The weekend trip cometh

Around 0900 on Friday the satellite unit went off with a hot-hot-hot run from our yard in Omaha out to Minooka, Illinois. It seems a trailer we've been holding for at least 10 days was due to deliver that very afternoon. I told my dispatcher that I couldn't get rolling for an hour because my clothes were in the dryer but that was fine. Meanwhile, I got the bills, found the trailer, fueled my truck and got my 5th wheel greased.

Given my late departure, I gave an ETA of 1800 and that was when I rolled up to the gates of the Kellogg's facility in Minooka. The one poor gate guard was overwhelmed with eight or ten trucks trying to get in or out simultaneously so it took a while to get that sorted out.

Good news though: on the way to deliver I was sent a (rare) preplan. First, after I dropped the trailer I was to bobtail over to the Petsmart DC in Ottawa, Illinois then take a load from there down to west Texas for Monday morning. Better, I got to restock at the super Walmart just down the street from Petsmart and head through the house to pick up mail and such.

Pulled in by the DOT

The trailer I picked up yesterday when I dropped at Walmart had a problem with the parking brake system. The air lines were hooked up wrong or something but the trailer itself braked just fine with the service system (the brakes that come on when you tap the brake pedal). In short, note to self about parking with the tractor brakes, which I always do.

Anyhow, exchanged messages with HQ about this and was told to bring said trailer by the yard here in Omaha instead of down the street at Pepsi. Oh, I was deadheaded about an hour away to Pryor, Oklahoma this morning to pick up a load of the burpsi stuff heading up here to the Omaha plant.

I chose to drive up Kansas highway 69 to Kansas City and I was pulled into a very small inspection station near Joplin. I was sweating bullets until I realized they were doing what was called a Level 3 inspection, which is just paperwork. License, medical card, registration book, medial card, 20 dollar bill, etc. Well, no money changed hands, but I had to print off eight day's worth of logs to show them how nice I am. The DOT officer agreed with this assessment and let me go with a clean bill of health. Hill Bros pays drivers $25 when you pass such an inspection so that should put the bank account over the top next week.

Made it into Omaha around 1600, put the trailer into the trailer shop. Then I put my tractor into the ThermoKing shop to have a small coolant leak fixed. I should have had my next load lined up already but for some reason preplans have been few and far between of late. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if my dispatcher is praised or cursed for a long weekend run or some nasty dispatch no one wants.

Ochelata, Oklahoma

A few hours after I dropped my load of chicken bouillon in Independence, Missouri the satellite unit went off with new orders: deadhead up to Council Bluffs, Iowa and take a load from there to the Walmart Distribution Center in Ochelata, Oklahoma. Thank goodness my GPS could find it.

I decided to run through our HQ before I picked up the load. This let me take the trailer through our Safety Lane for a quick checkup, get my truck and the reefer fueled up and see my homies. Oh, and pick up a couple hundred pounds of chains for my new chain box.

The load was supposed to be ready around 1530 hours but I wasn't able to leave with it until closer to 1800. I ran about a 40 miles south along I-29 to a truck stop and spent the night before crossing over back into Nebraska and taking Hwy 75 south for hundreds of miles to Ochelata.


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For the first time ever in my experience, this Walmart load was an open appointment. I could bring it in any time I wanted today and they would be fine with that. Another one of our trailers was just being towed off to the empty lot as I arrived so I dropped mine in the inbound line and grabbed the empty. It was pouring rain the entire way down from Nebraska and it didn't let up, so I got soaked pretty good while switching trailers and taking the paperwork in to the clerks.

Tonight finds me across the road from the DC in an unpaved lot with space for about 20 trucks. This area is very rural and I suspect this lot was used as a construction marshaling yard during the construction process and trucks get to use it now after they are done across the street. Someone with some bucks should drop a small truck stop here and make a mint.

I'll take a dangerous trip for $800, Alex

After I got done with Americold in Minooka, Illinois, I moved off west along the interstate to the nearby rest area and took one of the last available spots. Lucky, since it was late at night.

