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?

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.

The Joys of Ownership

It's too soon to know if we made the right choice in buying a truck of our own. We bought the truck in April and began making improvements and repairs. We had to redo the sleeper to make it acceptable for us. That turned out to be the the least expensive thing we have done.

We had a coolant leak, leaks in the trailer, the trailer doors had to be resealed, we had to have a new dot bumper put on, have our hinges welded to be acceptable for DOD loads and still none of that was a drop in the bucket compared to the repair we just had to do.

Having made only one payment and trying to get caught up on repairs that the prior owner had neglected we haven't had a chance to build up much funds.  It's very unfortunate timing that we have suffered a major repair so early on in our ownership.

We had a nice long run out to Middleton, Idaho. The truck ran great out there and we were on a high enjoying our truck and loving our job. After our delivery we were deadheading back east to position ourselves for our next freight opportunity.  The truck never really ran poorly, it just so happened that as I was driving down the interstate, I noticed in the passenger side mirror what I thought was dirt blowing around. I kept watching and eventually realized that it was black smoke that I was seeing.

I pulled over the first chance I got and we did a check of what we could. I called an International dealership that was nearby and they said to keep an eye on the guages and if there okay, go ahead and drive it to them. We were only about 30 miles away.

I kept going and we finally got there. We were told they were backlogged and we would have to wait before they could take a look at it. The night went on and they closed. They told us to come back in the morning. We drove to a nearby truckstop and parked for the night. We both had an awful feeling about things and neither one of us could sleep that night.

In the morning we headed back over and at that point the truck started acting up. We weren't sure we were going to make it, but we did. We parked and waited again. Eventually they brought us into a bay and hooked us up to the computer. Their initial assessment was that we had a bad fuel injector. I was happy about that because all 6 injectors had recently been replaced. This would be covered under warranty.

The work wouldn't be done until the next day so they drove us to a local motel for the night. The next day they came and picked us up and we were excited to get back on the road. As we walked back to the truck which was still in a bay we noticed that the hood was open and the engine was tore apart. The manager came over to us and told us he had bad news. He said that a retainer had broken and the cam shaft was messed up. They were going to have to tear into the motor and see how far metal had gotten into the engine. Only then would he be able to give us an accurate estimate but he said to prepare ourselves for a bill of about $7000.00.

I believe that is probably one of the worst moments of my life. We had only made one payment on this truck. Now we were going to owe $7000 for a repair? Wow. The manager was very patient with us as we didn't understand the repairs that he was telling us we were going to need. I think he felt sorry for us and knew it was a shock for us.

Eventually we did the only thing we could and that was to gather up our stuff and go back to the motel. We checked in and I had a good cry. I was in deep depression. Of course we were questioning our decision to buy the truck and thinking that we should have stayed driving a truck for someone else.

This went on from the 7th till we finally picked the truck up on the 21st. We were in Grand Island, Nebraska. We thought about renting a car and driving to Indiana to visit family but truthfully we were in no mood to be good company for anybody. We decided to just stay where we were and not make anyone else suffer from our bad moods.

Thankfully we did have access to enough money to pay for the repairs when they were finally completed. The final bill was just over $7200.00. We decided to cancel our family vacation that we had planned on taking in July and stay out on the road until we can get our savings built back up.

I really hope it gets better.