I’ve been busy merging four email accounts on three different laptops using three different email applications (don’t ask, I know). During this process I’ve found a number of emails that have managed to fall through the cracks in the past few months. If you have sent me something to one of my various accounts (see the Contact page for the proper one for this web site) and I haven’t responded in a timely fashion, please feel free to send along a friendly reminder.

Thanks!

After the adventure in Olney my dispatcher offered me a 3-stop load picking up in Ottawa, Illinois at 0200 and delivering between then and 1100 and ending Green Bay, Wisconsin. After that was a load heading to Arkansas that would kinda sorta get me near the house, at which point I would head home on my own dime. Ah hell no, in other words.

Since time was drawing nigh for me to get sent home for some much needed R&R I offered to rest until the following day (Wednesday) then pick up something headed towards home. The plan this time was for a Budweiser load from nearby St Louis, Missouri to Omaha, Nebraska that I would t-call at our yard in Kansas City.

I took the opportunity to depart Olney for nearby Effingham, Illinois where I got my truck washed and trailer washed out. The rest of my driving day was consumed with the 75-minute drive to Troy, Illinois where I would be staging for the load, and completely by coincidence I would be spending the night at the Pilot there that happens to be next door to a Dairy Queen. And they say truck drivers can’t plan…

Wednesday afternoon I crossed the mighty Mississippi river and dropped my trailer in the large Budweiser yard, then waited with the rest of the other suckers drivers. After a few hours the load was ready and I was sent back into the yard to fetch my trailer. This is what it looked like when I backed under it:

Note the angle of the floor of the trailer compared to the one next to it:

When I get out from under a trailer I leave 1/2″ to 3/4″ or so below the gear and set it down on the ground with my air suspension as I’m pulling out. This makes getting back under the trailer easier and avoids situations where the kingpin might be up high enough so it misses your fifth wheel and the front of the trailer rams the back of your truck cab as you back into it.

One of the yard drivers was being a complete jackass (they have specialized vehicles with hydraulic lifts for their fifth wheels, so they don’t ordinarily touch the landing gear) and ratcheted my gear up a foot or so above my fifth wheel.

Worse, there was 44,400 pounds of beer inside the trailer now and as any truck driver can tell you, when a trailer is fully loaded it is a bear trying to lower the gear.

I could have waited for one of the sockcuckers yard jockeys to come by and shanghai him into lifting the trailer so I could crank the gear up a bit without the pressure, but wouldn’t you know it there isn’t ever one around when you need one. Fifteen minutes of cranking in low gear, huffing, puffing, cursing, spitting and such followed and I eventually got it lowered far enough to get under it normally and latch on. Bastards.

My complaint at the guard shack was rebuffed with the revelation that the spotters here were from a separate company and to “have your folks contact the Bud folks and…” yada yada yada. Fine, I did all that too.

Anyway, grabbed the load, got scaled out and ran it to Kansas City where I arrived just before midnight. Dropped the trailer in the yard with a note asking the driver picking up the load to please take my load locks (sealed in back) to dispatch in Omaha so I get them back then headed off to bed.

Only, there was a reefer across the parking lot with an orange indicator light (green means good, orange means there is a problem) and a flashing screen. I went over to see what the issue was and got it running again. It seemed to be a problem starting, so I took it off of cycle mode and had it run continuous. Sent a message in to dispatch advising them and hit the sack, having done my good deed for the day. Or night, whatever.

My dispatcher lined up a load for me on Monday that was one of the ones that was held over from the weekend. I asked the weekend dispatcher if they needed me to go stage for a load or to wait until Monday and he indicated they had more trucks than loads so I would be fine taking the day off.

Monday morning the story was a bit different as I got the message to head to nearby Schuyler, Nebraska to pick up a loaded trailer heading to Walmart in Olney, Illinois for the following morning. What would have been a nice, full day of driving had I been sent to Schuyler on Sunday turned into a logbook battle to keep the trip legal.

Then there was the snow. A front was coming through the Omaha area as I left the yard and drove west towards Schuyler the snow began to accumulate. I didn’t waste any time turning and burning once I got there and a few hours later I was driving southwards towards Kansas City when the bad weather tapered off.

The long night drive continued until I finally arrived in Olney, Illinois and checked in with the Walmart folks. Got a door, dropped the trailer in it while they did the bump and grind routine with the cargo and was awoken a few hours later and told the paperwork was ready. I even scored a parking spot at the small truck stop a mile or so away and slept away the rest of the morning.

I liked the second edition of my new financial spreadsheet enough I really, really went all out on it. I laboriously entered all the settlement information back to the beginning (I’m missing two weeks at the moment which will be filled in when I get home and get the info from my paper copies), organized it by quarter and year and added a Goals and Metrics page to track my progress.

There are now Total, Year-to-date and Weekly summaries along the top of the first page showing all that information broken down.

Try it, you’ll like it. Get it here.

I had a rare day off yesterday as freight in the Omaha area was sparse and others were here before me (and wanted to run harder, no doubt). I took the day off, got caught up on my TV shows, went out and had lunch at Panera and basically fiddle-farted around.

