Merry Christmas everyone! I wanted to get on here real quick and say that to everyone. I hope each and every one of you out there has had a wonderful day with family and friends. And if you are like we are, stuck in a truck stop somewhere, I hope that you at least are safe and warm and were able to talk with your family today.
We took that load out of Denver and delivered it and then got another load going back to Denver. We dropped that trailer at our yard there and then were dispatched to Schuyler,NE to pick up our next load. Last night around midnight or so the high winds had J pulling off the roads into the Bossleman's here in Elm Creek. Along with the high winds came snow and now we have been here for close to 24 hours. We knew we would spend Christmas out on the road, but we didn't plan on being stranded in a blizzard!
We are supposed to have this load picked up by 0800 in the morning but that isn't going to hapen. Although we only have about 130 miles to go, we aren't going anywhere until the wind dies down and we have some visability. So today we enjoyed a nice Christmas dinner that included a tuna sandwich and Fritos. YUMMY! Ok, I love tuna sandwiches, but not my ideal Christmas dinner. But I can't complain. I got to spend the day with the person I love the most in this whole world. What more could a girl ask for?
Friday, December 25, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Oak Grove,MO
Yay! We made it out of Denver after a false start. Yesterday morning we were available at 0700. Even though we were fairly sure we wouldn't have a load right then, we went ahead and got up and got the truck loaded and headed out from Colorado Springs up to Denver. Since we had the truck in the shop, we didn't have a trailer, and we knew that we would have to go back to the yard in Denver to get one.
We got up to Denver around 0930 and still didn't have a load so we headed to one of our favorite restaurants, McCoy's, to have some breakfast. Yummy Huevos Rancheros with green chile. Delicious! About the time we were done my phone rings and it is our FM asking if we had an empty. I tell him we don't but we are only about 3 miles from the yard and are about to head over there. He tells e to let him know as soon as I have an empty so he can dispatch me on a load. It is starting to look good for a load so we book it over to the yard, hook up to an empty, send in a message letting him know what trailer we have, and we wait. And wait. And wait.
Finally around 1400 I get the load assignment. We desperately needed fuel, so with a current trip number in hand, I stop at the TA to get fuel and then wake J up to let him know he is about to start his shift. He gets up and I drive the remaining 5 miles to Safeway where we are picking up, which is there in Denver. I checked into the gate and start heading around towards the back to the shipping office and my qualcomm beeps. Wouldn't you know it? The message says that our load was cancelled. Just great! Off we go back to the yard to wait on another dispatch.
It only took about an hour and a half but we finally got another dispatch. We had to deadhead 300 miles over to Kansas for a load going 600 miles to Montgomery City,MO. This load was supposed to be on a pre-loaded trailer so J takes off to KS and I hit the sack. J managed to get the load picked up and get scaled then he parked so I could get a few hours of non moving sleep. This load wasn't scheduled to deliver until 0500 on Wednesday so we knew we had extra time. Once I got up and got on the road today, I got a message from our FM saying that we can drop this load anytime. That works for us, so I told him our eta would be 1900 tonight.
I was quite surprised when around noon we got a message for a pre-plan. We don't get those a lot. But I think with Christmas right around the corner, a lot of places are loading up all the trailers they have so they can afford to take the day off. The plan is for us to drop this then head over to St Louis to pick up another load that is going to Aurora,CO. Now for the bad news. Have you been watching the weather? Major snow storm hitting the mid-west and that means we will have to drive right through the middle of it on I-70 to get back to Denver. YUCK!! And to think we have been pretty lucky so far this winter not hitting snow but once! I guess we will just take is slow and take our time, as we usually do when we hit bad weather. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it safe and sound!
I did ask our FM about a load out of Denver. The pre-plan we have delivering in Aurora delivers on the 24th, Christmas Eve. I was worried about delivering and then getting stuck there until the 26th when people are back to work. He didn't seem to worried about finding a load. There are a lot of drivers going home for Christmas so he thinks we should be able to get a load off of our yard or get another load that is pre-loaded somewhere. I hope that is the case so we can keep moving. We have plans to go to Lubbock on the 29th to have a late Christmas with family, so I don't want to be sitting for two days the week before we go home!
We got up to Denver around 0930 and still didn't have a load so we headed to one of our favorite restaurants, McCoy's, to have some breakfast. Yummy Huevos Rancheros with green chile. Delicious! About the time we were done my phone rings and it is our FM asking if we had an empty. I tell him we don't but we are only about 3 miles from the yard and are about to head over there. He tells e to let him know as soon as I have an empty so he can dispatch me on a load. It is starting to look good for a load so we book it over to the yard, hook up to an empty, send in a message letting him know what trailer we have, and we wait. And wait. And wait.
