Catching Up

It has been a long nine days since I have written.

We made it to Portland. I slept most of the way and Liz got to drive through snow and fog in the dark in the mountains. Western Oregon is everything I have ever heard. Very beautiful and wet. After that we headed to Butte, Montana with a FedEx load. Lots of FedEx freight is carried by other carriers. Some of their locations are just like in the movie Castaway and others are a little smaller. The guy who accepted our load in Butte was also the same guy running the forklift. Of course it was 11:00 at night. Next we took rolls of paper from Missoula to near Salinas, CA. Ran nearly 150 miles unpaid. We then picked up empty boxes for Bose and took them to Phoenix. From Phoenix we got a reefer (refrigerated truck) to take to Albuquerque, NM. You are supposed to get some training on how to take care of a reefer and we had never had that. I got a phone call with a brief statement on what to keep an eye on. Fortunately nothing went wrong and once again Liz got to drive up mountains in the dark. We are supposed to deadhead back to California but our truck is making funny noises so we are sitting in Albuquerque waiting to see what the problem is.

Getting paid. We are paid based on a the Rand McNally Household Movers Guide. This is the definitive document that the large trucking companies and moving companies use to bill customers. However it rarely covers all the miles required to actually drive the route. The trip from Missoula to Salinas is listed as 1085 miles. In reality given a route that a semi can drive on in any kind of reasonable time, including the route we were instructed to use is 135 miles longer. Typically we get screwed out of five to eight percent on a trip but this one was over 10%. Some companies pay “practical miles.” These are the miles that it really takes to make a run and is one of the criteria we have for finding a new company once we both have six months done here and get our tuition money back.

Jerry is a bit of nut about driving as his last comment proves. I’ll try and cover a few things he asked about.

Meals: We eat a wide variety of ways. We have some food in the truck that we heat up in the microwave at the terminals we stop in. Last night we actually had chicken breasts with spaghetti sauce and cheese on it. It was really good and made several drivers jealous. Other days we eat in a truck stop. That is a real crap shoot. There are five major players in the truck stop business. Pilot, Flying J, Loves, Petro and Travel Centers of America (TA). Or at least it looks live five players. Petro and TA merged several years ago and Pilot is taking over Flying J in January. The big problem with this is that Flying J has nice little restaurants with a good variety of food. Pilot’s on the other hand are all fast food. They are the single biggest franchiser of Subway but also have other fast food restaurants. The current rumors are that the restaurants in the Flying J stops will be taken over by Denny’s.

Fuel bills. Fortunately we don’t pay for the fuel out of pocket. We have a ComData card that we use like a credit card. When we fill up we typically put in 100 to 175 gallons at about $2.75 a gallon. A $450 bill is not uncommon. Heck, topping up the tanks puts more fuel in them than you typically can put in your car.

Other expenses. Tolls and scales are the most likely expenses. We submit the receipts with the other paperwork from the trip and get paid with the next check. Up to two weeks later since we get paid a week behind.

Hopefully they will call us shortly and tell us the truck is OK so we can get going. Not driving is not earning.

First Week

Today was the end of our first week out together. Right now we are in Flagstaff, AZ and tomorrow we will head in to Los Angeles. We are scheduled to pick up at 9:00 PM CT and deliver in a suburb of Portland, OR at 6:00 PM CT. It is going to be a tight run. The plan is that Liz will get us to LA with an hour to spare and then I’ll drive while she sleeps and then she will take over and finish it off.

Neither of us have been this direction before so hopefully we will get to see a little of it.

Things are beginning to slip in to a routine and will have to as we transition to true team driving. That probably means that the frequency of updates will drop. Sorry about that but I’ll try to find things to write about. It really amazes me the number of people who read this. Not like it is even 20 but I figured at best it would be my immediate family.

Delivering the Dog Food

A fairly simple run. We had to go to the terminal in Columbus to fuel and from their to a location I had actually been to before. The one near Alum Creek Road. The problem there was getting an empty trailer. There were none where we were supposed to pick them up. Finally someone told us to check in another lot. There we found a bunch of trailers but they were packed in tight. Took a bit but I got one out and made it much simpler for all the other Swift drivers needing trailers.

Tomorrow we take this empty trailer nearly 2,200 miles to southern California because there are not enough drivers there. I don’t understand this business.

