New Website!

I've been working on transitioning my blogs from Google's Blogger to my own website and today begins the switch. I have copied over all 947 blog entries from this blog and my last one, added some new features and rolled it all up into the New And Improved:

OTRjournal.com

Going forward, all new posts will show up at the new site so change over your bookmarks and any inbound links you may have on your own blogs or websites. Thanks!

Truck and Trailer sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g

In the three years I have been driving, the most 18-wheelers I have seen wrecked or in a ditch in a single day was four: on my very first day of driving on December 1, 2006 between Joplin, Missouri and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This was the day after a horrendous ice storm blew through, causing a lot of misery along the I-44 corridor.

This morning I saw four wrecked semis in the first fifteen minutes of driving from Walcott, Iowa where I was forced to stop yesterday. I snapped pictures using my hand held so I could concentrate on the road so some of the shots are blurry and I missed at least half a dozen. I didn't even bother attempting to snap pics of the wrecked 4-wheelers; there were at least 150 between Walcott and Des Moines.

Speaking of Des Moines, the rest areas just to the east had no fewer than four separate semis off the road, two on each side. Remind me to avoid that place in the future.

Here's the truck and trailer in a tree (kinda):



(That isn't a UFO to the left of the scene, by the way: it is a chip in my windshield)

Here's not one but two bedbugger vans in the median, next to each other:



A Hill Bros driver even got into the spirit of things, parking his truck in the middle where there was lots of room:



Will His Airness ever forgive the driver for parking a load of His cologne in the median?



The full album can be viewed here.

I had two scares of my own today. The first was an idiot 4-wheeler who lunged in front of my truck, then slowed down not once, not twice but three times before I left him behind. How he managed to be one of the lucky few not in a ditch is beyond me.

The second scare I got was in the western half of Iowa. This morning I checked the reefer tank and it was about half full, down a bit more than a quarter over night. They are notoriously inaccurate so I try to check on it each time I pull over and when I got into a rest area west of Des Moines I saw it was under a quarter tank. Worse, a few minutes later the repeater light on the left front of the trailer went from a white "T", indicating normal function, to an amber "K", meaning something is wrong. Fortunately, this trailer was equipped with a low fuel sensor and it didn't simply stop when it was out, it gave me a warning.

I had enough time to pull into a nearby truck stop and fill up the tank; keeping fishies alive at 76 degrees when its 5 degrees outside uses up quite a bit of fuel, it seems.

Oh, I also got to use my truck as an impromptu snow plow for the first time. The very first rest area west of Des Moines had the truck side blocked with several trucks and a repair vehicle so I carefully drove to the car side. There were no cars there since it hadn't been plowed and I must have (gingerly) pushed my way through a football field length of 18-24 inch snow. I didn't even dare stop to take care of business, as I was concerned about getting stuck.


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This load was originally set to deliver this morning at 0300. At one point they rescheduled it for tomorrow morning at 0300, but as the day wore on they saw the logic of dropping the load off at 1600 instead and a few hours after that I was empty and headed over to a local truck stop where I sit this evening.

For once I am letting my truck idle overnight instead of using my TriPac. The forecast has it down to -5 or so overnight and even though it shares the same coolant system as my truck does to keep the engine slightly warm, this is a bit much.

Dog kennels and boxing equipment

You might think that those items have little in common, and you would be right. Somehow, the people at Kennel-Aire in Ottawa, Kansas and Everlast Sports (the guys who make all kinds of boxing equipment) both needed to get some of their products to the Elwood, Illinois Walmart distribution center and a broker knitted together the result into a load for me. The timing was poor since I was supposed to load before I was even dispatched and by the time I made it to Moberly the Everlast folks had already split for the day (insert joke about not lasting here), everything ended up just fine as I made the original appointment time in Elwood.


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While I was being unloaded I got my new preplan: deadhead over to Ottawa, Illinois to pick up a trailer heading to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for 0300 Thursday morning.

What could go wrong with that?

Up, up and a weigh: conclusion

When the Soviets built and launched their rockets from the Baikonur Cosmodrome they designed them to be built and maneuvered level with the ground, then hoisted into place before launch. Imagining these huge rockets being gently raised up made a connection in my mind as I delivered my load of spuds this morning in Topeka, Kansas:



As you can see in this picture, I backed my trailer on to this special lift, disconnected then pulled forward at which time the operator did his thing and 30 tons of trailer and spuds lifted skyward.



(For those of you reefer operators out there, no that isn't the deflector from the inside of my reefer; it belonged to the truck before me who managed to leave without even checking inside).

Several hours after completing my assignment I was ordered to nearby Ottawa, Kansas via Kansas City where I needed to get my (very dirty) trailer washed out. From there it was on to Moberly, Missouri to pick up the second half of a load heading to Walmart in Elwood, Illinois that I will deliver tomorrow afternoon.

First Ice of '09

Yesterday morning I awoke to find a thin blanket of snow covering my truck and the parking lot of the Flying J in Limon, Colorado.



The air is so dry this time of year there is a lot of static cling, leading to what I refer to as moguls on the back of the cat as her fur bunches up:



The trip distance was a manageable 460 miles from Limon to Topeka, Kansas, almost due east. Most of the ride was along roads with a small amount of blowing snow and a lot of freezing rain -- so much so I had to stop at almost every rest area in Kansas to knock off accumulated ice from my headlights and windshield.





I was told by the broker that my delivery appointment was set at 1800 and I arrived 30 minutes early. The receiving clerk looked up the load number on his list and it showed my appointment seven hours earlier at 1100. Receiving clerk wins argument and I retreat to parking lot to phone broker. Broker swears up and down that it is really 1800 and I wish her good luck convincing the clerk inside that he's wrong. She suggests I offer a $20 "tip" to get unloaded sooner, I suggest she stops taking whatever drugs she's on. The usual trucker game.

Year Two, Second Quarter Results (September 09 to December 09)

This past week was the 18-month mark in my lease-purchase with Hill Bros. As before, I'm going to be comparing numbers from each quarter this year with the corresponding numbers from last year, with the previous year in parenthesis.

Paid miles for this quarter were 31,025 (33,355) and total miles driven were 34,300 (35,583), resulting in an OOR (Out-Of-Route) of 10.56% (6.68%). Those extra hundreds of miles OOR going home that I recently complained about contributed here.

I purchased 11,244 (15,723) in fuel and received 7,639 (12,145) in FSC, for an adjusted fuel expense of 3,605 (3,578). Divided by miles run shows 10.51 (10.06) CPM for fuel this quarter.

Average paid miles driven per week rose to 2,387 (2,566) compared to last quarter and my weekly net income rose to 1,274 (1,127). Per-mile revenue rebounded to 1.26 (1.33).

I'm starting to track my net CPM each quarter. My goal is to pay myself at least 50 CPM and last quarter it was 48.95. This quarter it is 53.38 CPM.

Net Pay By Week:

14: 1225
15: 1646
16: 518
17: 1993
18: 1799
19: 934
20: 1091
21: 1521
22: 1088
23: 629
24: 1544
25: 1326
26: 1246

Analysis and Goals

I took a lot of extra home time this quarter, mostly because I bought a house in August and have someplace nice to spend my home time! My overall money goal for this year was to make as much income as last year and also take a week off. I spent almost six days at the house over Thanksgiving and a handful of weekends I've been taking a third day off so the extra home time has been seen to.

My goal of 1,200 per week net income was surpassed even with all the extra home time, so I'm going to shoot for 1,300 next quarter. This will put me on a trajectory below that of last year, income-wise, but I'm hoping for the price of diesel to start rising and to figure out a way to keep a lid on those OOR miles to make up the difference. I suppose I could work harder, but where is the fun in that?

A Dead reefer, a plasma cannon, planning and reprogramming

So I wake up an hour or so before my alarm is due to go off and two hours before the appointment time to be loaded. It is quiet... too quiet. My APU is running but I don't hear the reefer. I pull back the curtain a smidge (it is freaking cold out and the front half of the cab almost has icicles) and peer at my driver's side mirror. In it I can see the activity/alarm repeater on the front left corner of the reefer and it is blinking green and orange in rapid succession. Oy vey.

I toss some random clothes on and slip my feet into my frozen shoes and try to open my door. Then I put some beefcake into it, 'cause the door is frozen shut. That works and shortly I'm outside at the altitude of 8,000 feet or so and -5 degrees or so trying simultaneously to gulp air like a guppy out of water and hold my breath because the air I'm inhaling is killing my lungs. Such happy circumstances we drivers get to enjoy.

