We dropped our Fedex load in Denver last week and bobtailed home.  It is so nice when we do not have to worry about a trailer so we can park in the driveway.  We got a ton done and had a great time with both daughters as I had flown Aleena in to drive our Explorer to Seattle with the last of her things she had left in Colorado.  Since we take home time all over the country to visit with friends and family, we have decided we do not need a car so it will be sold in Seattle.

I got a call from our Fleet Manager on Tuesday afternoon asking me if our PTA was still 01:00 on Wednesday, I said yes and he sent us a load assignment for Fedex picking up in Denver at 02:30 and heading to Kent WA.  Perfect!  And we did not have to find an empty trailer.  We arrived in Kent at O’Dark:30 and immediately got a load picking up at our Kent drop yard and heading to Memphis.  A nice 2300 mile run that gets us back into the rhythm of living on the road.  It is always hard coming out of home time, my schedule is all screwed up since I drive nights and it takes a few days to get back on track.  A long run helps as there is usually time in the schedule for me to pull over at 04:00 and take a nap so I can ease myself back into night living.  Since our Pottery Barn load did not deliver until Tuesday, we dropped it at our terminal in Olive Branch MS (just outside of Memphis) and picked up another Fedex load heading to Fort Lauderdale Florida.  We are VERY appreciative of the load planners for not sending us into the Northeast right now with all of the flooding.  Friends we have driving up there are having a nightmare.  Mostly sitting since they cannot get to their deliveries.  So we dropped at the closed Fedex facility (Sunday) at about noon and we were told to Bobtail to Tampa to pick up a load going 33 miles to Lakeland.  It is about a 5 hour drive and one of my very favorite beach restaurants is in Clearwater.  Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill!  They have a number of parking spaces on the road for delivery trucks 24 to 40 feet long which is PERFECT for a tractor without a trailer.  We had an awesome time on the beach.  Weather was perfect, dinner was wonderful and my date was amazing.  After dinner and a couple of hours sitting on the patio just talking, we picked up our loaded trailer and ran the 33 miles to Lakeland where we slept at the shipper.  I am sitting in the yard now waiting for our delivery appointment.

Hey, we also got a great request.  We have been asked to write about living as a team in a truck and what we have learned to make it work.  Anne and I will get to work on that.  Great suggestion!  In that same vein, if there is anything you are wondering about, please feel free to ask.  We had a very hard time getting information on what team trucking would be like before we jumped into it.  I know a lot of people who are reading this are looking into doing it so please feel free to shoot us questions or suggestions for future entries.

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