P. S. I love you Dad and am going to miss you.

Long Day

Thursday was a very long day. As I said in the last post we had four deliveries to make. The first two were just inside Indiana and next door to each other. I drove there and had to do what is called a blind side back. Most of the turning is on the passenger side and you simply can’t see much of what is going on. That took awhile but I got it done. The unload took a few minutes as it was only four or five pallets. I didn’t even bother to close the doors while I drove next door to a much simpler docking. Liz took over at this point and had to drive to Indianapolis where she got two much harder dockings. One was a tight space with a pond on one side. The other was a blind side back in a space more condusive to delivery trucks than semi trailers. After all that we drove about 130 miles to pick up dog food in Illinois. Our route took us through a town with the county court house in the middle of the road and across two bridges that were under construction and limited to one lane. We got to the shipper with one minute to spare. Not that the shipper would have cared if we were five minutes later.

We picked up 40,000 lbs of dog food. We had to move the tandems (the wheels on the trailer) forward to adjust the weight evenly. This is known as sliding the tandems. There is a lever to pull that releases pins that hold the wheels in place. On this ancient trailer the lever was not hooked up properly and I had to use vice grips to make it work properly. Prior to figuring that out I had a close call where I had the lever spring back and slam my finger. Fortunately I only broke some skin and not the finger.

Finally we went to a truck stop and shut down for the night. A very long and tiring day.

On The Road Again

Today was the second day out for Liz and I together. Yesterday I did all the driving but Liz did park in a place I was having troubles. Today we split the distance pretty well. She did s few more miles than I did. I got all interstate driving with a little construction and she did a lot on a small U.S. highway (51) with lots of small towns. It did help her figure out the eight speed compared to a 10 speed.

So far so good. No blood in the cab.

We are in Henderson, KY tonight and then make four deliveries of tile tomorrow. Two in Evansville, IN. The stores are literally next door to each other. After that we go to a suburb of Indianapolis called Fishers were the stores are within a half mile of each other.

The Adventure Never Ends

Even when I am supposed to be on home time. On Monday Liz and I got up very early and were in Houston by about 9:00. We went into the terminal and were told to go out to the guard shack to get the keys. Walking up to the truck we saw it was damaged.

Then we got inside.  Several upgrades lacking in my truck and a lot fewer miles.  However it was filthy and the permit book was incredibly out of date.  Good thing the driver never got stopped for anything because he would have had a massive number of tickets. The registration was no good, the liquor permits were out of date, even the self insurance form was out of date. I called Lancaster and they pointed me towards the terminal manager.  He handed me a list of trucks that were “ready to go.” The first one we looked at was a beautiful Volvo with only 85,000 miles on it.  Unfortunately it also had no upper bunk. No way Liz and I are sleeping in a 36″ wide bed together.  We hadn’t noticed at the time but there does not seem to be a place to put a 12 volt cooler in a Volvo.  We looked at several and agreed that the person getting paid to clean the trucks was not doing her job very well.  In the end I asked for the keys to my old truck back and that is what we have been packing today.

We did make it to LibreDigital to visit as well.  That was great.  I do miss the people even if I don’t miss the stress. A few people were not in and that was sad. I was surprised by the number of people who are reading this blog.  I hope I can keep it interesting for them.

In the morning we should receive our instructions on where to go so now things should get really interesting.

Home At Last

Even getting home turned out to be a story.

After making my delivery in El Paso I went to the terminal there to wait for my next trip. It came through in a few hours.  A load of medical equipment going to Georgia but the route passed through Dallas and I was able to arrange a “t-call.” That is I could drop it there and have someone else take it while I got something that would get me headed home. I got to Lancaster early in the afternoon and decided to go meet Krissie, my driver manager. We had a pleasant talk and I thought “OK maybe things will be better now.” The next morning I was told to deliver a truck full of spaghetti sauce to a Walmart distribution center in New Caney, TX. This is just north of Houston and certainly closer to home. My Projected Time of Availability (PTA) was also set to 11:00 PM on the first which sounded to me like I got to go home after making the delivery.  However I needed more than three days, or more precisely, 72 hours at home.  Especially since I had been out for six weeks.  When I brought this up I was told, sorry company policy is that you have to give up your truck if you take more than three days off plus put in a “personal leave” form.  Not sure what the point of the form is since there are no real vacation days. I finally said to hell with it and agreed to give up the truck, she then tried to get me to leave it in Lancaster instead of the terminal in Houston.  I said “no way, I am going to take it to Houston.”  That way Liz and I could be driving towards each other instead of my sitting around waiting for her plus I would get paid for 200+ miles. Just as I was shutting things down in Houston I noticed a call from the head of driver services, Krissie’s boss.  He left a message apologizing for not getting back on a call from two weeks ago.  Turns out his voice mail had been screwed up.  It was too late to call him then so Liz and I unloaded the truck and headed home.  Friday morning I called him and gave him the entire story.  He apologized and said that while policy was three days a DM can work with the drivers and that since I had been out as long as I had and had clearly been moving freight he would sort it out. Monday Liz and I are going to Houston to pick up a newer truck to bring home and get set up for driving. I am “off” until the fourth and don’t have to worry about any personal leave forms.  Hopefully Krissie will have learned something from all of this but at least I am not currently thinking about changing home terminals.