The display on the side of the reefer tells me it failed to start. How informative. I clear the alarm codes and it tries again, but after some starter noises come and go the screen tells me it failed to start. A failure that early in the morning must be some kind of record.

I tell the shipping people my reefer has a problem. I tell our night dispatch the reefer has a problem. I tell my dispatcher the reefer has a problem. Heck, I even told our shop people the reefer has a problem. I'm told to expect to head up to Denver (the closest ThermoKing shop, and in fact the only one in the state) to drop off the trailer and grab a different one. I'm told I might just be headed to FedEx in Colorado Springs to swap out then come back. I'm told a bit of Diesel 911 additive might do the trick.

I'm told all manner of things but eventually it is decided that the spud folks will put this plasma cannon thing in the back of the trailer and warm it up for a while, then load me up. This thing is a 155,000 BTU heater thing that looks like it was appropriated from a band of Klingons and it is h-h-hot. Meanwhile, some of the ranch hands with diesel skills take a look at the reefer and eventually conclude its dead, Jim. Wow, two Star Trek references in one paragraph.

They have a movable conveyor belt system that efficiently takes tons of spuds at one end and tosses them into the back of a trailer on the other. An operator guides it back and forth as a handful of his colleagues watch the potatoes go by and pick out the damaged ones.

After what they think is enough are in place in my trailer I head over to their scale and weigh each axle. It seems everything is fine though I'm only at 76,000 pounds so they ask if I want any more. Me? Hell no. The broker and thus my company? Of course! Since loads of this sort are paid by the pound delivered it is most efficient for a pasty-skinned geek behind a computer someplace to, um, encourage drivers to take as much as possible.

They say they'll put on a couple thousand more pounds. It somehow turns out that I weigh in at 79,250, so those last spuds must have been bulking up or something.

By this time it is just past noon and it has been more than four hours since I started complaining to everyone that would listen or receive my satellite transmissions that my reefer is broken. Dead. Won't start. My last directive was to head to Denver to have the TK guys fix it, then continue to Topeka, Kansas to deliver. Being the obedient type, I agree and head up to Denver.

I arrive around 1700 local time to find a very closed ThermoKing dealer. They don't even work weekends, it would appear. By this point it is about 18 degrees out and even with the insulation in the trailer the spuds will freeze if we can't get the reefer running.

I call our night dispatch and leave a message. I call our shop and leave a message. I call the ThermoKing number they have listed on their door and get told to have my dispatcher call them to authorize the after-hours work. I call our HQ again and get a mild tongue lashing from the solitary night guy who is up to his neck in problems like mine.

It boggles my mind that after everything that went on no one bothered to tell ThermoKing I was on my way.

After 30 minutes or so a mechanic showed up and had me back the trailer into a bay. I detached to give him room and he set about doing whatever it is they do. Within twenty minutes he had the unit up and running and diagnosed the primary problem as old software that preventing the unit from starting. He showed me on the display where the unit thought it had run 1.6 MILLION hours and decided it was tits up and on strike. Another thirty minutes and the software is updated (and various filters and lines cleaned out), the unit is running fine and I'm on my way.

Up, up and a weigh

(Trucker humor - bear with me)

It was early afternoon yesterday before I regained consciousness. The latest plan had rolled in on the satellite which is probably what woke me. I'm to head north to the southwestern part of Colorado to the tiny hamlet of Monte Vista where 20+ tons of spuds await my tender mercies along their path to Topeka, Kansas.

Most of the driving to this gem of the wilderness took place along narrow state highways. Much of the trip was spent climbing, too, and there was a decent amount of snow on the ground for about 20 miles. Any truck driver can tell you this is a barrel of laughs when you are empty.


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I followed the directions sent via satellite and as I was making my final turn just 2.5 miles from the shipper I saw a lot of flashing lights, cop cars, tow trucks and what appeared to be a broke down semi. Not having a dog in that fight I went on my way and shortly thereafter pulled into the shipper's parking lot.

After angling towards the edge of the lot to park out of the way I shut my truck down and pulled the curtain separating the front and back sections of my cab. I was just about to start on some dinner when a light "tap tap tap" noise came from up front. Curious.

A lady in a bulky coat was standing outside my cab and she asked if I was there for a load in the morning. I confirmed this was the case and she asked me if I wanted to make a quick hundred bucks.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was a bit flattered for about two seconds. I might not be much to look at now but I've got good genes. Sadly, she mentioned that it was one of their trucks that was involved in the accident I saw and if I be able to help them transfer the palletized spuds back to their warehouse they would happily compensate me for my time.

As I was preparing to move my rig to help out she and some other workers had a big pow-wow and decided that it wouldn't be any easier than the way they were doing it already (with a small flatbed truck), so I finished wiping away the tears and headed off to bed.

In part 2 of our narrative (coming tomorrow) I'll explain the dead reefer, the plasma cannon, the lack of planning and ultimate redemption found reprogramming a refrigerator.

You must be hallucinating

The FedEx folks in Phoenix were 1.5 hours late getting the trailer ready so I was up against my delivery deadline pretty much from the git-go. At least they entered it as their fault in the computer system, something that doesn't normally happen even when it is their fault.

At least the load was only 18,500 pounds so climbing up I-17 wasn't much of a hassle.

About halfway I had to take a 30 minute power nap to keep my energy up. I really could have used another one as I was nearing Albuquerque but my GPS showed me arriving right at 0600, the delivery time so I didn't have another minute to spare.

As I was coming up on the Route 66 casino about 15 miles west of town I could have swore I saw a big rig backing on to the freeway from the right, completely perpendicular and hauling an enormous boat of some sort. I squinted and stabbed the brakes to give myself some time but after a few more seconds the scene resolved itself and I had mistaken a freeway sign hanging over the road as the rig. Yes, I was very tired and very bleary eyed and yes, I wish I had pulled off to take another 30 before then and screw the delivery time. After that, the immense adrenaline rush was enough to keep me awake and aware the final few miles in to Albuquerque.

715 freaking miles

Yeah that is a long drive. I got rolling as early as I could then headed to Phoenix, mostly without stopping. Arrived around 2200 hours local time to drop the trailer then off to bed for me.

I turned down another preplan I was given. The idea was that I would rest all of today then pick up a FedEx load tonight heading to Albuquerque for an 0600 delivery. I don't dislike night runs, in general, but switching from day to night and back again is hell on my body.

Of course, there is no one else who can possibly cover this load so eventually I agreed to it. I'm currently at the FedEx place awaiting a 2000 departure. Freaking protestant work ethic.

The long, long road

My dispatcher worked out a swap with another driver needing to get back to Texas (the lord bless such folk) and after a dint of hard work and perseverance which included no fewer than eight trailer swaps over the past two days, I'm on a load from Crete, Nebraska to Phoenix, Arizona.


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I had to use up every driving hour possible to get as far as possible yesterday so I can make my delivery by 2300 tonight in Phoenix. I warned my dispatcher that unless everything went right yesterday I would end up 60-90 miles north of Phoenix and out of hours to run the rest without a break.

Today's journey is 720 miles, made possible by the 70 and 75 MPH speed limits in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. I don't like running that fast as a general rule, but the trip is good and I want to make the deadline.

Three Year Mark

December 1, 2006 was my first day on a commercial truck back when I worked for CFI. This week also happens to be the halfway point between my time spent as a company driver (roughly 18 months) and now as a lease-purchase operator (the past 18 months).

The Alternative

There wasn't another preplan ready for me by the time I got back to the truck this morning which was a little worrisome. Within a few hours I was swapping my empty reefer trailer for an empty van that another driver brought by and on my way up to Kansas City for a Sam's Club load heading to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Along the way I was told to grab an empty reefer from the dock at Sam's Club then take it up to the Cargill plant in Schuyler, Nebraska and exchange that for a loaded trailer heading to Dallas and Houston for delivery three day's hence.

"Do I have a kick me -- Texas sign on my back?" I sent in.

We were short of trucks tonight and needed someone to step up to pick up the load to keep the Cargill folks happy. Why they would care precisely when a trailer leaves their lot so long as it reaches its destination on time is beyond my ken.

Anyway, my parade was rained on when I arrived in Lincoln as there was only one other van trailer on the dock. I phoned in to night dispatch who even told me the trailer number of the reefer that should have been there, but I eventually convinced them it was just me and two empty vans. The trip up to Schuyler was bobtail.

