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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 9 - Another round trip, my first
chasis Delivering both an International single axel chasis ... and a Kenworth with a box Date July 24, 2003 Short trip. Only wanted to work one more day this week, and when I turned in my paperwork yesterday they offered me a round trip with the same driver as my Boise trip. Sounds good. We had decided to leave at six ... he was late, so that we would miss the morning traffic on our end ... get there before their lunch ... and be back by our supper ... Mostly uneventful ... been this highway in WI many times. The trip down was fast and rough. We just had chasie, no box of any kind on the back. Did have one close call where the Interstate was three lanes wide. I noticed long before we got there that there were a couple of pieces of 4x4 laying in the right lane, and the cars were going around them. But when I get up to them there is a semi in the left lane just barely ahead of me ... he must not have been paying attention as he didn't swerve until the last second ... hitting one of the pieces and sending it flying six foot in the air across 2-1/2 lanes of traffic. It missed my truck by less than six feet and luckily no one was in the left lane. When we got to the town we were dropping / picking up, the other driver suggested we stop for lunch before we switched trucks ... "Never know what you are going to pickup." As we were leaving the fast food place he sees the guy who is to sign us in / out in town ... so we knew we may have to wait. And we did, the guy got back to the office about 10 minutes later, signed off on our trucks and gave us the paperwork for the return trucks ... But by the time we found the trucks and did the inspection it was their lunch time. The other driver had been here before and knew they did not like to be bothered on lunch ... so we waited. We did walk past the guys at an outside picnic table and they didn't offer so we didn't ask. A Roadway (major LTL freight truck line) driver pulled in and stood by his truck ... guess he knew too not to bug these guys on lunch. With all the news about Yellow Freight buying Roadway I decided to talk to him to kill some time. He's got 27 years in and is a little nervous on how this is all going to play out. Sounds the the buying company is going to stop them from buying / selling their stock until the deal goes through ... Break is over, and we can get the paperwork signed ... the guy signing thanks me for not bothering them during their break ... Something to remember, sounds like someone does this run every two weeks or so. Glad it's not me, that was one rough ride down. The boss made sure we knew they will now only pay for $50 in fuel on this trip, I had a half a tank and had used 3/4 on the way down so I put in $25 to get it up to 3/4. When we picked up the trucks this AM they were full, that's nice ... saves time and hassle of getting our money back. I got a Kennworth the other driver had a Ford pickup with a box. He was in the lead and didn't stop or I would have told him to make a run for home ... he said later his would do the speed limit plus ... mine topped out at 60 mph. All that truck and no speed. He could have been home 45 minutes earlier if he had left me in his dust. Nice riding ... but even the trucks pulling mobile homes were passing me. I just set the cruise and enjoyed the ride. A few weeks ago I had been on this same stretch of highway when I saw a patrol in the median ... first reaction are my heart sinking and letting off on the gas ... then I remember, this truck doesn't go over the speed limit, I have only passed one thing in the last two hours. It was a motor home ... pulling a boat ... going up hill. Just have to watch the hours on this trip, the computer shows it as 4-1/2 hours each way, but if have trucks both ways that only do 60 mph it comes to 5 hours each way and there is a scale house 15 miles before our office ... Gotta watch it and log it right. . |