Finally around 1400 I get the load assignment. We desperately needed fuel, so with a current trip number in hand, I stop at the TA to get fuel and then wake J up to let him know he is about to start his shift. He gets up and I drive the remaining 5 miles to Safeway where we are picking up, which is there in Denver. I checked into the gate and start heading around towards the back to the shipping office and my qualcomm beeps. Wouldn't you know it? The message says that our load was cancelled. Just great! Off we go back to the yard to wait on another dispatch.
It only took about an hour and a half but we finally got another dispatch. We had to deadhead 300 miles over to Kansas for a load going 600 miles to Montgomery City,MO. This load was supposed to be on a pre-loaded trailer so J takes off to KS and I hit the sack. J managed to get the load picked up and get scaled then he parked so I could get a few hours of non moving sleep. This load wasn't scheduled to deliver until 0500 on Wednesday so we knew we had extra time. Once I got up and got on the road today, I got a message from our FM saying that we can drop this load anytime. That works for us, so I told him our eta would be 1900 tonight.
I was quite surprised when around noon we got a message for a pre-plan. We don't get those a lot. But I think with Christmas right around the corner, a lot of places are loading up all the trailers they have so they can afford to take the day off. The plan is for us to drop this then head over to St Louis to pick up another load that is going to Aurora,CO. Now for the bad news. Have you been watching the weather? Major snow storm hitting the mid-west and that means we will have to drive right through the middle of it on I-70 to get back to Denver. YUCK!! And to think we have been pretty lucky so far this winter not hitting snow but once! I guess we will just take is slow and take our time, as we usually do when we hit bad weather. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it safe and sound!
I did ask our FM about a load out of Denver. The pre-plan we have delivering in Aurora delivers on the 24th, Christmas Eve. I was worried about delivering and then getting stuck there until the 26th when people are back to work. He didn't seem to worried about finding a load. There are a lot of drivers going home for Christmas so he thinks we should be able to get a load off of our yard or get another load that is pre-loaded somewhere. I hope that is the case so we can keep moving. We have plans to go to Lubbock on the 29th to have a late Christmas with family, so I don't want to be sitting for two days the week before we go home!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Denver,CO
We have been running fairly hard and have had some problems with the truck since I posted last. On top of that, I have just been in a funk and haven't posted lately. I apologize to you guys and wanted to let you know that we are indeed alive and well.
Too much has happened since I last posted so I will give you the short version. Our of Pittston we got a load out to California. We delivered on a Saturday, got our next load Sunday afternoon. Got to our first of two pick-ups on Monday morning for our scheduled appointment time of 0800 and they didn't have the produce for us until 2300 Monday night. That meant we couldn't get our second pick-up until Tuesday morning. Managed to get that and we headed out to Kirkwood,NY. This was the weekend that Flagstaff and Colorado and the Great Lakes region was getting tons of snow. We ended up and went the long route and made it to delivery on time with about 30 minutes to spare.
From there we drove down to Pittston to get our trailer an alignment. No freight in the area so we dropped the trailer and bobtailed to Indiana to pick up a new trailer from the Wabash factory in Lafayette. Then drove back to Ohio to pick up a load going to Atlanta. Delivered in Atlanta and it took FedExalmost 12 hours to get us unloaded. From there we picked up in Atlanta but we took that load to a drop lot for another driver and then went back to the same place and picked up another load that we took to Sterling,IL. From Sterling we drove up to Sturtevant,WI and picked up a hazmat load that we delivered down to Brownsville,TX. Delivered that and then we had the air dryer go out on the truck. Road assist sent someone out that by-passed the air dryer so that we could keep going for the moment.
From there we got an overnight load up to Garland,TX. Delivered that and then they sent us up to Waldron,AR to pick up a Tyson load going to Grandview,WA. Unfortunately at this time we were out of hours and couldn't make it all the way to Grandview,WA and be ontime. What we did was take the load as far as Denver,CO were we dropped it at our yard. Since we were out of hours this was the perfect time to put the truck in the Freightliner shop to get the air dryer fixed. We have a friend down in Colorado Springs, so when we dropped the trailer last night, he drove up to Denver to pick us and and we have been at his house since last night.