I check in at the Cargill guard shack only to find that this load they are so worried about us taking off of their hands hasn't even been loaded yet. That was way beyond my ken and I took off to the truck stop down the street where I will stay until early tomorrow morning to pick up the load.

Six days off and a turn down

Wow that was a nice little vacation. Batteries are recharged and I'm ready to begin again.

Only, not with the preplan that was passed by me on Saturday. It would have had me wait around until 1500 on Monday to get live loaded in Carthage, MO then run all night to make an 0600 delivery in Lufkin, Texas on Tuesday. Ah hell no, in other words.

(E)mail bag #2

What kind of truck do you drive?

I drive a white 2007 Volvo 780 tractor with a 2006 Volvo D12 engine and a 13-speed manual transmission. The truck was built in October of 2006 and sat at a dealer lot until June of 2008 when I started driving it. It started with 1,337 miles on the odometer and as of this writing has just over 210,000.



The things I love about my Volvo include its very tight turning radius, huge and well-organized interior (the lower berth converts into a table with two seats like an RV), the largest refrigerator of any non-custom truck and a very, very fuel efficient engine and aerodynamic combination which gives me great fuel economy.

How do you calculate fuel economy?

The only way to truly determine fuel economy is to take the actual fuel expense (what you pay at the pump) and divide it by the miles driven. Since there is always some amount left in the tanks from week-to-week, you need to do this over time, such as a month or a quarter.

Since I am paid the fuel surcharge amount determined by the Department of Energy each week for every mile I'm dispatched, I also include that in the calculation:

(Fuel expense - FSC) / Miles driven = Adjusted fuel cost

Purists could note that I lump together my company discount at the pump into the fuel expense, and they would be correct. Its just that I'm too lazy to break it out and it doesn't effect my end cost as calculated.

How can you stand driving at 60 MPH?

It was real easy for me once I did the numbers and decided how I would make money in this profession.

The only large variable expenses you have as an owner-operator are your pay and the money you spend on fuel. In order to maximize my pay, I have to reduce my fuel expense. Think of it like a teeter-totter: the more you pay for fuel, the less you pay yourself and vice versa.

One of the checks I make of my progress is to determine what my CPM pay is. As a company driver, I think it is reasonable to expect somewhere in the low 40's per mile with the right company and experience. Since I take on additional risk and work as an independent, my goal is to consistently achieve over 50 CPM net pay after all truck expenses (excluding my personal taxes and the costs of vacation time, health care and the like that company drivers enjoy). With 133,303 paid miles in my first year my net was $67,740, which is a 50.8 CPM.

I achieved this with an adjusted fuel expense of 11.73 CPM. If my fuel expense was just 20 CPM (which is a truck getting 6 MPG with zero out-of-route miles and zero idle time), my net pay would be merely 42 CPM, or what I could expect to make with much less exposure as a company driver.

That's why I drive 60.

Sleeping with da fishes

After spending a restful night ghetto parked in an odd spot in Rochelle I took my load in to one of the three Sara Lee places we deliver at in town. You know, the one on the bills.

Naturally, they weren't having any of that and sent me and another HB driver down the street to location #2. There, the guard says we can't drop those trailers on his lot without the people at location #1 signing off on our paperwork first. We both pull a u-turn in their lot and head back up the street to the first place.

Nope, minimum-wage security guard is wrong and we can damn well drop the trailer over there comes the answer from the helpful clerk at location #1. They have someone phone over to the guard and straighten him out and by the time we have returned to location #2 and wait through a long line of trucks we're given clearance to drop in their yard.

There aren't any empties so I cruise over to location #3 and snag the only one there (sorry, fellow HB driver!) then wait a few hours for my next assignment.

I'm told to take my empty reefer down to the PetSmart DC in Ottawa, Illinois and swap it for a trailer full of live fish heading to distributors in Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas. The schedule is tight and I have to arrive in Memphis in time to take my 10-hour break, unload at 0500 then be in Little Rock by 0900. I really wanted to take a shower along the way but I didn't have enough time and though there are not one but two Pilot truck stops within a mile of my first stop I dare not stop there (the ones in Memphis are a very bad place to park).

Right at 0500 the first receiver is ready to go and by 0530 I'm rolling to Little Rock. By 0930 the last of the fishies are off and that load is in the books.


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There are many things I like about the way Hill Bros operates. I like the number of pre-plans that show up, for instance. I like the accuracy with which they send me home when I ask: I tell my dispatcher a week or two in advance when I want to be home and almost without fail I'm there that day or the day after.

One thing I do not like about the operation here is how they get owner-ops home. Here, they do not pay mileage from the last drop you make to the house so where you are stranded dispatched last makes a big difference. Much of last year my last load would leave me in Carthage, Missouri, roughly 50 miles from the house and I felt this was reasonable.

The last three times I've come home I have had to deadhead (on my own dime) 175 - 210 miles. Since it costs me about 75 cents per mile to operate my truck this translates into more than $400 out of my pocket to come home three times. I was told last year in orientation that they would strive to get owners to within 100 miles of the house before sending them home. My repeated complaints by phone and satellite unit to my dispatcher haven't resulted in a resolution to this issue and I suppose I will have to take it up with Ross, head of operations when I get back to Omaha next.

Sara Lee to Illy

Late yesterday morning the weekend dispatch crew told me to head a couple miles east in Omaha to a bakery to pick up a load heading to Rochelle, Illinois for Sara Lee.

Having been to this facility once before, I innocently asked if they wanted me to bobtail over or if I needed to bring a trailer. The docks are fairly difficult to back into (you have to block the street in front for several minutes to get the truck oriented properly) and I was relieved to hear that they had enough trailers over there already and I could bobtail.

HB had four loads of goodies heading to Rochelle, all identical. The order number that I was given happened to be the last one on the list for the plant, and I was told they were taking product straight from the production line for each trailer. Not having anything better to do I made lunch, watched some videos and took a snooze.

Around 1400 the shipping clerk came out and knocked on my door. "The driver for this load hasn't shown up yet so back under trailer ##### and you can take it." Sweet!

The load was just over 25,000 pounds so no need to scale and I was shortly on my way fighting a brutal headwind from the East. About seven hours later I arrived at our fueling stop in Rochelle to spend the night, since our receiver doesn't take trailers early on Sundays but will this morning.

On Tandems

I got running around 0700 this morning, heading north to Fort Collins. At the guard shack I parked my truck (after scaling) next to a CFI truck and opened up the rear to show them it was nice and clean. The guard then asked if I could help the CFI driver with her tandems since they were old and rusty. Sure, no problemo.

I grabbed my new STA-RAT bar thinking this would be a great time to test it out for the first time, forgetting that almost every CFI trailer uses a vertical tandem bar that it can't help with. Ah well. A small dint of effort (and my right forearm banged up against the underside of the trailer -- I had forgotten how fun that was at CFI) and the tandems decided I was the boss and did their part.

After chatting with the lady driver for a few minutes I left to drop my empty and pick up the loaded trailer. Since the trailer number was 7118, I knew it would be old and crusty as well, as our oldest trailers begin with "71". This gave me the opportunity I had been looking for to try out the STA-RAT bar and it worked as advertised. Yay team.

There was quite a bit of room in the rear of the trailer so my first concern was it was loaded too heavily at the nose end and I might have to have them rework it. I slid the tandems all the way up to try to get as much weight to the rear as I could then blocked off the load with a couple of my load bars.

Damn I'm good and damn I'm lucky, as the 44,500 pound load put my drives at 34,060 with the tandems all the way forward.

I only made one stop between there and Omaha, and that was in Big Springs, Nebraska where I had another steak at the Sam Bass Saloon located next to the Bossleman Pilot there. Mmmm mmm good.

Since this load doesn't deliver until Monday morning I've t-called it here in the yard. I'm going to chat up the morning planner tomorrow to see if I can get an out-and-back load or loads tomorrow so I can deliver it and get my new (brand new) load locks back.

"That's like choosing between Hep C and Syphilis, dude!"

The word this morning from On High was that I would be grabbing a load of spuds from Colorado and taking it to San Antonio, Texas for a Monday morning delivery. Three full days for 900ish miles with a set appointment at a grocery warehouse.

My helpful dispatcher messaged me: "Would you like to run it all the way or t-call it in Dallas?"

