April 3, 2011
We had our time off in garland texas, we were tired and didn’t want to drive to our regular hotel chain so we stayed at the closest one. The kingsley inn. But for a mear $10 more we should have taken the drive and gotten a real bed, in room coffee pot, swimming pool, a quite parking lot, phone book,(not even a Gideon’s bible). All we got was a waffle house, a real Mexican taqueria (a restaurant; that’s your spanish lesson for today boys and girls), and a beer and wine store. Don’t worry I have a story for each of them. (well nothing for the waffle house, its fine) on the other hand if we had stayed at the comfort suite I wouldn’t have anything to write about.
We didn’t have a phone book, but we found a walmart and got our supplies for the next week. Sometimes its hard to believe a cart full of stuff fits in the truck, and sometimes it doesn’t fit. But oil and window washer fluid are about half price at walmart compared to the truck stops.
After walmart we were hoping to find a verizon store on the way back to the hotel, what we did find was a walk in dentist. Will has had a bad tooth for a couple months. So I dragged him in and they got right to him. Thought they were going to pull it, but after looking at the xray the dentist said it was cracked sideways so it didn’t need to be pulled, he just ground it down past the crack and then build it up. So a couple hours and $100 later we were on our way. We took their card, cause next time we need a dentist we request a load to garland.
Back at the hotel, the guest next door was outside yelling at some guy down in the parking lot (we were on the second floor) but he finale took off in this Monte Carlo yelling, ‘ that’s public property not private property’…whatever that means. maybe we should move the bed out of drive by range.
Will decided to walk down to the beer and wine store, for his tooth you know. He comes back and tells me this story. First there is no hard liquor sold in garland. Then while will was at the clerk checking out a guy comes in with a hoody on, and hood up over his head. And one guy dressed just the same standing outside the door. The guy inside picked up a candy bar then walked around. Will said the clerk, a little Indian gal (India) looked at will and looked nervous so she was putting his stuff in a bag slowly. Then the guy came around the corner and picked up a pack of gum, and looked at the clerk and will. Will said he was getting very nervous now. And was taking his time putting his change away, hoping the guys would leave. He didn’t want to leave that lady alone with them. Then from around the back room comes an older man and puts his hand under the counter and pulls out a hand gun lays it on the counter keeping his hand on the gun and tells the guy, ‘ you need to remove that hood’. Then both the guys left. Will said what a relief. He knew those guys were up to something, and the clerk knew it too. Will said at first he was a little concerned when the owner brought out a gun. I would have pee’d my pants
So after all that excitement, will decided he wanted mexican food for dinner. Since our room did not have a phone book I walked down to the office and asked if they had one, she said why, I said cause I want to look for a place to eat dinner. She said over on the table are flyers. After looking through all the pizza and Chinese places we still wanted mexican . I said there wernt any mexican restaurants in that pile can I look at the phone book, she said they didn’t have one someone stole it. Ok whatever, so I asked if she knew where there was a good one. And she said no. we walked outside and looked up and down the street and saw across the street was a mexican taqueria, so we walked across and ordered items we could recognize on the spanish written menu. Tacos, beans , rice and I got enchilada’s. Back at the hotel we sat down to eat and will’s tacos were half the size of normal tacos. Just a small scoop of beans and there was corn mixed in with the rice. The flavors were good, no complaints there, just the serving size. So not wanting to go and bother the front desk again we decided not to order Chinese.
The next day its check out and we are gathering up our stuff and around 9:30 the maid knocks and asks if we need towels or if we are checking out. Told her we are checking out. We are just about out the door and our phone rings, will was going to answer it and I said its probable just the desk making sure we are leaving before they charge us another day. We get down there to turn in our key card and get a receipt and check out time is at noon. We had 2 more hours. I don’t know now who was calling. To top off a perfect 34 hours off, the batteries on the truck are dead and it wont start. we got on line and called 3 different 24hours tow places and none of them would come jump start a semi. They said they didn’t have the power or they didn’t have the equipment. Will was getting mad yelling its just 12 volts, you can jump start a car, you can jump start a truck. He wanted me to call swift and have them send someone, but since they charge $35.00 on top of whatever the service call charges are, I kept calling local places. Finale got a local guy to come out. He says it $75, ok just come. He shows up in his personal pickup truck, and hooks up the cables and we just wait for them to charge. He said his brother didn’t want him to come because there is a lot of work at the shop for him to do, but he used to be a truck driver and knows how hard it is. no kidding.
Well cant wait to be home for easter. Planning dinner and shopping on line for a new dress etc…..
Love and miss you all
Jul 23, 2010
chicago, no oprah siteing
well life goes on. we got a load to chicago. and everything went fine. good miles and it was a good trip. we even got a reload right away.
it didnt pick up until 10pm local time. so we went to a truck stop where you can stay for 3 hours for free after that is cost $10. so we left after 2 hours and 45 min. we went to the pick up location and the driver that talked to us, could not have had a more chicago accent if he tried. we asked where he wanted us to put our empty trailer. he said; 'remember where i tolds youz ta put it last time' this is our first time here.
'O O yea right, paarrk it down theres by the brown door' 'load wont be ready tills 11 right'
sounded like a cross between my cousin vinny and boston rob.
so we comes back at 10:30 and they say the load is ready, they need a pickup number from us to confirm we are who we are and we are taking the right load. do they have a big problem with truck drivers coming in off the street and picking up trailers??? i dont know..
so's anyway, back to my story. so we contact swift tell them we need a pickup number. they said the load isnt ready yet, we told them it is ready and we are sitting under it and hooked up to it. we cant leave until 'we gives the guy the secret code' (it was late and we were having fun at someone eles's expense. sorry karma)
so's after 1 and 1/2 hours swift sends us the secret code.
will gives it to the guy, and asks the guy why it was loaded the way it was, all the weight is in the back of the trailer, and we have to move the tandem axles to california requirements. he says dont worry he loads them this way all the time. ok, so we head off to the scale 20 miles away. and 20 miles thru chicago is 45 minutesand it doesnt surprise will that it is too heavy and we can not adjust the axles to move the weight. so we send swift a message that we have to go back and have the load adjusted. they said ok keep them informed. we get back there and they are closed. have to wait until morning.
that disturbance in the force you felt was will's head exploding.
i sent a message, saying shipper closed for the day, have to wait until morning. . i also asked if we were going to be getting detention pay, if we were not then we want another load and we will leave this one here. they said dont worry we will get detention pay. so i took a picture of that message from them. taking a picture of the messages is the only proof we have of she said he said sorta thing. the messages drop off after about 50 messages.
