LasVegas,NV

Do you see my location?? Finally got the truck fixed and got the heck out of Atlanta. We were there a total of 20 days and only 9 of those were working on the boat I think. UGH! Small blessings though, I did find out that I was getting breakdown pay so we will about break even, even with the down time, so I am very thankful about that!

Once we had the truck back last Thursday evening, we picked up a load in Calhoun,GA and ran it up to Plainview,TX and dropped it off Saturday morning. We picked up a load in Plainview fron EXCEL but I had to make a stop in Lubbock because the reefer was having issues. Luckily that was a 2 hour fix and we were on the road again. We have two deliveries on this load. We delivered the first in Casa Grande,AZ on Sunday morning and now I am sitting in Las Vegas,NV waiting to drop the last of it here at Sysco which is about half a mile away from the Petro that we are parked at.

When we delivered in Casa Grande yesterday, they unloaded 32,ooo lbs of beef which left me with only 3 pallets weighing about 3,000 lbs. I am so glad things worked out that way and that I was super light, almost empty, because losing that weight saved me from being in an accident yesterday and most likely saved me from killing some people.

I was driving west on I-10 on the west side of Phoenix. It is a really long stretch of road for at least 60 miles I bet without a single curve in the road. There was a truck on the right shoulder that was broke down and he had his triangles out. There was a black Camry and a brown Toyota Tundra passing me in the left lane and as soon as they passed me, I got in the left lane to pass the broke down truck. As soon as I got passed the truck, I signaled to get back in the right lane and out of nowhere, a black Honda comes flying up to pass me on the right. So I stay in the left lane to let the idiot pass. I swear he was doing at least 90 mph. Anyway, he goes to the shoulder, even though I am still in the left lane, to finish passing me. Meanwhile, the Camry, which was in front of the Toyota, signals to come back to the right lane. As far as she can tell, the lane is clear because the idiot in the Honda is still on the shoulder. At this point, they are about 100 ft in front of me and I start to merge back to the right again. Well, as the Camry comes to the right lane, to let the Toyota pass, the Honda decided to swerve into the right lane behind the Camry, but he is going to fast. So he jerks it back to the shoulder to pass her on the shoulder! He gets a little loose and tries to get in front of her but he clips her on the right front quarter panel and he comes over. This basically means the Camry did a pit maneuver to the Honda which sent him spinning into the left lane. The Camry bounced to the left, and hit the Toyota, which then made the Camry go spinning onto the right shoulder down a ditch. The Honda was now spinnng in front of the Toyota and the push from the Camry into the Toyota had the Toyota and the Honda spinning, side by side, into the center median. And all of this was no more than 100 ft in front of me!

Anyway, I manage to get stopped and pulled to the right shoulder just past where they went off the road. In my rearview mirror, I couldn't even see the road because of all of the dust and sand from the wreck. I was sure that all three cars had rolled. I grab the CB and tell everyone to slow down and that the lanes were clear, even though they couldn't see, because of the sand, and that the cars had went off the road. Then I call 911 and jump out of the truck while I am still on the phone to go check for injuries. I don't know how, but the good Lord was watching over everyone, because none of the cars rolled and there were no injuries. Amazing. But like I said earlier, if I had not unloaded that 32,000 lbs earlier that morning, there is no way I could have stopped and I would have rammed right through those three cars when they got together. When I say the Honda slip in behind the Camry and slam on his brakes, I started shutting the truck down because I just knew this was going to be bad. Since I was almost empty I was able to get slowed down enough to not hit anyone.

So, lesson for the day. Don't be an idiot and try to pass on the shoulder!! Get your head out of your ass and pay attention. Slowing down for 5 seconds to let someone slower that you pass BEFORE you go around them, in the left lane, could save your life or someone elses life!

Atlanta,GA

Trying to be optomistic, this is our last day in the hotel. We are keeping our fingers crossed that they will give us the release tomorrow so we can get the heck out of Dodge.

So for our last day, we are being extremely lazy. Went to bed last night around 0300 and got up around 1100 today. Had some coffee, warmed up some left over pizza and now we are enjoying and NCIS Marathon on tv. It is shaping up to be a great last day! Now to just get a nap in at some point. :)

Atlanta,GA

Nothing much new to report. Unfortunately we are still in Atlanta waiting on the truck to be released. From what I can gather they have torn it apart and replaced the DPF (something to do with the regen system on the 08 and newer models) and are still waiting for Detroit Diesel to give them the ok to release it. After they replaced it, the had to run more tests and send the results to Detroit. Now we are just waiting to get a response back from them. The bad part is that Detroit is closed on the weekend. So here we sit for another two nights until they open back up on Monday. I am really hoping that we get a response back by then. We have got to hit the road. Now we will get going on two weeks without a paycheck and that means two weeks in the hole. It isn't looking good and I think I am about to start developing ulcers!! LOL

Atlanta,GA

Hello everyone! We are currently stuck in Atlanta,GA. UGH!!

We took time off starting on May 29th so we could work on the houseboat. We got a LOT done this trip. We got the upper deck done, got it joined with the lower deck and we got the roofing material on. We also decided to go with aluminum siding, in 4x10 sheets and we got the siding on. Now the boat is completely dried in. YAY! Next trip we are hoping to get the electrical wiring done and get the plumbing in. We were exhausted and sunburned, but after over a week, we completed everything we could for this trip.

We were available this Monday for a load and then ran into problems with the truck. It started shaking real bad so we had new drive tires put on and that took care of the problem. It is still pulling to the right some so we need to get it in for an alignment as soon as we can before it starts wearing these new tires. After we got that done, we took it to Freightliner to have them look at the regen system. Our check engine light was on and the regen light was flashing, but it wouldn't let us do a manual regen. So bright and early Tuesday morning we got it to Freightliner and now it is Thursday and it is still in the shop. They have the regen system torn apart and have sent pictures to Freightliner (corporate I guess) and are waiting for them to look at the pics to figure out the next step. We also had an air leak, but they found out it was an airbag on the cab yesterday and have already gotten that fixed.

So, here we sit. Tomorrow will be two weeks that we have been off counting the vacation time to work on the boat. That means two weeks that we haven't been working. The first week wasn't bad because we got paid since we came in on Friday and had trips that we delivered after payroll cutoff. But now we aren't getting paid. So they need to get this fixed so we can get back on the road!