After a week of little sleep.....

I finally got a GOOD nights sleep last night. Could be that we were in the south and it was a flat road. Could also be that the road was actually smooth. Either way, I got good sleep and it was awesome. We are in Dallas headed to LA and will take I-20 to I-10 and that is a good road also so I will get some sleep tonight also. YAY ME!!!

We stopped at our house so I could check the mail on our way in to the Dallas area and then we stopped at our Dallas OC to fuel, get a shower and eat lunch. Now we are back on the road.

Headed West

Well, we finally left Indy around 2200 last night and I got some sleep. When J woke me up at 0430 it was WAY too early. But I didn't have a choice since he drove past 0300 into my drive time. He didn't start driving until we left Indy so he was no where near running out of hours but we try to stay on our schedule as much as possible. Anywho, so I get up and we are almost in Chattanooga so I drive from there the last 150 miles or so to Mcdonough,GA where I drop off the load. I picked up an empty trailer there and drove another 150 miles to Beech Island,SC where I picked up this load we currently have. Then I drove back about 30 miles to a rest area on the west side of Augusta,GA where we switched and now J is driving again. I didn't get but about 370 miles today, but I had to spend some time and one consignee and then at the shipper for this load so that took up a good two hours. Plus I also had to stop and fuel. So we are headed to the Los Angeles area with this load. My GPS is routing us up to I-40 and over even though I-20 ( which we are on ) runs right into 10 in western Texas and that runs right into LA. There is only about a 10 mile difference and it is routing us through the mountains on I-40. Forget that, we are taking the southern route I-20 to I-10. We can make better time since it is a flatter road and less mountains.

Now I am getting ready to go to bed. I have averaged about 5-6 hours sleep the past 3-4 nights in a row and that is not near enough beauty rest for me. I need a good 7-8 hours. If not then J calls me Satan. :) Momma gets a little grouchy if she is tired.

If it isn't one thing....

it will be another. Some days are just like that. Truck has been running good after all the work although I still think we need a new seat because it is worn and still makes us lean to the right. But today it was the trailer we had problems with. We left out of Neenah,WI heading towards GA. I was drving. The brakes were making a noise but we could only hear it inside, and not outside (granted the truck was running). I didn't notice anything during pre-trip. I DID notice though that it was hard for me to stop. To the point that going through Chicago and Indy where there is a lot of construction, I had to rely on the engine brake along with the service brake in order to stop. And I was pushing pretty darn hard on the service brake. So we get to Indy and the first place we go, after we fuel, is to the estimator. He initially thought it was a brake chamber because when I released the brakes and put it in drive and stepped on the brakes, you could hear a leak at the back of the tractor. So he told us to go drop the trailer and come back around and we would try to figure out which brake chamber it was on the tractor. So we drop the trailer, come back around and it isn't doing it. Now we are thinking maybe it was the trailer. So we go get another trailer, hook up and check that one and it is fine, so we hook back up to our trailer and it still does it. There is some kind of leak at the nose of the trailer where the airlines go in. Wierd. And the trailer is due for a PM. So now we are sitting in the Indy OC waiting on it to get fixed. I hope it doesn't take too long. When we drop this off in GA around 0600 tomorrow morning, we already have a load in SC waiting for us to pick up going to LA and I don't want to miss out on that one. Something like 2498 miles. Sweet....

Make sure you can park overnight.....

....before you park overnight.

So last night we stopped at a small, and I mean small, truck stop. It was really more like a place to fuel and then you had room for 5-6 trucks. We were somewhere around Winston-Salem and I think we were on 421. Anyway, we stop around 2200 or so because we were going to be going up some mountains, it was dark, we hadn't driven that way before and I can't sleep worth a damn going up and down mountains. We have PLENTY of time on this load, so we decided to stop for the night and I would get up and leave this morning. I am better driving over mountains than I am sleeping through them. J just crashes in the bunk and doesn't even notice the mountains. The turns and braking and the engine noise, or lack thereof if you are flying down a hill, just mess with me and I get no sleep. Anyway, we get to this little place, go in and go to the restroom and grab a burrito and a bag of chips, come back to the truck and chow. Then we pop in a movie and I am asleep about 10 minutes into the movie. J says up until 0300 and watches another one after that movie finishes. Yesterday I was up driving at around 0500 so when we stopped last night, I was done in. Well, at 0415 (0515 local time) someone is banging on our door. I am thinking WTF? So I go open the window and there is a lady there saying that it is 0500 and we have to leave. She is telling ALL the trucks this as she makes her way down and bangs on everyones door. I am not happy to say the least. Lets just say that I am not a morning person to begin with, even though I drive in the mornings. I am ok as long as I don't have to converse with anyone for about an hour. :) So the banging wakes J up so we head inside to go to the restroom and as we head back I see a note on the door. Plain as day it says you can only park until 0500 and at that time you will have to leave. How the hell did we both miss this big sign the night before? Or should I say a few hours earlier?? I wasn't as pissed after I saw that sign and realized it was our fault, well, was still pissed, but more at us for not noticing that sign than at the lady for waking us up. J heads back to bed, I get my log done and I head out. Iam headed north on I-77 from Winston-Salem up through the Virginia's. This is one windy-ass (as in lots of turns) road. A lot of the road is marked 55 for trucks and some of the turns are even marked at slower speeds. Each time I travel the same stretch of road, it gets easier because I know what to expect and I will get a little braver. I drove part of this road before but just from I-81 sb on I-77 so I had a lot more of I-77 today. Went up Fancy Gap which isn't bad, considering I drove down it the first time I was on that road about 5 months ago when we were on our first outing by ourselves. Anyway, I was going pretty dang slow. I thought I was probably holding a lot of other trucks up, but only a few passed me and a lot stayed behind me so I guess I was going about the speed everyone else was. I will be a little faster next time I'm sure, but I am still not crazy about driving in the mountains in a semi. I would rather have my Suburban for mountain driving. It doesn't lean like the big truck does! But give me Arizona or Texas where it is flat for hundreds of miles, and I will open this big orange truck up to a whopping 67 mph!!