in the morning the day shift was gripping about having to redo the load he said he wanted to wait until the evening shift came in and let them do it. Eventually someone talked to someone and we were reloaded. when we left to go scale again, i sent a message telling them we were going to scale again and asked if our detention pay continues until we have a legal load. and they sent back a message saying yes. so i took a picture of that to.
so after all that now it is my turn to drive and we are still in chicago. will wasted his whole 14 hour shift getting scaled and then waiting until morning.
in our short time in chicago, i did not see Oprah. once again driving thru utah and no donny osmand. its almost like he knows im looking for him and he purposely stays out of sight. yea that must be it. we make our way to mira loma, (and not via san deigo) in an uneventful trip.
we have a reload already too. we pick up a fedex load in san bernadeno, ca and take it to boise idaho. we've picked up fedex in san bernadeno before they are pretty good, about being on time. so not expecting any trouble. besides we already have the secret code. our route takes us thru nevada, hope to win big.
when we get to idaho we might as well take our 34 off , the truck needs oil change and everything, the miles really add up. that way we can start the week with a bunch of hours available
love and miss you all
Jul 17, 2010
we're going to graceland, graceland, memphis tennessee
well memphis was nicer to us than denver. we had 19 hours before we had to pick up at fedex, going to south carolina. so we went to graceland and took the tour.
very interesting stuff. elvis bought the house in 1957 for 100,000. you cant buy much today for that price. the house sits on 13 acres. part of the selling agreement was that the home keep the name graceland. it was named after the former owner's daughter. elvis didnt have a problem with that. they said he loved the name.
graceland is the second most visited home in the united states. the white house is the most visited.
the tour doesnt take you upstairs to the private living space. so didnt get to see his private bedroom (or the bathroom he died in) but the rest of the house and grounds was very nice. maybe even a little tacky. looked very much like a 60's or 70's home. i was surprised that it wasnt more glamorous, or extravagant. like todays music stars live. (what a difference in homes, between the king of rock and the king of pop, ) you could really tell a family lived in this house.
i uploaded some pictures. i didnt get as many usable ones as i thought i was not keeping the camera still and a lot of them came out blurry. most of the ones i took of his cars did not come out. there was a lot of information about the items and there were guides everywhere to answer questions. and there was , i think, 5 different gift shops with offical elvis stuff. thats right i got postcards.
but check out the pictures and videos i posted,
and thank you, thank you very much
love and miss you
Jul 17, 2010
denver,,,,,,,,ugh denver
we arrive in the denver swift yard around 1am, will takes a shower when we get there, but i decide to wait till morning. i am sure we wont be sent a load before morning.
about 6:30am we got a load to memphis. empty cans from coors. a nice light , long load. the trailer we had needed to be cleaned out, looks like the last load was rice. so will was sitting in the truck when i came back from my shower telling me about our load and getting ready to drive over to the dumpster to sweep out the trailer.
that was the best part of the day. it was down hill from there.
before we move the truck, its started already, a worker from the tire company, is walking around with chalk, red tags and a clip board. he gets to our trailer and marks one of the back tires, and hands will a red tag. red tag means not drivable. so will starts swearing and yelling and calling that guy names. will disconnected from the trailer and walked around the yard looking for another trailer we could use. i went into the office to tell them we needed a new trailer. the guy at the window asked why, whats wrong with the one we are all ready dispatched with, told him some tire guy red tagged it. he said he would call the shop and let them know we were bringing the trailer over and needed the tire taken care of.
ok , so now i have to walk around the yard looking for will. it wasnt hard to find him, still yelling and swearing, i just walked the way everyone was looking.
i told him what the office said and we went back to hook up to that trailer again and drive it over to the shop. it is only a couple of minutes before will comes swearing and stomping back to the truck and yells THEY SAID THEY ARE BUSY AND WILL GET TO IT WHEN THEY HAVE TIME. so i said did you talk to the shop manager NO THE TIRE GUY (a different tire guy, not the one that red tagged the trailer) ( theres will making friends everywhere we go)
so we go and find the shop manager and i tell them what is going on and he says back it in to bay 5 and they will take care of it there. well only 3 hours later they had the tire changed. we go to sweep out the trailer. will decided to fix the flashing on the right side door. he said coors is pretty picky about what trailers they approve. so now it is 4 hours after we receive the preplan for the load and finally we are off to the shipper.
we get to coors and get in the long trailer inspection line. it doesnt take long for them to reject our trailer. they said the metal plate at the back of the trailer was warped. so we message our dm and ask what to do. 45 minutes later she tells us to take the trailer back to the denver yard, 15 miles away,(coors is in golden co, of course you knew that) red tag the trailer and pick a different one. we told her there were no other ones, we want them to dispatch us to pick up a trailer that they know is going to pass inspection. anyway we get back to the yard, after waiting for an accident to clear on the freeway. ~we will never get out of here before friday rush hour~ will parks the trailer and unhooks and we (I) go to the dispatch window (remember im the buffer between will and the general public)
tell them our tale and he says, not to red tag the trailer, which is what will was thinking, its still a good trailer. they said just because coors rejects the trailer dosnt mean its red tagged. anyway the guy said our dm should have contacted him, because he would have just sent us to sears, and we could grab an empty trailer in their yard. so we go back and re hook to the trailer and off to sears, unhook, find a trailer hook up, and head for coors and we pass inspection. so 8 hours after accepting the preplan and 62 miles later we are hooked to a loaded trailer and headed for memphis.
i sent a message to our dm that we need to be compensated for the extra miles. we are only going to get paid for the 10 empty miles we were dispatched, not the 62 miles it took back and forth and back and forth.
oh and the loaded trailer they gave us, has rivits missing and holes made from forklifts hitting the inside of the trailer. the holes are filled with caulking. we also received a message that 'this trailer has tracking issues, please get it fixed before continuing you trip' all the trailers have satellite tracking, the issue is the trailer has been smashed on the top front, will says looks like it found a low bridge. did we get the satellite fixed. HELL NO of course not.
hope memphis is nicer to us than denver.
love and miss you all
Jul 16, 2010
utah, texas, colorado
well the week didnt start off very good. we got a load from phoenix to salt lake city, thats only 600 miles. another trip with short miles. but on the up side we did get a load from salt lake city to dallas, its a hazmat load from napa, and its 1200 miles. lets hope when we get there, we can get another load over 1000 miles.
the drive to utah was pretty nice. going thru the canyons with the sun shinning on the red rocks was very pretty. i got some good pictures.
