Recovery Time

Taken about 4 hours after surgery

I had my surgery on Thursday. Luckily it went well and they only had to remove the left half of my thyroid. I stayed one night in the hospital and have been at home recovering since then. The surgeon did a great job and the cut is very small.


 The only problem I am having is with my left ear. I don't think it's related to the surgery. It's like it has water in it, but I dont think it does. I just can't hear out of it and it pops and cracks a lot. I finally broke down and made a Dr. appt. for this afternoon to have it looked at. I can't stand the feeling of having half my head feel like it's stuffed with cotton!

Other than that, Christmas was nice. Time at home has been nice. New Years Eve is tonight. Obviously, we have no plans for that. Just can't wait to get back to feeling 100% again. I am actually already starting to miss being out on the road. Although after hearing the weather reports, I am glad I'm home in Florida. Don't look forward to driving through all that snow.

Getting a Thyroidectomy for Christmas

First off, I need to catch up where we have been since my last post. I am terrible about consistently blogging on a regular basis, and I've gotten really behind. Last time I blogged, we were on a load that picked up in Indian Head, Maryland and was delivering in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

After that, it went like this: Tooele, Ut to Barksdale AFB, La
Conway, Ar to Houston, Tx
Del Rio, Tx to Kansas City, Ks
Kansas City, Mo to Forest Park, Ga
Home for a couple of weeks (October 13 to October 26)
Ocala, Fl to Batesville, Ms
Ft. Worth, Tx to Travis AFB, Ca
Madera, Ca to Bridgeview, Il
Grand Rapids, Mi to Brooklyn Park, Mn St. Cloud, Mn to Kansas City, Mo
Kansas City, Mo to Ypsilanti, Mi
Holland, Mi to Canton, Ms then deadheaded home for a LONG Thanksgiving break.

Inside a cave in Kansas City. This is where we delivered.

The coolest thing that happened during those loads was the delivery to Kansas City, Ks. We weren't told ahead of time what kind of locaton we were delivering to. A lot of times I will look at the pickup and delivery addresses on Google Earth when the load offer first comes in just to get an idea of what to expect. This time when I looked at the delivery address it brought u what looked like an empty field area. I wasn't too concerned about it because sometimes places are built after the Google image was taken so it won't show up on the map and I assumed that was probably the case this time.

 We arrived at the location that our gps said was where we should be for the address that we had input and all we saw were cave entrances. I suddenly remembered reading stories that other truckers had posted about delivering inside a cave and it clicked that that was what we were just about to do! It was actually pretty cool. A little unnerving at first to realize that you have to drive your truck inside a cave and not knowing what to expect when you get inside, but they give you a good map and it's not bad at all. It was pretty amazing. According to the security guard there at Subtropolis, as it is called, there is a little over 4 square miles of businesses underground in the caves. There was a variety of businesses that we saw while in there. We delivered to a place that was responsible for distributing sales ads. The ones we brought were for the upcoming Black Friday sales.

A dock inside the cave

Other than that, from what I can remember, everything was pretty routine. We saw our first snow of the year on our trip to Minnesota. One night the temps got down to 14 degrees! I guess winter is coming. Sometimes being in Florida, you tend to forget about things like that.

We've now been at home for about 2 1/2 weeks and it's been beautiful weather. I am sure we are in for a shock to the system when we get back up North.

While home this time, I saw my endocrinologist and got the results of my latest blood work and ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that my thyroid nodules have doubled in size over the last six months, so it is now time to have my thyroid removed. The surgeon is going to remove the left half and if the right half is okay, it will stay, but if it shows problems when he gets in there, it will come out also. Either way, after the surgery, I will be on thyroid medication for the rest of my life which I am not happy about. I am the type of person who hates to take any kind of medication unless I absolutely have to. I take nothing now, no vitamins, no calcium, and ony tylenol when I can't stand the headache pain anymore. Guess those days are over.

The best thing that happened during our time at home this time, other than getting to spend time with our family, was getting permanent eyeliner!! My friend in Indiana had it done and loved it so I got the courage to go in and get it. I love it, and wish I had done it years ago. Which I couldn't have, since I didn't even know you could get it. Driving a truck as a team means not being able to shower every day. While I can live with that, I still want to look decent and eyeliner is something I like to use everyday. Problem solved now!

On a Good Roll for a Change

After we delivered in Ft. Campbell Ky, we drove to Richmond, Ky to pick up our next load. We didn't have to pick up till the next day so we got a good nights rest. Went there the next morning and got loaded. This load had a lot of extra time on it so we just stayed at the shipper to kill off several hours before heading out to Charleston, Sc. This would be our first delivery to Charleston AFB.

 I always hate going to a military base for the first time because you never know what you are going to run into. Some of them have multiple gates and depending on what you are hauling, there may be a specific gate that you have to enter through. Of course, nobody lets us know in advance. We have to find out the hard way. We got there and found what we thought was the correct gate. Wrong. The guard wouldn't let us in and directed us to a different gate. It was about a 10 mile drive to the next gate in bumper to bumper traffic. We got there and the guard let us in and told us how to get to the building our paperwork showed as our delivery point. We drove to it, went in to check in and were informed that we were not supposed to be allowed in that area with the freight that we were hauling. That guard called someone and informed them that the guard at the gate had mistakenly let us in and now we needed a police escort to get us to where we needed to be. I pointed out to him that our paperwork showed this building that we were at as where we were supposed to be and suggested that whoever sets these loads up should be informed to use a different address or include specific directions on where they want the drivers to go. I guess they think we're psychic or something. The police came along and escorted us across the flight line to where we were to get unloaded. About an hour and a half later we were out of there. Now in the future we will know where to go. Unless they change the rules before our return.

At this point, we were out of legal hours to work so we headed to a truck stop to spend a couple of days and get some much needed rest. We ate, showered, and I think I slept for about 15 hours straight. I slept most of the next day too. I didn't know how tired I was until I got there. I guess your mind knows when you need to keep going and when you can rest and you don't even realize it. We met a nice couple at the truck stop who was asking questions about the company we are leased on with. These people had just gotten back into driving after 2 and a half years away from driving. The husband had fallen off the flat bed he drove while tarping a load and got some serious injuries. They ended up losing their truck, their house, pretty much everything. I hate to see things like that happen to people who are just trying to work and make a living. Their goal is to save up enough to buy their own truck again. I hope they make it and I think they will.

After our break was over, we got a load picking up in Weaverville, NC delivering in Livonia, Mi. Non government, no special requirements. The only difficult thing about this one was driving through the freaking mountains. We can't seem to get away from them. We delivered that load, went to Meijers and stocked up the truck and drove to the truck stop. We were fueling up when our phone started ringing off the hook. Our qc started going crazy with messages also. Load offers from about 3 or 4 different dispatchers at the same time. The one we ended up taking was picking up in Jackson, Mi in a couple of hours and driving straight through to Maxton, Nc. Yep, back the way we came, more mountains!!

  On the trip down, John noticed one of our steer tires had a cut on the outside edge. We knew we could complete the delivery, but after that, we were going to need to get it changed. We delivered the load, drove about a hundred miles up to Kenly, NC and got a new set of steer tires and an alignment done. While changing the steers, they noticed that one of our tie rod ends was bad, so we had them change both of those while they were at it. The next day we went to the Speedco and had the maintenance done and then went to the Blue Beacon for a truck wash. Now she's riding smooth and looking mighty shiny!

Dispatch called us the next morning before we were even out of bed with a load offer picking up on Friday delivering on Monday. It's a whopping 15 pounds. So we are hauling our 15 pounder 2300 miles across the country.  We are on that load now, having to take our time on it because we can't deliver till Monday, but that's okay. We don't mind not having to push it. We will end up in the Northwest so we will see what happens from there. We have decided to stay out on the road instead of going home right now. We are enjoying the weather, the freight seems to be running strong right now, so we are hoping to get the bank account built up and take off later in the year. We will see how long we can stay out here!

Loving the Cooler Temps of Fall

We delivered our load in San Diego. Afterwards we drove down to a Pilot truckstop very near the Mexican border. We aren't familiar with that area so we were blindly following along with our trusty gps to get us there. Sometimes, that's not such a good idea. I swear, one day that gps is gonna send us over a cliff! They were doing road construction in that area, so I am assuming that is the reason for the error in the gps. She didn't tell us to take the exit when we should have and next thing we know we see a sign saying last US exit, all trucks must exit. One of these days I just know we're going to accidently end up  in Mexico. Luckily, we avoided it this time and managed to find our way to the truckstop.

