Not So Fast!

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Craig

We still have our truck. (Yea!!!) We went to the Orlando airport to pick up a Suburban to move all of our stuff up to Georgia where our new truck was waiting.  When we got back to the Freightliner dealer, the mechanic said “We figured it out, truck will be ready in an hour”  So we headed back to return the car.  Thank you Hertz for charging USX $200 for a two-hour rental.  It was so nice getting back into our truck and having air conditioning.

We headed empty up to Atlanta and picked up a load to Hawthorne California.  Nice run across the country and dropped Sunday morning.  Or next load did not pick up until Monday morning so we headed out to the Colton terminal.  Big mistake, it was a madhouse.  First quarter is always slow for freight, it does not affect us very much as we are on the reefer board but between the time of year and it being a Sunday, the Colton terminal was PACKED with trucks and drivers looking for a load.  We decided we did not want to hang out there so we headed over to Costco in San Bernardino, picked up a couple of things and had our In-N-Out burger fix.  Then headed to the TA Truckstop in Ontario. We had a very relaxing day mostly watching TV (something we hardly ever do) and reading.  Our pickup the next morning was in Huntington Beach and I pulled up Google maps and checked.  As suspected tight streets and no easy way in or out.  So I got up at 04:30 to get us there before traffic and people showed up.  I must say I am brilliant (and humble)  I am not sure how I would have backed into this place when cars are parked on the street.  We got loaded and headed out at 11:00 for our two stops, first in Mesquite Texas and then on to Atlanta Georgia.  The only thing of note on the trip was our first stop at the Pep Boys Distribution  Center.  We pulled up to the security gate, backed into dock 8 where the forklift driver already was waiting with the door open.  He pulled off the 5 pallets and we were back at the gate and out of there in 10 minutes flat.  This place was amazing.

So here we are on Thursday morning sitting in our Ellenwood GA (Atlanta) terminal getting ready to head out and pick up a load going to Salt Lake City.  Supposed to be home in Colorado this weekend but looking at the weather with blizzards in Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming forecast, I do not see it happening.  We may ask to go home the following weekend instead so we can spend time with the kids.  Katie came by last night (Anne’s friend from College and the two girls headed out to dinner and shopping while I got some much-needed sleep.  She then visited for a bit and it was sure great to see her.  One of the first things I noticed about Anne, other than how beautiful she is, were the friends she has.  Good people surround themselves with great friends.

We really want to get home, not only to see the kids but we have decided we have WAY to many clothes on this truck.  I use less than half of what I have on here and so does Anne.  We want the clutter out.  Can’t wait to get it done.  Hard to complain about weather since I have been in shorts and flip-flops for the last few weeks.

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Vacation is over

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Craig

Since they cannot figure out what is wrong with our truck after three days, our fleet manager has found us a new truck and we are being reseated.  They are getting us a rental car now and we need to go pack up the old truck and head for Georgia.  Going to miss our old truck.

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Breakdown in Florida

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Anne Leonard

Well we will be spending another day in sunny Florida. Our truck is having an issue with the regen system. For those of you that have followed us since the beginning. The regen system has been the reason for MOST of our breakdowns. Hoping that they will get it fixed this time. The bad part is we have to spend another day in the hotel. Craig wants to take me shooting today since I have never been and there is a place right next to the hotel. I will let you know how it goes if we get there. Hoping to meet up with some friends later but still haven’t heard back yet.

We are at an interesting hotel. We asked what time was check out and were told 12. We then asked if we could have a late check out. They said absolutely. They gave us till 12:30. Woo hoo. I thought that was pretty funny. What we even funnier was the gentleman who EXPLAINED the reason thoroughly!!! Why they don ‘t extend the courtesy blah blah blah. Craig’s expression was HYSTERICAL!!!!!

I am going to post a couple pics from our fun filled day yesterday. We went to Margaritaville at City Walk in Orlando. Had a wonderful lunch and then crossed the sidewalk to a tiki bar and had a couple drinks with Nike the bartender. Her dad is an OTR driver. So we had a nice long conversation.

On our way out I spotted a photo booth and made Craig get in. We were laughing so hard and when we finished they showed a video of the whole thing. OH MY GOSH. We couldn’t stop laughing then. That would have been worth having a copy of.

So now off on whatever adventure we can find today.

 

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TOTALLY sweating our way through the south…..