we got fuel at the yard in salt lake city. there was about half a pallet of Quaker oats breakfast bars. big variety box 48 bars to a box. anyway, the driver said it was overage, and the store didnt want it, and the shipper never wants it back because it cost to much to send back, so they tell the driver to get rid of it. so we took 2 boxes off his hands. usually you will hear on the cb at a truck stop, 'i have 10 bags of dog food i need to get rid of' one time i heard ' i have 50 bags of potting soil' damn..... so far from home. i dont know why the stores dont want to give the stuff to there employees, well maybe because it could look like they are profitting somehow, ok so i think i get that one. but why cant they say leave it here and we will call the local food bank. what a waste. if drivers cant get rid of it quick enough they just throw it away. sometimes at a rest stop youll see 5 or 6 bags of oranges etc. the drivers cant wait forever to get rid of that , especially if they have another load to get to. oh, and you cant throw the stuff away in the dumpster where you delivered it, the shipping / receiving person makes that very clear.
when i wake up we are in texas and it is my turn to drive. i drove 10 1/2 hours and we are still in texas. will starts driving we only have about 80 miles left. this load isnt scheduled to delivery until tomorrow at 8am, but we will drop by and ask if we can delivery early. they will probably say no because this is a live unload, not just a drop trailer.
we have a reload all ready. sort of a solo run but more than 600 miles, so not really a solo run. its going to denver, 700 miles. they didnt list a weight we asked and received no reply, gee what a surprise. so we accepted the load and if it too heavy when we get it we will deal with it then.
boy i dont know what we would do if the 'load planners' actually started planning our loads, and if our driver manager were to start managing our miles.
i should give them a break, they are all over worked & under paid, and we're not. they have a lot on their minds, and we dont. they have a lot of people depending on them, and we dont. they get to go home at 4 and weekends and see their families, and we dont. yea i should cut them some slack
i mentioned some of that to our dm and her response was that this is the job we choose to do, and she is 100% correct, but they also choose their jobs. either step up or step aside.
we have been out since june 10, and we arent coming home until aug 25. the theory was we would be out longer and therefore have more loads, make more money. normally we come home for a couple of days once a month. the week we come home we get crapy loads and have to do a lot of sitting until they find us a load headed to oregon. so that sitting not driving takes away from our income. then the days we are home of course no money being made. the first week we are back on the road it seems the loads are slow to come. so it used to work out that in a 4 week period we would have 2 low mile weeks and then 1 really good week, then 1 acceptable week. we talked to other husband and wife teams, and they all said they stay out for 2 months, then when they are home it is for a week. that part would be nice. plus out of 8 weeks they only had to put up with 2 low mile weeks, the week they go home and the week back to work. but boy i dont know, i cant stand being away from home this long. but i guess work is work and i shouldnt complain because i dont like my job, there are plenty of people out there that would not complain if they had my job.
(but i really need to color my hair........my age is starting to show, and i dont want to admit to anything)
oh quite a thunder and lightening storm driving thru colorado i hop the pictures came out ok, i'll post them if they came out.
love and miss you all
Jul 11, 2010
rain, rain go away
after butting heads with our dm, we tested her advice saying we have the right to turn down loads we do not want , with no loadplanner retaliation. we turned down one load because it was short miles. we turned down a second load because it also was low miles. after turning down the second load our pta was changed. luckily our dm was still in, i sent her a message, ok a sarcastic message. 'well will you look at that, somehow our pta changed. now i know nobody is allowed to change our pta, so there must be a qlich in the system, could you reset our pta, please and thank you'
a little while later a loadplanner sent us a message asking if we could do a favor and deliver a load, the other driver ran out of hours. the load is in lake charles and the loadplanner promised to back it up with a load that had miles. i asked to see the back up load, telling last time a planner said atlanta georgia had good team loads, they gave us 650 miles from there to lake charles. they sent the load , lake charles to phoenix. 1800 miles. so now it was our turn to pull a fast one on them. well actually it was wills idea. even though it appears we have gotten away with it, i still think we are due some retaliation coming later. since the favor they wanted us to do would take hours off our logs, fuel out of our truck and just add to our frustration level. because it was a live unload. since it was passed the delivery time, most company's make you wait until they have time or until the next driver shows up late, we can have their dock. we would make no money doing this favor in fact it would mean we would not have the hours to do the back up load they sent. so, after they sent us the preplan for both loads. we declined the favor load and accepted the back up load to phoenix. the load planner said if we take the favor load it will benefit us in the future, next time we are in this area and need a good load. we told her next time we are in this area they will know who to screw and get free work out of. we told her there were 2 company drivers in the lounge complainning waiting for a load, give it to one of them.
then she said if we take the favor load we wont have to look for an empty trailer. are they insane, we came in with an empty, i told her that, and that we are still attached to it. we want our info for the phoenix load. will made it clear it was not legal for swift to ask us to do some work for free in exchange for a good team load. so they sent our info. like i said even though it worked i am still leery about what type of loads we will get next week. i guess it could go either way. they could say well we cant pull anything over on those drivers, or they may say, screw then, they want to play games, then game on.
i dont know......
we are headed to phoenix from Louisiana with a trailer full of tires for the swift yard. we picked up the tires at the bridgestone, firestone factory .around the factory there are many refiners. i think it is more
than i saw in one place in texas. leaving rush hour in any city is always an adventure. friday just makes is more interesting and in on and off rain (cats and dogs, down pour) it just doesnt get any better than that. why is it called rush hour, there is no rush and it last more than an hour.
leaving lake charles Louisiana, there are a couple of really cool bridges. that go over swamps, bayous and plain old lakes. the first bridge is a long two lane low to the water bridge. there are two sides of travel. 2 lanes going west and another bridge with 2 lanes going east. the truck speed is 55 and we have to stay in the right lane. no passing. the bridge has a weird name it is called Atchafalaya. the bridge is long. 18.2 miles, it is the tenth longest bridge in the world by total length. Accidents occur frequently near the two river crossings as both are very narrow and lack shoulders. and i thought you would like to know The Atchafalaya Basin, or Atchafalaya Swamp, is the largest swamp in the United States .
i also had to look up the difference between swamp and bayou. parts of this bridge cross, henderson bayou and atchafalaya swamp. here is what i found out.