This morning the folks in the shop (specifically, Matt in the safety lane) took two minutes and fixed the air problem with my driver’s seat. You can see my ghetto repair goodness here:

Afterward it looked the same minus the vice grips.

The trip up to Aurora, Illinois via state highways was smooth and I arrived at the shipper long before my 1400 appointment time. Since no one else carrying my particular cargo was there yet I got a door immediately and they started loading. It still took 2.5 hours but I was gone long before noon so I didn’t really care.

I took a long snooze in Davenport, Iowa and decided to bag on the seat air repair I was contemplating for Des Moines when I fueled. The vice grip seems to have things in order for the moment and I’ll probably be back through Omaha sometime next week when our shop is open.

Since this load doesn’t deliver in Omaha until 0200 on Monday I was allowed to t-call it for a local driver to deal with and I might get another load today to get me down the road.

I misremembered the distance from Lexington, Nebraska to Ottawa, Illinois — including my deadhead it was right around 620. Which is a nice full day of driving along I-80 at a steady clip.

We’re supposed to take trailers through the Safety Lane at HQ in Omaha if we’re passing through and I did just that. It needed some minor work then I was let loose upon the unsuspecting public again. I was hoping for some free eats at the Friday safety meeting but this is the one week in the month without one, so boo.

Both my front seats developed air leaks last year and now my driver’s seat has developed a new leak at the site of the repair. The shop didn’t have anyone free that could handle it while I was in town so as a temporary measure to remain sane I clamped it off with some vice grips. Hopefully I can get it fixed when I fuel up today in Des Moines, Iowa.

Speaking of today’s trip, it is 500ish miles: head up to Aurora, Illinois then pick up a load heading back to Omaha. It isn’t set to deliver until 0200 Monday so I should be able to t-call it in the yard and get something else tomorrow.

So much for my settlement emails coming in like clockwork: yesterday I heard nada. I’ll have to ring someone’s chime on Monday to get it straightened out.

The Bud distributor in Osage City, Kansas took ages to get me unloaded, deciding instead that a load of pallets leaving on a Bud truck was more important to handle first.

The plan o’ the day was for me to head to our yard in Kansas City to trade my newly empty trailer for a loaded one that was dropped there the previous night, then take that trailer down to Carthage, Missouri. There, a third trailer was waiting that was loaded and ready to go, just needing my load locks to arrive so they could seal it up and let me have it. Then, that trailer was to go to a food warehouse in Kearney, Nebraska I was at before:

It almost went as planned. Because the Bud distributor held me up so long we had to push the unload time in Kearney until 1100 this morning instead of 0730. I pooped out last night around Nebraska City, Nebraska and parked the truck at one of the truck stops there, and this was some job as pretty much every spot was taken. Still, with a dint of perseverance I managed to get into a safe spot and snooze until this morning when I completed the trip.

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I told my dispatcher my hours were running a bit low and I wasn’t feeling great and he found me a trip tomorrow from nearby Lexington, Nebraska (home of My Favorite super Walmart!) to Ottawa, Illinois. It is an easy 500ish mile trip over mostly flat terrain and the weather, while cold, doesn’t seem to be heading towards snow or ice.

The third stop in the Denver area complete and my trailer empty, I sat around. I really wish I had been preplanned for a load since my 14-hour clock had been running for five hours by this time, so my available driving hours were draining away with each passing minute.

I queried my dispatcher and he was “getting together with the planner.” A while later, I eventually received a plan that would take me to nearby Aurora, Colorado to pick up a load of Budweiser products heading to Osage City, Kansas. Unfortunately, the shipper in this case is notoriously slow and I complained that my hours would run out by the time the load was aboard and sealed up. Our HQ team shifted the delivery back a day, which basically means I lost a day in the process.

Now, if I operated like most drivers this would be a serious financial hit. If they don’t maximize every available driving hour in every workweek it hits them hard in the pocketbook. Since I concentrate more on the efficient use of my time (and the efficient utilization of my truck) the hit is a bit less stinging.

In any event, the load was, indeed, six hours in coming and I was out of hours at the shipper. A night spent nearby turned into a beautiful driving day and I crossed over into Kansas and made my way to tiny Osage City without incident.

Of course, when I arrived at the Bud distributor that I had been to before, the building was vacant and they had relocated. No problem, I tracked them down via my GPS and drove to the new location. No dice, a vacant lot. This, interspersed with some very harrowing driving along narrow side streets with sharp turns and prominent stop signs to knock over.

I used my satellite to ask for better directions and the ones that came back were a joke. Finally, using my pair of Mark I eyeballs I spotted the Budweiser sign on a building and made my way there, where I’m parked tonight.

I would include a Google map of my journey but the internet connection here is about as spotty as I’ve ever seen and sites take ages to load.

Tomorrow I have not one but two preplans… and I’m going back to someplace I’ve videoed before that includes a very difficult back. Yay me.

The trip from Grants, New Mexico to the greater Denver area took place under clear skies but very gusty winds. Snowie, as you can see here, was hanging on for dear life as I maneuvered my truck down the road.

I fueled up in Denver late in the afternoon then relocated to my first of three stops I need to make tomorrow morning.