now, he was very scared still about driving the truck and knew he wasn’t ready to be solo, so he agreed this was a good idea. But how would he make this work, he would need to find someone who lived close by so they could at least share home time, and how do you convince a total stranger to let you drive with them? It was a great idea, but the chances of actually making it a practical one seemed very vague, so Sleepy was convinced that he would end up being thrown in a truck solo and that scared him to death.
They arrived at French Camp and they stopped at a nearby truck stop, tomorrow was the big day and Sleepy was very nervous if he would even be able to pass at all, and if he did, then what? How in the world was he going to drive a truck alone when he was still so scared of his inexperience behind the wheel? While standing outside the truck stop a man approached him and asked for a few bucks for gas, Sleepy doesn’t have a lot of money, as he was only making twelve cents a mile for training, but he has a big heart for people and he gave the man a few bucks. Next thing he knows he is standing next to a mountain of a man, just over six foot and about three hundred pounds of solid muscle. Sleepy is about five foot eleven inches and one hundred thirty five pounds.
He decided to start a conversation with the massive stranger and told him that he was a student and was here to test out of the training program, the kid then told Sleepy he was also a student with the same company and he was here for the same reason. Sleepy told the kid how nervous he was about testing out and the things his trainer has said. They started talking about home, and he told Sleepy he was from Ohio. Sleepy lived in Colorado, but he had no ties there since he was living with his parents, but he was actually born and raised in Ohio and still had a lot of family there. The kid introduced himself as Nick, he said “they call me Jake Brake, my trainer gave me that name because I never shut my jakes off.” Sleepy told Jake Brake his name was Rich, and he had gotten his handle from some friends before getting into trucking because he worked third shift, and they always found him asleep when they needed him. As you can see, the character “Sleepy” is me, and “Jake Brake” is someone whom I was about to engage on a never ending journey of friendship and adventure with.
Nick was doing very well in the training program, and after talking with me and my trainer at the truck stop that night he agreed to take me under his wing for awhile so that I wouldn’t have to face the big road alone until I was ready. Being that he lived in Ohio and I had family there, it was a perfect match; fate had taken its course and brought us together here this night.
The next day Nick and I and another student crowded into a truck and took turns taking our road test and backing exams, we both passed with flying colors. There was a female student with us who could not even get the truck into gear or shift without excessive grinding, and she passed to, so my trainer was correct, this was very lenient safety department.
Jake Brake and I were assigned our truck, a 1998 Freightliner FLD120 that was located somewhere in the Los Angeles area, abandoned by the previous driver, so we both headed to the local Greyhound station and had to take one more horrendous ride on the grey dog, luckily a short one. After arriving in the Los Angeles area we hopped in a cab and headed to our truck. Much to our surprise we found a ragged out model of something that resembled a truck, we opened the door and found the interior was trashed and filthy, we started the truck up and immediately all kinds of bells and whistles started going off. This was certainly not what we expected to start our career, especially as a team, but hey we were truckers none the less, and we were going to take whatever we had to, we were ready to hit the open road! After a few minor repairs that was, our first trip was to drive the truck to the company shop in Fontana, CA to get rid of all the alarms that were going off indicating some issues that needed to be addressed.
In the next edition we will discuss the first trip out for Jake Brake and me, the start of our bonding together as best friends.
Copyright (2009) Richard Goon

New Truck Video Tour

8Ball Busted Me

I was trying to be sneaky and buy chrome for the new Pete, but Danny caught me red handed! This is like the 4th time in the last 2 years we ran into each other at a truck stop like this.

Back to the West Coast

Its been a fun summer this 2010. Running regional and being home every week gave me a chance to do lots of fishing and other activities that I never really got to do since I started trucking back in 02. But the main reason why I came here was to run the west coast, which is what I love the most. The opportunity wasn't available until a few weeks ago when one of our west coast drivers decided he wanted to run regional, the opportunity was perfect! All of our west coast drivers get to drive the new trucks, and the old beat up trucks like I had stay on the east coast. So we just swapped trucks and now I'm rolling in a 2011 Peterbilt 386, beautiful truck!

















It comes with all the necessary comforts, a comfortable bed, Sirius radio for that Road Dog truckin, and a factory refrigerator & freezer, which is my favorite accessory. My 1st week out I ran regional, 2 trips between Indianapolis to Detroit, 5 stops of produce each time. I had to attend the company safety meeting last Saturday and after that I took off on my first return to the left coast trip with seven stops.