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.

Repairs, Repairs and More Repairs...Did I Mention Repairs????

When I last posted, we were on our way to Laredo and I was hoping that we wouldn't break down and have to go back to the International Dealer there. Happily, we did not. We delivered and went back to the truckstop and was about ready to head in for a shower when we were dispatched on our next load which went to the Los Angeles area of California. We were really upset that we didn't even have time to take a shower, but couldn't pass up the good paying load, so we figured we would just deal with it.

We headed off to California and since the load was delivering Friday evening, we assumed that we would sit in Cali till Monday which would have been great with us. We desperately needed showers, rest and wanted Sunday evening off for our fantasy football draft. About 50 miles into our load, dispatch called and offered us a load picking up in Cali on Saturday and delivering in Ohio on  Monday. We turned it down because they couldn't give us the weight and piece count and I told him that I wasn't going to disrupt my weekend plans if I didn't know for sure the load would definitely fit on our truck. He wasn't happy about it, and we weren't either really. It was a lot of money, but whatever.

The next morning we got another call from dispatch for another load offer. This time picking up as soon as we could get to it after making the delivery of the load we were on. Only problem was that it was going to Canada, which we no longer do, so they wanted us to take it to a crossdock in Michigan on Sunday night. I told the dispatcher that we already had plans for Sunday night and could not be driving at that time so they worked it out that we could deliver the load to a crossdock in Indiana on Sunday morning instead. That was perfect. Right. Funny how things never go according to plan.

We delivered the load we were on and it was a nightmare dealing with rush hour LA traffic. We immediately headed to the next pick up which was next to the LA airport. More nightmare...Anyway, we got there, got loaded and headed out. Still in rush hour traffic. I fought my way out of it and eventually things settled down. All seemed to be going well except for the fact that due to the traffic we were now not going to be able to deliver until around noon on Sunday. Still not a problem. Right...

John and I took turns driving and I took over again in New Mexico. I drove about 100 miles and it was about 100 degrees outside. I had just passed thru Santa Rosa and was climbing up and down the hills. I was keeping a close eye on the temp guage because we are obsessive about trying to make sure our truck never overheats so that we don't damage the motor. We want it to last as long as it possibly can. Everything was running perfectly when all of a sudden the temp guage starts climbing. It went up to 200. I was listening for the fan to kick in but didn't hear anything. It went up to 205, still no fan. I start worrying. Temp goes up to 210, no fan and I know somethings wrong. I look ahead and see an exit coming up so I pulled over on the exit and stopped. The temp had made it up to 217 but then came back down to 210 after I stopped. I got out and pulled the hood open and saw our coolant leaking all over the ground. I opened the truck back up and yelled at John to come look. He immediately saw a hole in the hose. I shut the truck off and thought okay, no big deal, we'll just call roadside repair and they can fix it. I got the cell phone out and tried to call, and got a message on the phone saying no mobile network service. Emergency calls only. What?? Thinking that maybe it was just my phone acting retarded, I got John's phone out and tried it. Same result. I continued trying to call over and over on both phones and finally gave up.

I told John that maybe a cop would come along or some kind of highway helper and they could call repair for us. I waited about 10 minutes (still no patience) and finally decided I was going to call 911. Sure enough the call went right through. I explained our situation to the 911 dispatcher and he helped us out by calling the TA RoadSquad. However, due to TA's policy, they ended up taking about 5 hours to show up because they couldn't call us to verify how we were going to pay. Fortunately, I was able to send a message over the qualcomm to our carrier and they contacted the TA and reassured them they would get paid.
The problem started at 5PM. The repair guy showed up at 10:15 PM. We didn't get out of there until 12:45 AM. He did do a good job repairing the hose. Just took him awhile because he was working by flashlight and it was a tight squeeze for him to get his hand into. He filled us back up with 7 gallons of coolant and we paid him $370. Not too bad considering that included 7 gals of coolant. While he was fixing the hose, he pointed out to us that we had a diesel fuel leak. He said he wasn't authorized to repair it but it should be okay till we could get somewhere to fix it. Great!! Not what we wanted to hear.

Off we went. I was so upset because now our load was going to be late. Up to this point, we have never been late. Our fantasy draft was up in the air. Were we going to have drop out? We now had our sleep schedules messed up. To say it nicely, we were both getting a little cranky. There was nothing we could do but continue on and hope we made it to our delivery without any further problems.

It turned out that John was going to be driving the last leg of the trip which freed me up to be able to do our football draft. It was horrible. It was pouring down rain the last 300 miles of the trip, road construction, it was dark outside, the roads were so bumpy and again, we were both grouchy. I had to work two laptops to do my draft and John's draft and it was all I could do to keep track of things. John arrived at our crossdock right about midnight and I was almost done with the draft. Problem was, our crossdock was closed and they had the entire parking lot roped off because they had repaved their parking lot. We parked across the street and called in to dispatch and let them know the situation. About an hour later they called back and said, change of plans, you need to take the load to the crossdock in Michigan. Another 260 miles!! We were furious! We had already made plans to get more repair work done on our truck in Indiana. Now we had to drive another 260 miles away from where we wanted to be, not to mention the fact that we were both exhausted! I had stayed up doing to the draft thinking that our trip was done and I wouldn't need to drive. It was a disaster. We split the 260 miles in half. John drove the first half while I slept. Then I finished the drive. It was all I could do to get it done. We got there, unloaded, parked and slept till 2:30 PM.

We got up, showered, ate, filled the truck up and headed back to Indiana to get the work done on the generator that we had been wanting done. After that we were going to go down to Lafayette to the International Dealer there to get the fuel leak fixed along with having our AC repaired. AGAIN!! It started having problems on the way to our delivery. Not happy about that at all since we had just spent almost $2000 and three days getting it worked on in El Paso back in May.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, there was more to come. John only made it about 15 miles when he called me up front and said we had a problem with the truck. You could feel the engine cutting out like it wasn't getting fuel. It would run okay, and then cut in and out. We pulled over at the next truckstop and looked under the hood. We couldn't see any problems. We sat there and let it idle. It seemed okay. I called a couple of the closest International shops and both said they were swamped and couldn't look at it right away. We debated on  what to do and finally agreed to give it another try. John took off again and went about 20 more miles but we decided to stop because it was running really rough. We parked for the night and in the morning I called the International in Toledo and he said he could take us in and if it wasn't anything major, he could fix it that morning. We headed over and the truck ran like crap but it made it.

They replaced the fuel line and showed us the old one that was worn out. I asked them if they thought that was the problem making the truck run rough and they said it could be if it was letting air in the suction side or something like that. Okay, whatever. $150 for that repair. We started the truck up, it seemed to run fine. Off we went. Again. The first 50 miles were great. No problems. Nice and smooth. Then, it started acting up again. Just a little at first, then a little worse. I just kept on driving and at that point, we decided to just keep going and if it quit, we would get towed. We finally made it to Remington, In which is where we were getting the work done on the generator. The truck had ran bad off and on but the last 20 miles it ran great. We had no idea what was going on with it.

We couldn't get in to the Chrome Shop for 2 days so the next day we spent visiting with our sons who were still there and then visiting some of our friends who live in the area. We took the truck in to the Chrome Shop on Thursday and they raised the generator up several inches. Thank goodness!! No more worrying if we were going to tear it off going over rr tracks or speed bumps. Cost of repair, $350. The next morning we got up and drove the truck about 40 miles down to Lafayette. It started out running great but the last 10 miles it acted up again and by the time we took the exit ramp it was a nightmare. The truck was bucking like a bronco. Acting like it was going to die. But it made it. Barely....We gave them the keys and a list of the repairs we wanted done. Called Enterprise for a rental car. They came and picked us up and we headed down to southern Indiana to visit family. Figured we might as well treat this as vacation time since we were in the area of all our family.

I called later in the day to see if they had figured out the problem and was told no, that their senior mechanic wouldn't be back until Tuesday due to the Labor Day Holiday so I called and extended my rental car. The good news was that the rental car was only $17 a day. We didn't have to pay for a motel since we were staying in my parents camper. We had a great visit with our families and get rested up. The truck was finally done on Thursday. The problem turned out to be the wiring for the IPR valve. (Injector Pressure Regulator). Apparently when we had our fuel leak which is right next to the IPR wiring, the fuel got into the wiring and caused damage. So, we got that replaced, a new air horn, (when John hit the wild hog, it broke our horn), added an extension onto our air hose inside the cab so it would reach into the back of the sleeper for easier cleaning, replaced a couple of marker lights, and fixed a problem with our air  compressor. The pop off valves weren't working properly and were allowing air to leak causing the compressor to run pretty much all the time. Oh yeah, they fixed the AC. Again. After all that, the total bill was $2100. No charge for the AC since it was still under warranty. So....to sum up, we have spent about $2900 on repairs in the last two weeks. Not including rental car and lost wages. It's hard to believe, but we somehow still have money in the bank.