We are almost to Indy and our drop is up in Neenah,WI. We have to stop and fuel up here but we only have 394 miles to destination so we should be there around midnight. Now, where will they send us next??

On the road again....

Reminds me of that Willie Nelson song. Anyway, we headed our of Dallas yesterday around mid-day and we dropped off about an hour ago in Statesville,NC. Now we are heading to Charlotte,NC to pick up an empty trailer to take to Greensboro,NC to exchange for a loaded trailer that we are taking to Neenah,WI. Luckily this load we are picking up is not high value and not expedited so we don't have to be rushed. We do have to pick it up by 2000 hrs tonight so we have to shower and get the empty trailer picked up pretty quick so we can get started towards Greensboro.

While we were at home, we bought a Lunchbox Cooker. This thing is awesome. You can cook just about anything in it. Yesterday and today we stuck a big can of soup in there, let it cook for about an hour (the cooker gets to 300 degrees) and then we opened it up and ate. We bought the soup with the pull top lids so we don't have to have a can opener. Then today, after it was hot, we put bread in the bottom, let it cook (toast) and added cheese and had grilled cheeses with our soup. I am really impressed with this cooker. There is even a cookbook that has a bunch of recipes for this Lunchbox cooker. You would be amazed at what you can cook in this thing! So if you are looking into changing careers and driving a truck, you have got to check this cooker out. Most any truck stop will have it.

Well, that is all for now. We just took the exit for Charlotte OC so I have to grab us some clothes and our shower stuff.

I love my bed

And I really miss it when we are on the road! Just wanted to say that.

Last night we went and met some friends in Fort Worth down in the Stockyards for Wolf Dance which was a concert put on by a local radio station. Ten bands/performers mainly Texas Country but Jack Ingram closed the concert. It was a GREAT concert. After that we went to Love Shack and grabbed a burger and then went to the White Elephant for more drinks. We got a hotel for the night because we weren't going to drive almost 2 hours back to our house. This morning we got up and checked out of the ridiculously expensive hotel we stayed in and headed up to Richardson and met three other friends and two of their little ones for lunch at Applebee's and then we headed home. Now we are vegging out on the couch trying to get motivated to get the rest of the stuff packed so we can leave in the morning. We have Winter Training at 1000 hrs at the Dallas OC and we have to see if we can get the truck in for a PM. It seems like we are always getting a PM but we are supposed to get the oil changed every 25,000 miles and that is about every 5-6 weeks. Crazy..... More later.....

Answers for Larry...

Hi Larry! Let's see what I can do to answer your questions. About the seats. Our personal vehicle is an 04 Suburban. The truck seat is more comfortable than our Suburban. (As long as then seat cushion is not worn down.) The seat has 3 lumbars for the back. Two arm rests and in total the seat can be put in something like 20 different positions with all the different ways it moves. Once you get the seat figured out and find the position that is comfortable for you, you can easily drive 500-600 miles and be comfortable the whole time. The only time our backs have hurt was when the truck was leaning due to a shim (see some previous posts of mine about that) being wrong.

What Schneider does as an incentive to not idle, meaning they are saving money on gas, is to give you a bonus if your idle for the quarter is under a certain percentage, something like 15% (not exactly sure). The bonus is based on how many miles you run that quarter and could be, I don't know, $400-600 maybe. Well, what my husband and I have decided, is that I give up my bonus so that we can idle. It doesn't matter which one of us gives it up since it all goes into the same bank account. When we are stopped and idle, we switch the Qualcomm over to me, so it idles under my name therefore my percentage goes up, and not his. When you spend the summer mainly hauling freight in the South from Laredo,TX to Los Angeles, CA no amount of bonus money is worth sweating your ass off at night. :) Besides, being a team, you can run a little harder one week, get in an extra run, and the money from that one run would equal the bonus money so it is easy to make up and not worth the hassle of doing without just to get it. Does that makes sense?

Keep the question coming! I love being able to help anyone looking to switch careers to driving a truck. A lot of people answered my questions when we were getting started and I know what a huge help it is in making the decision whether to take that leap or not!