A bayou is a very slow-moving stream, attached to a larger stream or river, and usually with many open spaces
Swamps are full of vegetation with few wide open places like bayous. In Louisiana and Mississippi, it is the Mississippi River that feeds bayous and swamps. While a bayou is usually an open stream with vegetation along the sides, a swamp is a boggy wetland where water seems to stand still, although its water does rise and fall with freshwater tides.
the other bridge looks more like a roller coaster ride for semis. the steep bridge is over the Calcasieu River, just west of Lake Charles. to make friday rush hour even slower, we added in rain, down pour is more accurate. it would rain so hard for about 20 minutes stop, then the accident reports would come across the cb , 'west bound you have a break check coming up around the 15 mile marker. 4wheeler flipped and in the median.' 'west bound break check 4wheeler and big truck' 'west bound break check three four wheelers fighting for the same piece of freeway' 'west bound break check for dog in road'
there were about 4 traffic stops due to accidents. and one slow down caused by a lost dog roaming the freeway looking for the truck he fell out of, or the owner that dumped him. he was soaked, and just wondering in and out of traffic, he looked exhausted, after i passed him i looked in the side mirror to make sure other drivers slowed and missed him, and he was just sitting on the side of the road panting.
i wanted to put him in our truck. it took me 3 hours to drive from lake charles Louisiana, to winnie texas, about 90 miles. it was so slow. it seemed like i would just get up to cruising speed for 15 -20 minutes and then time to slow down. it was crazy.
the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. oh wait i did see a guy in texas walking east carrying a cross??? i could not find anything online about it. i did find out there is a guy, Arthur Blessitt who is doing this. i dont think it was him because the guy i saw was wearing a brown robe like saint francis, or a monk, and arthur blessitt, on his web site wears normal clothes.
we are taking our 34 hours off before we get into phoenix, that way we will be able to start the week fresh with 70 hours each to work. cant wait for to see what happens next week.
love and miss you all
Jul 8, 2010
same stuff different day
we picked up our high value load. we couldnt figure out what was so high value it only weighted 11,000.
it was victoria's secret. i guess the secret is, its a filthy warehouse. the carpet in the shipping office is stained with oil and grease. the drivers bathroom was~yuck~. no pink anywhere
they obviously dont make the garments there. it must be the middle man. i think they must get the items from overseas, (you know everything is made over seas) then they probable fill local distributor orders. so now i have an imag of creepy dirty guys, touching and smelling and whatever to my bra before i even buy it.........i need a hot shower.
florida was nice, but i didnt see any pink flamingos, or alligators. no jimmy buffett sighting either.
we got a load to atlanta georgia after florida, then its on to texas.
while leaving florida on the side of the freeway there was a little fawn. very small, just standing looking around , and little white birds standing in front of the fawn. (dont know for sure what they were. looked like cranes but smaller ??) any way the first think i thought of was the birds are trying to tell the fawn, no dont go that way, you are too little to cross the street. i didnt see mom anywhere. i didnt see her naping on the side of the road. so that was good .
i am so glad the air conditioner is working now.
so far we have been having a difference of opion with out driver manager. when we complain we need longer runs, that we want more miles. her reply is straight off the swift scirpt. answer 1; freight is down. it will get better. answer 2; dont get discourged you are doing a wonderful job. and answer 3; these are average miles for a team. it would be less insulting if she just message saying apply answer 1 to this question and answer 2 to the other question. that would sure save a lot of time.
every load we are shorted miles. it is usual 25-50 miles. they figure the miles from city limit to city limit. and i am sure that is the way most company's pay miles. if you pick a load in the same city you just delivered to you get paid 1 mile.
the last 2 trips the miles have been off 120 miles and 80 miles. we sent a message to our dm and no response. to be honest swift may not have a scripted answer to short miles question.
the most frustrating part is those are miles we are not paid for. those are miles we have to buy fuel for. those are miles that once a month swift figures how many miles we drove and we pay an over mileage fee. those miles are included in that figure. not to mention the time it takes to drive those miles. there are times when we are so short of time we are looking for any short cut we can think off. like going off the log as soon as we pull into a driveway, that is private property. making sure we count our 15 minutes correctly. we only have to log 15 minutes of time doing something if it takes longer than 7 minutes. when we figure how much time we need to run a trip, if it is 80 miles further, that is a about an hour and a half driving time.
a funny thing about the short miles. we got a message to all company drivers. (i guess in this computer age, they can not just have the system deliver the message to only company drivers, they go to all troutdale drivers) any way the message went on to say 'drivers, please keep to your route, we have a lot of extra miles. if your fuel stop takes you off route contact your dm. this excess mileage cost us and in the end it cost you too. i know it is hot, but do not run your truck. get a fan that plugs into the cigarette lighter, or stay in the terminal.'
i grabed the qualcomm and started to type the drivers are not going out of route and racking up extra miles, swift is shorting the drivers miles and they are not looking at the other side of the ledger. one side says miles dispatched and the other says, miles driven. miles driven is more, so the only answer can be drivers are driving off route and sightseeing. . yes that is the obvious answer. but i didnt send it. im a better person than than. ( stop laughing)
so once again i made it clear that we are not just driving so we can pay swift truck expenses. this is a business and we need to make a profit. she said we have the right to deny any load. i told her that, only in theory are we allowed to deny loads. after we deny a load, maybe 2 loads, we are put in time out, and our pta (projected time available) changes and no loads are sent to us. i said that is not the way adults treat each other , that is 8th grade behavior. i told her i was not going to throw a hissy fit and rant and rave every three weeks just to get my point across. i told her this is a business, and i will bring to her attention things like short miles, questions about loads, etc, and then i will document the response, or lack there off. she didnt ask how i would document, but once before i told her that i take a picture of any questionable qualcomm messages we receive.
we will see how things work. im not holding my breath. they sent us 2 loads. one to laredo 300 miles must go thru trailer inspection because it is going across the boarder. the second load is to phoenix a live load and unload, time we dont get paid for(because the wheels are not turning) but it is time that we have to log. so that comes off our 14 hour day. it would take us 3 days to do that and only get 1000 or so miles. we should be driving 1000 to 1200 miles a day.
the load choice program is not working for us. i asked our dm why and she said there was some qlich in the system and none of the troutdale drivers have been able to log on. that was the other day. i tried today and nothing, so i asked our dm if she had any idea when we would be able to use it. no answer at all today. we had money deducted from our maintenance account and we asked her why. the only issues we had was a tire blow out on the trailer, and load locks for a load that required them. those items are not charged to us. but no answer about that either. we told her abut the 120 short miles for the last trip. again no response. i think it is time to get a new driver manager. but i dont think it is a good idea to get a different one in the same office. the new one would probable say 'if you though so and so was bad wait to you see me at work' you know what i mean. co workers then to stick up for each other. i know everyone is over worked and under paid, so are we. just shut up and put on your big girl panties.
love and miss you all
Jul 8, 2010
4th of july
our fourth of july was quite. no dogs barking, no car alarms going off because of loud fireworks, no smelling sulfur, no worrying about kids and fireworks, no traffic .
but it was also pretty boring, no family, no bbq, no hot tub, no watching little kids get all excited over the fireworks. no smelling sulfur, no watching our big bad guard dog be scared from a sparkler.
we are on our way to columbus, ohio. its only 700 miles, another solo run for a team. i thought staying out longer was going to benefit us because we would get more miles.
