Goofing off, mostly.

Life is good   I know it has been a while and so many times I have thought “I need to do an update” and it did not happen.  We are alive and well.

Personally this has been a pretty awesome summer.  We have spent lots of time with family, the weather has been great and the pools at home AND at my parents in Snohomish WA have felt perfect.  We finally made a couple of runs to California so got to see our son Tyler and Anne’s Brother and his amazing family.  We have been in Washington for the last week.  First for my Nephews wedding and then for a few days up in the beautiful San Juan Islands.  Maybe the most perfect place on the planet in the summer.  We went up with our good friends Kathi and Ken who we met in our second month (I think) trucking at a FedEx facility in Kansas City.  If you have read the whole blog you are familiar with them.  As weird as it may seem, we both had weddings to attend in little Snohomish WA on the same day.  They live in Buffalo, we live in Chattanooga, both about 2500 miles from Snohomish but here we were.  So much fun.

Now let’s talk business.  This has been a VERY challenging summer in the trucking world.  Rates are terrible and freight volumes are way down.  Summer is always a bit slower and we were spoiled last year with very good volume but the load boards are dead and it is taking a lot more work to make money.  The Seattle market is a complete black hole.  We have made it work when we got here two weeks ago by running down to Los Angeles at $1.00 a mile and back to Seattle at $3.00 a mile.  It is all about the average, not the individual load.  The battle cry in trucking is “Don’t haul cheap freight”. My personal belief is there is no such thing unless you get a low paying load INTO a bad market.  You do not run a cheap load into Seattle or Denver or New England or Florida.  You get your money going in to those markets and take whatever you can get to get out.  With the weekend coming up we have not decided what to do.  May grab one of those sweet one dollar per mile loads to LA to try and get a good team load on Friday or we may just suck it up at $1.50 to the midwest.   There are not a lot of loads on the board.  I have made a bunch of calls and sent emails to brokers and shippers we have worked with out of the Northwest and hoping one of them comes through.  Meanwhile, 94 degrees in Seattle today and I have a pool 15 feet away from my chair on the deck.  We will somehow survive.

The truck has been running very well.  The suspension problem is not really fixed. They did something hard to keep the cab from shifting but it has made the ride a bit too stiff.  Need to still work on that.

And an update to my update since it took me four days to post this.  We took a run to Los Angeles at a whopping $1.30 a mile.  Picked up Saturday morning delivering Monday morning so a very lazy two days. Hauling personal gear for the Singapore National Army from Fort Lewis to LAX.  It is mostly their duffel bags of personal gear but listed as “Airplane Parts” on the Bill of Lading.  Pretty cool group of soldiers.  Delivering in the morning and fingers crossed for a great team load out.

A few pictures from the last month or so.

A GREAT weekend with Kathi and Ken.

Lopez Island

Our Whale Watching Boat (Orcas)

My California Girl – I am in flip flops, shorts and a T-Shirt

Our Five Year Anniversary View

Now THAT is a meal in a glass. Bloody Mary at Roche Harbor

Roche Harbor, San Juan Island Washington

The “Boys” with the Girl

Cori and Brett’s wedding

Just another rough day on the road

Princess Blythe is happy

Jack and his launching pad (Dad)

Anne and Tyler at In-N-Out. Happy

Does THIS look like a residential street to you? $78 parking ticket

Tough day at the office

Audrey and Aleena

Anne with Princess Blythe

Shelby and Aleena on Aleena’s Birthday