Shame on Me!

You know what?  I'm starting to think this job is just too demanding to keep up a blog about my experiences - I never seem to find the time to do it on a regular basis.  I am completely embarrassed that I never posted one thing about my time with Abigail, but she and I were having such a wonderful time together that I just never got around to it.  Of course there is also the fact that I don't think anyone even reads this blog so I probably would not be missed at all if I drop off and quit this little exercise!

But... just for grins I'm gonna fill you in on what happened when I had my "baby girl" with me.

I had a little trouble getting everything worked out just right to get our little trip started. I was going to take a little home time, but then I had a load to Texas that needed to be delivered first. Here's the way I decided to work it all out. I swung through my home town on the way to South Texas and picked up Abigail, with the understanding that we would deliver this load and then come back by the house for enough time off to get in a 34 hour reset.

I spent one night at home and then left the next morning with Abigail for our summer trip together. The PPPE that I had purchased a few years ago for my other girls was handed down to her for the trip. What is PPPE you ask? It is Pink Personal Protective Equipment - all my girls have to have this to be able to ride along with me and help me out here on the road. Here is my daughter showing her excitement about what we are embarking on as she dons her pink hard hat.

Right away she stated trying to take over the truck with her feminine ways by reorganizing the limited space we were sharing and cleaning things up, sweeping the floor of the truck, and just being a general little Cinderella.  One of the first things she did was to get her own space in her bunk all established the way she wanted it to be.

I started this little run down into South Texas by myself at the SAPA plant in Delhi, Louisiana when I picked up this two stop load on a pre-loaded trailer that was bound for Corpus Christi and then McAllen, Texas. Here's what it looked like after I had her all battened down and ready to roll.

I run dedicated loads out of this plant in Delhi all the time. I come in here and pick up pre-loaded trailers, but I am responsible for securing the load and tarping it when needed. About fifty percent of the time I will have a Conestoga type cover on the flat-bed which eliminates the tarp work. Here is the loading area at the plant where we back up to our trailers and get them ready to roll.

After spending one night at the house I picked up Abigail and we made a plan of how to get this done so that I could deliver this two stop load, stop again on my way back in Katy, TX at a Knight terminal for some service on my truck, be back in Nacogdoches for some business that I needed to take care of on Wednesday, manage to get in a 34 hour reset, and do all of this while getting me back on the road early Thursday morning so that we can get back to Delhi early enough for me to do some training of some new drivers coming on to our fleet that day, and I'm hoping to leave out from the plant that evening with a load of my own. I'm giving you these details of my thought processes because I want you to see how a professional driver has to think and plan several days in advance, all the time, if you are going to be able to capitalize on the H.O.S. (hours of service) you have available to you

Here's how we planned it out: I spent Saturday night in my own bed - woo-hoo! - then we hit the road around 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning. We drove to Corpus Christi with one stop for fuel, and a couple of bathroom stops also. I can go all day behind the wheel without hardly stopping if needed, but when I've got my girls along I try to accommodate their needs. We also stopped for a fun little visit to a unique little restaurant in El Campo, Texas called "Pinchers".

Sometimes truck drivers have to be creative when it comes to parking places for their rigs. Pinchers is not a truck friendly restaurant - there is no place to park a rig. So, how do you handle a situation like this? You study the situation and, in our case, I had already been here and devised a parking system of my own on a previous visit. Just about a hundred yards down the highway from Pinchers is a corn field with an abandoned gas well site that has a nice good solid roadway built into it and a nice solid pad with plenty of room to get a big truck in and out of. So, I just pull in there, park it, and take a short little walk over to the restaurant.

We shared a meal called their "sampler platter" which was a little bit of everything in it's fried version, some slaw, some gumbo, and some e'toufee, it was simply more than we could eat.

Okay, don't worry about us wasting any food, we simply took our left overs and fed them to the waterfowl and the hungry Koi fish who were swimming around outside in the pond.

Now back to our trip planning. We drove on in to Corpus Sunday night. One of the great benefits of running on a dedicated account is that often times I'm going to repeat customers, and I am familiar with all the places where I can sleep on their property. In the case of this customer in Corpus Christi, I have an arrangement with a Mexican restaurant next door to their facility. We always deliver to this customer on Monday morning, and the Mexican restaurant is closed on Sunday. The owner gave me permission to park and sleep in her adequate parking lot on Sunday nights. I always return the favor by eating breakfast with her bright and early Monday morning before I deliver next door. We also had a convenience store just about a block away so that Abigail has access to a restroom if needed. (you've got to think about all this stuff)

The reason for not parking at a truck stop about ten miles away is so that we can get in the locked gate next door and get unloaded and ready to move on to our next stop without starting our fourteen hour clock. This customer is notoriously slow about unloading us. Sure enough it was around 10:30 a.m. when we were ready to move on, but we were let in the gate at 0700 that morning. Here's a look at me getting down and dirty while removing my tarps from this load.

Okay, once we were done at that location we headed for McAllen where we met a Mexican Truck that will take the remaining bundles of freight I have on across the border to their final destination. I had already called earlier and given the Mexican Trucking company my ETA at the agreed upon location in McAllen and we arrived there about thirty minutes before the Mexican driver. The forklift operator at the facility where we met wasted no time in switching the freight from my truck to his. That worked out remarkably well so that we didn't lose a lot of time, which was critical to our trip planning - we still want to leave here and drive all the way to Katy, TX the same night so that we can get our truck in the service bay first thing in the morning. We don't even have time to stop and eat on this leg - it is run and gun if we are going to make it! We did it, and had fourteen minutes left on our 11 hour drive clock when we set those air brakes at the terminal in Katy, TX. Now you see why I didn't want to start my clock by parking the night before at a truck stop. I'm giving you these details so that you can realize how a truck driver has to think ahead and manage his time so that he can make things work out properly out on the road.

After all that we went home for a couple of days I had a nice date with my wife, went to see Sarah's new house and help her with a problem she was having with her car, then it was off to the races for Abigail and I. My dispatcher wanted me to help train some new drivers coming on to our fleet Thursday about how to get your loads secured and tarped at the plant in Delhi, and then...  we will see where we go next.