After picking up the truck and returning the rental car, we stopped in at Meijers to stock up the truck with all the necessities. Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Coke Zero, snacks, paper towels, baby wipes, etc. There was a Steak and Shake next door so we had lunch. After that we were discussing which direction to head to wait for a load when dispatch called. Surprising since we weren't back in service yet. They had a load offer for us which we accepted. It picked up the next morning in Southern Indiana and delivered in San Diego, Ca on Monday morning. That one load paid enough to cover all the repairs we had done, plus put a little extra in our pocket. The deadhead to the pickup was 150 miles which was great. We wanted to give the truck a good test drive before actually picking up a load to see if everything seemed to be running properly. It ran fine, but I was so anxious the entire drive listening and seeing if I could feel anything that didn't seem right. This truck is driving me crazy and making me so paranoid.

We got the load picked up and headed off to San Diego. We had about 30 extra hours on the load so I actually had to come up with a trip plan. The load was a military load which only allowed us to stop for 3 hours and 30 minutes at a time. After that time, you must start moving again. In addition to that, one person must remain with the truck at all times, be awake and in the cab of the truck, not the sleeper berth. It's a pain, but it paid well. With so much time on the load, we only drove a max of 200 miles before stopping to take a 3 hour break. This continued all the way from Indiana to Ca. 2100 miles. You would think that you would get a lot of rest with so much extra time, but you actually get less rest due to the security requirements of having one person in the cab at all times. The person in the sleeper can't really get rested due to all the stopping. Im not going to complain too much because the truck made it here, on time, with no repairs needed and lately that is saying A LOT!!!

If only I could blog while driving...

Wouldn't that be great? I spend so much time sitting in the drivers seat driving along with so much time to think, it would be awesome if I could somehow blog it while I was thinking it. I think of so many things I want to write about and I always tell myself that as soon as my shift is over I'm going to log on and write it all down, but of course that never happens. If I do actually get out the computer and try to blog, I can't remember anything that I was thinking about earlier.

We are currently on our way to Laredo, Texas. Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have bad luck while we're down there because if we have to take the truck back to that crappy International dealership for repairs I think I would go postal. Such a shame to have to worry about that because I really do enjoy going to Laredo. For me, Texas is such an easy place to drive. I know a lot of other truck drivers don't care much for Texas, but I personally enjoy it. Any state that makes everything truck size is all right with me.
I'm hoping that after this load we will get something going towards Indiana. We would like to go back to the shop that installed our generator and have them raise it a couple of inches to give us more clearance. We've been dealing it with it since March, but it is a worry that we would rather not have to deal with. Also, our sons are there right now getting their generator put on and will be staying there the weekend. We have our fantasy football draft on Sunday night and it would be awesome if we could all be together while drafting. Unfortunately, we can't choose where our next load will go, so we just have to be flexible and work with what we get.

I was talking to my Mom on the phone yesterday and they have a camping trip planned next month at Lake Monroe, In. My sister and her husband will be going also. Mom wants us to come, but I think we are going to try and go home again around that time. I've been hearing talk on the news of a possible hurricane that may affect Florida in the next few days. I hope it isnt something that we need to be worried about. Guess I need to get some more in depth info.

Another reason we want to get home is to sign up for gym memberships with Anytime Fitness. I am really excited about the thoughts of having nationwide access to a 24 hour gym. I truly hate exercising so it's kind of weird that I would be excited about it, but after riding around in a truck for over two years, the idea of actually getting out of the truck and working out sounds good. I really like the fact that they have private showers. I didn't like showering in gym class in school and I still don't like the idea of public showering as an adult. I've been watching as I drive and I've spotted a lot of Anytime Fitness locations. Also, anytime we stop somewhere I use google map to check for nearby locations and there's always one nearby. The only downside to the whole thing is that it's a 30 day wait period for our membership key to become activated for nationwide use. Again, I need patience and  I still don't have any!

Who's hiding the freight?

So we delivered yesterday in Shreveport. It was a nice smooth routine delivery. I love those and wish they happened more often. We drove about 2 miles to the Petro after that and parked and waited for the next load. We've had about 3 load offers but turned them all down for various reasons. Probably should have taken one of them but at the time we didn't realize that we would still be sitting here this morning. We had been having pretty good luck with getting loads, but since coming back out after our last time at home, it's been completely different. Hopefully things will turn around soon.

This particular segment of trucking is unique because of the nature of expedited freight. What can be a good area one visit can turn into a slow area on your next visit. It's always a gamble. Patience is a requirement for this job. You really must have some form of activities that you enjoy that can be done while sitting and waiting or you would go nuts. For me, it's reading. I read books, news, and blogs. We watch movies and tv some. Not a whole lot, but if we're in the mood, we will. I have the ancestry project that I started on. Also, my newest project of the travelblog for expediters. I can keep myself occupied pretty well. As long as I'm satisfied with the amount of money that we have in the bank, I can sit for a while without getting too cranky.

Thank goodness the weather is starting to cool down a little. It's 10 AM here and it's still cool enough that we haven't had to run the ac. I much prefer to have the windows open with the fan running. We had breakfast this morning in the Iron Skillet. We had high hopes for it because we ate there yesterday and everything was delicious. My eggs were the best I'd had in a long long time. My bacon was cooked perfectly. The french toast was delicious. Today, however, all those same things were completely different. Apparently there was a different cook today. Very disappointing.
I think it's nap time.

In Mississippi, on the way to Louisiana

Last I posted, we were sitting in Wildwood, Fl waiting on a load. Turned out to be quite the wait. We had gotten there on Monday and had to wait until Thursday before we finally got out of there. To top it off, the load we got wasn't that great, but at least it got us out of Florida. It was only 400 miles up to Troy, Alabama. That delivered on Friday which gave us plenty of time to get it there. We drove up to Troy and parked at the Walmart since there weren't any truck stops near our delivery point. We did some shopping to get the truck fully stocked. They had a redbox so we rented a movie called In Time with Justin Timberlake. It was pretty good. One of those movies that kinda messes with your mind. We ate dinner and went to sleep.

Got up early the next morning and headed to the consignee. Made our delivery and drove almost 40 miles to the nearest truckstop. Parked and went back to sleep waiting for the next load. We started getting load offers right away but they were pretty crappy. The first one was too heavy. The second one was a train wreck. There was so much about the load that we didn't like that we wouldn't even make our carrier an offer on it. The third one was too short. Finally, we took the fourth one which again wasn't great, but was better than the prior ones and it was getting late on Friday and we didn't want to spend the weekend without any load at all. This one picked up in Alabama and will deliver in Shreveport on Monday.

Once again, we will be taking our time on the load. 530 loaded miles in 3 days is pretty pathetic. It's nice to be able to take your time and do other things along the way, but you don't make a lot of money that way. Next week should be better now that we have everything with the truck taken care of and we will be up in better freight lanes.

I've got our bookkeeping paperwork all caught up. I also started a new project. This one involves gathering all the information I can find online from other truck drivers and compiling it into one area. The information is for daytrips that are accessible to truck drivers. So many times we are laid over somewhere and would like to do something but not sure what is available in the area and where we could park the truck. The information is out there, but is so scattered that it would be a pain to try and find it when you're in a hurry. So, I'm working on putting it all into one spot so I will have easy access.

I've run across several exciting things to do in Las Vegas. Two involve driving cars. Exotic cars and Nascar type cars. The other involves flying in acrobatic stunt planes. I'm sure John would absolutely love driving some of the cars I saw listed on the websites.

Now that we've been out on the road for over two years and have our own truck, paid for and the repairs caught up, it seems like the job is getting easier and we are to the point where we can start having some fun out here. This is what we've been working toward and the time is finally here!