I ran down to Lubbock, TX for Monday morning and delivered a door there and went to El Paso where I stayed the night and delivered a couple more doors there on Tuesday. These doors were the biggest I'd ever seen, special order for an 8,000 sq ft home! It took three of us to get them off the truck. I think I'm going to get very strong delivering these doors on a regular basis. LOL
From there I came over here to Phoenix for four drops today. I started this morning in Tolleson with empty pill bottles, then more pill bottles to Phoenix, and finally doors and wood shims to Tempe. Now I'm back at the Flying J where our buddy Vern Gill has kindly asked me to join him and his girlfriend and their children for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

After that's all over I will head out tomorrow night to deliver a couple more doors to San Diego, CA on Friday morning then wait to see what the back haul will be. Produce more than likely.
I leave you with the sunset at Texas Canyon on 11/23, my 30th birthday. What a way to watch this milestone day in my life fade away.

5/26/2010

So on Monday morning my wife and I went down to the heart of Amish country in Berlin, OH and we did some walking around looking in the western wear shop and a couple antique malls, she bought a new end table for the living room and I bought a whiskey bottle, I love too see antique glass bottles for some reason. LOL We had lunch at a diner in town there and she took me back to my truck. I hopped in and bobtailed back to Berlin to pick up my loaded trailer.
I set off for MN to deliver Tuesday night. Chad aka DrSuessMN was waiting for me up at the Flying J in Lake Station, IN. So I finally made it up there and met up with him and we took off, this was like 1am so the ride through Chicago was a breeze, we did the I94 to IL41 back to I94 deal to avoid the tolls and when we got into WI we decided to shut down for some rest.

He was delivering in Milwaukee in the morning and I was already half way to Rogers, MN for 8pm Tuesday. So we drove through the Petro in Racine and it was packed so he said we should go check out the Kwik Trip across the street. We drove over there and backed up against the wall but the lady came out and said we couldn't park there, so we asked her if we could run inside real quick and then leave and she said okay. I go back out and stick my key in the door and the lock sometimes sticks so I put pressure on it and *SNAP* key breaks off right in the door! I always carry my spare key in my pocket with me but of course now its not there. Luckily my sleeper door was unlocked so I climbed inside and I tore the truck apart and couldn't find the spare key anywhere. So we hop in Chad's truck and drive back to the PETRO and they say they don't do anything with keys so we got directions and headed to WAL-MART but they couldn't help neither because they don't use the old style key machines anymore where they could clamp it together and trace the cut.

Chad drove me back to the Kwik Trip, also he called them before we went to WAL-MART so they would know what was going on. He dropped me off and he went over to the burger king lot to get some sleep. So I searched some more for that key with no luck, finally I called our mechanic at home and he told how to hot wire the truck from the ignition switch to get it running. It fired right up and I went over to the PETRO and got some sleep.

When I woke up I took off and headed west and I passed a Peterbilt dealer right off the interstate and I ran in there and gave them the vin # and they made me a new key for 5.00, so now I have a key again.I delivered my load last night in Rogers then went to Bogards for my first pick up this morning. Got loaded at 7:30 and headed into WI for two more pick ups in Granton and Appleton and I'm sitting in Luxemberg now for my 4th pick up in the morning then my final pick up in Hilbert and I'll be off to Ohio to drop the load tomorrow night in Navarre.

5/23/2010

I left the house Thursday night and picked up my truck from the yard with a fresh new A/C and all, it was a big relief! I went over to IN and loaded up Friday morning and drove all the way to Keasbey, NJ and parked in the holding area and check in. They started calling trucks around 0400 and I swore I heard them say something about truck 233, I walked into the office to see if they were talking to me but they didn't know what I was talking about, I don't know maybe I was hearing things, or wishful thinking. They finally did call me to a dock around 0800 and of course I didn't get out till 1100 and made it to the final stop last minute, they stop receiving at noon. It's a driver unload,one pallet breaks into six, so I knocked that out real quick and headed to DE to pick up the bananas for delivery in Newcomerstown, OH this morning.

