STRAYCAT’S DOGGONE BLOG

Life Day 22436: Tarrying in Tucson

Things are really bad out here on the road. The weather, at least in the areas in which I’ve been traveling since Thanksgiving, has been mild. The bad part is the lack of freight. The “Christmas surge” this year is virtually non-existent. It is especially bad in the East. My DM has warned me not to take any loads going east because it will take forever to get me back home. I’ll illustrate this point later in this post with an example.

Now for the chronicle of my travels for the last week or so. Since my last post, I’ve only done two trips.

On the 9th, I did the three deliveries beginning at 0500. It went well, and I was finished by about 0830. I waited at the last customer until 1230 before I received and accepted a PrePlan going from Oakland, CA to Camarillo, CA to Fort Worth, TX. I drove to Oakland arriving about 1500. It’s only about 50 miles from Rohnert Park (where I was waiting) to Oakland, but I got lost due to bad directions. Anyway, it took about an hour to be loaded. It was only 13 pallets. (The second stop in Camarillo is the other pick-up). I then joined the million or so other drivers trying to escape the area. I drove to Coalinga, CA (Harris Ranch) where my 14-hour clock serendipitously expired. I, naturally, had Chicken Fried Steak for dinner. It was delicious as usual.

I drove to Wheeler Ridge, CA on the 10th. There, I was informed that the second stop, the pick-up in Camarillo, had canceled. I then drove, virtually traffic free, through the entire LA megalopolis (scary, but true). I finished my day in Phoenix, AZ, where my 11-hours ended.

The 11th took me all the way to Pecos, TX. I left Phoenix at 0545. I stopped in Willcox, AZ for breakfast, and El Paso, TX for fuel along the way. The weather was beautiful.

I finished this load on the 12th. I stopped along the way in Big Spring, TX for breakfast. I had a bad experience at the restaurant at the Flying J in Pecos last night. I ordered the Flat Iron Steak special. They had none of the sauces advertised in the menu (Cajun, Red Wine, or my choice, Bernaisse). They didn’t even have the Flat Iron Steak (basically good ole Round Steak). They did upgrade me to a Sirloin, but it was tough and dry. (I will point out that it was just this location, and not the entire Flying J chain, with which I had the problem. I’ve had this special at other locations and was more than satisfied). Anyway, when I returned to my truck after breakfast, I had two PrePlans on my QualCom. The first was a local delivery in the Ft. Worth area, moving a load of pallets. The second was a deadhead trip (trailer re-location) from Ft. Worth to Tucson. Before I could accept either one, they canceled the local delivery. I accepted the deadhead trip before they could change their minds and cancel it too. I continued to Ft. Worth and did the drop/hook delivery. I then drove to Sweetwater, TX, where I stopped for the night. This is the example that I mentioned earlier. Swift is sending trucks based in western terminals empty for over 900 miles rather than send them back east.

The 13th was a fairly easy day. I only had a total of 9.25 hours available today. I was supposed to be in Tucson by midnight tonight, but that is not going to happen due to my limited hours available. I don’t think it is a real big deal anyway. I drove to El Paso and took a nice long break. I then finished my day driving to Deming, NM, where I ran out of hours.

The 14th was even easier. I drove from Deming to Tucson (185 miles), arriving a little after noon. I stopped for fuel at our drop yard here. I did my empty call and updated my driver status to available. Being Sunday afternoon, I didn’t expect much. I drove to the TTT truck stop (a local legend) to wait. My expectations proved correct. I geeked on the computer all day backing up files. I did not receive a PrePlan.

Today, the 15th, I am still waiting for a load. Like I said earlier, freight is extremely slow. I hope I get something soon. Boredom is setting in swiftly (no pun intended).
My plans for Christmas are open. I will try to be in or near Las Vegas, but with freight the way it is, there is no guarantee. I am just now recovering financially from the week I took off for Thanksgiving. I’ll just “play it by ear”.

Life Day 22426: Incommunicado

In today’s world, the use of technology is unavoidable. Even the staunchest technophobe, such as yours truly, becomes reliant on some form, if not many different forms, of technology. Such is the case with the QualCom unit installed in my truck.