I shot back: "That's like choosing between Hep C and Syphilis, dude!"

The load was given to some other lucky customer and I was asked to take the empty reefer I picked up last night at FedEx over to nearby Fort Morgan, Colorado and drop it there at a Cargill meatpacking plant then bobtail back to FedEx and grab another empty.

A new plan popped up. This one had me picking up a loaded trailer from the Bud plant in Fort Collins, Colorado on Sunday morning and delivering it in Council Bluffs, Iowa first thing Monday morning. Since this is Friday and I wasn't really feeling like waiting for the entire weekend for this load I put in a call to Alex, my dispatcher.

It turns out this load is ready to go early and if I can't make it there by the time they stop receiving tomorrow I can just drop it in our yard in Omaha and a local driver will take it over first thing Monday morning. That sounds much better.

Another FedEx run

I cracked an eyelid after 1100 yesterday morning, having slept late because of the hour I got in on that Emporia load. On the plus side, I found a small gas/diesel stop a couple blocks from the Tyson plant that I've driven by at least a dozen times without realizing they had truck parking there and it was a lot quieter than the Flying J at the other end of town.

Today's orders are to head over to Wichita and pick up a load leaving at 1500 bound for Henderson, Colorado by 0100 tomorrow morning. Its right at 600 miles for the day which is a solid bit of driving.

Only FedEx has its own ideas about what 1500 means. In their playbook they start loading a trailer around then and I actually leave an hour later, at 1600. This puts me an hour behind which is all time cushion anyway, but I would have at least liked to be able to taken a longer break to eat, get a power nap or the like. Not like they care about my creature comforts.

The drive was boring and profitable. I cruised down the long stretches of highway at 60 MPH and made the mistake of believing our dispatch when they told me Colby, Kansas was the cheapest fuel I would get along my route. It was eight cents a gallon cheaper in Denver and I definitely would have driven a couple miles extra to save that kind of money. Ah well.

I arrived and swapped trailers in Henderson by about 0030 local time then hit the sack along a fairly quiet street in front of FedEx.

Team drivers?

Hill Brothers is about 95-98% solo drivers. When I was in Omaha a few days ago I did notice they were hiring teams for some new semi-dedicated FedEx runs between Salt Lake City and Chicago. Semi-dedicated meaning the teams would run that route a few times a week with other loads from either end of that route to keep them moving.

If you and your team driver have hazmat and a couple year's experience you might want to give Erin in recruiting a jingle at 800-258-4456 for more information.

Midnight versus 2 AM

Since I knew that yesterday I would have to run all the way to Emporia, I left Denver and headed up the highway an hour or so to a rest area at Wiggins, Colorado. This gave me fewer miles to drive for my Kansas load.


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I've run this trip before. We regularly take meat from a Tyson plant in Lexington, Nebraska and shuttle it down to Emporia, Kansas to yet another Tyson plant. The problem usually comes on the shipping end where they don't have the load ready until mid evening and still expect you to deliver by 0230 in Emporia.

For some reason I was sleepy after a couple hours of driving and stopped in Big Springs, Nebraska to take a power nap. Then, for some inexplicable reason I spent the next couple hours watching video and basically being lazy and that bit me in the butt.

DING! Goes the satellite unit: "Your load is ready now on trailer 579124."

FUDGE! I was still two hours away and it was about 1615 so by the time I get there, get checked in and swap trailers I will be leaving the shipper around 1900, putting me in Emporia around 0200. If I had just kept going after my power nap I would have arrived when the load was ready and would have arrived in Emporia at midnight.

Fuming at my own laziness I drove to Lexington, swapped trailers then headed to Wood River, Nebraska to top off the reefer. Driving non-stop from then took me right to 0200 when I dropped off the trailer in Emporia.

The late-late show

Ah, the evening routine. It was last night around 8 PM and I was relaxing in my truck, basking in the warmth of my bunk heater and taking care of some chores. The cat was snoozing away (in her castoff cardboard box bottom scavenged from a case of bottled water; her $30 fuzzy cat bed lays unused now), the dirty clothes neatly bagged up, the floor vacuumed.

I had just polished off a nice salad and was in the process of getting ready for bed.

BEEP! I wish I could turn that satellite unit off sometimes.

"Can you run to Ames, Iowa and bring back a load tonight?" This was shortly followed up by a phone call from one of the night dispatchers, my old fleet dispatcher Ross. We went back and forth over the details and I eventually acquiesced.

As I got dressed my log nagged at the back of my head then I remembered. I arrived yesterday morning with only 2.25 hours left in my book and I picked up nothing today. At midnight I would get 7.5 hours back to run with but this would mean this little side trip would scotch my 34-hour restart and force me to sit all tomorrow after I delivered the load. This would be a cluster of the first order so I walked over to dispatch and braced the monster in his lair.

So, late this morning I was put on a FedEx relay from our yard in Omaha to Henderson, Colorado. It was a nice 525-mile run due in tonight and I had a couple hours to spare. One of those hours was burned up waiting for a small trailer repair then I was hooked up and on my way.

The fuel plan for the trip had me filling the tanks at our yard at $2.56 a gallon. Since I get a daily preview of the next day's fuel prices I knew (from yesterday's report) that fuel in Denver was six cents cheaper but at midnight local time it would rise by about six cents. Therefore, after I finished the FedEx festivities I dropped down into Denver and filled my tanks. I also swapped out my locking fuel caps for the regular kind as winter is upon us and enough ice and other gunk makes its way inside the locks to be quite a pain.

Along the way to Henderson I was preplanned with a long deadhead out to Lexington, Nebraska for tomorrow to deliver a load late tomorrow night to Emporia, Kansas.

Numbers

After Rochelle I was given a preplan to run from Monee, Illinois to Omaha, Nebraska. The timing was just about perfect to use up the rest of my 70 hour clock and will allow me a 34-hour reset in Omaha as an added bonus.

The pickup in Monee was a complete pain in the rear. Imagine a stack of fifty or seventy Bills of Lading and a booklet of preprinted labels you need to peel off and attach to each and every page. Bleh.

At least the load was light. On the way west to Omaha my MPG rose from 8.0 where it was when I arrived in Monee up to 8.2, then 8.3, then back to 8.2, then back up to 8.3. Something for a driver to watch as he goes down the road, I guess.

Anyway, by the time I arrived in Omaha and dropped off my trailer this is what it looked like:



8.4 MPG, yay.

Today I've been taking care of some maintenance items, including:

New coolant filter
Two new cab air filters
A leaky seal in my air pressure system
A full PM for the truck

I also replaced the original left steer tire, which gave me 207,700 miles of service during its time on my truck. I calculate this tire traveled 1.095 BILLION feet in the past 17 months, without complaint. My four drive tires continue to impress with between 7/32 and 10/32nds of an inch tread remaining and should all surpass the distance from the Earth to the moon (approximately 250,000 miles) before they are replaced. Think about that for a moment.

In addition, the tire guys did a 3-axle alignment and corrected a couple minor issues there.

To top everything else off, I got new blank comchecks, seals, got my logs up to date and finally purchased a pin puller called a STA-RAT that helps with balky tandems.

No, I really have trailer 579107 in my mirror

So I get to the Pilot in East St Louis, Illinois this morning and swap (heavily) loaded trailers with my trucking counterpart. We exchange paperwork and make some small talk then head off to the scales then back to the open road.

As part of this process we also use our satellite units to indicate we've made a switch and we each enter information from the paperwork so the system knows we've got the right paperwork for the right trailer. Only, my dispatcher is sure I have trailer 589860 on board and a simple glance at either of my side mirrors confirms that I have trailer 579107 in tow behind me. Paradox, again.

I send off a message telling him I'm sure that is the trailer behind me and go about my business. Four hours later I arrive in Rochelle, Illinois where I drop said trailer at the consignee and by this time my dispatcher has gone home. Soon after I punch in the proper codes into the system the weekend dispatcher sends a message asking what happened to trailer 589860.

I almost didn't respond but eventually I typed out another message and even phoned in to make sure they were reading it left-to-right instead of the reverse. My simple question: "Is there no way to ask the system what truck currently has trailer 589860 hooked up to it?"

"Nope."

My lord.

Then I'm told that the system says there are three trailers at this consignee that have been there for a week without any further updates. Having just left said consignee bobtail because there are no empty trailers I think our trailer tracking system is full of poo poo.

Free at last, free at last...

