The Travelling Lifestyle

Well, I've been absent from here for too long.  I know that no one has missed me though, because as far as I know, no one pays any attention to this silly little blog.  I guess I do it for my own pleasure. Does that sound narcissistic?  Who knows maybe I should just stop it all together.  I honestly don't know why I do it - I started it as a way to keep my family informed on where I was and what I'm doing, but it hardly seems necessary with the everyday communication of cell phones.  I remember when I thought people were silly for keeping blogs, but once I started doing it I kind of enjoyed it.  I'm getting way off track here with my personal musings on why I do this little exercise in writing.  I intended on talking a little about the travelling lifestyle, it's ups and downs, and show you one of the interesting places I recently came upon.

I'm sitting here in Franklin Tennessee, the area where many of my dear wife's relatives are from, taking a forced 34 hour break.  I would really rather be working, I'm not overly tired, but according to the crazy regulations that some of our brilliant thinkers in Washington D.C. have come up with to supposedly keep our nations highways safe from overly weary truck drivers, I'm forced to lose income while resting unnecessarily.  Not only did those brilliant minds in Washington think that 34 hours would be just the right amount of rest one needs to get back behind the wheel, but somehow they also thought it would be really wise to make sure that break included two time periods between 1am and 5am.  So, if I happened to have already run my clock out by working for 70 hours at 3pm,  then if you do the math you will find that I have to take a 38 hour break to be able to include those two "magical" time periods.  I don't know where these kind of people could ever possibly be successful in the working world other than in D.C.  They sure wouldn't get anywhere in a real job where you need to be productive with measurable results of your efforts.  The head of the transportation bureaucracy (an Obama appointee) refuses to reconsider their rulings despite the continuing problems their decisions have resulted in for the drivers and the truck driving industry as a whole.  Oh, boy I'm getting off track again with a political rant, but I'm telling you these people have got to go!  Our nation can not survive any more of their arrogant presumptions that they are wiser and smarter than the people who put them there.  We may only have the power of the ballot box, but ultimately it will bring us back to the path our founding fathers put us on.

I'm sitting here at the T/A truck stop in Franklin with a nice set of lime green tarps on my load of aluminum extrusions that I picked up in Yankton, South Dakota.  I will be delivering this to a trailer manufacturing plant in Enterprise, Alabama.

So, how do you like those tarps?  I picked them up at the Yankton SAPA plant.  I didn't really want them, but they insisted that they go with the trailer.  I already had some tarps, but these are better, and a little bolder too!  I guess I'll keep them.

Okay, let's see if I can get back to my topic that I titled this rambling post about.  I was recently in Cressona Pennsylvania to pick up a load of aluminum from the SAPA plant there.  SAPA is one of the world's largest suppliers of aluminum extrusions and has factories and plants all across the nation.  I always find it interesting where some of the great industries in our nation are located.  Often times they are found in small towns - I think this is by design.  So many times you will find great factories or industrial operations in these types of towns because there is a good honest hard working labor force there.

Cressona is on old town and has a distinct New England feel to it.  The residential architecture is unique and has a style that is foreign to my surroundings in East Texas.  The homes have a small footprint, yet may have three or four stories to them.  Some of the homes in this town are old store fronts along a long forgotten commercial district that has since dwindled up and faded away.  This photograph is not the greatest at conveying what I'm speaking of but as you can see these residences are all connected to each other along this street, and some of them still have old signs embedded in the masonry work indicating a long forgotten enterprise that was conducted along this street.  There are so many people packed together in some of these communities in the North East that they turn any and all available buildings into residences.

I took a few photos of some of the individual houses that I saw, simply because I like to share with you the things I see.  I often wish my wife were here with me to enjoy the sites I see, but she has other responsibilities right now.  Maybe one day we can do some of this together - it would be my greatest pleasure to have her along with me, even if just for a brief time.  I'm not sure she would enjoy the whole travelling lifestyle, but I think she might enjoy a week or two of it at a time.  Here's a glimpse at some of the residences I found interesting during a brief walk I took while waiting at the factory.

In the heart of this quaint little town lies this huge factory, which I am sure is the major employer in the area.  I've been here before, but it always surprises me as I pass through these old homes and neighborhoods, then suddenly I come upon the entrance to the plant, my destination and reason for being here in the first place.

The following photos really don't capture the size of this place adequately, but I tried to take a panoramic view using three different shots to show you the size of this place.  In the third photo my truck is sitting in the picture along with some others there and maybe that will help give you a reference as to the size of the factory buildings here at this facility.

The fall foliage has already gotten quite impressive up here in this part of the nation.  Here's a few shots of a stream that meanders along beside the plant and through the town, and a few shots of the fall foliage I saw on this trip.

I started off on this little journey pulling one of those nice "Conestoga Wagons", a flat-bed trailer with a vinyl canvas covering that can easily be rolled back while it folds itself up like an accordion bellows.  This company I'm working for has several of them so it's less physical work for me when pulling one of them.  I don't really mind the tarping so much, but it is nice when you don't have to do it.  These Conestogas will really be nice in the bitter winter time.  Here's what they look like.

