I'm Back!!!

I was having serious withdrawls not being able to get online and blog. I think I have become a blogging addict. I wonder if they offer any kind of Bloggers Anonymous? Maybe that is something I should look into...

Ok, boy, I have a LOT to catch you guys up on. We finished the Prime orientation last Thursday, a week ago today. We stayed at the hotel again because our first run didn't leave until Friday at 1800. I'm glad it didn't leave until then because we had so much to do to get ready to leave. When we got to the hotel Thursday night, we looked over the leasing contract and did laundry. Then Friday morning we got up and headed to Prime. Went over to leasing and returned the signed lease after getting our Fleet Manager (FM) to sign his portion. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack at the young age of 37 when I handed that over knowing that I was committing to WEEKLY truck payments of around $950. YIKES!! That means we have to run our ass off. Anyway, the rest of Friday we spent going to walmart and getting a few supplies, picking the truck up and getting our stuff loaded in it. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed back to Prime to get the stuff we would need for running reefer. We had to get stuff like load locks, pulp thermometers, log books, permit book, comchecks, etc. Got all that, got fuel and then checked with Drivers Lineup to find out what empty we were supposed to take and to get them to send us our first load over the Qualcomm. Man, we were so busy trying to get stuff ready. We wanted to make sure we did everything right and didn't forget anything. Got it all done and headed over to our first pick-up.

Our first pick-up was at Kraft there in Springfield,MO and we were delivering in Fort Worth,TX. This worked our really well because it enabled us to go by our house. But I will get to that in a minute. So we head over for our very first pick-up in the reefer division with Prime. We weren't really sure what to expect, because we thought it was going to be a live load. We both head in to the Shipping office since this is all new to us and we both need to learn how this side of shipping is handled. We get in there and find out that our load is on another trailer loaded and we just have to drop the empty that we had. SWEET. This is starting off good. So we drop the trailer and back up to the loaded one and wait for them to tell us it is ready. Get the green light, pull up, shut the doors and head back around to the office for our bills. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, or maybe I did in another post, but since we have never worked reefer, we were really stressing over the actual reefer unit. We have never worked one before and nothing was ever actually shown to us during orientation. But once we actually picked one up and got to physically touch it, it is really very simple. One less thing for us to stress about. LOL. Ok, get the load and head back over to Prime to scale it. We are really close so why pay for a scale when we have a free one at the yard. J takes off driving and gets us to McAlester,OK where we stop for about 2 hours to sleep. We had both been up since 0600 and were exhausted. I had hit the bunk earlier, but he just didn't have it in him to go much further.

I get up the next morning and get us in to Fort Worth about 45 minutes before our appointment. Figured it was a good thing to be early for our first run and not late! I get there and we get unloaded. Then we dropped that trailer there so that we could go to our house and pick up the rest of our stuff and get our dog Bandit. Boy was she happy to see us! We get to the house and start getting the truck set up like we wanted it. It litterally took us like 5 hours. We got the microwave set up, got the cooler packed, got the mattresses in here (our memory foam ones), took a shower, got the food and other misc stuff in here. It was a long process and we weren't done till about 2000 hrs. And I had been up since 0300. At this point we head back and pick up our empty trailer and head out.

Now it is Saturday night we are headed to our second run. This one is picking up in Amarillo,TX and has two deliveries. One in Fife,WA and the other in Renton,WA. Both are suburbs of Seattle,WA. We head out from Fort Worth and J drove till about Wichita Falls,TX and we stopped again for a few. Neither of us had yet to get much sleep since we were trying to get the truck ready. Anyway, he stops and I get up Saturday morning and get us in to Amarillo for our pick-up at 1100. Get loaded and head to the Pilot just down the road to scale the load. Total weight is just over 70,000 lbs so we are good to go. We also took this time to scan our info from our previous trip, the one we dropped in Fort Worth, so that we could get paid. I know I totally screwed it up, but I figure they are used to it with new lease operators starting each week. haha (But I did call in before I sent in our second one to make sure I was doing things right). The way it works with Prime is that when you finish a trip, you scan all your documents and bills at a Transflow location and then we keep the originals for our files. It is actually pretty cool.

Ok, get that done and head out. I drive until Santa Rosa,NM and get J up and he takes over. He drives a whopping 57 miles or so to Clines Corners, NM and we stop for the night. Now I know what you are thinking. We aren't going to make any money if we keep stopping, right? Well, we couldn't deliver our first drop until Tuesday at 0800, so we had plenty of time. We also talked to another couple that we know from SNI and they were on the other side of Albuquerque headed East and we were headed West, so we stopped there and met up with them and had dinner. They are contemplating becoming lease operators so we are letting them know all of our experiences and our numbers so that they can make the decision for themselves. They are a really nice couple and it is always good to meet up with them on the road. Of course, when we do, it always turns into a 4-5 hour lunch because we can't quit talking. :)

Ok, Sunday morning, get up and head out. I make it to Green River,UT and J takes over and gets us into Ogden,UT. Fuel up and stop for a while. Monday morning I get up and get us into La Grande,OR and J takes over and gets us to Ellensburg,WA. Now we had plenty of time to get on in, but we didn't know how much room was at this receiver so we decided to park there for the night and go the last 140 miles in the morning so we wouldn't be trying to find a place to park over night in Seattle. Because they places to park a truck there are few and far between. I get up and head out Tuesday morning and get us there about an hour early. Get unloaded there and we are off to our 2nd receiver. Get there and we have to get a lumper. This was a first for us. So we called in to make sure we were doing it right. It wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be. But I think when you are new at something, you stress over every little thing until you actually do it because you don't want to do something wrong.

Ok, get that taken care of and are ready to head out and we get our next load. THREE pick-ups and three deliveries. When we originally got the work assignment it showed our first pick-up before 1700, not a problem, but our second pick-up was before 1400, which IS a problem. We left Seattle at 1200 local time, had to drive 178 miles to our first pick-up, which put us there at 1530 local time. See where this is going? How can we be to the 2nd stop by 1400 when we can't even make the 1st stop until 1530. So we called and had them re-arrange the appointment times. We picked up the first one yesterday and then we are picking up the 2nd and 3rd ones today.

Now, we just picked up our second delivery and are headed back to the Gearjammer Truck Stop to scale this. We have about 15 ft of space in the back end of the trailer and already have 37,000 lbs loaded. I'm hoping that we aren't too heavy on the front. I guess we will find out. So that is where we are now. Now that I have a connection again, I will be able to keep this updated. I am also going to load a few pics of the new truck here in just a few. I gotta do some paperwork first. :)