About an hour ago we found out that the truck was ready so J and Kevin just took off to head back up to Denver to pick up the truck and head back down to the Springs. I at the moment am finishing up our laundry so that we can load the truck back up when they get back so we can head back out in the morning. We said that we would be available around 0700 in the morning except that we aren't going to have a trailer. We will probably have to drive back up to Denver in the morning to get a trailer, unless they can find us one somewhere down here in the Springs. But if we waited until our laundry was all done, that would be too late for Kevin to take us back up to the truck since he has to work at 0600 in the morning. Meh, we will deal with finding a trailer in the morning. LOL
So that is where we stand at the moment. We will only be back out on the road for about 9 more days before we go to Lubbock for a late Christmas celebration with family. Then we will keep our fingers crossed that we can stay busy through the slow season of January through March!
Too much has happened since I last posted so I will give you the short version. Our of Pittston we got a load out to California. We delivered on a Saturday, got our next load Sunday afternoon. Got to our first of two pick-ups on Monday morning for our scheduled appointment time of 0800 and they didn't have the produce for us until 2300 Monday night. That meant we couldn't get our second pick-up until Tuesday morning. Managed to get that and we headed out to Kirkwood,NY. This was the weekend that Flagstaff and Colorado and the Great Lakes region was getting tons of snow. We ended up and went the long route and made it to delivery on time with about 30 minutes to spare.
From there we drove down to Pittston to get our trailer an alignment. No freight in the area so we dropped the trailer and bobtailed to Indiana to pick up a new trailer from the Wabash factory in Lafayette. Then drove back to Ohio to pick up a load going to Atlanta. Delivered in Atlanta and it took FedExalmost 12 hours to get us unloaded. From there we picked up in Atlanta but we took that load to a drop lot for another driver and then went back to the same place and picked up another load that we took to Sterling,IL. From Sterling we drove up to Sturtevant,WI and picked up a hazmat load that we delivered down to Brownsville,TX. Delivered that and then we had the air dryer go out on the truck. Road assist sent someone out that by-passed the air dryer so that we could keep going for the moment.
From there we got an overnight load up to Garland,TX. Delivered that and then they sent us up to Waldron,AR to pick up a Tyson load going to Grandview,WA. Unfortunately at this time we were out of hours and couldn't make it all the way to Grandview,WA and be ontime. What we did was take the load as far as Denver,CO were we dropped it at our yard. Since we were out of hours this was the perfect time to put the truck in the Freightliner shop to get the air dryer fixed. We have a friend down in Colorado Springs, so when we dropped the trailer last night, he drove up to Denver to pick us and and we have been at his house since last night.
About an hour ago we found out that the truck was ready so J and Kevin just took off to head back up to Denver to pick up the truck and head back down to the Springs. I at the moment am finishing up our laundry so that we can load the truck back up when they get back so we can head back out in the morning. We said that we would be available around 0700 in the morning except that we aren't going to have a trailer. We will probably have to drive back up to Denver in the morning to get a trailer, unless they can find us one somewhere down here in the Springs. But if we waited until our laundry was all done, that would be too late for Kevin to take us back up to the truck since he has to work at 0600 in the morning. Meh, we will deal with finding a trailer in the morning. LOL
So that is where we stand at the moment. We will only be back out on the road for about 9 more days before we go to Lubbock for a late Christmas celebration with family. Then we will keep our fingers crossed that we can stay busy through the slow season of January through March!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Pittston,PA
Hello there from a nice comfy hotel room here in Pittston. We have been pretty busy since Thanksgiving and running ourselves ragged so I haven't posted. I will give you the shortest rundown of what we have been doing.
After my last post, we continued on to our drop that load in Lewiston,ME. We made great time and J was able to get us there a few hours before appointment time. He got us docked and then woke me up so that he could head to bed. Around 1000 hrs local, I was unloaded and headed out except that I had half a pallet of persimmons that they rejected. After placing a call in to our claims department I headed down to the closest truck stop to wait for word back on what they wanted me to do with the product. It took several hours but they finally told me to dump the product and sent me our next load. Unfortunately, getting rid of that many cases of persimmons is easier said than done.
Luckily we didn't have to pick up our next load until 2200 hours that night (Sunday) so we had some time to figure out what to do. I let J sleep until around 1500 then we got up and figured out what to do. Where we were parked would not let us dump them in their dumpster so we had to move on to find another place. We found a service plaza in Kennebunk,ME and the attendants there said that we could dump them in their dumpster so we lucked out.