By the way, Walmart spaghetti sauce is apparently made by Ragu.

Trip down memory lane

The trip really started last week when I crossed from Maryland in to western Pennsylvania. I have never actually been on US-220 or I-99 before but they go through western PA where I was born and where my family is from. This is one of many beautiful parts of our country but it has a special place for me and calls to me in my bones. After dropping and picking up cargo I headed north towards I-80 and passed through State College. I spent a day there when I worked for The University of Texas and that day lead to a week in Bermuda supporting an experiment to measure ocean temperatures. Dirty job but someone had to do it.

Then I headed east and eventually hit the Delaware Water Gap, another stunning place especially when the leaves are turning. This brought back memories of a week long canoe trip I took in high school on the upper Delaware.

Then in to and out of New Jersey near Hoboken where John Wiley and Sons books has offices with which I have spent many an hour on the phone in my previous life.

Next back on I-80 headed west. This time all the way across PA past signs for Pittsburgh, were I was born, and New Castle, where my grandparents had a farm and I have some of my earliest memories.

The next day I hit Ohio and exits for Cedar Point, a most excellent amusement park, as well as Hiram where my older brother went to college. After those were Fremont and Port Clinton, again areas in which we lived.

Next comes Indiana and Valparaiso. I didn’t live there but my parents and younger brother did for several years.

Turned north towards Chicago where I saw a sign for the Museum of Science and Industry, my favorite museum. My oldest grandchildren went there recently.

Then Milwaukee. We lived just north of Milwaukee in Bayside the summer before I entered the Air Force. I remember seeing The Band and Leon Redbone at the bug summer festival they had on the lake front and also going to see Gene Roddenberry give a presentation on Star Trek. Later I headed west on US-151 past The House on the Rock, a very cool place to visit.

Tonight I am in Roswell, NM. No memories here for me and most of those between Wisconson and here are fresh and related to learning to drive the truck.

I have actually traveled part of this road before, again when I worked for UT and we were going to and from Alamagordo a lot. Tomorrow I’ll go through Ruidoso and then down to Alamagordo and in to El Paso. The trip down 54 I have made several times. Hopefully after that I head back to central Texas and home.

Company Love & Support

Tomorrow, the 22nd, Liz finishes orientation and will be ready to go out on the road. Plan A had been for her to go home and I would also come home and we would roll out on Monday. Well requesting home time was unclear to me and I did it late. Did my DM offer to fix it for me one time, no.

As you may recall I had to practically beg to get to Memphis for the class and once the class was over did they start to steer me back to Texas, no. Instead I got sent to western Pennsylvania and now I am in northern New Jersey with no load out of here in sight. At this rate I’ll be lucky to get home on the 30th as I have requested.

Speaking of New Jersey it was quite an experience driving on highways and then city streets in North Bergen at night in the truck. On ramps are almost nonexistent in many places and of course no one moves over. Lots of fun.

Pennsylvania

So here I sit near Roaring Springs and Duncansville waiting to go to Bellwood in the morning. I have passed within 70 miles of where my parents live but had no good way to go visit them. After I make my delivery I go to Altoona to pick up a load of stuff made from foam to take to North Bergan, NJ. Almost into New York City. That should be a challenge.

Speaking of challenges. The GPS receiver told me how to get to a truckstop in Duncansville that didn’t exist where it and Google Maps think it does. I ended up in a neighborhood. Drove across a bridge with an 18 ton limit twice and almost got stuck on a road with no outlet. Fortunately there was some sort of business with a large gravel parking lot where I could turn around. Also a bih thanks to several nice people who got out of the way and let me make some massive sweeping turns using up all the lanes and still almost taking out a fence or two. This made my trip through downtown Lexington, KY yesterday seem like nothing. That one was my fault as I exited southbound instead of northbound.