I always take 287 to 202 and 31 to I95 to avoid the ridiculous tolls on the turnpike. Coming out of DE last time I took 202 and it had a lot of lights so this time I went back into PA and took some other roads I thought might be quicker to pick up 30 but just ended up right back on 202 anyway and it just wasted more time I think. I did find a nice diner outside Lancaster with truck parking called "Jennie's Diner" the food was great, had that homecooked feel to it, and plenty of it, I took the rest with me for later.

I took 30 into Lancaster and 283 into Harrisburg then went over to I-81 and down to Carlisle and fueled up and ran over to Breezewood then 30 to 220 and I-99 then 22 into Ohio. This is a good road and saves a lot of money and doesn't take too much more time. The fog got really thick by the time I got into Ohio, couldn't even hardly see the road in front of you. I made it to the 250 get off and instead of going west I accidentally got off the east exit. Now there was a parking lot I could have turned around in, but due to the fog I didn't see it until it was to late so I went into Athens, and I knew I didn't want to go east because there was no turn around down there for sure. So I took Ohio 9 south and hoped for something, well no such luck. For a state road this was like a COUNTY road. It may have been eight foot wide, but not an inch more twists and turns and hills so steep I was climbing them in 3rd gear and barely made it the top. it was a white knuckle ride for sure! Couldn't see ten foot in front of the hood and them sharp turns and steep grades. I finally came to a town and saw a sign for route 22 turn right six miles, so I turned right and followed that highway, pretty much the same thing as route 9. Finally made it back to 22 and had to make an impossible right turn and followed that back to 250 then 36 into Newcomerstown, the fog never did let up a bit. After all that it took me 2.5 hours to get there from the time I originally got off the exit, forty miles away.

I was so tired after I got unloaded I went back to the truck stop and went to bed before driving to the yard where my wife came and picked me up this afternoon. Tomorrow night I'll be setting out for MN.

Chicken Haulin' Adventures #1

Chicken Haulin' Adventures #2

5/20/2010

I got my stop off in Kansas City the other day and headed to Springfield, MO and parked at the TA and got unloaded Monday morning. While parked at the dock there I fell asleep and had a very weird dream, one where you don't realize your dreaming because it seems so real. I dreamed that I had woke up and I was somehow back in a Navajo truck. I was freaking out trying to figure out how in the hell it happened. I was very depressed and I took my truck and was driving it all over the grass at the terminal and shit. They gave me a load of beer to deliver and I just ignored it then they wanted to know why I didn't deliver my load and I was like I don't give a F%^&, I'm not supposed to be here, I hate this place! Then I finally woke up and I had to get out of bed and check to see that I was indeed still in my Pete, and I felt a big relief it was only a dream, or more like a nightmare! Maybe they're putting something in that flavored water I'm not sure, I'm trying to cut out all the soda and junk food so I just been drinking the flavored water from Wal-Mart. LOL

After I got empty there I headed down to Oklahoma City for my final stop at Associated Wholesale Grocers there, my "appointment" was for 2030, of course so was about 100 other trucks... On the way I stopped off in Tulsa and had lunch with my buddy Andrew Marshall there at the QT truck stop.





































I got to OKC and parked at the TA until 1930 then went down to the warehouse and trucks were backed up clean into the road already. I just made it in the gate and got checked in and everything stopped because the staging area was filled up and it wasn't until after 2030 they started calling trucks into the dock, eventually they moved me and a bunch of other trucks to another staging area so that the trucks in the street could check in and get out of the street. So I could see already this was one messed up operation. Eventually I got called into a dock and was there until about 0300 before I finally got out of there. Now I had a pick up at the caves in Carthage,MO at 0800, needed to be in Delphos,OH ASAP. I made it up to Carthage and got loaded at the caves about 0900.















I delivered that load in Delphos early Weds. morning and the final stop in Cleveland at 1000.
I went back to the yard and turned my truck into the shop to get my A/C fixed. I figured out why I didn't have any heat or bunk blower also, the fuse was blown that controls those things.
Also my CD player quit working, not sure what's wrong with that..LOL It just wasn't my trip, I was either burning up or freezing! I'm loading out tomorrow morning in IN for NJ then bring a load of bananas back to OH Sunday and I'll be home again until Monday night.