Thank God almighty, I'm free of this Pilgrim's Pride load at last!

To finish up I had to depart Washington Court House, Ohio at 0400 which was kind of a bitch. I wanted to get through Dayton, Ohio before traffic got bad but I was a bit tired and sleepy afterward so I pulled in to a rest area and took a thirty minute power nap. A few hours later I was in Novi, Michigan offloading 10 tons of chicken products for the Little Caesar's pizza people.

A few hours and 100ish miles later I was in downtown Lake Odessa, Michigan trying and failing to find the right tiny side street to take for my next load. It sucks when the address of a place doesn't put you on a street that actually goes to that address and it took someone explaining to me exactly how to get there before I found it.

Two more hours and 22 tons of frozen veggies later, I'm back on the road. In the meantime my load has been shortened to a swap with another driver in East St Louis, Illinois tomorrow so he can take it the rest of the way to Oklahoma then go home for some time off. His load is headed up to Rochelle, Illinois and I should just be able to get it there before my hours run out.

Tonight I'm holed up at a Flying J in Benton Harbor, Michigan.


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Take these wing ding things... please

Up bright and early and on the road after a brief chat with the driver who parked next to me. He told me he was coming west last night and was stopped for three solid hours around mile marker 150 while the police were in clearing a very nasty multiple fatality wreck out of the way. By the time I got to mile marker 151 this morning they were still in the process of cleaning everything up, including the trailer of a semi that looked like an accordion.

Our people and the Walmart people weren't able to come to an agreement as to when I should show up with the load until late in the day, but eventually I got a satellite message that I'd be worked in so long as I got there by 1900 local time. At that point I was 130 miles out with about 2.5 hours remaining, but Cincinnati, Ohio yet to go, and it would mean running through there at rush hour. Or, as it turns out, crawling through there.

I did the best I could, even hitting 65 and 70 along the way where possible. Still, by the time the last traffic jam faded behind me in the suburbs I was 45 miles out and only had 35 minutes or so until 1900. I rolled up to the guard shack at Walmart at 1905 and hustled the paperwork inside.

Despite the assurance of a late work in via satellite I was told in no uncertain terms the load would have to get another appointment made. I took down the name and phone number of the boss person there and texted it to HQ while I parked nearby. About 30 minutes later I was called by one of our CSRs and she's on a conference call with whoever needed to be massaged ever so gently. Shortly thereafter I was told to boogie back to Walmart and there would be a message left at the gate in my favor.

A few hours later I'm beat and back on the street, minus six pallets of "wing dings." I kid you not.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be another humdinger with another late delivery to finish this load up in Michigan and a new preplan heading to Oklahoma.

Providence

This morning our people got together with their people and did... well, whatever those people do with each other. Lets just say it isn't pretty.

Anyway, I was eventually offered a few choices. The first choice was to stay put and continue with this load, though the rest might not be loaded until 2300 hours or later. The second choice was a short 250ish mile run in the Texas area. The third choice was one of those live load runs from Irving, Texas to Springfield, Missouri that loaded at 1500.

After careful thought I decided to stay put on the current load. I thought it likely I could get worked in before 2300 and the other loads would require me to first drag my partially-loaded trailer to the far side of Dallas to our yard, then find an empty, then go run one of the other loads. Sounded like a lot less work my way, was the thinking.

Before I could even get on the "work in" list I had to pony up a $60 extortion "work in fee." Funny how another company screws up and I get to hold the bag for a while to get it fixed.

By late morning I was backed into a door and after about an hour's wait the six (yes, six) pallets that this load was missing were hoisted aboard and I got a call to come to the office for the paperwork. Right at high noon I departed, heading east towards Little Rock, Arkansas. Aside from a couple quick stops to take the Browns to the Superbowl and drop off some trip packs I didn't stop driving until I got to Tennessee.

My first attempt to find a place to park was at the oddly-designed Pilot at exit 47. There were a set of three parking spaces, all blind backs that I considered briefly then discarded. I know I could make it into one of them just fine but the problem would come in a few hours when two other tired drivers would attempt the same feat only with less space and a better chance of my truck being hit.

I continued down the road, missing an opportunity to park at a Huddle House at exit 56 (I didn't see if the lot had any free space until I was past the turnoff). My next chance would be around mile marker 73, so I thought, at the first rest area but suddenly a sign for a T/A truck stop popped up at an exit marked "Providence Road."

Feeling providential, I took the exit and moved slowly into the parking area and saw three parking spots open along the back row. BAM! Now there are just two left.

... and then the wheel came off, literally and figuratively

Early on, I knew today would be a bad day.

On my way from Big Cabin, Oklahoma to Garland, Texas to drop off the trailer I picked up yesterday I was passed by a pickup truck towing a trailer with some construction items piled on top (trusses, two by fours, sheet rock, etc.). A few miles up the road I see that same pickup pulled over to the side of the road so I do the safe thing and pull into the left lane to give them ample room and I go about my business.

A while later, the same pickup passes me again but this time it is swerving slightly from side to side and it seems like the driver is having difficulty keeping it on the straight and narrow. Pickup pulls to the side of the road again, I go around again.

A short time later I'm passed again and the pickup is having a hard time of it and I'm getting worried they are going off of the road or they will ram me or another vehicle. Suddenly, the pickup swerves to the right shoulder and the driver slams on the brakes just as the right rear tire departs for the greener grass on the far side of the shoulder and the rear of the truck droops down to the right, ending in a shower of sparks. Three or four people pour out of the truck as I go by again and this time it is for good.

The thought went through my mind right after this that I hope my day today won't come apart like this. Then my satellite unit beeped and I received a preplan.

Now, I thought when I left the house yesterday I was heading down to our Dallas yard to drop off one trailer then pick up a different one and take it to Springfield, after which I would be grabbing a load from Buske to take up to Omaha on Wednesday. This preplan has me doing a live load in Irving, Texas then driving the whopping 420ish miles up to Springfield and sitting on it for a day, then unloading at a local food warehouse the morning of the 12th. Oh. Hell. No.

I write one of my usual witty sonnets to the dispatcher explaining my position and shortly thereafter I'm told the preplan is banished to the netherworld. Score one for me.

Then my phone rings and it is a friend who tells me that one of my ex-girlfriends has been in a big scrape and could use some money sent to her via ComCheck. For those of you not in the industry, ComChecks are typically used to pay for things like lumpers, washouts and other miscellaneous items on the road that are reimbursed to a driver. Some drivers also take some or all of their pay in this form while on the road, though I myself never have.

For good reason, as it turns out. In order to get a couple hundred bucks shorn from my next paycheck and advanced to me via ComCheck took my dispatcher going to his boss, the head of operations, and the lady in charge of the owner-operator and lease-purchase program at Hill Bros. I almost felt dirty, like being required to prove I had money to be seated at a restaurant. We're in tough times, I'm sure, but c'mon I've been here for more than 18 months and I have a fairly good track record of making money. How humiliating.

My dispatcher finally got the go-ahead on the ComCheck and I sent a SMS message to my ex (another first) with the details. That sorted out, I arrive at our Dallas yard and drop my trailer only to find out the only reefer we have at the yard has a red tag on the air hose connectors saying not to use it because it has been sold to another company. Being in a rush at that point, I had naturally hooked up to it and had the gear up, so I got to winch it back down and disconnect. Bad driver.

Sent in a message asking for guidance and waited. This new trip they offered after the first aborted preplan has me picking up in Pittsburg, Texas at 1630 and also picking up in Fort Worth, Texas at 1630. Clearly paradoxical. My dispatcher is on top of the game and tells me to go ahead and take that red-tagged trailer and the folks in Fort Worth will load me when I get there sometime in the early evening hours.

Wonderful, I don't have to traipse across the hell of the Metroplex to find a trailer and I can make my own hours. Better yet, my fuel stop is along the way and the fuel there is just $2.48 a gallon for us today, compared to a nationwide average of $2.80 or so this week. I decide to hold off fueling until I return from Pittsburg and putter on down the road.

After narrowly avoiding an accident on the freeway I arrive in Pittsburg at the Pilgrim's Pride meatpacking plant. Oh no, I'm informed, that trailer is not clean enough for our products, go down the road a few miles and there is an industrious fellow who will wash it out for you. Thirty minutes and thirty-five dollars later, this is done and I'm given the paperwork for my new load, and I exchange trailers.

