We were both really worn out from the long drive and frustrated from the chaos of the delivery. The place we had to deliver to was in the middle of an area that had road construction all around and we couldn't get there the way we planned on. We had to detour and the detour included crossing railroad tracks. Not a big deal, normally, but at this crossing, the rr arms that come down to prevent you from crossing when a train is coming got stuck in the down position and we couldn't get across. We sat and waited for a while and nobody came to fix it. There was no other way out, we were trapped there. Finally, in desperation, I got out and manually raised the arms one at a time and John drove through. It was perfectly safe, there was no train coming, and the arms were spring loaded so as soon as you start raising them, they go right up. Probably could have gotten in trouble for doing it, but we needed to get out of there and we had waited long enough.
After that, we had to figure out how to get to the delivery with the detour and construction messing up everything. It took us awhile but we finally found it. This place had really tight security protocols and they wouldn't let our dog go in, so I ended up having to sit outside the gate with the dog while John went in and completed the delivery. Needless to say, we will not be delivering there again. What a bunch of crap. Our dog is a Maltese/Poodle mix and weighs 13 pounds. I don't understand what harm he is going to do as long as he stays inside our truck. I'm sure they have their reasons but we're not going back there because I don't like sitting outside with a dog, waiting. There are plenty of other loads that we can do.
After getting to the truckstop, we filled up the tanks and found a parking space. Went inside and ate at the Wendy's. Came back out to the truck and got some much needed rest. We had ourselves off the board till the next morning. We went in and had a shower in the morning and then went back in service. We got a couple of crappy load offers that we turned down and then finally on Wednesday evening we got an offer that we accepted. It was picking up in Carson, Ca going to El Paso, Tx. I drove the deadhead up and got checked in with the shipper. John went inside to find out if the freight was ready and while he was inside, dispatch called and said the shipper just called and said it wouldn't be ready till sometime the next day, so we got dry run pay. We headed out and went to the TA truckstop in Ontario, Ca.
We usually go to that one when we're in the area because they have a special parking area just for expediters and it's free to park there. A lot of places in Ca charge for truck parking. The drive up from San Diego was nice and easy. It was about 3 AM when we got there and I was starving. We went in and ate at the restaurant there and then back out to the truck to sleep and wait for another load. When I got up later that morning, I turned the key in the ignition to the on position so our qualcomm would come back to life. When I turned the key, the windshield wipers started running and a check electrical system light came on the dash along with a buzzer sound. After about 30 seconds it all finally stopped. Me and John looked at each other and said what now? We looked at fuses and he checked the wiring in the battery box, but all seemed to be okay. We turned the truck on and let it idle for a while and everything seemed okay. I lost my appetite because I knew that there was a problem somewhere, but we were going to find out what it was the hard way.
While we were looking around at things on the truck, dispatch called with a load offer. He started out by telling me that he had the best weekend load offer I would ever get. He was right about that. It picked up the next day on Friday up at Beale Air Force Base, a little north of Sacramento. Then it went almost 2900 miles to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. The weird thing was that our sons had just gotten a load to deliver at the same place, but we wouldn't be seeing them because we had to deliver on Sunday night and they weren't delivering until Monday morning.
We accepted the load, even though we were worried about what might or might not be going on with the truck. The deadhead on this load was 450 miles so we figured that would be enough time for any problems to show up. John did the first half of the deadhead and the drive was pretty sucky heading north through California on I5. That road is a joke. So bumpy it's awful. Add in the congestion, the mountains, the heat, and it doesn't make a pleasant drive. He made it about 70 miles or so when I noticed that our battery gauge was dropping. This was in the daytime, no headlights were on so there was no way our batteries should have been that low. Suddenly we realized our alternator must have stopped working. Fortunately, we have our generator so we turned it on and it kept the batteries charged up. I started making phone calls to different places along our route and found an International dealer in Turlock, up by Stockton who said they would take us in and change out our alternator.
We made it there and they were awesome! It only took them about half an hour to do the job and the bill was only $289. We had had the alternator changed 15 months ago at a TA in Baltimore and they charged us $480 and it took them almost 3 hours. Hard to believe that a TA charged that much more than a dealership. What a racket!! The good news in all that is that we now know why we had the crazy ck electrical system message that morning. Apparently the truck somehow knows when it has a problem and tries to tell you. If only it had a message on the dash that would say, need to replace alternator instead of a generic check electrical system. Oh well. It's fixed now.
We made our pickup the next morning and began the long long drive to New Jersey. This load was a straight thru drive. We only stopped to fuel up and switch drivers. Our delivery time was set for 11:30 Sunday evening, but we got there two hours early. I was pretty impressed with us! Before we had even left out of the delivery point, dispatch was on the phone with three more load offers. They were all military loads. First one picked up in Connecticut on Monday morning and delivered to Crane, IN on Tuesday morning. Then we reloaded in Crane, In at the same place and delivered to Ft. Campbell, Ky on Wednesday morning. The third load we are on now, so I won't say anything about it until later. After we make this delivery, we are out of available hours to work so we will have to do a 34 hour reset. We will be happy to do the reset as we are pretty well wore out. Very happy though as we have made quite a bit of money these last two weeks. It's about time!!
A funny story involving our sons. They drive a truck just like ours and are signed on with the same carrier as us. Our oldest son called me up the other day and said you will not believe what just happened to us. I said what now? He was driving along the interstate and a truck pulled up next to him and was honking his horn so Johnny looked over at him and the guy started waving his cb microphone at him. Johnny just kind of ignored him because he didn't want to talk to the guy.
The guy kept honking and waving and then finally gave up and went ahead of him. Johnny suddenly had the thought that maybe the guy was trying to tell him of a problem so he turned on his cb just in time to hear the guy telling another driver that he tried to tell him but he must not have his radio on. Johnny got on the cb and said I have it on, what's going on? The driver says, man, you got sparks coming out from under your truck! Johnny looks in the drivers mirror and sees nothing so he yells at Steve and Steve looks out the passenger side and sees the sparks. Johnny pulls over on the side and they get out to look and find out that their tail pipe that comes out of the muffler had rusted through and broken and was hanging there dragging along down the road so sparks were flying off it. The pipe is about 4 feet long and they had a load in the trailer with a seal on the door so they had nowhere to put the pipe. They just took it the rest of the way off the truck and had to continue on to the delivery without it.
No comments:
Post a Comment