the load choice program is suppose to start for us this week. that may help a little, i dont know. they may send us 3 trash loads to choose from. i am wondering when is the best time to request our load choice. we can request 18 hours before our pta (projected time available) but i wonder if first thing in the morning has good load choices. maybe company's loaded trailers over night and they are put on the shipping list in the am. or, maybe around noon is a good time. the trailers are loaded in the morning, and put on the shipping schedule for later that day, or even first thing in the morning.
what about around 4 or 5 just before a company closes, the trailers are loaded for the day and put on the shipping schedule at night for the next day. got to figure it out. maybe the best time to request a load choice is after 5pm, after all the load planners go home maybe without there 'help' life would be easier.
we will be at our delivery, coca cola, this evening, it delivery's tomorrow. they wont take it early--union you know. just hoping if we are there at 8am it wont take to long to unload. this is not a drop delivery, its live unload.
we are hauling, sodium benzoate dense, 40,000 pounds one of the ingredients. what we need are the ingredients for pepsi. that must be top, top secret. we havent hauled anything for pepsi. we've done several things for coke., empty bottles, the plastc pellets that make the empty bottles. and now 8 bags of sodium benzoate.
they sent us a reload. after we unload at coca cola, we pick up a high value load ??? dont know what it is. we are on our way to lakeland, flordia. ive never been to flordia. sounds like they have a heat wave going on too. oh goody for me. may have to find a walmart and buy a pair of shorts. will have to do something about my lilly white legs. ... so much to do!!!!!
love and miss you all
Jul 1, 2010
another wrong turn, really
another science lesson, two in one trip. there will be bonus points awarded later. what happens when you have bald tires on the trailer. a black asphalt road with a temperature above the air temp of 101. thats right a blow out. we tried to call road service but was on hold for 15 hot minutes. so will put air in the tire next to the one that blew. and that got us down the road to the closest truck stop. they did not have a repair shop. so they had to send a truck out. that whole thing took almost 2 hours.
we got our air conditioner fixed in el paso. the international dealer had to replace the high pressure line and the air conditioner compressor. ....... aahhh life is good
el paso texas was certainly interesting. the driving is almost a free for all. it seemed like you put your blinker on to change lanes and all the cars behind you suddenly decide the lane you want , is also the lane they want, and they dont use blinkers. one of the truckers was saying some people file false hit and run reports against truck drivers. they have 364 days to file after the incident and they usual wait until the deadline near, then the truck driver cant remember back a year, the company usually settles. the car driver makes notes of what dents etc the truck or trailer had then just makes sure it can match up with their car and they also get date and times of where you were, and all that can be confirmed by the qualcomm satellite in the truck. so the truck driver really has no way to defend himself.
leaving el paso on our way to new mexico. we could see across to mexico. you could see the fence, and some water. will said it was the rio grande, but looked more like a ditch or a canal, not very grand.
will made one observation. standing on one corner is a mexican selling a newpaper for twice the price. probable keeping the extra money, and on the opposite corner is a white guy with just his hand out. not even willing to sell newspapers. we dont know if the mexican was legal , illegal, homeless or what. but at least he was doing something.
we delivered in whittier california. then had to drive to mira loma and pick up our next load, going to dallas.
we get the load early, thats always good because for some reason they are usual scheduled to be ready at rush hour. we hook up and hit the road a couple of hours early yeah. that means will can sleep a little bit longer before he has to get and drive.
oh but not so fast....... the rand mcnally is sending us to dallas one way, the copilot gps thought a different way was best, and swift thought they knew the best route. so i had all the directions telling me which freeway to get on, but they didnt tell me how to get to the freeway from where i was. so with minimal yelling will pointed me in the right direction.
i got on ca60 east, then i get on i215 south, then back on ca60 east. it sounded easy and even looked easy on paper. and what the heck, i did the reverse getting here. so with all the confidence in the world, i was off like a heard of turtles.
i turned off the rand mcnally gps because she is always telling us we are over weight limit on ca60, and spends the rest of the time we are on ca 60 trying to turn us around.
i did get on i215 south just fine. , and still driving. this is the way we came in , but east and south looks different than the west and north i drove on.
drive , drive, drive, still no ca60. but i notice i am on I15south. oh crap, i need to find something going east. and id better do it soon before i have to poke the bear again. but there is nothing, no roads going east, how can i get so lost. i know i was looking. how can i miss it. i just dont know what i keep doing wrong. i wasnt texting, i wasnt putting on make up, i wasnt brushing my teeth, i wasnt reading a newspaper.
oh crap did that sign say san diego. well let me think san diego is south of mira loma. but it is way WAY south. there it is again, san diego. ok, now i really have to do something. i need to find an exit that lets me off of i15south, and has an immediate entrance to i15 north. i need to head back to the scene of the crime. even my fix it plan fell apart. i took an exit that goes into a big shopping mall. so i have to wake up will..........................
.....................yes, i obviously lived long enough to write this.
will figured out it was closer to stay on i15 south (which i had just gotten off) and go to i8 east. (after about 372 miles) that would take me to i10 east, which is where i would have ended up if i followed the original directions....
i can not figure it out. where did it all go south, ha ha ~~no pun intended. did i learn nothing from the last time i drove so far out of the way. i guess not. (jan 9, 2010 what, who me, lost ~or ~July 4,lost again, are you kidding me)
the whole adventure took about 1 1/2 hours and 100 miles out of the way. luckily there is about 6 extra hours on this load so if i dont screw up anything eles we can still deliver on time.
and so the legend continues .. i can still can not find west while looking directly into the setting sun. and even though english is my first (and only) language, the concept of directional english escapes me.
i dont know how much more of this will can take. so if there comes a point in the future when you cant get ahold of me, or i dont post any blogs, just start looking for me. but not on our assigned route, look off the route because im sure i missed a turn, that was probably the last straw.
oh and as soon as i got into arizona our air conditioner quite ..............life sucks again.
we change drivers in gila bend arizona, (113 degrees btw) will fixes the air conditioner so life is good. well as good as it gets today any way.
ps ...as an added bonus to the week, we are sent a load that delivers in Pharr TX, right on the gulf of mexico, with a hurricane coming.
love and miss you all sooooooo much
Jun 27, 2010
science quiz
we are not hauling freeze dried food to cabela's . the name of the company confused me. we picked up at dutro camp chef corp in utah, we are hauling camp stoves. now that we got that straight.
the weather has been nice maybe a little warm for me. not as hot as a week ago, i thought i was going to die. the humidity is crazy. sorry, but this is going to be a boring read, ok more boring then usual. this has been a pretty uneventful trip. no bad weather, no traffic situations.
we already have our reload. we pick up in west virginia, going to el paso. we are going to be out of hours there so its a good time to get the truck air conditioner fixed,(before i die) i m not excited about staying in el paso, we will have to get a hotel away from the boarder.