As soon as we did that, we headed to Haverhill,MA to pick up an overnight load going down to Jersey City. This was a nice easy load with only 266 miles to run overnight. On the down side, J ran out of hours before midnight so he had to park for a while. He got me up the next morning and I drove the last 90 miles or so into Jersey City to make that delivery. We got there on time, even though you know how much we hate going into that area, and we made it to a dock in pretty short order. It did take a while to get unloaded, but once I got my paperwork back I found out that this load also had product that was rejected. This time is was 68 cases of Pillsbury busquits. Only a few of the cans had exploded but they refused all the cases on that pallet. Soooo, here we go again. This is one of the reasons that I don't like picking up pre-loaded trailers. When we do that we don't know what condition the product is in.
Anyway, once I called claims, yet again, they tell me to take the product to a Salvation Army in Perth Amboy,NJ. Talk about some small streets and low clearances! We even had to park in the middle of the road blocking traffic with cars having to go in the oncoming lane to get around us while we were unloading. But it was worth it to know that at least this product was going to people that could use it instead of having to throw it in a dumpster. When we left, we managed to follow our directions, which were wrong, and had to turn around at the entrance to an apartment complex because the road dead-ended. Whew, that wasn't fun! But we got turned around and from there we had to go find a trailer wash.
We managed to find the trailer wash and get that done and then we headed over to Tropicana where we were told to drop our trailer. Finally! We were getting a few days off! Well, only because we had to put the truck in the shop. LOL So we drove to Pittston,PA where we have a yard and put the truck in the shop. We were having problems with the air compressor. When we got here we found out that we couldn't get the truck in until this morning, so last night we checked in to a hotel and this morning J took the truck up there and waited while they got it fixed. Not knowing when we checked in how long it would take to get the truck fixed, we had gotten the room for two nights. So instead of heading out this afternoon when the truck was ready, we decided to stay until in the morning. This way we both will get a restart on hours and we needed a rest.
Now we are all rested up and ready to go back out until we take a few days off right after Christmas!
After my last post, we continued on to our drop that load in Lewiston,ME. We made great time and J was able to get us there a few hours before appointment time. He got us docked and then woke me up so that he could head to bed. Around 1000 hrs local, I was unloaded and headed out except that I had half a pallet of persimmons that they rejected. After placing a call in to our claims department I headed down to the closest truck stop to wait for word back on what they wanted me to do with the product. It took several hours but they finally told me to dump the product and sent me our next load. Unfortunately, getting rid of that many cases of persimmons is easier said than done.
Luckily we didn't have to pick up our next load until 2200 hours that night (Sunday) so we had some time to figure out what to do. I let J sleep until around 1500 then we got up and figured out what to do. Where we were parked would not let us dump them in their dumpster so we had to move on to find another place. We found a service plaza in Kennebunk,ME and the attendants there said that we could dump them in their dumpster so we lucked out.
As soon as we did that, we headed to Haverhill,MA to pick up an overnight load going down to Jersey City. This was a nice easy load with only 266 miles to run overnight. On the down side, J ran out of hours before midnight so he had to park for a while. He got me up the next morning and I drove the last 90 miles or so into Jersey City to make that delivery. We got there on time, even though you know how much we hate going into that area, and we made it to a dock in pretty short order. It did take a while to get unloaded, but once I got my paperwork back I found out that this load also had product that was rejected. This time is was 68 cases of Pillsbury busquits. Only a few of the cans had exploded but they refused all the cases on that pallet. Soooo, here we go again. This is one of the reasons that I don't like picking up pre-loaded trailers. When we do that we don't know what condition the product is in.
Anyway, once I called claims, yet again, they tell me to take the product to a Salvation Army in Perth Amboy,NJ. Talk about some small streets and low clearances! We even had to park in the middle of the road blocking traffic with cars having to go in the oncoming lane to get around us while we were unloading. But it was worth it to know that at least this product was going to people that could use it instead of having to throw it in a dumpster. When we left, we managed to follow our directions, which were wrong, and had to turn around at the entrance to an apartment complex because the road dead-ended. Whew, that wasn't fun! But we got turned around and from there we had to go find a trailer wash.
We managed to find the trailer wash and get that done and then we headed over to Tropicana where we were told to drop our trailer. Finally! We were getting a few days off! Well, only because we had to put the truck in the shop. LOL So we drove to Pittston,PA where we have a yard and put the truck in the shop. We were having problems with the air compressor. When we got here we found out that we couldn't get the truck in until this morning, so last night we checked in to a hotel and this morning J took the truck up there and waited while they got it fixed. Not knowing when we checked in how long it would take to get the truck fixed, we had gotten the room for two nights. So instead of heading out this afternoon when the truck was ready, we decided to stay until in the morning. This way we both will get a restart on hours and we needed a rest.
Now we are all rested up and ready to go back out until we take a few days off right after Christmas!
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