One other thing that I'm pretty excited about. John has always said that the biggest drawback of this job was the inability for him to get a workout. I've never been much into working out so it hasn't really bothered me so much, but as I'm getting older, I do feel like I need to start doing something to keep from rusting up. I recently found out from a trucking web forum about a fitness chain that has 24/7 access and BEST PART has private showers! This is great because it allows a truck driver to get their workout at any time, and get a shower before getting back into the truck. The shower part is a big deal. There are ways out here on the road to get your workout in, but without access to a shower, who wants to work out and get all sweaty and then get back in the truck? I will definitely be looking into getting us a membership for this fitness center. They have almost 1800 locations throughout the US and your membership allows you entry into all of them.

So So Much to Catch Up On...

Lets see. When I left off, we were heading to Nebraska with the hazmat load. We delivered that load and immediately got a return load that took us to Michigan. We delivered there and then debated on whether we would get a load taking us closer to southern Indiana for our time off or if we should deadhead ourselves there. While we were trying to decide, we received a load offer picking up in the Indy area delivering to New Jersey on Thursday. We declined the load and told dispatch that we had to be in Indiana on Friday for a planned family event. Dispatch begged and pleaded with us to do the load because they had no other trucks that had the qualifications to do it. Finally they offered us some layover pay along with a $550 bonus so that after we delivered, we could turn around and deadhead back to Indiana and be there by Friday for our family event. We gave in and took the load. The load went smoothly and we made good money on it.

On the way back to Indiana, just as we crossed into Pennsylvania, they sent us another load offer that was picking up Friday morning in Ohio and delivering that afternoon in the Indy area. We agreed to take it because we could do it and still get to our familys house by Friday evening. We parked at a truckstop about 20 miles away from the pickup. Set the alarm for 2 AM. We got up, got dressed, had a little snack and John started up the truck and turned the lights on. Problem. No lights on the trailer. They worked perfectly fine when we parked the night before. But now, no lights. We checked the fuses and looked for any obvious problems, but couldn't find any. Finally we had to call in and let dispatch know that unless the customer could wait until daylight, we couldn't take the load. Turns out the customer couldn't wait, so we were taken off the load. We went back to sleep and got up when it was daylight. We drove to a TA in in the Columbus, Oh area and had them fix the problem. They found a broken wire and repaired it. After that we continued on to Mom's house. Finally made it there that evening and got the truck parked out in the back yard. They have almost 2 acres and we were turning it into a campground for the week. We got settled in and visited for a little while and then had a good nights sleep.

The next day, we had Mom and Dad take us to town to buy some supplies for our week of fun that was coming up. We also bought a new fridge for the truck and John got it swapped out with the old one. Turns out this new one works far better than the old one, even though they are the same exact model. Makes us wonder if there was something wrong with the old one from the beginning. For all we know, it could have been the cause of our electrical problem. We will never know, but anyway, things worked out and now we have a fridge that works great!

Our time in Indiana flew by. We have so many family and friends there that it always seems there's never enough time to visit everybody. All in all this visit was an overall success! Every single member of my family was able to make it with the exception of one nephew who couldn't get any time off from work. We had great food, great company and will have a lifetime of memories. We try to do this once a year, but we had to miss out last year due to issues with the truck. The only negative thing about the week was the extreme heat. We had temps of around 100 degrees every single day. Since we were spending everyday outside, that was a pretty big deal. Happily though, even with the heat and all the alcohol that was consumed, there was not a single argument the entire week. That's pretty good I think!

After that weeks was over, we headed back to work. I don't remember all the details of the loads that we did and I'm too lazy to look them up. I do know that we made several trips to California and Texas and we were extremely busy, which is a good thing!

On July 19th, we made our FINAL truck payment!!!! I can't believe what a huge relief it is to have this truck paid for! We bought it on contract and made payments for 15 months. It was a very stressful 15 months as we had to make payments, and keep the repairs and maintenance done. Their was a lot of catch up work to do on the truck, but we have gotten it to the point that we only have one major job left to do and that is to have the frame of the box sanded and undercoated. After that is done, it will look like a new truck! Since we got the truck paid for, the lady we bought it from mailed us the title, so we headed home at the end of July to deal with getting the title switched over into our names.

Along with that, we had to do a new contract with our carrier which is a lot more complicated than it sounds. You would think that since the truck and both of us were already on with the carrier that it would be a simple process, but unfortunately with all the government regulations involved, it gets complicated and expensive. It took us a full week to get everything squared away. While I worked on the paperwork side of things, John used the time to do some more cosmetic work on the truck. He is such a perfectionist. Even though he is driving a 2006 truck, he expects it to look like a brand new one. Which is fine, except for the fact that it was hotter than heck at home in Florida and he was trying to work outside on the truck in that heat. That and the fact that every afternoon and evening we would get storms with lightning and rain. Very frustrating, but he got almost everything done that he wanted to get done.

Our carrier for some reason required us to get a new DOT inspection done, even though our last one is only 4 months old. There isnt anywhere near us that did them so we had to drive up to Wildwood and go to the TA and have it done. We did that yesterday and finally we were cleared by the safety dept to go back into service. Of course, by that time two other trucks got on the board ahead of  us. They are both gone now, so hopefully we will get a load soon and be back in business. Florida can be very tricky sometimes to get a load out of. At least in the expediting business.

We plan to stay out for about 3 to 4 weeks and then go home again. Right now, our truck only has a paper plate since the title and registration had to be switched over. Our new plate will be waiting for us when we go home.

Did I say how good it feels to have the truck paid for?

At long last

We have a new bumper!!

Today is a Lazy Day...with Pay!

Yesterday we drove from Chicago to Goshen, In to pick up a load going to Aurora, Nebraska. We were told that it was a hazmat load which is not a big deal, we do them all the time. Since the load was picking up on Friday and not delivering until Monday we are getting paid two days of layover pay in addition to our regular mileage pay. I love weekend loads like that! After we arrived at the shipper and got loaded, we received a message on the qualcomm telling us not to depart until we verified some information with dispatch. I called in and went over some things with them and then the dispatcher transferred me to safety to go over some info. This is not the usual way of doing things there, so I don't really know why I was being transferred to safety. Turns out that it opened up a can of worms. Safety immediately informed me that we are not allowed to sit on a hazmat load over a weekend. We weren't going to be allowed to do the load. I said, well, we're already loaded. He told me not to leave, he was going to get into contact with dispatch. Great! Now what? I sat and waited for about a half an hour and finally I called dispatch back. I said what is going on?

I've never heard of this policy before? I ended up talking with about 5 different people in dispatch and they all said they had never heard of that policy either. They kept telling me to sit and wait while they worked on a solution. Finally after about 3 hours they called and asked me if there was anyone available in shipping that they could talk to. I had been waiting in the truck so I walked back to the shipping office and discovered that the lights were off and everyone was gone home! This meant that there was no way they could take the load off our truck now. Dispatch was going to have to figure out a new solution. Another hour goes by and finally they called and said they found a hazmat certified cross dock in Lake Station, In. We had to drive there and have them unload our freight. It has to sit there until Sunday afternoon at which time we will go back there and pick it up and then we can finally be on our way to Nebraska. The good news in all this is that we are getting paid an additional $150 for layover for our troubles along with 2 hours detention time for sitting so long at the shipper while dispatch worked to correct their mistake. I needed a 34 hour restart anyway so it's all good!

After we unloaded at the cross dock we headed over to the TA down the road and parked the truck. We'll sit here till Sunday and get the reset on our hours. We have our bicycles with us now but this area isn't really bike friendly so I guess we won't be doing that. We've been to a lot of places that would be good areas for bike riding. We will be prepared next time we get back to those areas. One in particular is in Ripon, Ca. I really like that area. We'll also be able to use the bikes next week when we take our time off at my Mom and Dad's house. It will nice to get some exercise. I hate exercise unless it's in the form of swimming or biking.
Really looking forward to our time off. Turns out that pretty much all my family is going to be able to make it. They won't all be there for as long as me and John will, but that's okay. The additional time we are there will allow us to go visit some friends we haven't seen in awhile. I just hope it doesn't rain!!

It looks like we are going to need to replace our refrigerator in the truck. We'll do that when we take our time off. We are guessing that when we had our electrical problem with the truck that it somehow damaged the fridge. The fridge worked before the problem and not after so I would say it's safe to assume the problems are related. We'll just have to buy ice and use a cooler for our drinks for a week. These kinds of problems I can handle.

Busy busy. On the road again!

We ended up getting a load out of Los Indios TX delivering in Michigan. We were a little worried about driving even further south into Texas since we had no confidence in the repair work that was done to the truck. We did some Googling and found that there is an International shop in Pharr TX so we figured in worst case scenario we could go there if the truck gave us problems again. Fortunately the trip went smoothly and we had a nice drive to Michigan. It felt so good to get out of that ridiculous heat. In Michigan we could sleep with the windows open. No need for AC.