After the new batteries were installed in my truck on  Wednesday,  I waited, and waited, and waited for my load to arrive. When it finally did arrive, I went to the office and picked up my paperwork. I then waited, and waited, and waited for the load to be dispatched. After an hour or so, I decided to send a message (it was cold and trying real hard to snow). When I picked up the keyboard for my QualCom, I noticed that the time zone had reverted back to the default setting. I figured ‘no big deal’, it just reset when they disconnected the batteries. I sent the message. When I received no response in ½ an hour, I trudged into the office and asked what was up. They had received no message from me, and had already dispatched the load. That is how I discovered that my QualCom wasn’t working. I went back into the shop to have it checked. My thought was that somehow changing the batteries affected the operation of the unit and that they forgot to reset it. No such luck. They figured out that either the “black box” or the antenna was malfunctioning, and they didn’t have any replacement parts for my unit (mine is an older model with a different connector than the current model uses). I informed dispatch that I was incommunicado. They printed out a copy of the load information, and I then hooked to the load. It was extremely heavy (45,500 lbs). I put 50 gallons of fuel in my truck because my tanks were almost empty and scaled the load. I got the load legal (well, close enough anyway). By this time, it was 1900. The load was supposed to deliver by 1500 (Central Time) on Friday, and I told dispatch that I couldn’t possibly make the delivery on time now, what with all the delays. They decided to give the load to a team to insure on time delivery. Yet another wasted day.

Thursday, when I checked in at the dispatch office (no QualCom), I found that I had received a PrePlan from my old Walmart buddies in Corinne. It was going to Loveland, CO. I accepted it over the phone. I then had them transfer my call to the shop in hopes that they had the proper QualCom parts to fix my unit. Nothing is easy, of course they didn’t have the parts either. I then called the shop at our terminal in Denver (near Loveland). Lo and behold, they had the parts. After I topped off my fuel tanks, I drove to Corinne. I picked up the load and drove uneventfully to Loveland. I encountered my first sub-zero temperatures of the season between Rawlins Amazingly, the shop wasn’t busy and I got right in. It took them about an hour to find the problem and replace both the “black box” and the antenna. They said that the shop in Phoenix had to do some entries in the computer to remove the old unit serial number from the system and “attach” the new unit serial number to my truck. The personnel in Phoenix who perform this vital task work ‘bankers hours’ and went home at 1600. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Today, Dec. 5th, I left Denver as soon as I legally could at 0945 with a working QualCom again. I thought it was going to be an easy drive back to Corinne. The skies were clear and it was about 45°. All went splendidly until I got to the Colorado/Wyoming border. There, “old man winter” reared his ugly head. I stopped for fuel in Cheyenne, and that is where I stopped. Wyoming DOT had a weather advisory in effect for light or empty trailers. The road between Cheyenne and Rawlins was having constant winds of 33 mph with gusts to 60+ mph. The advisory is in effect until 2000 tonight. I’ll check with the Wyoming Road Conditions Hot Line then and see if the weather has improved enough to drive a couple of more hours to finish out my 14 hour day.

Not having my QualCom for these last two days was really a hassle. How did I ever survive out here on the road back in the “olden times” when the only means of communication was the archaic telephone.

Life Say 22424: Sitting Around in Salt Lake City

Greetings all. Just a few notes to keep you current on my ‘goings about’ recently. First though, I’ll catch you up on the rest of my stay in Palo Alto.

Today, the 3rd, I checked in with the shop at 0600. They said it would be about 0900 before they could get me in. While I was waiting, I accepted a PrePlan to Laredo, TX. It is coming in from Idaho on another truck. The mechanic came for my truck about 0830 and put it in the shop. They checked out the entire ‘charging system’ and found everything O.K. except for the batteries. All four of them were “shot”. I wasn’t surprised except that it was all four. I expected 2 of them to be bad. It doesn’t matter because I would have changed all four anyway no matter how many were bad. It makes no sense to do anything else. Now I’m good for another 2 years or so. I was out of the shop about 1030.
It is now 1430 and my load still hasn’t arrived. Last time I checked, about 1130, the driver was 111 miles away. Boy, he/she is certainly taking his/her time. It should be here soon. I won’t be going too far today since I’ve been up since 0600. I’ll try to get to Albuquerque, but probably won’t make it that far.