Anne & Craigs Great Adventure

I am typing this sitting at our terminal in Olive Branch, MS. Spent 4 days of hometime that was much needed!! We got out of Colorado with a run up to Kent, WA. We dropped and immediately picked up a load heading to Memphis. Enroute we got a pre plan sending us to drop at our terminal (doesn’t deliver till Monday) and picking up another load heading to Florida.

One of the perks of this job was having lunch with Aleena while she was driving to Seattle. As Craig likes to say we lapped her. Had a great lunch at a mexican restaurant and hit the road.

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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I’ve spent the last few days trying to wrap my head around the other night. Craig mentioned that we blew a steer tire driving 65 miles on the freeway. I was in the back and had no idea what was happening except that something was really, really wrong. The truck was super bumpy and angled downwards. I thought we were going down an embankment and was waiting for the crash. What he didn’t know was that I have been absolutely terrified since. I didn’t want to talk about it and last night I  let it all out. It totally freaked me out. I thought we were going to crash and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever had happen in the truck. The problem was that every little bump after that, my heart would be in my throat. I wasn’t use to being scared in the truck and I didn’t know how to make it stop. It is not a common which is a good thing. I am hoping now I can get over it. Our guardian angel was definitely with us. All the things that could have gone wrong and didn’t are amazing. I do love driving and after being home for a few days I think it will all be back to normal. I’ve talked to a couple people today about this and they say it is a normal reaction. What has been interesting was how something like this affects you. Good news is at least if it ever does happen again. I’ll be expecting it. I think one of the things that I didn’t know was if I wanted to get back in the truck. I guess it’s like that saying if you get thrown from a horse the best thing is to get back on it. I am planning on getting back on my horse!!!

My youngest son is a tremendous quarterback who lost half of his sophomore and all of his junior year in high school due to injury.

Craig Leonard

He came back his senior year to become the number one 5A quarterback in the State of Colorado.  He decided to play a year at Jirah Prep in Charlotte NC to give some college scouts the ability to see him play live.  We need a bunch of people to “like” his facebook football page so it can become searchable.  please help us out if you can. Please click the link below and then please “like” the page.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Craig-Leonard/195287967205762

Also, here is a link to his website.
http://www.craigleonardjr.com/

So  yes, Anne did have to do a drug test.  We had to wait until Thursday morning for her to go in to do it.   She is a worrier and I had to spend all of Wednesday night assuring her that it was only a drug test (she was just told to report to Safety at 8 AM)  It turns out that there is one thing about Anne that is shy….her bladder.  Just like last time, she could not pee enough to do the test.  She had to sit and drink tons of water.  Kind of scary because they only give you three tries.  If you do not provide a large enough sample, it is an automatic fail and she would be out of a job (and I would be very lonely)  She passed and we got a load assignment from our terminal in Tunnel Hill to Saint Louis, we got to our St Louis facility just after midnight and thought we could drop the trailer.  Nope, we had to babysit it until 6:00 AM when they opened, then we got another 400 mile load from Central Missouri to Chicago.  That was two loads that any solo driver could do.  I called our fleet manager when he got in and asked for a real team run.  He apologized for the two the night guys had given us.  So our next load was a FedEx load from East Moline Illinois to West Sacramento.  A very nice run, we pulled in on Sunday evening and got a stupid little 100 mile run to Stockton and back to Sacramento with a live unload at 7:00 AM.  I was kind of pissed about it until I realized that the odds were, we would have sat all night until Monday morning anyway without a load so at least we made a little money.  We then got a load from Sacramento to Houston.

Middle of the night in Arizona, I get pulled over by a State Trooper.  I asked what I had done wrong and he said “Nothing”  He then proceeded to do a Level Two inspection on the truck and trailer.  We had a torn mudflap and their was an ABS fault on the trailer brakes (I had been told by a couple of other drivers that the ABS warning light on a trailer was no big deal….not true and I should have known better)  Anyway, no ticket but it was written up for repair.

The cool part of this run is we were going through El Paso TX with time to stop and see one of my best friends from High School.  Mark picked us up at the truck stop just outside of town and we went and hung out for a couple of hours at his beautiful home.  It was a short visit but so awesome to see him AND he fed us dinner.  Love that guy.

So we got to Houston and stopped at a Flying J to fuel before we made the delivery.  Went to start the truck and it would not turn over.  I had noticed the batteries getting weak but I thought we would be able to have them checked next time at a terminal.  Nope.  105 degrees and there we sat in the fuel isle sweating.  It turns out they are having the batteries fail an a ton of the new trucks.  Breakdown sent a tow truck to pull start us.  He hooked up a chain and pulled me forward in third gear until the motor started.  A bit nerve wracking in a crowded truck stop parking lot.  This is when I am thankful we are company drivers, the bill to USX for this five-minute service was just over $300.  We kept the truck running and made our delivery.  I called our Irving (Dallas) terminal and talked to someone in the shop.  He said they were not backed up and could get us right in and had the batteries.  Our Fleet Manager had a load for us from Dallas to Atlanta and we could get the batteries replaced at either terminal.  We get to Irving and I walk into the shop office and they say “We are all backed up, who told you that?”  I did not have a name but the guy who had said it took the fall for me and told the truth.  All smiles now they get the truck right in while we did a couple of loads of laundry.  I also have the trailer pulled in to get the ABS fault fixed and we are off again to Atlanta.