After we delivered we got another load right away picking up in Howell Michigan delivering in North Charleston South Carolina. We delivered and got a load picking up about a mile away delivering in Vance Alabama. On the way there we got another load picking up in Toone TN delivering in Bensenville Il. After that we took the day off to get some rest. We were pretty wore out. We did laundry and took showers. Caught up the paperwork. We watched Lebron and the Miami Heat finally win the championship.
Woke up this morning and right away got a load picking up in Goshen In delivering in Aurora Nebraska on Monday. Pays very nicely and we can take our time on it. Now we just need two more good loads to finish out next week and then time off for the holiday!

Stuck in Laredo....SOS!

We finally got the truck back yesterday. I am so sickened and discouraged by all the events related to this whole incident that it is making it really hard for me to even continue on in this profession. Not only is the dealership in Laredo unprofessional, they have now proven to be nothing more than common crooks in my opinion. What else would you call it when they blatantly try to charge you for services and parts that you didn't get or they didn't provide?

I called them yesterday morning and they informed me that our part had finally arrived. This was at 11:30 and our motel checkout time was noon. I went down to the front desk to see if we could get a late checkout and was told no. They were expecting a lot of new arrivals and wanted everyone out of their rooms so they could get them ready for the new guests. After being there for over a week I can't believe they didn't even want to allow us one extra hour. We packed up and called a taxi and headed over to the dealership. We found our truck and saw that it was still being worked on. I talked to the service manager and he said the mechanics were at lunch so we would have to wait till they came back to find out what the status was. Finally after about 2 hours they told us it was ready.

The service guy started to print out our invoice and I was looking at it on the screen. I could see that they were charging us $12002 for the towing bill. When I asked why it was $200 higher than the towing company told us it would be, the guy had the nerve to tell me that they have to mark it up just like all their other services. But, I said, you didn't tow us. Yes, but as a service to you, we are paying the towing company and collecting from you. Excuse me? I can pay the towing company just as easily as I can pay you. And at a savings of $200 that is what I want to do. Then he says, well, we may have already paid them, so you're going to have to pay us. I said, please give me the phone number for the towing company. I called them up and asked if they had already been paid. No, the charge was still pending. Good. Can you accept my credit card as payment over the phone? Sure, no problem. I paid the bill and then let the service manager confirm with the tow company that they wouldn't be charged for the bill. How is it possibly acceptable to mark up a towing bill $200? And not even give us the option or all the information we need to make an informed decision?

This is criminal to me. But...they weren't done screwing with us yet. Now the guy is upset with me over the towing charge so he disappears for awhile. We waited him out and he finally comes back with our invoice. He briefly flashed it in front of us and then told us to go to the cashier and pay it. I said, I need to look at that bill. He lays it down and again tries to blow me off by saying a few things as if there's nothing there for me to be looking at. I ignore him and continue to study the bill. I see that we are being charged for 2 circuit breakers at $45 each. I say to him, how many circuit breakers were put on our truck? He asked the guy behind him and is told one. Okay, so why are you charging us for 2? Lots of Spanish being spoken between them and no good answer is given. I said fine. If we are paying for 2 then we want the other one to keep as a spare. They had to go on a hunt to find the other one, but finally it was given to us. Again, the nerve of these people!! So much corruption. Is it because of their location on the Mexican border? Is that just how business is done there? I don't know, but I do know that I will not go back there unless there is absolutely no other option available to me. I hope to goodness that we are never in that situation. I have to wonder how much they inflated their labor costs on the job, because unfortunately I don't know of any way of proving how many hours they actually worked on the truck. I'm sure we paid more than we should have. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that they actually fixed the truck. If it does break down, hopefully it will be far enough up the road so that we can go somewhere else for repairs.

The whole time we were in the motel waiting to get the truck back, our carrier called us nearly every day with a load hoping that we would be able to take it. I jokingly told John that just watch and see, when we get our truck back, they won't have any loads for us. We went back on the board last night and got a call this morning from a dispatcher with a load offer. It all sounded great till he got to the part about the discounted rate. They wanted us to do the load for about 17 cents a mile cheaper than our normal rate. I told him no thanks. We'll wait . I thought we were going to get lucky. They sent us another load which was even better, about 100 more total miles and paid our full rate. We happily accepted it. It was picking up tonight at 11 pm and delivering on Monday morning. Of course, I should've known better. They just called a little while ago and said the customer changed the load and doubled the weight so now it won't fit on our truck. Load cancelled.

I don't know what I've done to be earning all this bad luck, but I really hope it turns around soon! If not, we are going to have to go back to regular jobs. And we really  do not want to do that.....

Truck held hostage

Not sure if we are ever going to get our truck back. I am amazed at the complete lack of professionalism that we keep running into when dealing with repair shops.

The first day they got our truck they said it would be next day before they could look at it. Then again we were told no it would be another day. We got to Friday and they said they would look at it that afternoon. I waited till 5 and called to check on it. They said they hadn't found the problem yet. Saturday morning I called again. I was told they still hadn't found the problem. I asked what the computer codes said. I was put on hold and then told the service manager would be calling me soon.

At that point I had had enough. I called and got a rental car and me and John headed over to the shop. The truck hadn't moved. They hadn't put the drive shaft back in. I went into service dept and asked what was going on. The guy says oh they found the problem. They need to order parts for Monday. It was the ground wire shorted in two. I said OK. I want them to show us the wire. He walked into the shop then came back and said the mechanics were out to lunch. I said fine. We will come back in an hour then. Then I asked him exactly what parts were they ordering? He disappeared into an office. When he came back he had another story. They think they can fix it without parts. Okay. So are you fixing it today? No. They would be closing soon. Maybe Monday. Fine. We will be there Monday and we won't be nice!

I have no confidence in this place but also no other options. I feel like once they get your truck in there its held hostage till they feel like getting around to it.

I'm sure they give priority to the large companies they service. One of the down sides to being a one truck shop.

At least we have a car now. We made a trip to Walmart and can eat other places besides the Golden Corral.

It is so freaking hot here we can't even take walks. I don't know how people live here!

When life gives you lemons...grrrrr!!

Yeah, yeah, make lemonade. Right. Easier said than done sometimes. We took the load to Laredo and got there on Sunday night. We didn't deliver until 11 AM on Monday, so we parked at the TA, had a good meal and a good nights sleep. We got up the next morning and I drove the mile to the consignee. This place, like most all places on the Mexican border has extremely tight docks. The first dock they told us to back into was too narrow to even get into. I ended up having to move over two slots to get one wide enough to squeeze in. And a tight squeeze it was! While I was working on backing in, the truck at one point acted like it was going to die. It was just a quick thing that was over as fast as it started. After we made the delivery and were driving to the Speedco to get the oil change, I mentioned it to John. We didn't really think too much about it because the truck had been and still seemed to be running perfectly fine.

We got over to the Speedco, got the oil changed, thought about getting a truck wash, but with the way the wind was blowing the sand around, we decided against it. We headed back to the truckstop, this time the Flying J hoping to get a better internet signal (didn't happen). We had put ourselves available on a 34 hour restart coming back into service the next day at 4 PM. We were getting low on hours and figured that Laredo would be a good spot to do a restart in. We had a good meal and got back to the truck. Dispatch called and wanted us to do a load that was picking up that night at midnight in Eagle Pass, about 130 miles to the north of Laredo. We told them we were doing a restart, but they really needed us to do the load because it was hazmat. We were number 7 on the board, so apparently none of the six trucks ahead of us had their hazmat endorsements. It was just a load of air bag modules, but they are classified as hazmat. After going back and forth with dispatch, we agreed to take the load which delivered in Smyrna, Tennessee. My thinking was that it would be nice to get out of Laredo where the heat was about 102 degrees and the wind was blowing the sand around which is nasty. We would do our restart in Tn. They set everything up and around 8 PM John headed out to Eagle Pass.