Come morning time, the new orders arrived: head north about an hour or so to St Charles, Illinois and take a load from there to Independence, Missouri due by 0800 the following day. Total miles were about 550 which is a solid day's drive but I wasn't dispatched until late in the morning and the load wasn't on my trailer until early afternoon.

Now, as far as the regulations go, I could drive directly from the shipper to the consignee with no problems. My body, however, doesn't want to work that way so about sixty percent of the way there I really, really wanted to shut down and take a nap. But noooo, the way the regs are written say that if I shut down I'll have to take a full 10 hours off and miss my appointment time. Or keep going even though I'm very tired and could potentially be a threat to myself and others on the road.

The preferred method to handle this would be to pull off into a rest area or truck stop and take a solid 5-7 hour nap then finish out the trip. The legal, but less safe method would be to just keep on driving, fighting my body and its need to rest. I arrived on time the following morning and in one piece. You can decide for yourself which method I chose to utilize.


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Easy weekend trip

I dropped off my trailer in Omaha, as planned then waited around a few hours until the planners got caught up with things and started handing out assignments. I was told to take a trailer there at the yard to Minooka, Illinois for a live unload tonight. Roughly 550 miles for almost two days, easy driving.

Stopping at Iowa 80 in Walcott, Iowa, I bought a chain box and had it installed behind my cab just in front of my catwalk. The catwalk itself had to be pushed back about five inches but that wasn't a big deal. I spent some time reworking my air line holders to keep the airlines up a bit higher off of the catwalk, as there is now a new place where they could get caught when I'm making right turns and I don't want to have them ripped apart.

Turns out it is an AmeriCold load so the unloading process was needlessly complicated and slow.


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Double Wild Turkey Strike

I know, it sounds like a special move you make in a video game (eg "Bob uses his Double Wild Turkey Strike to decapitate his opponent!"). But it really happened to my truck today. Here's how:

I was minding my own business in the middle of Kansas, about to turn off of the state highway I was on to Interstate 70. On my left was a low hill with dozens of large wild turkeys squatting down doing whatever turkeys do when they aren't being tuned up to be turned into lunch meat.

Suddenly, a couple of them take off and the whole flock takes to the air. Now, I have to believe that the ones in front had it in for some of the guys behind them since they flew right across the road about six feet off the ground and the bird brains behind them followed in formation. KER-SMACK! Two of them strike my windshield with a loud crash and the carcasses were flung off into the ditch. One of them showed its last full measure of displeasure as the crap was, literally, knocked out of it.

About thirty minutes later I'm at a truck stop in Salina, Kansas cleaning off my windshield and telling the guy next to me "You won't believe what just happened, and its the truth!"

Believe it or not, despite hitting them at 60 MPH my windshield wasn't cracked.


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I ended up today in Knox, Nebraska, about two hours from Omaha. The satellite unit tells me that fuel tomorrow at the yard is dropping to just $2.86 a gallon so you can be sure I'm going to get all up into that puppy. Yes sir.

Stampeed to the east

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Today I ran from Kingman, Arizona to Tucumcari, New Mexico with a short break in Winslow, Arizona to fuel up. West of Albuquerque I saw a bunch of dust rising from the area just off the highway to the right and thought it was a pickup off on the side, but it turns out there were a dozen or so cattle frightened by a passing train and they were stampeding. Not sure that few cattle qualifies, but it was interesting to watch.

Got to the Loves in Tucumcari and decided to try the Chesters fried chicken. One thing about Popeyes, they are very consistent with their quality. Chesters is cheaper and a bit different, but the quality varies all over the place. Unfortunately, tonight wasn't a good quality night for them. Or me.

Got various communications via email and the satellite unit on detention pay, drop pay, this and that. Basically, some is due me and is coming, a bit is still being looked in to, and some I'm just shit outta luck on. The usual mix for a driver, I think.