We made the drop in Irwindale,CA this morning after a nice leisurely drive out here. We made it into Barstow,CA around 1400 local time yesterday and stayed there for the night. It was only 97 miles from there to Irwindale but there just aren't many truck stops to park at in California over night so that was our best choice. Hooked up to Idleaire and slept very comfortably. Got up early and made it to destination with time to spare. After we got unloaded there I drove down the block to an empty lot to take Smokey for a walk and to wait for our next load. I missed the turn into the lot and had to get up on the freeway, turn around and come back which meant I drove 10 miles for a parking lot that was basically right across from where I delivered. I had a blonde moment. It happens sometimes.
While we were there I was able to get the paperwork done from that load and we got our next load. So I got things rounded up and headed out. Drove 91 miles down to Carlsbad,CA to pick up a load going to Hebron,KY. It is 1400 our time and we have to deliver at 1300 eastern time on Wednesday and they haven't even started loading us. 2200 miles to go in less than 48 hours. Plus we are going to try to stop in Ontario at the TA and meet up with Rich and his son. They spent the night last night at a truck stop across the street from where we stayed. I wish I would have known that last night and we could have had dinner. But we will stop for a while and visit and then just haul ass to destination. We should get pretty good gas mileage going east so we can probably kick the speed up some. I was actually amazed, because coming out here, we averaged 6.6 for the whole trip. Pretty good considering the mountains. Mileage always seem to get worse going west than it does headed east, but we did pretty good coming out here. Now I have no idea what we are picking up but is shows on our work assignment that the weight is 37,362. Not the heavest we have hauled but certainly not the lightest. I will just hope for the best.
That is all for now I guess.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Back in the saddle
So to speak. We got the house cleaned out and everything put in storage. So we are in effect homeless at this point. We had a mobile home, but now we truly have a mobile home, it just has 18 wheels. We are really going to miss that house because we had completely remodeled it. And it was on about 4.5 acres of land with a pond out front. But what is the point of shelling out close to $2000 a month for a mortgage, utilities, home insurance, etc. Just didn't make sense. It is kinda liberating to be free of all of that and be nomadic. I never thought I would really enjoy life on the road enough to get rid of everything, but it completely suits us. And it is REALLY nice to be able to watch that extra money pile up in the bank each month. :) A lot of drivers stay out on the road 5-6 weeks and then go home and take a week off. Not having a home, we won't do that. We plan on taking a day or two off every 3 weeks or so where ever we happen to be. No real place that we want to spend a whole week at. Like family for instance. 2-3 days visiting family is a good number. You can visit, catch up on things and do stuff, but after 2-3 days, you end up vegging out on the couch, not talking, just watching TV. My Mammaw always said that fish and company both stink after 3 days. That is a good rule to live by. So when we get tired, we will take a day or two to do something we wouldn't normally get to do. We can take a 3 day 2 night cruise, see the Grand Canyon, go skiing in the winter, maybe scuba diving in Florida. Who knows? We can do anything we want!
We came back out on the road yesterday. We picked up a load in Arlington,TX at 1700 that had to be in Harrisonville,MO by 0600. Dropped that and drove 125 miles back to Joplin where our next load is. Grabbed lunch, which by the way took FOREVER at the Petro and that is unusual, got a shower, washed out the trailer and headed to pick up here in Joplin at 1600. We get here and there is another Prime driver here. They mixed our appointments up. Mine was 1600 and his was 1700 hrs. But they had him at 1600 and me at 1700. Which is fine with me. We are going to the same place in Irwindale,CA for 0500 and 0600 appointments on Monday morning. It is about 1600 miles and he is a solo and we are a team. Let him load first because he is going to have to haul ass to get there and probably do a little creative logging. We aren't planning on leaving out until in the morning. Probably head back to the Petro for the night and I will get up early in the morning and start driving. Then we can get there Sunday afternoon and have a nice Father's Day meal somewhere. I don't know what they were thinking giving a solo that run.
Anyway, that is what's going on here and we are so happy to be back to work. After packing the house and moving everything by ourselves, we were ready for a break! I have bruises everywhere and half of them I don't know how they got there. Driving is easy and it doesn't hurt!