To get to Eagle Pass, you have to take highways. It was a nasty drive because it started storming and the wind was really blowing the dirt around. It rained, but not enough to help. It just made things worse. We got to the shipper an hour early. John pulled the truck up in front of the docks and set the brakes. He ran inside to see if they were ready for us or if they wanted us to park out of the way somewhere. Right before he came back to the truck, the truck died. I got such a bad feeling and immediately thought about the incident that morning at the consignee when the truck almost died. John came to the truck and said, good news, they're ready for us. I said, bad news, the truck died! We tried to restart it, but it wouldn't do anything. Didn't crank or anything. The check electric system light came on the dash. Our first thought was that if we sat there a little bit and let it cool off, maybe it would start. Nope, not happening. John pulled the battery cover off and looked at the connections and the new fuse harness that we just had put on two weeks ago. No sign of any problems.

I went into the sleeper to turn on the apu to get some ac running and that's when I noticed that the apu wasn't getting any power. We decided we better call our carrier and let them know that we probably weren't going to be able to take the load. They started calling around trying to find road service to come out and look at the truck and had no luck. There was not one single place that would answer their phone. There were no name brand shops within 120 miles. Nothing. This was such a bad feeling. Finally, one of the guys who worked at the shipper came over to check on us and we told him what was going on. He knew a couple of people who did road service. We called them and none of them were willing to work with an electrical problem. We realized that we weren't going to get any help until in the morning. The shipper then informed us that they were closing and that we would have to leave and go to a motel. The worker that checked on us said he would drive us to a motel. By now, it was about 3 AM. We packed a bag  and he drove us to a La Quinta Inn, which was the only place in town that would accept pets. We have a small Maltese dog that rides with us. I was exhausted, hot and frustrated!

He dropped us at the motel, we checked in and in my opinion got overcharged for a room. $119 for the night and we were only going to be there for a few hours! What are you going to do? We got in the room, turned on the ac, and nothing happened. I called the front desk and told them the ac wasn't working. She had us come back to the desk, and switched us to a different room. She apologized for the inconvenience, but we told her that was just the way our day was going. We got into the new room and thankfully, the ac worked! John fell asleep right away, but of course, I laid there awake until about 7 AM when I got up, took a shower, then gave the dog a bath. John got up, took a shower, and I called a taxi to take us back to the truck. We got to the truck and I thought maybe we would get lucky and the truck would start. Again, nope. I started going through the list of truck repair places and had no luck. I finally called the International dealer in San Antonio and they said it would be sometime next week before they could even look at it. Seriously?! He told me the only other International dealer would be in Laredo. Great! Back where we started. I called them and they said they could probably look at it the next day and they gave me the name of a towing company that would tow us there. I knew the tow bill was going to be outrageous. They charge you for the miles to you and the miles that you actually get towed. It ended up being $1055.

On the bright side, our tow truck driver was a really nice guy named Jesse. He was great at his job, and his ac worked in his tow truck. What more can you ask for? Maybe one thing, 2 seats for passengers? Unfortunately, his truck didn't have a sleeper and only one passenger seat. He had a 5 gallon bucket between the seats so I got two pillows out of the truck and sat on one and put one behind my back. 130 miles on a bucket. Actually it wasn't as bad of a ride as I had feared. But it's not one I want to do again. Jesse was a great tour guide on the drive back to Laredo. He pointed out the new oil wells that are being drilled. These natural gas deposits were recently found and are a booming business in this area. The pipeline workers are from other areas and are living in RV parks that are springing up in the area to accomodate the workers because there aren't any other places for them to live. Also on the drive, we drove through swarms of butterflys. Jesse said every year at this time they come out of the fields. Not sure how long that will last, but they were incredible. Makes a terrible mess to the windshield and front of the truck though. Jesse also pointed out George Strait's (country singer) ranch. We drove right past it, and if someone didn't point it out to you, you would never even notice it. It sits back pretty far off the road and you can mostly just see the roof from the road. Jesse is retiring on Friday. We congratulated him and wished him well. He got us and our truck safe and sound to the International shop in Laredo.

Once at the shop, we checked in, and were told that they would likely get to our truck the next day. We called a taxi and were taken to the Motel 6 North. We have a pool here. There is a Golden Corral next door. We walked about a mile yesterday down to the Walmart and got a few things. We spent about an hour at the pool and did our laundry. We are getting caught up on sleep and unfortunately, International did not look at our truck yesterday and when I called today, I was told that it would probably be around 2 today before they got to it. I still haven't heard from them, and won't be surprised if I don't hear anything until tomorrow. Our carrier has a nice load that they would like for us to that picks up on Friday afternoon, but of course we can't accept it not knowing how long our truck is going to be out of commission.
I had such high hopes for this year, but it isn't going at all like I had hoped. Thank goodness we only have two more truck payments and then the truck is paid for and is ours. We have most of the work done on it that we wanted to get done. We have one more big job to do, which is having the frame sanded and painted with undercoating. If we can just survive these bad times we've been going through lately, we'll be in good shape.

Oh yeah, one other silver lining to this mess. Our truck is broke down during the annual safety blitz. There is a 72 hour period each year that commercial trucks and buses are inspected by dot and other officials at a much higher rate than normal. During our ride in the tow truck, we witnessed several inspection sites in full swing. They were pulling in every single truck. Of course that was on a highway, so they could get every truck. On the interstates, it's hit and miss. I've heard some crazy stories about how many trucks are being put out of service for violations. The craziest story I read about is that in New Jersey, they are actually diverting trucks into a football stadium for inspection and there was up to a 6 hour delay for drivers. This seems to me like it should be illegal for our government to do such a thing, but what do I know? I'm just a lowly truck driver...

Heading back to.....Laredo!

Thankfully we are finally getting some steady miles. We completed the load from Laredo to Ohio. Then drove to Michigan and picked up and delivered that to Georgia. During that drive we received multiple load offers and accepted the longest one which was picking up in South Carolina and delivering in Laredo. We picked up on Saturday and deliver on Monday so we have an extra day on the load and we can get rested up while making some money. Once we get down to Laredo we are also going to need to get a pm (preventive maintenance) done on the truck. We almost exclusively use Speedco for that. They are fast and pretty good although John watches over them like a hawk to make sure they are doing their job properly. A simple oil change when done  improperly can really cause major damage to a motor.

Our very first experience getting a pm done in the first truck we drove was a good example. We went to a TA and they twisted off the oil plug. It was a Mercedes motor and from what I understand, the metal used on those is not as strong as most others. This was the second time that had happened on that particular oil pan and since it had already been tapped out, it wasn't possible to do it again. As an intermediate fix, they put a knob thing on it, looked like a water spigot. That held until we could get it to a shop to have a new oil pan installed which cost about $1600. Overpriced because it was a Mercedes motor. Of course the Ta blamed the prior company that did the oil change and that place said no, they didn't do it, it must have been the Ta. So the owner ended up having to pay out of pocket for the damage. That's the main reason we stick with one company to get the oil changes done. This way, if someone screws up, they can't point the finger at anyone else.

It's really sad how repair shops take advantage of truck drivers. It's one thing to need to get work done on your truck. It's another to know that you are depending on that shop to treat you fairly and to do the job properly. Our sons recently had a problem with their truck. Their check engine light kept going off and on. They took it to an International shop in South Carolina. That shop took all week to work on it and their diagnosis was a faulty fuel sensor. They changed it and I forget the exact amount of the charge but it was more than I thought it should be. They left the shop, took the next load offer and the check engine came on. They ended up taking it to the International shop in Ocala, Fl which is the one we seem to have the best luck with. That shop diagnosed it as a faulty oil temperature sensor. I believe it was around $400 this time for the repair. The good news is that they actually fixed the problem.

From what I have seen, when you take your truck in with a problem, the "mechanic" will hook it up to the computer and if that computer doesn't tell them what the problem is, they start guessing and you may end up paying out a lot of money on parts that weren't really bad. Sometimes if you get a young mechanic and he can't find the problem, he'll go and get an older more experienced mechanic and they usually know immediately what the problem is. Too bad there isn't more of the older ones available.

Ohio to Michigan to Georgia

Uneventful drive. Its a good thing!

Traveling Giraffe

We were traveling south of San Antonio when we were passed by this cute little giraffe. An unusual sight!

Del Rio to Laredo

Delivered our load in Del Rio, Tx. What should have been a very routine delivery turned into a complete nightmare! I was a little worried about the drive from El Paso to Del Rio, having never made that drive before. I could see looking at it on the map that the route was going to follow the US-Mexican Border. The drive would be done during the night hours and on US highways. The route was pretty desolate. I think I only passed through a couple of little towns during the last 200 miles. You could hardly even call them towns. There was very little other traffic and I just hoped and prayed that the truck didn't break down and leave us stranded in that remote location along the border. I hear too many stories about crime in those areas. We were literally close enough to the border to look out the passenger window and see the fence that separates the two countries. The other thing that worried me was all the deer that I was seeing along the side of the road. I usually never see deer in Texas and it's one of the reasons I like driving there. After having hit a deer in Upstate New York once, I now have a phobia of repeating that incident.