in utah we drove by a site called 'the devil's slide.' really a neat looking site. here is what i gleaned from the web site...The sides of the slide are hard, weather-resistant limestone layers about 40 feet high, 25 feet apart, and several hundred feet in length. In between these two hard layers is a shay limestone that is slightly different in composition from the outer limestone layers. This middle layer is softer, which makes it more susceptible to weathering and erosion, thus forming the chute of the slide...
while driving through wymoing we passed a local landmark, a tree growing out of a rock. the little story is interesting.
when the railroad was coming into town they saw this tree growing in the big boulder and they re-routed the tracks so they would not have to move the tree. once the railroad was done, they would make regular stops so they could water the tree.
in buford wy there is only one person living in the town. population 1 it says on the sign. in its hay day, they had 2000 workers. they had a bank and a post office everything a town needs. they were even robbed once by butch cassidy
another trip through utah and no donny osmand sighting to report.
i can tell you other people that i did not see. i did not see drew carry in cleveland, ohio. he might be in la doing the price is right. i did not see the 'wkrp in Cincinnati 'tower. (you kiddos will have to google that)
we showed up at dupont in west virginia to pick up our load to el paso. the load took 8 hours to load, it was heavier than listed in our pretrip information, and it took 3 trips to the nearest scale which is 14 miles one way. so about 11 hours after we arrived we have a leagal load and are ready to roll. i was sending message after message about us needing detention pay at $30 an hour after the first 2 hours pass. i let them know we needed the extra miles back and forth to the scale added. which is really a thorn in wills side. you know darn well, dupont has a scale on site. it is a huge facility several square blocks. they have their own street you get to dupont, by taking the dupont road exit off the freeway. they receive bulk /raw product and that need's to be scaled coming in.
it just took up a good portion of good driving time away from my log. will ran out of hours last night waiting to be loaded. frustrating, since will was awake and was supposed to be sleeping but of course he couldnt sleep.
now we have to re-count our (my) available log hours to see if we can make it to el paso, since i didnt take any miles off the trip and my day is half over already.
we did learn an important science lesson today , boys and girls.
when the air conditioner in your truck is broke , plus the outside temperature is 94 factor in the humidity (oh my gosh have i mentioned the humidity ) multiplied by the temperature of the floor board inside the truck at least 50 degrees . add in one soda can left in our drink basket (because it didnt get put away in the cooler, thats why) and devide by pi what does that equal. It results in a 7up can bursting out of the pop top, and squirting everywhere. oh fyi you should never have a trailer full of potato chip bags and drive over 7000 in altitude one or two might explode
love and miss you all
Jun 23, 2010
wrong way driver
we are off to pennysalvina to pick up proctor and gamble and take it to utah. this trip right from the beginning got difficult. the address where we pick up in state route 6. rand mcnally gps , copiolt and map quest could not find it. finally after process of elimination, looking on line for the location of a proctor and gamble in the town of tunkhannock pa, i got the real address. the name of the street we want is "the grand army of the republic highway" for real.
the next fun part was finding where we are going. we are suppose to drop off in bear river city utah. no luck. but not as difficult to figure out. the town is tremonton utah. i thought this whole trip was going to be a trick, but now looks like its not a wild goose chase.
my turn to drive, so far so good. the air conditioner keeps going in and out. it works good at night. but not so good, in arizona, new mexico. hope will can fix that SOON.
the cb was pretty quite, then all of a sudden seemed like 20 drivers wanted to talk at the same time. they were all yelling but they were cutting each other out so i couldnt hear what they were saying, i almost turned it off, i thought it was about truck driver testosterone contest. but before i reached the volume control, one driver got through loud and clear. " WEST BOUND YOU HAVE A FOUR WHEELER EAST BOUND IN THE HAMMER LANE....WEST BOUND YOU HAVE A EAST BOND FOUR WHEELER GET IN NUMBER 1 LANE, GET IN NUMBER ONE LANE"....... so thats what i did and well sure enough here comes a red car with an old man in west bound fast lane, going east. (you know i reached for my camera, but then decided not to) all the cars (truckers call cars, four wheelers) all the cars stopped when all the trucks around them began to stop and change lanes. then the cb was busy for a little while, everyone had to tell a story. "..thats the second wrong way four wheeler in three days"
"....he came right past me on the off ramp headed for the freeway...so i got on the cb and my wife got on 911.." "....one time in rhode island i saw a semi headed wrong way,..." glad i had the cb on that time. most of time you know the guys are talking ok, getting info on where the next truck stop is, can i get from there to here. asking if the next weight station is open, getting a police car report, sometimes they tell jokes, not nice ones, so thats when i turn it off. sometimes they are yelling at a driver who they think isnt driving the way he should. sometimes they want to talk to me, but they can be rude or cat calling so i turn it off.
but glad i didnt turn in off this time.
the rest of my shift was thankfully uneventful. will was driving nebraska and it was so windy and raining so hard. the road was hot from the sun all day, and with the rain hitting it it was a really strange site, not fog, steam on the road, and a lot of it. then all the cars shot right over to under the bridge and stopped. will thought since they all did the same thing maybe on the local radio station they issued a tornado warning. but that didnt stop us.
we delivered in utah, no problem.
we pick up a load of freeze dried food and take it to a carbellas outdoor store in west virgina.
love and miss you all
Jun 21, 2010
to new jersey again......oh boy
i watched the last lost..........a lot of questions left, but i knew it had something to do with purgatory, or redemption, or coming to terms with your past so you can move on into the future, the great beyond. something like that anyway. to much religious themes not to be. im hoping for a lost movie, and maybe a light hearted weekly show with ben and hurley left on the island. kind of Gilligan island /pandora's box.
at any rate, we are picking up a target load going to new jesrey. i think i have the turnpike figured out. i guess we will see. this will give us 5000 miles for the week and we still have the hours for a short one. but i dont want to be driving around jersey doing local delivery work. after all they get paid by the hour and we get paid by the mile.