We came back out on the road yesterday. We picked up a load in Arlington,TX at 1700 that had to be in Harrisonville,MO by 0600. Dropped that and drove 125 miles back to Joplin where our next load is. Grabbed lunch, which by the way took FOREVER at the Petro and that is unusual, got a shower, washed out the trailer and headed to pick up here in Joplin at 1600. We get here and there is another Prime driver here. They mixed our appointments up. Mine was 1600 and his was 1700 hrs. But they had him at 1600 and me at 1700. Which is fine with me. We are going to the same place in Irwindale,CA for 0500 and 0600 appointments on Monday morning. It is about 1600 miles and he is a solo and we are a team. Let him load first because he is going to have to haul ass to get there and probably do a little creative logging. We aren't planning on leaving out until in the morning. Probably head back to the Petro for the night and I will get up early in the morning and start driving. Then we can get there Sunday afternoon and have a nice Father's Day meal somewhere. I don't know what they were thinking giving a solo that run.
Anyway, that is what's going on here and we are so happy to be back to work. After packing the house and moving everything by ourselves, we were ready for a break! I have bruises everywhere and half of them I don't know how they got there. Driving is easy and it doesn't hurt!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Graduation Pictures
Here they are! Graduation pictures. I have a video that I am going to try to load next but the computer locked up when I tried a few minutes ago so I am going to try to load it in a new post. This is the family. Jessica, Justin, Me and J. What a great day it was and we are so proud of Justin!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Graduation Day has arrived!
We didn't think he would make it, not necessarily to graduation, but to this age in general. Justin was in the ER something like 6-7 times before he even turned 5. This kid is not afraid to try anything, adventurous you would say, and just a wee bit accident prone. Well, ok, a LOT accident prone, just like his daddy. :) But he made it and we are so incredibly proud of him. Graduation is this evening at the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum at Texas Christian University and this morning he took his PT test for enrolement to the Navy SEAL program. He has already taken the written test and passed so this is the final step. From here he will just have to get through a SEAL basic training and AIT training then off to SEAL school. How can you not be proud of that? We haven't heard from him yet, but he has been practicing for this PT test with some actual SEALS and has been training with them, so we have no doubts he will make it. This kid is 6'3" and in excellent shape with like 0% body fat. Ok, maybe not 0% but dang close to it. Hi is motivated to do this and I know he will do excellent. Right now we are headed to meet him and his girlfriend and her family and some others for lunch before graduation tonight. I made sure and brought the camera so we will get some pictures and I will post them for you all to see!
We have been really busy getting the house packed up. We were supposed to head out tomorrow but we are going to wait until Wednesday because if we take that one extra day, the house will be completely done and cleaned and we won't have to come back until it sells so we are looking forward to hitting it hard out on the road. We are so worn out and sore right now. We have done it all ourselves. And moving big furniture that is heavy isn't easy when it is just me and J. But I dug down and called up my inner HULK and we were able to get it done. All of the clothes we donated to a resale shop. They were so gracious when we came in. I am talking we took down about 16-17 trash bags full of clothes. I had no idea I had that much stuff in my closet. It is a pretty big closet though. HAHA Then they said that they would take ANYTHING that they could resale so we even took them our sofa, loveseat, recliner, entertainment center and some home decorations. Plus some stuff out of the kitchen. I am happy because I know we will make some family really happy. It makes me feel good.
So that is what we have been up to the last 4-5 days or however long it has been since I last posted. In the next few days I will get some pictures up.
We have been really busy getting the house packed up. We were supposed to head out tomorrow but we are going to wait until Wednesday because if we take that one extra day, the house will be completely done and cleaned and we won't have to come back until it sells so we are looking forward to hitting it hard out on the road. We are so worn out and sore right now. We have done it all ourselves. And moving big furniture that is heavy isn't easy when it is just me and J. But I dug down and called up my inner HULK and we were able to get it done. All of the clothes we donated to a resale shop. They were so gracious when we came in. I am talking we took down about 16-17 trash bags full of clothes. I had no idea I had that much stuff in my closet. It is a pretty big closet though. HAHA Then they said that they would take ANYTHING that they could resale so we even took them our sofa, loveseat, recliner, entertainment center and some home decorations. Plus some stuff out of the kitchen. I am happy because I know we will make some family really happy. It makes me feel good.