Fortunately, I made it safe and sound and three hours ahead of schedule. I parked the truck at a Stripes truckstop about a mile and a half from our delivery point and took a two hour nap. I woke up at 7 AM EST and headed to the delivery. I pulled out of the truck stop, turned left, went through a stop light, about a half mile down the road it curved to the right. As I rounded the curve, there right in front of me was the entrance into Mexico!! I panicked and saw a driveway to my right and I whipped the truck into the driveway. John came flying up into the cab wanting to know what was going on. I told him that I almost just drove us into Mexico. He had to guide me while I backed back out into the highway and headed back to the truckstop to see what was going on with my gps. She should know better than to try and cross the border. I studied google maps for a few minutes and saw an alternate route so off I went. It seemed like it was going to be okay. Up until the point that I came to a railroad crossing. We recently had an apu added to our truck and for some reason the installer positioned it so that it has very low clearance to the ground. We should have made him move it up while we were there, but for some reason we didn't and we have been dealing with it since. I could see by the way the railroad crossing was designed that it was going to be a tight fit for us to cross. Not only that, but once we crossed we needed to make a left turn onto a highway and there wasn't room for our truck to clear the tracks without being out in the highway. Normally in that situation, we would not cross the tracks until we could see the highway was clear, then cross and continue to make the turn without stopping. However, in our current situation, we had to cross the tracks slowly so John could watch from outside to make sure our apu cleared and didn't get hung up on the tracks. The apu cleared, I stopped the truck,John jumped back in and in that amount of time, a couple of cars came along which made me have to sit there before I could turn. Completely illegal to have part of the truck stopped across the tracks and I was not happy, but what else could I do? The cars went past and I tried to pull forward to make my turn. The truck wouldn't go forward!! Oh my God, now what? I put it in neutral, back into first and tried again. Nothing. It dawned on me that our dolly legs may be stuck on the tracks. We drive a straight truck with a single rear axle, so we have dolly legs that have to be lowered when we are getting loaded and unloaded. They also have a very low clearance to the ground and have caused us problems before. That's another story! I screamed at John that I thought our legs were stuck on the tracks. He jumps back out, runs to the back and sure enough, one of them was caught. I backed up, he spun it around and tilted it so that it was at a different angle and I was able to pull forward. I crossed the highway and stopped and he ran back over and jumped back in. At this point, I was ready to cry and to throw up. If a cop had come along at that time, I could have lost my license for stopping on the track, not to mention what a disaster it would have been if a train had decided to come along! Thinking that the worst was surely behind us, I moved forward and wouldn't you know, I had to go about a tenth of a mile and make a left turn....back across the stinking rr tracks! John jumped out, watched me cross and fortunately this time all truck parts cleared the tracks.
Made it to the consignee all in one piece and of course there's nobody there. I tried calling the number dispatch gave us and got a recording saying that the girl was on vacation till October. This is May. Who takes vacation from May to October? I send a message over the qc to dispatch and ask for another number to call, telling them what the voice mail message said. I get a message back saying that that message is from last year, that the girl never updated her message and she would indeed be there, but that she doesn't come in until 9. Obviously they knew this all along so my question is, why do they schedule appts for us at times when they know nobody is going to be there to load/unload us? Things like this are what have me considering changing carriers. It happens way too much and is completely unnecessary.

With all that drama behind us, I drove back to the truckstop, parked it, and collapsed into bed. The mental stress had drained me. All the negativity of the prior week just seemed to keep building and building and I felt like I was gonna snap. Shortly afterwards, dispatch calls with a load offer, a really good one picking up right in Del Rio and going 1640 miles to Detroit. I said yes, we would take it, then he informs me that he didn't have it booked yet, just needed to know if we would be interested first. He promised to call me back within 10 minutes one way or the other. 20 minutes later he calls back to inform me that he did not get the load. Sorry. This trend has been going on all week and I really don't understand it. We've been with this carrier for over 2 years and this has never happened. I've also noticed that all the dispatchers who are calling are new to me. Very odd. About an hour or so later we got a load offer over the qc. This time the load was picking up in the same location that we had just delivered to and was delivering next day to Garland, Tx. It was only 400 miles. I refused it because that would have put us on the Dallas load board and that board is the kiss of death. We have gotten stuck so many times on that board that there was no way I was doing it at this time. In different circumstances I would take that load, but not with only 800 miles for the week.
It got quiet after that so I used the time to call the International dealership in Orlando and ask what the status was for the refund I was requesting on the defective ac repair they had done back in September. The service manager agreed to reimburse us for the new tube which was a little over $300. He is putting a check into the mail for us. Finally, something good happened!

A little bit later, dispatch called again with another potential load offer. This one was picking up that night in Laredo and going 1604 miles to Ohio. The down side is that it was 12 pieces and over 9000 lbs. A heavy load for us. He tried to discount the rate by 10 cents a mile and I told him no. I wanted our full rate. He went and talked to his supervisor and said could we split the difference and take a five cent a mile cut? I again said no. I want my full rate. Its a heavy load and our fuel mileage is going to suck. Away he goes, comes back and says fine, I'll send it over at your full rate. John was mad at me for taking it because he didn't think it would fit the truck. I told him the dispatcher said the pieces were stackable so they should fit but he wasn't convinced. We got to the shipper at 11 PM and it turned out to be one of the easiest pickups we've had. And as a bonus, it ended up being only 2 pieces and 1600 lbs. The rest of the freight never made it across the border from Mexico. I cleared it with dispatch that we were okay to roll with only the 2 pieces. They got on the phone with the customer and we got clearance to go. Woohoo! Finally, at long last, on our way out of Texas!

By the way,  as soon as we get through northern Indiana, we will be going back to the place that installed our apu and having them raise it up higher because we are done stressing over this thing. Now we also need to see if we can find a way to get more clearance on those dolly legs!

Moving Again. Just not out of Texas

Finally got a call this morning from dispatch wanting to know if we would be interested in a load picking up in El Paso going 413 miles to Del Rio Texas. Not the greatest load, but not the worst either. Picks up this afternoon, delivers at 8 AM in the morning. We said we would take it and this time they finally won the bid on the load so we are now at the shipper waiting for the freight. One thing about picking up loads in Texas border towns, you almost always have to wait on the freight. At least we do with the carrier we are with. We were told to be here at 3 PM and it's now 5 PM. The shipper said the driver called in and said he was on the bridge trying to get through customs. They were in the process of xraying his truck. Shipper says probably 30 minutes to another hour before he gets here. I told him we were in no hurry because we have plenty of extra time on this load, but the shipper said he has plans to go to the movies and got called in today on his day off just for this load, so he is actually in a hurry. That's a switch!
The reason I say this isn't the best load is because it delivers in Del Rio. I am unfamiliar with that area and have no idea what kind of freight comes out of there or if we will end up having to empty move somewhere else. I do know that we will be on the Laredo board after delivery. We will be about 185 miles north of Laredo. In the end, it just came down to us being bored sitting for so long in El Paso and needing a change of scenery. It feels good to be back on a load again. Hopefully it will work out for us and something else will come along pretty quickly tomorrow.
We've been making plans for the week of July 4th. We're going to take the week off and spend it at my parents house in Indiana. Hopefully we will get to visit with a lot of our family and friends. We've found over the last couple of years that in our line of work, it's pretty much useless to try and work through certain holidays. July 4th is one of them. So many car manufacturers have plant shut downs that week that everything comes to a crawl. Besides that, in our former regular jobs, we never got to be off together to celebrate holidays, so we have some lost time to make up. I'm hoping that our sons will be able to join us there. More quality time. One of the perks of this job is the ability to visit family when we want. It's nice to be able to drive to visit them and get paid to do it. Living in Florida when the rest of our families live in Indiana makes it hard to visit, but this job helps with that.
It was hard leaving the boys today. We've been with them now for almost a week. Felt like we were camping out together, just in a truckstop instead of a campground. This job is definitely more than a job, it's a lifestyle. Most people wouldn't like it, but fortunately, it works for us!

