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.