5/16/2010

I got to the house Weds. after delivering in Pittsburgh and dropped the truck off at the shop. I wrote it up because my A/C went out on me the day before I got home. I came back to work Friday night and picked up a preloaded trailer delivering 0430 Sunday morning in Kansas City.
I noticed Saturday my A/C still wasn't working so I called the shop to ask if they got a chance to look at my truck, he said that he didn't and he was actually looking for me this morning. He felt pretty bad about it, but I said it's no big deal, I've dealt without A/C before I won't die or anything. LOL

He told me to try and switch the breakers around just to see if that would work, well I pulled into a rest area on I70 in IN and did that, I fired the truck up and turned the A/C on and I was looking down at my phone when another driver came running up to my window and I looked up and saw smoke coming out of the hood, so I turned the ignition off and opened the hood and seen the belts were burning that run the A/C compressor and the alternator. I called the shop back and he told me to unplug the compressor from the motor, so I did that and went on down the road, I stopped in Vandalia, IL for a few hours and took a nap and then I took off and about the time I got to the I270 split outside St. Louis I realized the alternator was not charging.

I pulled off at the Flying J and called the shop back and told him what happened, he had me check the compressor and confirm it had locked up. This is a major design flaw on the CAT motors because if the A/C locks up you're automatically going to lose your alternator too when the belt snaps. There are two shops right next door to the Flying J, both of which were closed!
So that wasn't going to be of much help, so they told me to take it to the TA back in Troy about 10 minutes away. I had completely forgotten about that or I would have just went there to begin with. So I hooked up the jumper cables to the reefer and put some charge to the batteries and drove over to the TA with just headlights and bottom lights on, shop told me to use only minimal necessary lights of course.

They got me right in and hooked up a single belt from the main pulley to the alternator in about 45 minutes and I was back on the road and made it to my destination in Kansas City about 0330.
After which I went to the little truck stop down the street and went to bed then got up this afternoon and drove down here to the TA in Strafford, MO for my 0600 delivery in the morning in Springfield, then onto Oklahoma City for 2030 tomorrow night. Luckily it's been very cool the last few days so no need for A/C, problem is it got a little to cool and I also have no heat, and the blower in the bunk doesn't work either. So I'm having all kinds of problems. LOL
I'll be on my way straight back to Ohio after I get empty in OKC though.

This week

Last week I left the yard in Ohio on Monday and delivered a load in Harrisburg and Carlisle, PA on Tuesday Morning. Then I went up to Scranton area to pick up a load back to Ohio. I made my way through a tight little town and passed up the shipper and had to go through downtown and turn around and come back only to find that the load was shipping from another warehouse up the road.

I made my way up there and picked up the load and dropped it off in Sterling, OH then bobtailed down to Berlin and picked up a trailer for Kansas City and Aurora. I went to London, OH and passed out in the sleeper. I drove out to Eaton, OH and met up with my buddy Bruno from Navajo and followed him to Effingham, IL then I went on out to Kansas City and got unloaded the next morning then went onto Aurora, CO.

I met up with John, aka GDiesels at the TA, he came by and picked me up in his patrol car and we went into town for some Mexican dinner. He took me back and I went over to the customer and parked and got unloaded the next morning. They didn't have a load of potatoes for me out of CO so they sent all the way to Nogales, AZ, 900 miles. I got down there Saturday morning and got my 1st pick on but the 2nd pick took all day because they put the wrong product stickers on, so they had to redo everyone's loads.

Anyway I couldn't leave until Sunday morning because I was out of hours, so it was some pretty serious trailer truckin' to make it back to Pittsburgh by Weds. morning, but I got 'r done! Now
I'm at the house until Saturday.

At the new job

I finally got fed up with living the life of a big company driver and staying out on the road for months at a time, with only 2-3 days off. So after meeting up with my buddy Derek who works for a small company here in Ohio at a Pilot Travel Center in Boonville, MO one Saturday, and finding out they were hiring I decided to put in an application, and after getting a load to Ohio I went in for an interview and got the job.

Navajo wasn't able to bring me directly back to Denver so I relayed a load to AR then picked up a load going to Cheyenne, WY which I dropped off at the yard in Denver and turned my truck in.
I caught a midnight flight out of Denver which went to Detroit and connected in Akron, which I got for $100.00 and I was back Friday morning and drove straight down to my new company and got into my truck, a 2004 Peterbilt 379 with a 475 CAT. It's a big beautiful, powerful machine, I love it!




















This is a great job, home 2-3 days a week and I still get at least 3,000 miles a week, .37 cpm and plenty of benefits and bonus programs. They wash and service the trucks every week, they polish the trucks with a high speed buffer and everything. After 9 years on the road, it feels great to work for a small company who really cares about the drivers who take care of them.