El Paso Stew

I like Texas. I usually look forward to coming here. It's truck friendly. Big roads, plenty of parking. But today makes a full week of being in El Paso. Four days that we have actually been on the board and available for a load. I am ready to go. I have my paperwork all caught up. We have visited with the boys. All truck repairs are done. It's time to make some money. I got a phone call this morning at 2:30 AM. A dispatcher calling wanting to know if we would help with a recovery load. Another driver broke down in Amarillo on his way to El Paso. Would we help? Sure. I gave him a flat rate that we would do the load for. It included all miles there and back and another $100 for the hand transfer we would have to do. He said there was no one in the office who could approve that offer so he would have to wait until 9AM to call a supervisor at home and see if they would allow it. No need to wake them up. Hmmm. Guess it's okay to wake us up, but god forbid we should wake up a dispatch supervisor. Needless to say, they never called back, so here we sit. They are really just pushing me into making a decision on switching carriers. Once the idea gets in your head, every negative interaction you have with your company just seems that much more intolerable. Our company that we are with is known to be one of the hardest to deal with. They hire drivers who have no experience, which is why we started with them. They gave us our chance and we appreciate that. But I think we are at the point that we have outgrown them. We do not want or need to have our hand held. The dispatch games have grown old and we have progressed to the point that we can manage our time well enough that we can certainly do more loads than they seem to be able to give us. If I am going to be sitting for a week, it better be my choice. Not because they have young inexperienced people trying to do a grown up job and not a clue what they are doing. So, here I sit in El Paso, stewing. Too much time on my hands. Dreaming of our next load. Looking ahead to the future and what it might bring us. One positive thing that I should note. I did not have to go to Best Buy and exchange my tablet. Luckily my techie son is stuck here in El Paso with us and he was able to get it rebooted for me. It lost all my user data, but that's okay since I was smart enough to upload my important information to dropbox. Dropbox is a free online storage for your data. I was able to recover everything I needed. Just took a little while to reload all my apps and download all the data, but all is well now.

Quality Time With The Boys

We seem to be stuck here in El Paso. The nightmare just will not end. The only bright spot is that our two sons who drive for the same carrier are now stuck here with us. We have been getting in some quality time. Its not all our carriers fault that we are still here. They had loads for us but we couldnt take them due to truck repairs. Now that we are ready to go, its a holiday weekend and no freight.

We were offered a couple of loads but nothing worth taking. Lately I have been considering switching carriers. Our current one just doesnt seem to be keeping us running with good loads.  They have tons of crap loads but we arent working for free or for cheap. We have two more truck payments and once those are paid we are going to determine if we are staying or moving on. Its a pain to switch but if we are going to do it, I think that will be the best time.

As soon as John wakes up I need to head over to Best Buy and exchange my Asus Transformer Prime tablet. Got it out today to do paperwork and its locked up on the bootup screen. Thank goodness I bought extended warranty. At this point Im not suprised it quit working. Everything else is so why not?

Day 3 of AC Repair

Left the shop last night and made it about 5 miles and the ac quit. Took it back and raised cane with them.  We just spent $1100 on what? Two more hours and we are told its fixed now. We leave and get 2 miles down the road and it stops again. I call the shop and they say come back in the morning. We got here first thing this morning and still waiting.

Patience is not one of my virtues!

 Update: They said it was fixed and they went out on a roadtest. Brought it back and said no, still not fixed....Couple hours later the service manager brought an estimate sheet in for another $1100. Said we needed a new ac compressor. Wanted our permission to move forward. I look at the estimate and it says ac compressor and drier. Excuse me, didnt I just pay for a new drier yesterday? I told him his price was too high. He went away and came back with a price of $800. The first estimate included the drier which we had already paid for. I said fine, do it. About 3 hours later it was done. So far it is still working. I have doubts as to how long it will continue.

Trip from Hell!!!

To recap, first we had the bumper ordeal in Joplin. Then the wild hog incident. Then the ac quit working. Next I get a bladder infection. The apu acted up. We were told the ac was fixed, drove two miles and it quit. On our third day of trying to get it fixed now. The gps we just bought malfunctioned and had to be exchanged.
Hopefully all the bad stuff is over for awhile. Seriously, three days for an ac?

Needing a Dr on the Road

Ive been having pain for a couple of days but was hoping if I drank a lot of liquids it would go away. It did not and last night the pain kept me up all night. This morning was unbearable so we headed over to a walk in clinic here in El Paso and I got two prescriptions for a bladder infection. Ive had this before and it has always been the most painful experience Ive ever had. Including childbirth. Thankfully the medicine works quickly so I wont have to suffer anymore.

Now we have to head back over to Border International to get the ac repair completed that they started yesterday. They had an outside shop make a hose for the truck and turns out they made it wrong. Hopefully they will get it done today so we can get back to work.

Wild hogs and no AC

This poor piggy didn't stand a chance!

What an eventful drive! John started his drive from Oklahoma City. He was only driving 260 miles for the night. The route took him from I44 to US 277 thru Texas. With 50 miles left to go I was sound asleep in the back when I was awoken by him carrying on about something in the road. I came up front to see what was going on and he was pulled over on the shoulder looking in his mirror behind us. I said whats wrong? He said he hit something in the road, he didnt know what it was, maybe a bear. I dont know if they have bears in Texas or not and I never felt or heard anything so I told him he was crazy, he didnt hit anything. He insisted he did. This was at 2:30 in the morning, pitch black outside, not a town around for 30 miles, no houses, nothing. Just us. He starts backing the truck up and goes probably a tenth of a mile and stops. There! See it!

I looked in his mirror and sure enough, there was something laying there. He backed up again till we were right next to it and we were both staring down at it trying to figure out what it was. It really did look like a bear. Finally we noticed the long snout and decided it was a wild boar. We have them in Florida also.

We sat there a bit trying to decide what to do next. We were looking around the area and realized how isolated it was there. It was a very creepy feeling and I was imagining all kinds of craziness. He got the flashlight and said he was going to have to check the truck and make sure it was okay to drive. I kept a close watch out the windows and mirrors in case someone or something tried to sneak up on him. After checking the truck out he put on gloves and grabbed a leg of the hog and drug it off the road so no one else would hit it.

He got back in and said the only damage he could see in the dark was the bumper was bashed in. We both looked at each other and cracked up laughing. Wow, how lucky were we? Thank goodness we didnt get the bumper in Joplin it would have been a complete waste of money! He took off driving and it was 50 miles before we found a lighted truck parking area.

After checking the truck in the lights we only found the dent in the bumper. The oilpan has a small dent in it but shouldnt be a problem. There are pig guts and gore all under the truck. Really nasty. Going to need a major truck wash. We are going to sleep a few hours and head out in the daylight.

Bummer...no Bumper

We made it to Joplin today and visited the Chrome Shop Mafia for the first time. They had our bumper waiting on us, we paid for it and they loaded it into our truck. Their shop is closed on the weekends so we were going across the street to the Petro to have it installed.

We had to wait 3 hours to get called into a service bay and I told John that before they removed the old one, hold the new one up in front of it and make sure all the bolt holes lined up. Just as I feared, it wasnt a match. We had to rebox it, and get it back across the street before they closed. Luckily we got there five minutes before closing time and got our money refunded. We were so bummed out. This bumper thing has become like a treasure hunt. We keep following all the clues and thinking we got it, but it always turns out that we dont.

After we left there, I drove 200 miles to Oklahoma City, stopped and fueled up. Grabbed a mini pizza and a boston creme donut at the Loves and then John took over driving. He's planning to drive about 230 miles tonight and stop somewhere in Texas. We will finish our drive to El Paso tomorrow. Delivery isn't until Monday morning. I love these weekend loads where we make good money but have plenty of time to get the load there.

A couple of new things we have discovered recently. Podcasts and audio books. John has been making use of the Podcasts. We both downloaded a Podcast App onto our android phones. I found Motor Trend Podcast for John and loaded up his player. We plug the phone into the truck stereo so the sound comes through the truck speakers. He can listen to that car talk for hours!

 I download library books to my smartphone. I've only done the regular books until this week. I finally got an audiobook downloaded and play it while I'm driving. I didn't think I would be able to focus on it, but suprisingly I can. It's a little strange having someone read you a story, but after awhile, you get used to it. It helps to pass the time while driving. I can only listen for a couple of hours, then I have to switch to Sirius Radio. I have a few channels that I listen to pretty regularly. Road Dawg Trucking, 70,s  Highway Country, Tiffany Granath on Playboy and Howard Stern. Oh yeah and HLN news. Sometimes I don't listen to anything, just enjoy the peace and quiet!