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Anne Leonard

Okay when Craig wrote the earlier blog we were sitting in a restaurant with air conditioning. Can I tell you how hot it is at 6:40 pm. The temp in the  bunk just says an H. Which means it is too hot to measure. Last time I looked it was 86. My puppy is totally panting and I am TOTALLY miserable. My hair is sweating. It started raining and I was hoping it would cool down. NOT.  I cannot believe how hot it is and as soon as we drop the load we are heading straight to Freightliner and getting the AC fixed. I will be relaxing in an air conditioned room is all I have to say. We were really hoping we could slip by the south without it being too hot. It is cooler outside at the moment than inside and we have the fans blowing the cooler air in the tractor.

Okay enough bitching. NOT but there are a few things I did want to say.

I do love our job. Maybe not so much this very second but most of the time we love it. As Craig mentioned we went to dinner with Meaghan and Sean for sushi the other night. MY FAVORITE!! We really have made some cool friends at this job and being able to meet up on the road is a blast. I am looking forward to spending a couple days at home within the next couple weeks. Now don’t make fun of me but I have decided I really need to get rid of some stuff in the truck. I definitely have too much stuff as does my loving husband. So it is time to do a little cleaning out and leave the stuff at home.

What other exciting news can I share. Have I mentioned how HOT it is in my truck. Just want to make sure you all feel my pain. LOL

I hope that my next post will be WAY cooler than this one. 😉

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Sweatin’ our way through the South

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Craig

Well, not really sweating, but not really comfortable either. The air conditioning on the truck is out again. We could have put it in the shop at Freightliner in Colton California but we had the hours to make it across the country so we took a load to Orlando and we will take it to Freightliner there. It is Sunday afternoon and we are in Denham Springs LA. only 690 miles from Orlando and we have until noon on Tuesday to get there. So we decided to shut it down here and watch some football. Since we are both out of hours for today and we will not be pulling out until the morning it is also beer thirty.. I am sitting at the bar in Hooters next to the Pilot truck stop and Anne is next door getting her nails done. The A/C feels pretty darn good right now. We are having a great week and it is just one of those times we are really loving what we do. When we were in Colton a couple of days ago we saw Meaghan, who follows our blog was waiting in line to get her truck washed. They started emailing us months ago asking about teaming and USX and about two months ago we met her husband Sean at our Tunnel Hill terminal when he had just finished upgrading. Meaghan had already upgraded and was out running solo and was on her way to Tunnel Hill to pick Sean up. We then met her at a delivery we were making and she backed in next to us and recognized Anne. Sean was sleeping so we did not see him then. We finally all got together in Colton when Meaghan came over to us and asked if we wanted to join them for Sushi. We had a very nice time at dinner and another great friendship was born.

I am looking forward to a night in a hotel in Orlando with a hot tub. If we have time we may grab a car and run over to Tampa for my very favorite steakhouse in the Country. Berns Steakhouse. If that happens I promise there will be a full report here. Cannot wait for Anne to get back from the nail salon. I feel a great back scratch coming on.

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A bump in the road

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Craig

Well, we had a bit of a scare this last week.  We had a load of kitchen cabinets that picked up in Indiana and had three deliveries in the Bay Area. Sacramento, Fresno and Union City.  The problem with this load is we had the first stop at 9 AM on Thursday and the next stop was at 7 AM on Friday.  That kills our weekly miles when we have to sit like that but what can you do.  We made our first delivery and then headed to the 49er Truck Stop in Sacramento to hang out for the day.  We had a great lunch in their restaurant and then Anne took a nap.  At dinner time we walked to a nearby diner.  On the way Anne told me she was not feeling well.  She was having abdominal pain and nausea.  We debated back and forth on what to do and finally decided we would see if it got better in the morning.  It was about the same the next day.  We made our deliveries and got our next assignment.  We were to run empty to Yuma AZ and pick up a reefer load of veggies at Dole headed to North Carolina.  We had a lot of time in the schedule so we decided to stop in Santa Clarita and go to the ER so Anne could be checked out.  We were concerned at this point that she had appendicitis and I did not want her getting into trouble in the middle of nowhere.  About 6 hours from LA I had to get some sleep so Anne took over.  She woke me up in Ontario (an hour past Santa Clarita) and told me that although she was not feeling better she did not want to spend the money at the ER and besides, she was NOT going to the ER on Friday the 13th.  So I took over driving again and I decided she was going to the ER in Palm Springs.  If she had to have surgery than she would be fairly close to family.  We got to the hospital at 2:00 AM (on the 14th, yea!) and they started checking her out.  They assumed Appendix also and ran a Cat Scan, and Ultra Sound and blood tests.  After all that it was determined to be a kidney infection.  They pumped her full of antibiotics and many hundreds of dollars later we were on our way.  Because I did the responsible thing and called our fleet manager (night weekend guy) to tell him we were stopping to have Anne checked out, we lost our load.  So we dropped our trailer at the Pilot and ran up the hill to Yucca Valley for a quick visit with Anne’s mom.  We had been told that we would probably be sitting in the Colton terminal until the next morning but just as we got to Yucca Valley we get a message to pick up a load in Colton going to Dallas TX.  So our visit was very short.  It was a pretty tough run as Anne was not recovered yet.  We are at the Irving terminal and head out tonight to Oklahoma City for a Fedex run to San Bernardino.

