The saga continues?

New look? Could something be afoot with the Geektrucker?!?!

Stay Tuned dear avid reader… news to come!

YES!!! HE FLOATS!!! – 0438hrs

Short update… got into Ventura without a problem… didn’t see any flames, but did see a lot of smoke (mostly when we were leaving Cali via I15).  We then went up to Santa Maria to pick up a load of brussell sprouts (yuck!) and took them up to Salt Lake City (our drop yard there).

Had to deadhead up to Idaho Falls, ID for this load we have now… again, can’t tell you while we still have it… but you know about the ONLY thing coming out of Idaho!!  Yeah.. and it’s HEAVY!  We’re draggin it to the yard in Springfield where we hope to drop it (it’s going to Albertville, AL) so that we can get a load into Florida or something so “knucklehead” can take his four days off at home in Mississippi before delivering.

Lastly… again, I just can’t say enough about this nice truck and what fun / how easy it is to drive… after almost two months on my other co-drivers’ Freight-shaker I couldn’t get the hang of “floating” my gears.  Floating is the term used in trucking where you don’t double-clutch, instead getting your timing of RPM’s and speed right to just slide from one gear to another.

So, to make a long story short… it took me all of about ten minutes to learn / finally get how to float today…both up-shifting AND down-shifting!!  WHOO HOOO!!  Now, the ONLY time I need / have to use the clutch is when stopped, first starting in 2nd gear!!  Sa-weet!!

On the road again – SNAFU – 0508 hrs

Been a couple of days since I had the chance to update…

So let me begin with last Monday being in Cali…

Saw this little beaut on I10 and thought of my sweetie… for those that don’t know, it’s a 67 Datsun convertable… in mint condition of course!

(Yeah babe, I COULD see you getting groceries in that!)

I also saw this tooling (well, sitting on the trailer) on I10 in Cali:

And lastly, saw this one on I15 heading East out of Cali (you’ll need to hit flickr and zoom in to read it):

So Charles and I did the hot-foot shuffle from Cali to Springfield.  We’d had several “hot” loads in a row that demanded that we hammer down to get there in time… we finally got a load with some time on it…and we had to hammer down to get ME to my 90 in time!  LOL

Arrived in Springfield around 0300 Wednesday morning where my new co-driver was waiting.  He had a load going to Virginia that was getting close on time, we would need to beet-feet.  Got my stuff transferred over to his truck (more on that later) and we decided to bed down for a couple of hours before heading out.

We got up a few hours later, went to get our load… yup, the trailer’s missing!  Go into Driver Lineup… “Oh!  We had to give that to a team to get it there in time, as we thought you (co-driver) was a solo and didn’t have enough time to get it there in time”

<sigh>

So, we took the next best thing… a load going to Jacksonville, FL for Friday 1500 delivery.  No problem!  Off we go!

Rolled down the highway allowing me to get used to the new truck and getting to know my new co-driver, we ended up getting down here Thursday morning.  Kill some time and head over to the Walmart DC (the 90) for our 1500hrs delivery…. and wait… and wait… (it was THEN we realized we were 24 hours early!).

They finally got us unloaded and we headed off to our next load in Bradenton, FL heading for… yup, you guessed it!  CALIFORNIA… LA!!

So we scoot over here and drop our MTY and pick up the loaded trailer… the refer’s not turned on.  It’s supposed to be at 34… there’s product in the box.  Hmmm…

Head out to the guard shack to check out… he hands us our BOL’s and we tell him about the refer… start it up and life’s good right?

WRONG!  It’s a full moon people!

Checking the BOL’s before we roll out, my co-driver notices that there’s actually three sets of BOL’s for three different orders in the box.  Our load assignment has only one order.  To top that off, if you add up the BOL’s weight listed, we’re pushing 52,000lbs… our max (in the box) is about 45,000.  WTF?!!??

So we park, the co-driver goes in to talk to security to find out what’s going on, gets dispatch (a.k.a., the “Night Monkeys” on the phone and they start trying to figure out why there’s three BOL’s, two order numbers and everything is FUBAR.

Some hauncho comes out and tries to figure things out, but nope, can’t do.  We’ll have to wait for shipping to come in later this morning to figure out where they screwed up and what we’re REALLY supposed to have in the box.

So.. that means I have time to update the blog and grab a nap!  WHOO HOOO!!!

Lastly, let me tell you about my new co-drivers’ truck…

This, of course isn’t my co-drivers’ truck (I need to get his permission to photograph and post images of his first), but it’s the same model.  Instead of White, his is a champagne color and his interior is slightly different.

When I climbed on the truck, he had just a hair over 9000 miles on it… It’s a Peterbilt 387 and let me tell you, this baby is like a Cadillac!  It rides and drives like a new vehicle of course, but I also think it’s part of the way it’s bilt (pun intended) as it just drives sooo effortlessly!

The interior is more roomy than the Century Class Freight-shaker I just came off of, however the top bunk is about 4″ narrower than the Century.  And of course being a new truck, it’s QUIET!!!  No shakes, rattles…it just rolls!

Anyways… we’re waiting on shipping in Bradenton, FL, I have about 25,000 miles to go to finish up my teaming portion (by the way, rumor has it that a few company drivers are getting the new Cascadia’s and 387’s!!  I can only hope!!!).