So that is what we have been up to the last 4-5 days or however long it has been since I last posted. In the next few days I will get some pictures up.
Friday, June 6, 2008
FINALLY made it for Ft Worth! Bad Storms!
Since I last posted we left California and made it to Texas. After stopping at the rest area in Westley,CA I took off driving day shift the next morning. I got a full 10 hour break and decided I do better driving during the day. I am a little more patient than J in traffic but mainly I was just having problems driving at night after the incident of being ran off the road. So I took off and got us to Barstow,CA. We switched there. The winds were really high out there in CA. Thank God it was a really good tail wind for us but you really had to watch out when you came around a corner because the side wind will whip you all around. Coming into Barstow off of Hwy 58, I took Lenwood to cut over to the truck stops. That put the wind directly at my side. And that little road has signs for blowing sand. I ended up going about 25 mph, felt like I was going to get knocked over, about 15 ft visibility and the sand hitting the truck sounded like it was getting sand blasted. It was really freaky.
Anyway, made it through there and J took off driving. We stopped in Ludlow,CA about 50 miles down the road for a bathroom stop. We almost couldn't walk because it was so windy. It litterally about knocked me over. I checked the weather and they were saying 30-40 mph winds with gusts over 60 mph. Again, thank goodness it was a tail wind for us. I felt really bad for the couple of Prime drivers that were headed west. I bet they were getting 4 mph or less with that head wind. J gets us to Winslow,AZ around 0400 and I take off from there. I make it into NM and what do I find? SNOW on the ground. Someone missed the memo again that it JUNE!! Sheesh! I make it to Clines Corners,NM where we had been planning to have lunch and they were only serving breakfast. That sucked because I wanted a Green Chile Cheeseburger. I told her we would wait, even though it was an hour and ten minutes till they served lunch. She was nice and asked what I was wanting and said that she would check and see if they would make it since it was something simple, and they did. I had been craving that since CA and I wasn't leaving until I had it! Got my belly full and took off again. Drove us into Adrian,TX and stopped at a little gas station there to switch drivers.
From there J took over and he had the final leg home. What should have been an easy 390 miles turned into a mess. We took Hwy 287 from Amarillo and ended up behind a bad line of storms. Tornados and super high winds. A semi was on its side from the wind along with a truck and camper and a truck pulling a boat. Somewhere just west of Wichita Falls,TX we ended up stopped on the highway for 4 hours because a tree was uprooted from a cemetary, hit a lady's trailer, and on it's way to hit her trailer, it drug the power lines down across the highway and completely snapped the poles. J called in to tell them we didn't know if we would be late or not because we didn't know how long we would be there. We were making good time and would have been about 3 hours early. Ended up being an hour late for our appointment. But we can't control Mother Nature. When J called in, the guy told us that we have a small drop yard up in Oklahoma, or rather USED to have one, until these storms blew through. He said luckily no one was in the building at the time it was destroyed. DANG!
The good news is that we made it and are getting unloaded. As soon as we are done here, we are going to drop the trailer and head home! Time for more packing, cleaning and graduation.
Anyway, made it through there and J took off driving. We stopped in Ludlow,CA about 50 miles down the road for a bathroom stop. We almost couldn't walk because it was so windy. It litterally about knocked me over. I checked the weather and they were saying 30-40 mph winds with gusts over 60 mph. Again, thank goodness it was a tail wind for us. I felt really bad for the couple of Prime drivers that were headed west. I bet they were getting 4 mph or less with that head wind. J gets us to Winslow,AZ around 0400 and I take off from there. I make it into NM and what do I find? SNOW on the ground. Someone missed the memo again that it JUNE!! Sheesh! I make it to Clines Corners,NM where we had been planning to have lunch and they were only serving breakfast. That sucked because I wanted a Green Chile Cheeseburger. I told her we would wait, even though it was an hour and ten minutes till they served lunch. She was nice and asked what I was wanting and said that she would check and see if they would make it since it was something simple, and they did. I had been craving that since CA and I wasn't leaving until I had it! Got my belly full and took off again. Drove us into Adrian,TX and stopped at a little gas station there to switch drivers.