Now I'm heading west to Fort Worth which is an odd direction considering my first drop for this load is east of here in Ohio. I'm being paid to make an almost 300 mile u-turn so some of the load can be put up front in the trailer and the rest in back. Whatever, I'm not paid enough to drive and think.

Back to the fuel stop where the next problem rears its head. See, for the past few months every time I take home time my ComData card gets shut off. I assume our crack team at HQ does this so it can't be used if its stolen when I'm away from the truck. Anyway, this means that unless I forget to tell my dispatcher to turn it back on I roll up to the pumps and it will refuse to take my card. Like tonight, for instance.

I get that resolved only to find that the stupid pump I'm at will not pump, even after I've entered all the information it asked for. After a bit of trial and error I determine that the pump on the passenger side of the truck is the master pump and the one on the driver's side won't start until that one has its handle lifted. Since I was also filling up the reefer tank (which at our company is always located on the driver's side) this made for a number of circuits around my truck to turn off and on the pump at the proper time.

But wait! It gets better!

After driving 150 miles or so west to the far western side of Fort Worth I arrive at the facility that will load the other half of this load on to my trailer. Naturally, even though I'm given no fewer than six different sets of pickup numbers, P.O. numbers, confirmations numbers et cetera absolutely none of them is relevant to this particular location. After a tedious series of round-trips to my truck to send in satellite messages to HQ then back to the shipping department of this company it eventually comes out that the Pilgrim's Pride people have made a boo-boo and haven't set up this part of the load to leave until ... wait for it ... wait for it ... Thursday.

So now I'm back in the truck parked down the street munching on a bag of six dollar grapes telling the world about my bad day.

There, now you know.

The wheel in the sky keeps on turning

I phoned HQ twice over the weekend, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. No go on a preplan, which was slightly irritating.

I pestered my dispatcher this morning when he got in then again a few hours later. I asked if freight was running slow enough I would need to wait another day before heading back out but he assured me they would have something for me soon. After some consulting with the planning demigods I was told they have a load up in the Kansas City yard that needs to be sent down to our Dallas yard for a local driver to deliver sometime next week. Then, there is supposed to be a load at our Dallas yard that needs to get delivered back to Springfield, Missouri (wasn't I just there?) on Tuesday then a Buske load heading from there to Omaha, Nebraska on Wednesday.

If it sounds like I'm doing a big loop back to the house then heading up to Omaha, that's a pretty good version of events.

I got back to the truck and it was still in one piece so I pretripped then headed out. About 180 miles deadhead up to KC where I swapped my empty reefer for a loaded van then chatted with one of our newer drivers who came on with HB three months ago. He lamented some of the common complaints of drivers (dispatchers not recognizing the Hours of Service limits when they send out loads, some loads with lots of downtime before pickup or delivery, etc.) and I mentioned the blog and what I'm doing as a lease operator. Its kind of funny watching the expression of a driver when I explain how I operate a truck and the kind of money I make, and this was no exception.

I went over some of the numbers with him for my first year and how it is looking so far in my second (for the record, pretty close to the first). I'm only averaging about 2,400 miles per week so far in my second fiscal year as compared to 2,564 per week in my first but my take home pay is actually a bit ahead of where I was last year.

Anyway, we chatted for a bit then I took off with my loaded trailer and headed south. I stopped at the Walmart in Lamar, Missouri to pick up supplies for this run and managed to spend six bucks on one (large) bag of seedless grapes. I never let the price of healthy food stop me from buying but that brought a wince at the register when I saw it get rung up.

A few hours later I'm in Oklahoma at Big Cabin, having just left the interstate and I'm feeling a bit tired and out of sorts. The first day or two back in the truck from time off is frequently like this so I stopped a few hours earlier than I had originally intended and will finish the trip to Dallas tomorrow morning. Knowing ahead of time that my next load is waiting there and I can make that schedule is a big help!


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Hometime over the weekend

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The drop and hook in Rochelle was routine and I was given a preplan to pick up a load from nearby Aurora, Illinois to take to Kansas City, Kansas. Along came a note: deadhead home after the drop in Kansas City.

Just one problem: there were no empty trailers at the food warehouse I dropped at so I had to search around for a while to find an empty. By the time I found one and got back on the road I was too far away from the house to get there before my hours ran out so I stopped in Peculiar, Missouri for the night and finished up first thing yesterday morning.

Olathe, Kansas to Russellville, Arkansas to... where again?

The drop in Olathe went to plan and I had a preplan ready to head over to Independence, Missouri on a load heading to Russellville, Arkansas. It took a while to get called below to get loaded since there were other trucks in line but it wasn't too much of a wait.

On the way south of Kansas City my cell phone rings. Caller ID shows that it is from HQ, which most likely means my dispatcher. This is typically not good news, but I answer anyway.

He wants to know when I can deliver a load the following day in Atlanta. I say 2100. We hang up and eventually the trip is taken away and replaced with a trip to Rochelle, Illinois. I like this one better and send in the proper code to accept it.

Belatedly I notice that the Rochelle trip originates in Batesville, Arkansas which is a bit of a pain to get to and quite a pain to get out of, heading north at least. I quickly phone in to my dispatcher to see if the Atlanta trip is still unassigned. After some back and forth with the planner and my dispatcher I end up on the Batesville trip to Rochelle.

The trip this morning to Batesville isn't too bad and the loading only takes two hours, which isn't bad for this ConAgra facility. However, the hundred-plus miles of driving narrow and winding state highways made up for it.

Tonight finds me at the Pilot in Troy, Illinois. Tomorrow I'm very short on hours so that will be interesting.

I do believe this makes me the fastest truck driver... evah!

I was resetting my Garmin the other day on this screen which shows things like average speed during a trip, distance remaining and that sort of thing.

Then it caught my eye. Look at that freaking Max Speed number! No, that isn't photoshopped or anything, my Garmin actually has me going over 166 MPH at some point! And yes, this is in my truck. Heck, when I went through flight school I never flew a plane that fast!

So if the question ever comes up about who the fastest trucker is, you now know the answer. And Garmin even provides the evidence.

Thank goodness, not a FedEx! But wait...

So my load out from Colorado (after dropping my FedEx load a day early yesterday afternoon) was a load of beer from the Bud plant in Fort Collins to the distributor in Olathe, Kansas. It is about 700 miles total which I rarely do in my truck in one day, but it has enough lead time so I can run the majority today and finish up tomorrow morning or early afternoon as I wish. Not bad.

After I get to the Bud plant I find out the catch. Not only is my load not yet ready but one of the outbound scales they use in this very busy system of theirs is non functional. By the time my trailer gets the green light and I get hooked up I'm back at the rear of the plant behind, I kid you not, 25 or 30 semis in line for the single, solitary scale. What a cluster.

I finished in Salina, Kansas for the night, about three hours from my drop tomorrow. Time for a nice long shower and some quality time in the sleeper.

Up early, done early

My FedEx load was due to depart at 0400 local time so I was up an hour early to do my pretrip, fuel then head the few miles back to their depot. I checked in at the front gate around 0345 then made my way inside to dispatch where I waited in a short line of other OTR drivers with 0400 departures. Since I made it up to the head of the line just after 0400 the pickup was marked late -- driver's fault. Riiiiight.

Anyway, they don't particularly care when it leaves so long as it arrives on time. I have until 2000 on Monday to drive the 930 miles to Henderson, which means I'm going to deliver it more than 24 hours in advance and get a new load Monday morning.

More good news: the load is only 19,000 pounds so the run up the I-17 corridor was more pleasant than normal and I took the time to stop at the Wal-Mart in Winslow, Arizona to replenish supplies. If you are a truck driver and you like easy-to-get-to Wal-Marts, this is definitely once since there is a (now closed) truck stop right next door.

The exact halfway point to Denver from Phoenix is Albuquerque, New Mexico so I decided to pull in the horns there and pass the night.

Oh, on my way out to Phoenix on my previous load my truck hit 200,000 miles in the vicinity of Winslow, Arizona.

Stuck in a rut

Apparently my dispatcher has a thing for FedEx going on... for the third time in a row I'm planned on a FedEx load. This time it is heading back out of Phoenix first thing tomorrow morning to Henderson, Colorado.

Blizzard in Albuquerque

The drive from Wichita southwest was cold, windy and interspersed with icy rain and snow. Just west of Dalhart, Texas it became a real storm for a while with blowing snow but I was soon through to the other side and soldiered on. After a short fuel stop in Tucumcari, New Mexico I drove west along I-70 with the aim of ending up in the western half of New Mexico at the end of my driving hours.