i hope swift keeps up the way it has been going, well the last two loads anyway. i wish we were staying more south , not up in new jersey, im sure they will send us to chicago for a reload. we cant figure out why some weeks are so good and then we have a week like this last one. hardly any miles. they have a new system for letting the load planners know how many hours we have left to drive. i thought the old one was fine, but guess the load planners were getting confused. now they want us to report how many hours we have left to work in the 22 hours after we delivery. the catch is they are asking for work hours available. you can work 14 hours a day, longer even, but you can only drive 11 hours a day, before you have a mandatory 10 hours off. you can work 24 hours in a day, if you do not drive, but you can not drive until you have rested 10 consecutive hours. you are considered working not driving, when you are waiting for a load. checking out the trailer, hooking up to a trailer, cleaning out an empty, getting fuel. doing your pretrip and post trip inspections. your 14 hour clock starts
as soon as you do anything job related that doesnot include driving. like today. i took over at 5am, my 14 hour clock is over at 7pm, i did my pretrip (at least i said i did on paper) and started driving at 5:30 pm ,if i do not stop for more than 15 minutes i can drive till 4:30pm, if it takes me more than 15 minutes to stop at a rest stop use the little girls room, get a soda from the vending machine, then i have to log it. you log everything you do in 15 minute increments. if i stop several times and it takes me a total of 3 hours to hang out at mcdonalds, wendys, getting repairs, etc, then i will not be able to drive my entire shift. my drop dead time in 7pm i can not drive past 7pm even if i do not get 11 hours of driving in. so all the waiting in traffic , getting fuel, getting the trailer repaired, lights, breaks, tire blow out, stuff like that, just eats into your clock, and time is money. if the wheels arent turning we arent making any money. if the wheels are turning slowly we are making a little money. thats why we like the 65 mph states. we only drive 63 because thats where we get the best fuel mileage. california and oregon are 55pmh states. and after you work 70 hours you have to take 34 hours off. thats about once a week.
i start driving in hooker oklahoma. (i dont want to know how they got their name) im driving just fine , following directions. i get into kansas and so far so good. the air conditioner didnt work. will said it freezes up, that makes no sense to me, then why does it blow warm air. but it happens every once in awhile so we bought a fan that plugs into the cigarette lighter. i had to find a rest room, so i could grab the fan and will's wallet for the upcomming tolls. i get on the toll road from 50 east, my directions say 35south. so off i go. will must have heard me say have a nice day to the toll booth lady and he yells from the sleeper,
WHY ARE YOU A TOLL ROAD.
because thats what it says.
YOU SHOULD BE ON 35 SOUTH.
i am and thats a toll.
HOW DID YOU GET HERE.
from 50 east.
WELL THATS NOT RIGHT, SOUTH FROM KANSAS IS OKLAHOMA, THATS GOING THE WRONG WAY, WHATS YOUR MILEAGE COUNTER SAY.
(our gps counts down the miles to our destination) i told him its going down.
WELL THATS WRONG, WHAT DID YOU DO, WHERES YOUR INSTRUCTIONS, YOUR GOING TO HAVE TO TURN AROUND BEFORE YOU #%*)^)+&#@ EVERYTHING. WELL ITS WRONG, FROM 50 EAST YOU TURN ON 35SOUTH.
then i said, listen will dont start yelling at me for following your directions , you wrote them down this time not me. you yell and scream when i make a mistake, i sure as hell and not going put up with it this time. you are the one that made a mistake not me. (out loud, not in my head this time) so he looks at the map, at the directions from swift, on the lap top. and finally he said swift screwed up. so he sent them a message saying the direction should read 35north.
we avoided a big back up before saint Louis., the scoop from the cb said it involved a uhaul, a pick up , a horse trailer, they had to close the freeway for life flight. the accident was on west bound, but they had to close east bound too i guess. no sign of anything when we drove by. glad we missed that one. weve seen quite a few accidents but mostly just fender benders. spin outs from rain or snow. or a semi tipped over taking a corner to fast or having to stop short, and the car behind the truck is so close it hits the truck. i think i posted a couple of those pictures. i think when we deliver this tomorrow, we will need to take our 34 hours off . ill only have about 5 hours left to work. and that really doesnt get us anywhere. but we will see. i hate to lose a good sunday traveling day, we might be able to get out of new jersey.
we did end up staying overnight in new jersey. not too bad. we ordered Chinese, then for dinner pizza. the pizza didnt say it was new york or chicago, but either way it was flat and hardly any toppings.
we are on our way to pickup in Pennsylvania, going to utah.
love and miss you all
Jun 17, 2010
to texas
we delivered our load one day early, no thanks to swift. every time we asked them the answer was, your dm is not here. so we just drove over to the customer and they let us dock and unload. so good we are available 24 hours before our orginal plan. i send in a message saying we are empty and ready for our next load. it takes a short while, but they give us a fairly short run. not a solo run but definitely not a team run. it is hebron ky, to roanoke tx 900 miles. just one and a half shifts, as will likes to say. each of us usually drives 600 miles a shift
we drive to florance kentucky, the water tower says, 'florance y'all '. because we cant pick up the load until tuesday, the next day. after a fairly sleepless night in florance ky, just on the outskirts of cinninatti ohio, there were thunder storms all night , and tornado warnings. anyway. when morning comes we get a message that our load canceled. so after waiting a while then send us another load. worse than the first one. only 300 miles. from greenfield indiana, to cookeville tennessaee.
big woop. i asked if this was part of the companys new plan. they just implemented a new expedited team freight division. we were put in that division, div 757 w/ hazmat endorsements. it was been over one hour and we cant get any information on the load. we cant just up and drive there because we didnt even get a street address yet, just the pick up city and delivery city. so we wait and wait, all the while getting more and more frustrated. i let our dm know that so far we have $139 going into our bank account. we are not going to be working just so we can make the truck payments, then swift shorts our loads, they figure wth, the truck expenses are paid. well we are going to accept every load they give us and when we cant make a decent wage we will be able to argue we took all you gave us. and it didnt work. that load eventually canceled. i sent an open message to phoenix. telling them how long a team has sat. i thought we were in division 757, where are the team loads, we are not just working for the company store..
we finale got a load to maryland, after turing down a load to new york. its only 500miles from here , but from there we pick up a load and head for tucson, arizona. driving through kentucky i saw a yellow warning sign it said "fallen rock area" even the signs have an accent. up north we say falling rock area
sometime during the thunderstorm last night, the lightening struck a big church statue of Jesus. on the morning news they played one of the 911 calls. the caller said Jesus was on fire. first it was just his hand but now it is all of Jesus. the church said Jesus was insured, but it would take more than 3 days to resurrect this Jesus.
night time as fallen in west virgina, my shift is over and will is up. the fire flies are just starting to come out so i'll watch them for a little while. then i am off to watch lost. will isnt interested so it better to watch by myself.
love and miss you all
Jun 12, 2010
home time
home time of course was great.
the graduation was very good. it did rain towards the end of the ceremony, but that didnt dampen anyones spirits. one neat thing that they did was after calling a students name to come forward they also announced what the students plans were for the future. 90 percent of the seniors announced they were going to continue on to college. (as if that will really happen, that seems like it would be some sort of record)
some announced they were going in the military. there were some individuals that announced they were going to pursue an acting career photography, crime scene investigator.
and a few actually went with the truth. they announced after leaving high school they plan on joining the work force. a couple others simply announced they were going to get on with their lives. i think they got the most applause from people they didnt know.
i was thinking, boy am i glad they did not do that for my high school graduation.