From there J took over and he had the final leg home. What should have been an easy 390 miles turned into a mess. We took Hwy 287 from Amarillo and ended up behind a bad line of storms. Tornados and super high winds. A semi was on its side from the wind along with a truck and camper and a truck pulling a boat. Somewhere just west of Wichita Falls,TX we ended up stopped on the highway for 4 hours because a tree was uprooted from a cemetary, hit a lady's trailer, and on it's way to hit her trailer, it drug the power lines down across the highway and completely snapped the poles. J called in to tell them we didn't know if we would be late or not because we didn't know how long we would be there. We were making good time and would have been about 3 hours early. Ended up being an hour late for our appointment. But we can't control Mother Nature. When J called in, the guy told us that we have a small drop yard up in Oklahoma, or rather USED to have one, until these storms blew through. He said luckily no one was in the building at the time it was destroyed. DANG!
The good news is that we made it and are getting unloaded. As soon as we are done here, we are going to drop the trailer and head home! Time for more packing, cleaning and graduation.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Redmond,CA
Made our drop in Oakland this morning with no problems. Well, sorta. The GPS took us to the location, but the entrance was on the street that we came in on. So we turned left on 7th and if we had crossed 7th, the entrance was right there. Nothing like having to find a place to turn around down by the shipyard. Eek! Let me tell you. These local intermodal container drivers that haul them around locally off of the ships are freaking maniacs. They drive fast, weave in and out of traffic, don't use signals, and are all around worse than the rest of the California drivers. And the majority of the trucks they drive are pieces of crap and the containers look worse. So I had to laugh when we were leaving the receiver and were stopped at the light to get back up on I-880 and saw a container turned over because he took the turn too fast. I know it sucked for him, but dude, if you weren't driving like a damn maniac, that wouldn't have happened.
Also, what is it with these places out west not having truck stops? They are scarce. If you gotta go, I suggest going before you come in because we are picking up at a place, and just delivered to a place, that don't have a Driver's Lounge so no restrooms for us. WTF? We are delivering your crap and you don't have the courtesy to let us use the restroom? Because of this we found out today that J's bladder will hold 44 oz of liquid. :) And why is it that men can hold it FOREVER? I can feel like I am about to pee my pants, get to a bathroom, and barely pee enough to fill one of those cups that they use for urine samples. Wierd.
Anyway, this load that we are picking up now is delivering to Fort Worth,TX on the 6th at 0330 and then we will be off for the weekend. Graduation on Monday and then off we go again. I am ready to get all this stuff behind us so that we can hit the road and stay out longer than 2 weeks at a time. Having to get home for all this stuff isn't helping the checkbook!
Toodles for now!
Also, what is it with these places out west not having truck stops? They are scarce. If you gotta go, I suggest going before you come in because we are picking up at a place, and just delivered to a place, that don't have a Driver's Lounge so no restrooms for us. WTF? We are delivering your crap and you don't have the courtesy to let us use the restroom? Because of this we found out today that J's bladder will hold 44 oz of liquid. :) And why is it that men can hold it FOREVER? I can feel like I am about to pee my pants, get to a bathroom, and barely pee enough to fill one of those cups that they use for urine samples. Wierd.
Anyway, this load that we are picking up now is delivering to Fort Worth,TX on the 6th at 0330 and then we will be off for the weekend. Graduation on Monday and then off we go again. I am ready to get all this stuff behind us so that we can hit the road and stay out longer than 2 weeks at a time. Having to get home for all this stuff isn't helping the checkbook!
Toodles for now!
Sacramento,CA
It is a long way from Gary,IN where I last posted. I have just been so tired this trip and we had problems with the truck, but I will get into that here in a few.
First, I lucked out and didn't get to eat Arby's for our anniversary. Passing through Gary we saw a TA before the Pilot and decided to stop there because they have a restaurant. Not my favorite of restaurants, and honestly, I think Arby's would have been better. But it was nice to get out of the truck and grab a shower and have a sit down meal to celebrate as opposed to a fast food meal. But we finished up there and I took over driving and drove us to Omaha,NE. J then took over and drove to Laramie,WY I think and I took over again and got us to Wells,NV.