We dropped that load in Atlanta and could not find an empty trailer, we run over to our terminal to look for one there and there are none.  We have a load assignment to run empty to Memphis and get a FedEx load going to Denver for our home time.  After waiting for hours, they have us bobtail to our Olive Branch Mississippi terminal and get a trailer to take to Memphis (only about 15 miles apart)  We got to FedEx three hours late, got the load and out the gate.  ………..

Which leads me to now, I am sitting on the side of the freeway 25 miles outside on Memphis.  I had the left steer tire explode at 65 miles an hour.  Without a doubt the scariest thing that has happened to us driving so far.  The truck really wanted to hang a hard left into the ditch and I had to fight it over to the right median.  Anne, lying in bed in back, had no idea what was happening, just heard the bang and the rumble, felt the truck shaking and veer hard left, she thought we were off the road and starting to roll over.  Very scary for her.  The tire is shredded and I am waiting for the repair truck now.

REALLY looking forward to four days off at home.

I just uploaded a number of new pictures of the inside of our truck.

One thing I have learned in life is that the things that really matter, the things that become the memories that define our lives, have nothing to do with financial success.  Spending a week with my oldest son, his wonderful wife and my two favorite (only) grand children, and getting to share it with my wife just made the week perfect. Yes we were broken down and it sucked we were not running but this week will carry me a long way.  One of the high points was spending a whole day with my oldest son trapped in the car with me running over to Charlotte NC to see my youngest son play football.  He is a very talented Quarterback and the next few years are going to be a blast to watch.  Better, however, is the wonderful man he has become.  It was just a scrimmage but I had not seen CJ in a couple of months and we got to have lunch and went out for ice cream and shopping after.  My oldest son and I are scary similar….or so our wives tell us.  If this is true, I really like me and I crack me up.  Is it narcissistic to think my son is brilliant if he is my clone?

Craig Jr, Jason and Craig at CJ's first scrimmage

We spent a bit of time shopping this week and got a new refrigerator with two doors and a separate freezer and we also bought a new 4″ Memory Foam mattress topper and the bed is now AWESOME.

We are back in the truck, have it all put back together and hanging out at the terminal until tomorrow morning.  Anne has to go to Safety at 8 AM.  I am sure it is for a random drug test.  We will be heading to Colorado for labor day and then to Seattle early October.

Very, VERY ready to roll

The past few weeks I have really noticed that people need an attitude adjustment. It is so easy to complain and b*tch. In this business it is easy to get caught up in 0ther peoples problems. You sit around a terminal and all your hear is people complaining about one thing or another. It always surprises me how people react. Now there are totally times that things suck and bad things happen. I’m not talking about those extremes. I’m talking about the trash talk just because. Yelling about your fleet manager taking a load from you, you have no idea why and within 5 minutes you find out they were late 90 minutes on  previous loads. It is a pain when you call in and have to be put on hold for what seems like hours. Make the best of it. The fleet managers, breakdown….. do their best and think about how many people are angry when they finally get through. Smile instead and you will be amazed at how it changes your mood, and theirs.

We always try to be positive! Breakdown sucks! We would rather be running but hey you take the good with the bad. I am ready to run right now. We have been in breakdown for 6 days now. The shop was backed up two days when we came in. Didn’t bother us since it gave us time to visit with the grandkids. By day 5 I am getting antsy but would rather be staying with our kids than sitting at the terminal. The air tank we have been waiting for should arrive this morning and we should be on our way this afternoon. Should is the key word but I am being positive that we will get out.

I hope everyone smiles today just because……..

I have just posted pictures of the inside of the truck and how we (Anne) have it set up.  My wife rocks.  (It is on the “A room with a view page” in the top links)

Technically we are in breakdown mode. Our truck is in the shop getting its preventative maintenance and a new primary air pump. The good part is we are spending it with the grand kids and their parents. Talk about a tough life. In the two months since we were last here it is amazing to see how much they have grown and how much Jack now talks. I mean you can understand what he is saying and asking. It is so cool!! Blythe is just as adorable as ever and showing that she is her mothers daughter. I have one of those and Anna (daughter in law)  is blessed. Most of the time she will be blessed LOL

My girlfriend is coming up from Atlanta to spend the day with me. Hopefully get some last minute things for the truck and hopefully some sushi!! Tomorrow we are heading back to the terminal and hoping to have dinner with Amy and Karl. They are at Tunnel Hill too. Kind of cool to run into people that you know. Saw Anna (driver not daughter in law) for a few minutes but that was it so far.

We will post some pictures later.