Along comes Albuquerque, New Mexico and a localized blizzard that almost stopped me and thousands of my closest friends in the metro area. The snow was very light and flaky and the wind whipped it up into almost blinding sheets so I had to crawl for several miles before getting back up to speed.

I managed to make Grants, New Mexico by the time my driving hours expired and in order to deliver this FedEx load on time I had to start up again at 0030. Thankfully, the snow storms had moved off to to the east though it was still in the 20's outside.

Six hours later I pulled into Phoenix a few minutes before the load delivery time. The message coursing back to HQ over the satellite unit? "When FedEx absolutely positively needs a load delivered safely and on-time... they call unit 8836 baby!"

"Head to FedEx Wichita, we'll get you a load to Arizona"

Such was the information from dispatch this morning and off I went. An hour into the two-hour trip south from Salina, Kansas, the trip information arrives along with a fuel recommendation that tells me I can complete the 1,050-mile trip from Wichita, Kansas to Phoenix, Arizona with just the 3/8ths of a tank of fuel that my gauge is showing.

I was touched by the confidence the folks in the rear with the gear placed on my fuel economy but just as a backstop I sent a code in via the satellite unit to redo the math and get me a real fuel solution. A message pops up shortly thereafter telling me I should fuel in Salina, which I departed an hour ago. Why do I bother sometimes.

The trip to Phoenix has an absolutely tight schedule on it. I pick it up 0400 tomorrow morning and deliver it 0600 Friday morning in Phoenix, though I do benefit from a two-hour time zone change in my favor. The weather system that brought snow to Colorado and Wyoming has brought high winds and dust storms to Arizona and New Mexico so my fuel economy should be poor on this run.

Short stuff

My truck has been leaning a bit towards the driver's side for a while now and I had the shop take a look at it. A while later the problem is identified (worn out bushings on a torsion bar) and fixed and I'm out another $166. Such is the life.

Late in the morning my dispatcher surfaced with a short run down to Olathe, Kansas from Omaha. Before I could reply to the satellite unit another trip showed up, this one going from Edwardsville, Kansas to Henderson, Colorado picking up last night and delivering this morning. A separate message asked if this was doable (about 200 miles for the first trip and 600 for the second, a total of 800 miles) and I spent little time establishing that it wasn't.

The second run was from FedEx and dispatch was desperate to find drivers to cover so they offered to t-call it in Salina, Kansas if I'd pick it up. Sigh, okay.

I delivered in Olathe around 1930 and my FedEx load was supposed to leave at 2000 so I hurried north to Edwardsville and checked in. For some reason it wasn't ready and I was forced to wait until midnight for everything to get straightened out and I was sent on my way. I arrived in Salina at 0300 this morning and the transfer was made, my full trailer for an empty and the new driver headed off to the Denver area.


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A First Time for Everything

Imagine my surprise when I get loaded and let loose in under two hours at Buske in Springfield, Missouri! I asked the office people why that was and they said it was due to few trucks showing up early. I mentioned that when I arrive early I normally wait 5-7 hours so I don't bother, but I'm not sure the point got through to them.

This left me in the unusual position of leaving Springfield around 1300 instead of three or four hours later, so I motored up MO-13 towards Kansas City. I was about halfway around the edge of the city when the traffic got bad at the beginning of rush hour but the northern part of KC is always a breeze so I didn't even have to slow down.

All three scales along the way to Omaha were closed for a change, though it didn't matter to me one way or the other since I scaled out at a little truck stop between Springfield and KC. I even stopped at Rock Port, Missouri (I-29 exit 110) to have a very fine steak dinner at the Black Iron Grill -- highly recommended.

The drop at the Pepsi place in Omaha was routine, and my cat was surprisingly cuddly last night... the 38 degree outside air temp may have had something to do with that.

Buske again

So the dispatcher calls me on Friday to let me know I'm preplanned for the usual Springfield, Missouri load from Buske heading to Omaha on Monday.

Here and there

The Fayetteville load wasn't preloaded, like I was told. Nor was it 30,000 pounds, like I was told (it was over 40,000 pounds). The planners didn't even bother including the confirmation number I needed to make the pickup, causing me grief at the shipper.

Worse, by the time the load was ready and I left the shipper I was no longer able to make the delivery appointment on time. Which, by the way, was set before I even arrived.

I wasn't feeling too great when I got up this morning in Neosho, Missouri but I plugged ahead and got the load to the destination when I said it would be there.

Unfortunately, the bridge along the tiny state route I had to take from I-44 to Warrenton, Missouri had a weight limit of 20 tons and I was near twice that, so I had to divert to some absolutely tiny side roads. One stretch of about 18 miles was so steep I was having to double downshift -- going from fifth gear to third, for instance, a first for me. Just a nightmare.

Dispatch wanted to preplan me first on a load out of St Louis to Omaha that would require me to run all night and I nixed that. The next plan had me running a very tight FedEx load overnight to Kansas City and I nixed that as well. Fed up, I just told them I would deadhead home.

My dispatcher did manage to sweet talk me into first dropping an empty trailer near St Louis at the FedEx facility before retracing my steps, grabbing a new trailer then heading home.

Life of the trucker.

Preplan-apolooza

So I was preplanned for a load out of Indiana to Russellville, Arkansas yesterday and now that I'm running that load I'm preplanned on a load from Fayetteville, Arkansas to a town near St. Louis.

I'm set for home time this Thursday so I'm going to bet that my next preplan will be to head to Macon, Missouri for a load heading to ConAgra in Council Bluffs, Iowa, then a load from there to AmeriCold in Carthage, Missouri.

Lazy weekend trip

The load really was just 20,000 pounds of various products bound for Sam's Club. There happened to be one of our newest trailers already stationed and being loaded when I arrived. I dropped my empty, hooked up to the new one then waited a few hours while they finished up. Whatever, I'll wait a bit for a light load.

Since the load isn't due in northern Indiana until Monday morning I have a lazy driving weekend in front of me. Thus, it probably comes as no surprise to regular readers that the dreaded Lazies were out in force and I only got as far as Newton, Iowa yesterday. When I stopped in to get some Chester's chicken then parked and fired up the laptop I found there was high speed access. My will exhausted, the truck wasn't turned on until this morning.

The drive out to Indiana was painless and I stopped tonight at a rest area about twenty miles from my drop.

A new preplan has me running across the state to Lafayette for a load heading to Russellville, Arkansas after I get through with this current one.

A day late, a dollar short

Since the local Bud distributor in Omaha stops receiving at noon on weekdays and I wouldn't arrive until a few hours later, I tried to t-call the load in the yard and get something else to run. No dice, have to deliver it myself.

I did get my truck into the local Volvo dealer to get my clutch adjusted, though. The clutch itself is fine but for some reason the clutch brake keeps fading away every 40-50,000 miles until it is a real pain to get it into gear. Apparently, the fix is simple since it was done in about fifteen minutes, and I'm sure once I get the bill it will be at least a hundred bucks. Sometimes I wish I had a mechanical bone in my body.

I also managed to attend a safety meeting at HQ which is a requirement for our safety bonus each quarter (there are other ways to qualify but for me this is the easiest one).

Overnighted at the Bud place and was unloaded early this morning. The new plan has me heading south to Nebraska City, Nebraska to pick up some meat heading to a Walmart DC in Indiana. Interestingly, its only 20,000 pounds or so which is unusually light for a meat load.

"Pull around to inspection bay #1 please"

The above is one of the last things a truck driver wants to hear when crossing a scale, and that is what I got yesterday morning.

I had just started my driving day at the Arizona / New Mexico border and the scale was a few miles further on along I-40. I wheeled my truck around back to bay #1 and was waved in. This is one of those with an open trench down the middle for the inspectors to use to check your brakes without having to work hard.

CDL. Medical Card. Truck registration. Truck insurance. Trailer registration. Bill of Lading. All of these were provided and when he got to looking at my log book I mentioned I logged electronically and if he wanted I could print him out a copy to peruse. "Oh no, you electronic logger guys are fine." I smiled -- on the inside of course.

Thirty minutes of my day wasted I finally got the green and scooted out of there.

The rest of the trip up to the Denver area was routine and this morning I made my stops in Parker and Castle Rock. Today's preplan had me heading up to Fort Collins for a load of Budweiser heading to Omaha after adding a bit of fuel in Denver. Everything was going swimmingly until I arrived at Fort Collins only to be told that they were backed up and my 1000 load time was going to be delayed. Grrrreat.