Here is where the truck problems come in. Just west of Ft. Bridger,WY I think it was, as I was coming to the bottom of one of the Sisters my Check Engine AND Stop Engine lights came on. Now the Check Engine isn't that big a deal, but when the Stop Engine comes on it is telling you that a major malfunction has been detected and that the engine will start the shut down sequence in about 30 seconds. So I hit my Shutdown Override button and get over to the side of the road. As soon as I get my brakes set, the truck dies. Freaking GREAT! So I wake J up and call Road Assist. This first guy didn't know what he was saying because he was telling me to hit the right arrow to find out what the fault was. Well, you don't hit the arrow. The Stop Enging and Check Engine will flash a number sequence and that tells you what the code is for the fault. Anyway, the light went off and the truck started again. I take off and it didn't come on again so we thought it was fine and a freak thing. He did say that it is usually the coolant level, but our coolant level was fine. It wasn't full, but it wasn't to the FILL line either. So I head on it to Salt Lake on I-80 and hyave to come down Parley's Summit. It does it again coming down FOUR times. Sheesh! But it is fine once I get off the mountain and into Salt Lake. Wierd. Keep going and get to Wells,NV where we are switching drivers. Get into a rest area about 20 miles before wells actually and that is where I stop. J gets up and takes off. Now the rest area is at the top of a little pass. As he is coming down it does the same thing to him. So we hit the Shutdown Override button again and he takes the exit to the Flying J where we were going to stop anyway to get something to drink. As he is on the exit ramp, the truck dies again. This time, we are on flat land. Pull into the fuel aisle and I call road assist. After being on hold for over 30 minutes they answer. This guy walks J through counting the flashes to find the code. Well, the code is showing low coolant. But we aren't low according to actually looking at it. At this point, the lights go off when we start the truck. But before J could make it to 4th gear, they come on again. OK, call Road assist back. The find us a Detroit shop in Elko,NV about 50 miles west. So we head out and about every 2 minutes have to hit the Shutdown Override button. Make it in to Elko and have to wait about 4 hours for the shop to open. Get the the shop, the do a DDEC on it and it is showing Low Coolant. Add coolant and it mysteriously fixed the problem. What has been determined is that the sensor is on the back of the Coolant reservoir so when you are going down hill, the fluid goes to the front and it tells the sensor that it is low, even though on flat land, it shows that it is above the fill line. We lucked out and the guy that checked it added coolant and didn't even charge us because it litterally took him less than 5 minutes. Didn't even charge us for the coolant. He was really cool and we really appreciated it.
Now that that is done, we can head out again. J starts driving around 1100 our time, since the moring was spent waiting for them to open and they are 2 hours behind us. He drives till about Sparks,NV where I take over. Once you head out of Sparks and into California you go through the mountains. Donner Pass. The east side isn't bad coming up. At the top there is a rest area so we stopped to let Smokey out. I get in the truck and get ready to pull out and I look up ahead and see one of those yellow caution signs across the road that said this. CAUTION. DOWNGRADE NEXT 40 MILES. Forty freaking miles?? Holy crap! We have only come across I-80 once and we were headed east so we didn't really pay attention to how long or far we were climbing. Boy did I pay attention to coming down though! Ikes! So I just put it in 9th gear, hit the engine brake, and down we came doing about 45-50. Other trucks were passing me that I am sure drive that all of the time, but I was quite happy with my little rear taking it's time. But it was a beautiful beautiful drive.
Ok, make it into Sacramento and we stop at the 49er Truck Stop for the night. We are 79 miles from destination and because of the truck problems yesterday they rescheduled us for 0800 this morning. So we stop, do laundry, take a shower, eat and head to bed. Get up this morning at 0430 local time. Go in and scan our paperwork so we can get paid, J gets his log done, and we are off. Right now we are cruising down this CRAPPY stretch of I-80 between Sacramento and San Francisco and are 45 miles from destination. Who knows where they will send us next!