".......after graduation leslie has decided not to pursue her dream job as a paralegal, instead she plans on marrying her long time boy friend, hoping to change him. after an abusive year, they will divorce leaving leslie with her 20 month old daughter to support. again forgoing a paralegal education, after honing her enabling skills on her first marriage she plans on marring an alcoholic, hoping to change him....."
we are on our way to ohio with kingsford charcoal from springfield. we cant believe that a truck full of charcoal is not hazmat. isnt it combustible, shouldnt it be kept away from flames. i guess there must be something to it. its a heavy load 44,000 we are just barely able to take it. lucky it is heavy in the right places, so will can adjust the rear axles. our fuel mileage is going to suffer. this is not a team load. it is 2500 miles and 6 days to get there. we asked our we could deliver it early, it will only take us 3 days. she said she would ask the customer service rep on this account and find out. that was thursday, today is friday and she is not in today. we sent a message asking if we were able to drop this early and our response was, your dm is not in today. well duh.....the person taking her place cant find out for us.....no.....
its hard to believe that the load planners actually plan loads. i think they just pull the next one available out of a hat, and give it to the next truck on their list. if the load planners, planned this load they should have planned on a team getting the load to delivery in half the time it takes a solo driver. they should have planned on us either delivering it early or dropping the trailer somewhere and issue us another load. i think they should take the "planner" part out of their job description. they are just giving us a load $^*%#@
the weather this trip has just been awful. wyoming started it all. the down pouring of rain, oh my gosh. then I80 took us into nebraska and they threw in wind. and lightening and more rain. it was like driving through niagara falls. (im guessing, ive never been there) it was so bad that will pulled over and we sat for a few hours until the wind became more reasonable. gee wasnt i just complaining about a heavy load. funny how things work out. there are only a few times you wish for a heavy load and they are snow and wind. will said if we had one of those 7000 pound loads that i like we wouldnt have made it this far. we would have to stop in wyoming. in illionios and indiana the rain came and went, but there was also lightening to add to day. at least it wasnt windy.
i had to exchange some books, while home. my mom has been bugging me to read, "always looking up, by michael j fox" im am only a couple of chapters into it , good so far. a friend gave me several tami hoag books, they all look good not sure which one i will start with. guess i should look and see what order they were published in. they are not a series but still makes since to me to read them in some sort of order. my son recorded the last lost for me. (yeah me) so i can watch that too. i know how it all ends, because i couldnt wait, i was on the online forums the day after it aired. so i kinda know where its going and how it will end, but it is about the journey after all.
i should be able to get some of that done while hanging out in ohio. we will be there early sunday but we can not delivery until tuesday afternoon. ugh!!
i am counting the days to our next home time.
love and miss you all ,already
Jun 4, 2010
almost home
spring time sure brings out the animals.
this has been a deadly month. mice running all over the roads. i dont care about them. i hit a little bird, they should be able to fly faster than that. i hit a pheasant. i felt bad for that one. he took off from the right side of the road and he almost hit the windshield, but he gained enough height to just hit the skyrise thing. oh that hit hard. there was a truck passing me at the time and when he went by he just shook his head and said 'almost made it' .almost hit a crane, you can see them start flapping their wings faster, as the truck gets closer, it like they know, im telling them faster, faster, he just pulled his legs in at the last minute.
there have been skunks every couple of miles. i havent hit one of them thank goodness. then there was a turtle, yea a turtle. we were going east and he was trying to cross over to the pond on the west side i guess. i dont know how he got over on this side anyway. he just took like two steps, his whole body wasnt even across the white line on the shoulder, i missed him and there was no body right behind me. i know he did not make it. he had all off the east bound side to cross , the grassy medium and then if he still had the energy, the west side to cross. poor thing.
there are armadillos in a lot more states than i thought. but on second thought maybe they are turtles. im surprised kansas and missouri have any wild deer left. you can not drive a mile without seeing one taking a nap. i was surprised that chicago and new jersey had deer taking a nap on the side of the road too. (thats what we used to tell the girls, there just taking a nap)
we will be in salt lake city tonight. no since looking for donny osmond. (because he lives in provo..duh) we will be coming in on I80, if we drive through provo, i will have to look. i dont know why, we only drive the same roadway through town. unless he's hitch hiking, i'll never find him. there is always hope. maybe ill see him at the truck stop getting fuel. dont know what his motor home might look like, im hoping it is painted like the partridge family's bus, that will make things a lot easier for me. im not having much luck looking for people. i never saw bruce springteen in new jersey, will never sees paris hilton and we eat at in and out burgers everytime we are in california. i did see toby keith's equipment truck, it was going the opposite direction so i couldnt get a picture. saw some nas-car car haulers. also going the opposite direction.
i finished reading christopher moores, book the island of the sequined love nun. not as good as the others ive read. my favorites books of his are, the stupidest angel and lamb, the gospel according to biff. if you have a slightly twisted sense of humor you will enjoy those books as much as i did. i will have to grab a couple books while im home.
we should be in oregon saturday. back where the rain is normal rain. and the temperature is a normal temperature.
see you soon
love and miss you all
Jun 2, 2010
chicago,, 2 days and no chicago piza
after we drop our trailer and pick up an empty one we head over to our next load. it doesnt pick up until 11pm. but as soon as we get there we know something isnt right. we are suppose to be picking up a preloaded trailer, but there is not another swift trailer there. so we assumed the mistake was that is is really a live load. ok so we back into one of the loading docks that way we are in compliance with all the signs posted. in the morning there were a couple employee arriving,we get a hold of them and tell then we are picking up a loaded trailer going to phoenix. they tell us all paper work for the outgoing freight is out front in the box, and that they are technically not here today. they just had to finish up a little work.
so i send a message telling the csr, customer service rep, that there is no paperwork for us, there isnt even a loaded swift trailer, or an empty one for that matter. and i asked them what they want us to do.
so we waited a couple of hours and the csr told us there is no freight going to phoenix after all. so they said they would let the load planner know we are available. after about an hour they send us a heavy, load from miller brewing going to phoenix. we denied it because it was to heavy for us. about another hour passed and they sent us another load heavy, but doable for us, this time is is going to springfield oregon. we denied that one also because will does not have enough hours to finish that load and we only want to pay the extra oregon road tax when we are going home. another hour passed and they send us a 5000 lb load, might as well be empty, we should get good fuel mileage. but it is only 500 miles. and its a live load. so we accepted, we were afraid the loads were just going down hill so at least this one gets us out of the chicago area. the other problem with this load is it does not pick up until 7 am. since it is only 29 miles away we decide we should drive there and sit that way we can avoid rush hour traffic