It allows me to do what I love, which is drive OTR, but still have plenty of time at home so I don't get burned out on trucking like I was before because I had to be gone for such long periods at a time. It's a well established, debt free company which has been in business for around 30 years, with a good customer base, so it's not like the last small company I worked for which relied solely on brokers and finding loads on the web.

Drowning in Budweiser!

Last week after getting my truck fixed after the break in while I was home I was called into dispatch with another driver and they told us we needed to take our trucks down to Cleveland, TX to recover a tractor and trailer that had been involved in a rollover accident and bring them back to Denver.
We would do this by hooking my truck to the back of his truck and driving team down to TX and he would bring the tractor back and I would bring the trailer back. So we hooked up and headed for TX. He drove the first 8 hours, and I drove the last 8 hours.


When we arrived at the towing company yard we found the truck and trailer locked behind the gate so we called and they said they would send someone down.


He arrived but only in a small truck, so we waited for the big KW rig to show up to help us unhook the truck from the trailer, but shortly after he arrived he had to go out on a call because a trash truck was about to flip over somewhere. So we waited a few hours, in the meantime we had to climb in the trailer and even out the load because all the beer was shifted to one side and it would have just rolled over again if we tried to pull the trailer out of there.



We finally got the truck unhooked and hooked up to Scott's truck and I hooked up to the trailer and we went to the Love's truck stop to park his truck, from there we headed for the local landfill because by federal law when a beer load is wrecked the product must be destroyed since it hasn't been taxed yet. We got to the landfill about 4 pm and they closed at 5, so we went back to the truck stop and called the company to have them send us 2 helpers from labor ready the next day. We were at the gate at 6am when they opened and our helpers were right behind us, it took us 8.5 hours to unload all the beer by hand into the landfill.






We finally got it all done and back to the Love's then the company decided they wanted to load the trailer back to Denver, so I had to go to a truck wash in Houston to have all the broken glass cleaned out, which costs 250.00 , Scott already took off and headed back to Denver pulling the twisted remains of the T600 and I loaded up the next morning down in Pasadena. Luckily the trailer is still in pretty good shape besides most of the passenger side panels will have to be replaced, I only had to replace one busted marker light on the back corner.

Apparently the driver was going north on hwy 59 when he got off the wrong exit and decided instead of going down the ramp and back onto the highway he would jerk the wheel and try to get back on, and the load shifted and down it went! That driver was terminated at the scene and sent to the bus station.

By the time we got done with this adventure we all smelled like a brewery! There was broken bottles and beer flowing everywhere. I left a 10 mile trail of Beer from the tow yard to the landfill, it was pouring out the back like a 53' keg! LOL

Back on the Road

After 3 1/2 days at home I'll be heading out tomorrow, loading in Columbus bound for Denver.
I will try to do more updating on my blog here. LOL

I had an interesting experience last week when I was parked for the night in one of my usual favorite places off of I70 at exit 175, I woke up and checked my phone and I seen a text message from my cousin Todd, who is a fire captain here in Ohio, asking me if I happened to be in MO, they had just crossed into MO on 70 headed to CO to visit my other cousin who moved his family out there last year. So I told him where I was and they stopped by to see me. Him and his wife and son and 2 daughters and my aunt and uncle were all traveling together in his minivan. They are on the way back home right now, so I'll probably run into them somewhere tomorrow also.

New Truck

Well after two years and 300,000 miles on my 0ld T660, I asked for a new one, and I got one.
The interior is much nicer on these ones, I like the design a lot. Without any cabinet doors it gives the sleepers a more spacious feel, and easier access to the closets. However the down side is you don't get any kind of a table like the foldout ones in the older trucks, but it's okay because I got my own.

Robbed

Well when I was home last month I parked my truck in its usual safe haven and went home, normally I check in on it every day, but this time I went two days without checking and when I went back to check on it I found the driver side window rolled down, the CB ant. missing and the passenger door daylite window shattered, that's the little square window by the feet.

I already knew without looking that obviously my CB and GPS and anything of value would be gone. The person cut off the seal on the outside window and then used the CB ant. to bash in the inside window, since it's double paned. They stole my CB and GPS and all the DVDs and CDs and computer games I had in my shelf. The police came and took the report, but of course there isn't much they can do, the stuff is gone and the thieves would obviously have worn gloves.