It took them until 1645 to get the trailer loaded and another 30 minutes to move it out of the door so I could hook up to it. By then, my hours weren't sufficient to make it to Omaha on time for tomorrow's delivery so I sent in the proper codes via satellite and stopped for the night in Big Springs, Nebraska.

Slow turnaround in Phoenix

I delivered at the PetSmart DC in Phoenix early Monday afternoon and eventually the bad news percolated up from the satellite unit: the load out of there up to Denver wouldn't be ready until Tuesday afternoon. Not enough time to take a 34 to reset my logbook.

I got caught up on the shows I follow via Hulu: Heroes, Fringe, Daily Show, Colbert Report and that freaking Hell's Kitchen show my brother hooked me on.

The truck was a bit low on fuel so I bobtailed over to the local Pilot and filled up. I then parked to go inside and get a shower when I realized they had a lot of bobtail parking on the south side of the building that I'd never noticed in all the other times I'd fueled there. Since I was in a full-size slot in back I moved my truck over to make room for someone with a trailer.

Afternoon rolls around today and the load isn't ready for a while but finally I get the word that it is done and the paperwork ready. It is just after 1500 local time so I boogie out of town via the 101 over to I-17 and make pretty good time. The rest area just inside New Mexico had a single spot available when I arrived near midnight and I took it.

An amazing air mass

When I awoke yesterday morning in York, Nebraska my truck was covered in snow. The ground showed a few inches as well, and the plows and sanding trucks had been at it for a while already, given the state of the roads.

The local Walmart was convenient so I loaded up on some supplies and shot some pics:





Within an hour I had reached Aurora and swapped my empty van for a full one. The scale at the shipper was broken (again -- thanks Werner drivers!) so I had to head back to the interstate and scale out at a Loves. Payload was over 43,000 but it is in a van so even with mostly-full tanks I was only at 77,000 gross.

I noticed that the outside air temperature hadn't budged since I started rolling, staying within a narrow band of 28-30 degrees. The sky was overcast and there was a constant drizzle of rain that turned to ice once it made contact with the cold exterior of my truck:



The drive south made me a bit nervous with a thin layer of ice along the roads in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It never stopped drizzling the entire way to Dalhart, Texas where I spent the night and the temperature never rose above 30 or dipped below 28. Considering this was about 400 miles of southerly movement and another hundred or so to the west, this was one huge air mass.

When I awoke this morning the temps were the same, it was still overcast and drizzling and the exterior of my truck had a pretty good accumulation of ice. I knocked as much of it off as I could reach and hit the road.

The mercury didn't rise above 30 degrees until I was a few minutes away from Tucumcari, New Mexico! Less than an hour later I was surprised by a huge sheet of 1/3" thick ice that covered the entire top of my truck's superstructure came crashing down, shattering into huge chunks and making a loud bang on my windshield.


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I stopped in Winslow, Arizona to use the facilities and didn't have enough gumption to get rolling again.

The (E)mail Bag #1

This is the first of a semi-regular series of posts responding to reader email pertaining to this site. If you would like to email the author follow this link for instructions.

Most of the first batch of emails offer thanks for keeping up with the blog and posting all of the information the way I do. The most common question has been some variation of:

Why do you produce this blog?

To quote the first post I made on this blog:

I began this series of sites to give people from outside the industry an idea of what it is like for me, moving cargo around the United States day-to-day in a big rig. I don't claim any special knowledge or ability in trucking. You should also know that this site is not sponsored by or beholden to anyone but myself and the views expressed on these pages are entirely my own, whether you agree with them or not. It is also not a recruiting tool or come-on, though I suppose if you were persistent enough you could find out my truck number or driver code and arrange for me to get a recruiting "spiff" if you were so inclined to start driving for this company.

I post much of my financial data to show prospective lease operators one way a truck can be run. Also, when I began my research into trucking four years ago there really wasn't much hard data to go off of, and nowhere near as many blogs and bloggers as there are now.

Why don't you promote your name or truck number more aggressively as a recruiting tool?

As I mention in the quote above (and the tag line at the bottom of each page: "This blog is not authorized or endorsed by anyone, save the author.") the views expressed here are my own and no one exerts editorial control over this content but myself. Some of the operations, safety and recruiting folks at Hill Bros are aware of the blog, as are several of the owners.

Before I came to Hill Bros I made the recruiters well aware of my intentions and showed them my previous blog and I specifically got the head of recruiting to pass the idea of a daily(ish) blog past the owners to see if there would be any heartburn. So far, so good.

I like to think I lavish equal attention on the positives and negatives of trucking as I see them. When operations is on its came and I'm preplanned nicely, I mention it. When a dingleberry gets out of line (from my perspective) I mention that too.

Many trucking companies offer incentives for drivers to spread the word to fellow drivers to get them to sign on. I had some sign on to CFI when I worked there and I've had some sign on to Hill Bros in the time I've been here. However, my goal writing this blog is to inform more than it is to recruit and that is why I play down that angle even though it costs me money I may have made if I splashed my name and truck number on every page. Yes, I'm aware of several drivers who I could have been paid a recruiting bonus for but was not.

In a few months there will be some changes to the look and feel of this blog and there will be a more obvious route to determine who I am should you feel inclined to credit me if you start up with Hill Bros. Until then, just tell the recruiters that you talk to that they are a bunch of Ninjas and Jim in truck 8836 says so and all will be well. :)

Where did the stock portfolio updates go?

I started that on a lark but got bored with it, and the blog is already number heavy. I'm pleased to report quite significant gains across the board and more than a third of my down payment on my new house came just from gains in my portfolio.

Why don't you post data on your health care costs, self-employment taxes, accounting fees, etc? This would give drivers a more complete picture of the actual net you're making -- otherwise a driver could surmise that your net pay are the numbers you post.

My health care and tax situation is likely not the same as anyone else who reads this journal. I did mention in my first quarterly recap that my weekly "nut" comes to $800, which includes all my escrows. I could have been a bit more specific and noted that this includes my truck payment, APU payment, APU maintenance, accounting fee, various insurance payments, 2290 fee and license fee.

That's all for this first (E)mail bag. If you have questions of your own you can send them to me by following the instructions here.

Dream weekend with a nightmare twist

The drop and hook in Shelby went as planned, though the clerks at Menards didn't understand why our people needed copies of 31 pages of documents for this load. I shrugged and they dutifully sent them through the copier and away I went with the copies and an empty van trailer.

Before I had arrived my satellite unit beeped to tell me that I had yet another preplan -- pick up a preloaded trailer from Aurora, Nebraska and take it down to Phoenix, Arizona to deliver any time Monday. Yes! A solid weekend trip to keep me busy (and to take my miles this week to 3,100 with a couple days left to run even). Nothing can possibly stop me now!

Of course, the weather might have a say in all of that. I was surprised to find a snow forecast for the Omaha area overnight but the temps barely below freezing. Nothing much to worry over, I'm sure...

Meanwhile, my hours ran out about 30 miles east of Aurora at the rest area near York, Nebraska where I am hunkered down tonight. Its c-c-c-cold out and the bunk heater is humming away, making a new feline friend.

Preplanned

I forgot to mention that yesterday I received a second preplan after the first. Once I unloaded in Columbus, Ohio this morning I drove across town and reloaded for Shelby, Iowa. The city streets were very narrow and I was a bit distressed to see a "Trucks must back in from the street" sign at the shipper but it turned out the product I was there for used a separate but tight dock around the rear of the plant.

For some reason this particular shipment involves a master BOL (Bill of Lading) and no fewer than twenty-nine (29!) sub bills. My instructions require me to get a signed copy of every single one so my next trip pack is going to be the size of War and Peace. Even better, I had to write "Hill Bros" and sign my name on every single one. People wonder why my signature looks like a squiggly line.

At least the load is light, in the neighborhood of 25,000 pounds. Leaving the city streets of Columbus was a bit of a challenge but a bunch of kids in a school bus I pulled up next to while I was preparing to make a left turn had a fun time waving at the cat.

I made it to Oakwood, Illinois for the night and I'll drop and hook at Shelby tomorrow afternoon. It is only about 35 miles from there to our HQ so I'll probably get ordered there afterwards, or perhaps to Council Bluffs for a ConAgra load.