The Air Conditioning we had fixed at Freightliner is not working again and we do not want to stop to fix it.  It gets VERY hot in the bunk even in moderate 60 degree weather.  Here is hoping for cool weather in California.

Also, the idling issue Anne mentioned has been resolved.  The company had decided that to save fuel they were going to set the trucks to have the engine shut off after 5 minutes if not moving and the temperature was between 30 and 70 degrees.  I am sure it sounded like a great idea to some Vice President who has never lived in a truck,  But at 60 degrees, it can be 85 degrees in the bunk and if the batteries get low you cannot idle to charge them.  After a near riot on the company Facebook page, reason prevailed and they stopped the software “upgrade”.  If implemented, we would have had to accelerate our truck purchase goal.

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Nice people out here.

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Anne Leonard

We are back up and running. We have way too much time on this load but it let me get the truck all nice and clean before we pick another load up tonight. This afternoon it will be laundry time and watch some good movies. Once we are unloaded.

There is a lot of conversation happening over at USX. There has been a change in our idling procedures and a lot of drivers are NOT happy to say the least. I’m trying to keep an open mind and see what management does before I get mad.

Now on to happy things. We were in Rock Springs Wy the other night and we were switching drivers. I took Lil Bit out for a walk and figured it wasn’t too cold so I didn’t put her coat or sweater on. The lady driver next to me asked me if she was  a puppy. (Most people think she is since she is so little) I say no, smile and take her to some grass. I get back in the truck and then the lady shows up at my door and hands me a pink sweater and tells me she has plenty. I thank her, totally baffled and then it dawns on me. She didn’t know I had tons of clothes for Lil Bit. I felt so bad but it made me smile that someone cared enough to make sure a little dog was warm. I will pass it one when the time is right. Pay it forward comes in all different ways.

It made me smile!!!

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4th day into the New Year.

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Anne Leonard

I am going to try to blog more consistently this year but it makes it hard when we are still in breakdown mode. Getting a little antsy to hit the road. We thought we would get out yesterday but the place they ordered the part wasn’t open on Monday. So here we sit. Really can’t complain since we are with family but I think we both are ready to get back to work. Went to the movies last night and saw War Horse. Yes I did cry and I think Craig did too.

Just got the news that we will be in breakdown for another day UGGGHHHH. Guess freightliner called our FM to find out if we could be out another day so they could fix the seat and she said yes. WHAT THE HECK. Waaaaa Waaaaa Waaaaa ok I know one day I will really want some time off but that day is not today.

Okay I’m done venting LOL

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Happy 2012

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Anne Leonard

I realized since I got my early Christmas presant (my tablet) I haven’t posted much. We have had a fantastic couple weeks. Spending time with friends and family has just been so awesome. I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful New Years. I can’t wait for all our new adventures of the year.

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One Year Ago Today

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Craig

It is hard to believe that a year ago today we got on a Greyhound bus to Dallas Texas for orientation at US Xpress. We quickly realized that we would never travel by bus again but so began the adventure. Our lives have changed so much in 365 days. We survived an experience that I think a lot of couples would struggle with, living in 63 square feet. Our home is smaller than the average jail cell and there are times (not very often) that it kinda feels like one.

If you have not figured it out by now, we love our jobs.  The ability to provide for our family and help out our kids is a big part of that but also we get to see our loved ones and we have made some wonderful new friends.

We are in Snohomish Washington with my parents.  Two of my kids live here also and we had Christmas with my daughter yesterday and will have Christmas with my Son today.  Wish it could have been together but it worked out this way this year.  Had a marvelous time out to dinner with my parents New Years Eve and we kinda partied like old people as we watched 2012 come in on TV from our bed.  LOL.

We are going to be here a couple more days as there are a couple of major things wrong with the truck so it is going in the shop in the morning.  Kind of hard to believe how many people are following this blog so I want to say Happy New Years everyone.  If you are looking into team driving, please feel comfortable asking us any questions.  We would love to help.

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