They left the CB ant in the cab of the truck, and also they didn't steal my XM radio thank goodness.
I went out and bought a new Cobra29 chrome radio at a cost of $90.00 and I took it to a CB shop in Ohio and had it peaked and tuned, connex board and a LED color changing meter light installed for $70.00, which I thought was a good deal, until the CB blew up and started smoking!
Hell I couldn't even hook it up it would blow a fuse every time, and the CB shop man said he didn't know what was wrong with it, it must be the wiring in my truck he said.

So later that night I took it to another CB shop along my route in WV and it turns out the first guy had no idea what he was doing, he had everything shorted out, even the meter light! It costs me another 80.00 to have him repair the CB, which was a mess, wires melted and burnt together. He finally got it all working though, and now I've learned a valuable lesson, don't ever leave anything valuable behind when you're away from your truck! Even though I've been fine there all these years, it only takes that ONE time to lose everything.

Lots of relays on the road

With the addition of electronic logs to the fleet comes many more relays that need to be done. This may be in part to drivers not being able to change there old ways of taking breaks during the day then using "creative logging" later to make it all fit within the 14 hour rule. I know for me it gets tough especially during the early morning hours because I like to be able to take a nap sometimes but I cant because the 14 hour rule will mean I wont be able to get all the miles done I need to for that day. I was headed out to Denver when I had relay a load in Spiceland, IN that needed to be in Lees Summit, MO and Harrisonville, Mo the next day so I did that and took my break in Harrisonville before making two more deliveries in KS the next day.

The only place for taking a break was this little small cafe off of the US highway there. It was pretty neat to see an old smoky cafe with the farmers all sitting around BS'n and having dinner. It definitely had the southern home style feel to it, and the food was great, I had the catfish. Anyhow after my break was up I made my two deliveries one down by Wichita and the final in Hutchinson and then I took another 10 hour break there and headed to Holcomb, KS where I picked up a load going to PA.


I made it into Ohio but I was going to be about three hours late so this time I needed a relay, so we relayed just north of Columbus and I took his load and spent the night at the house and delivered the next morning in Huron. I then reloaded in Huron for a load going to Memphis, this was on a Friday and the load didn't deliver until Monday, so I again relayed a load and took it up to upstate New York and drove through a driving blizzard and delivered that then went to NJ and picked up a load to Lenexa, KS , which I actually got to deliver, but while waiting to reload back at Lees Summit I got asked to relay a hot load going back to Edison, NJ so I went back to the Petro at Oak Grove and relayed the load and finished my 10 hour break and also had dinner with Trucker Steve and Trucker Adam.

I got that load delivered in NJ on Friday and picked up a load going to Loveland, CO which I relayed in Girard, OH and came home for a few days off. I'll be back on the road Tuesday.

Trucker Tattoo

I been thinking about doing this for awhile, it seems now days so many people are in trucking because they feel it's the only job left they can get, and they are miserable and they bitch and moan about there job all day long. Was a time in America where just about everyone was a trucker because they wanted to be, and they loved it!

I certainly have had my moments, it can be a love/hate relationship sometimes. Usually caused by stress or missing the wife back at home. But usually don't last long. I always try to live every day on the road for the fun, and not get to caught up in all the gloom and doom on the CB radio, XM radio truckers, whatever medium a trucker can use to communicate there will inevitably be a certain amount of bitching and complaining, it's just the nature of us.

So anyway I noticed a few months back they opened up the American Trucker Tattoo shop at the AMBest truck stop on I70 in Brazil IN, exit 23, so I made up my mind this is what I want to do to show my love and dedication to this way of life. From now on everyone will be able to tell I am PROUD to be a trucker!

New Additions To The 2 Way Communicator

This is my CB radio, a Cobra 29 LTD Black Chrome (not the chrome edition)
with an American flag Astatic mic, peaked and tuned with echo board. For the past 2 years I've been using that cheap plastic external speaker you see here, this week I made some new additions to the radio setup by adding a Road Pro chrome external speaker and 2 K40 coil antennas. Both are much more heavy duty than what I was using previously and this had improved my radio performance considerably! It is absolutely amazing. I'm walkin' that dog, and kickin' that possum, now my radio is totally awesome!! whoop whoop!!