First, I lucked out and didn't get to eat Arby's for our anniversary. Passing through Gary we saw a TA before the Pilot and decided to stop there because they have a restaurant. Not my favorite of restaurants, and honestly, I think Arby's would have been better. But it was nice to get out of the truck and grab a shower and have a sit down meal to celebrate as opposed to a fast food meal. But we finished up there and I took over driving and drove us to Omaha,NE. J then took over and drove to Laramie,WY I think and I took over again and got us to Wells,NV.
Here is where the truck problems come in. Just west of Ft. Bridger,WY I think it was, as I was coming to the bottom of one of the Sisters my Check Engine AND Stop Engine lights came on. Now the Check Engine isn't that big a deal, but when the Stop Engine comes on it is telling you that a major malfunction has been detected and that the engine will start the shut down sequence in about 30 seconds. So I hit my Shutdown Override button and get over to the side of the road. As soon as I get my brakes set, the truck dies. Freaking GREAT! So I wake J up and call Road Assist. This first guy didn't know what he was saying because he was telling me to hit the right arrow to find out what the fault was. Well, you don't hit the arrow. The Stop Enging and Check Engine will flash a number sequence and that tells you what the code is for the fault. Anyway, the light went off and the truck started again. I take off and it didn't come on again so we thought it was fine and a freak thing. He did say that it is usually the coolant level, but our coolant level was fine. It wasn't full, but it wasn't to the FILL line either. So I head on it to Salt Lake on I-80 and hyave to come down Parley's Summit. It does it again coming down FOUR times. Sheesh! But it is fine once I get off the mountain and into Salt Lake. Wierd. Keep going and get to Wells,NV where we are switching drivers. Get into a rest area about 20 miles before wells actually and that is where I stop. J gets up and takes off. Now the rest area is at the top of a little pass. As he is coming down it does the same thing to him. So we hit the Shutdown Override button again and he takes the exit to the Flying J where we were going to stop anyway to get something to drink. As he is on the exit ramp, the truck dies again. This time, we are on flat land. Pull into the fuel aisle and I call road assist. After being on hold for over 30 minutes they answer. This guy walks J through counting the flashes to find the code. Well, the code is showing low coolant. But we aren't low according to actually looking at it. At this point, the lights go off when we start the truck. But before J could make it to 4th gear, they come on again. OK, call Road assist back. The find us a Detroit shop in Elko,NV about 50 miles west. So we head out and about every 2 minutes have to hit the Shutdown Override button. Make it in to Elko and have to wait about 4 hours for the shop to open. Get the the shop, the do a DDEC on it and it is showing Low Coolant. Add coolant and it mysteriously fixed the problem. What has been determined is that the sensor is on the back of the Coolant reservoir so when you are going down hill, the fluid goes to the front and it tells the sensor that it is low, even though on flat land, it shows that it is above the fill line. We lucked out and the guy that checked it added coolant and didn't even charge us because it litterally took him less than 5 minutes. Didn't even charge us for the coolant. He was really cool and we really appreciated it.
Now that that is done, we can head out again. J starts driving around 1100 our time, since the moring was spent waiting for them to open and they are 2 hours behind us. He drives till about Sparks,NV where I take over. Once you head out of Sparks and into California you go through the mountains. Donner Pass. The east side isn't bad coming up. At the top there is a rest area so we stopped to let Smokey out. I get in the truck and get ready to pull out and I look up ahead and see one of those yellow caution signs across the road that said this. CAUTION. DOWNGRADE NEXT 40 MILES. Forty freaking miles?? Holy crap! We have only come across I-80 once and we were headed east so we didn't really pay attention to how long or far we were climbing. Boy did I pay attention to coming down though! Ikes! So I just put it in 9th gear, hit the engine brake, and down we came doing about 45-50. Other trucks were passing me that I am sure drive that all of the time, but I was quite happy with my little rear taking it's time. But it was a beautiful beautiful drive.
Ok, make it into Sacramento and we stop at the 49er Truck Stop for the night. We are 79 miles from destination and because of the truck problems yesterday they rescheduled us for 0800 this morning. So we stop, do laundry, take a shower, eat and head to bed. Get up this morning at 0430 local time. Go in and scan our paperwork so we can get paid, J gets his log done, and we are off. Right now we are cruising down this CRAPPY stretch of I-80 between Sacramento and San Francisco and are 45 miles from destination. Who knows where they will send us next!
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