One more thing about these North East towns that you really have to watch out for when driving an eighteen wheeler, is the dangers of getting yourself in trouble due to your size.  These towns are so old that they were built long before anyone thought much about having vehicles this large.  Therefore most of them don't have roadways, loading docks or bridges that were designed to accommodate such a monstrous vehicle.  Case in point is the main road entering Cressona passes under this treacherously low bridge to get you to the plant.  This bridge is about 150 yards from the entrance to the plant and many unwary truck drivers have taken the top of their trucks off because they didn't pay attention and find the way to route themselves around this low bridge.  The bridge itself is scarred by the many times it has been hit by big trucks.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed visiting Cressona Pennsylvania with me!  One place that I failed to take a picture of was the quaint little restaurant where I had a delicious club sandwich with chips, a side of pickles, and a drink for 4.95 - what a bargain.  It was in a small corner section on the lower floor of a larger building which was turned into apartments, and it was called "Jeans Place".  When I went inside there were only maybe six tables, and one lady (Jean) who did it all.  She took my order, went to her little cooking area behind the counter, prepared it, served it, and took my money with a smile when I was finished.  It was like stepping back in time, in fact the whole town is like that.  If it weren't for the big factory there I never would have gotten to experience this little place.  But somehow the nostalgic feel of a time gone by is still alive in this little town of Cressona.

Trying Something New

Well, I have been missing in action here lately.  Part of the reason is that I got wind of a job opening that an internet friend of mine contacted me about, and it sounded so interesting to me that I decided to check it out.  I have this friend who I've only ever known as Sand Man on an internet forum that I contribute information at.  He's always seemed like a pleasant person with a decent head on his shoulders, and he sent me a private message wanting to know if I would be interested in getting in on a new dedicated flat-bed account where he was working.  So I contacted him by phone and we visited about it.  I really liked some of what he was telling me, and I told him that I would like to look into it further.  So he gave me the contact information for the people responsible for hiring new drivers for this account.  After several weeks of prayer and consideration, I decided to go for it and turned in my two weeks notice to my very disappointed Driver Manager at Western Express,

This new job is a dedicated account which means that I will primarily be driving for one customer. That customer is SAPA, a major player in the aluminum extrusions business.  I have already hauled their finished products coming out of their plants, and their raw materials that go into their facilities, so I am somewhat familiar with their operations.  They are a very large company with many carriers getting a slice of the pie.  Okay, so the way this particular arrangement works is that I will be employed by Knight Transportation in a new and very small (15 trucks right now) dedicated division that will primarily serve the needs of SAPA's plant in Delhi, LA.  Knight transportation is planning on developing this relationship with SAPA, and they have been very successful in the past with developing dedicated customer accounts.  It is the type of business that they like to do, sort of a niche for them.  The difference on this particular job is that Knight has not been pursuing any flat-bed business.  For the most part they have been in the dry-van, refrigerated, and inter-modal transportation end of things.  They seem to be excited about expanding into this field and were looking for some good reliable experienced drivers to help them on this new venture.

Originally they had decided that they would only hire drivers that lived near Delhi, Louisiana since that was going to be the base of operations.  They have set up the only dispatcher on this account with an office right there inside the plant in Delhi, so he can work hand in hand with the shipping and receiving department at the plant.  Well, they'd been doing it that way for about six months when my friend heard the dispatcher saying that they were going to start expanding their hiring area into the freight lanes they run in.  Originally they wanted people right their near Delhi, so they could get them home easily and also so they could be right close by when they needed them.  But now that they are starting to get the relationship developed a little better they are looking to expanding the number of trucks and drivers so they can better serve the needs of SAPA.  Well, my friend knew that Nacogdoches had one of SAPA's customers (Bright Coop) right there in town, and not only that, but when they go to their customers in Houston or Dallas they have to pass right close to Nacogdoches.
Before he contacted me, he asked the dispatcher if he would be interested in a good driver that lived in Nacogdoches, and he said yes.  So, that's how this tale began without my even knowing that someone was looking into getting me into a unique truck driving job.

So here's the benefits to my new situation.  I'm still running all across the country, although maybe not as vast an area as before.  I will get more consistent home time, and I'm allowed to just stop by the house for the night if it works out when I'm passing through the area.  These are big advantages to me.  I also get to drive a brand new Volvo truck with all our trailers being very nice new all aluminum Reitnour units. About fifty percent of the trailers at this point are "Conestoga Wagons" which is a type of flat-bed trailer with an accordion like cover over the trailer so that the driver does not have to wrestle with those heavy tarps to protect his freight from the elements - another nice benefit to me.  When we do have a load on a regular flat-bed trailer that has to be tarped we get paid 45 dollars for the tarp pay.  When you compare that to the 15 dollars I got paid at Western Express for tarping that is another nice benefit.  My pay started at 27 cents per mile at Western, but here I started at 40 cents per mile - again, a very positive thing.  Now, I've talked before on this blog about the nature of the trucking business and how the pay is performance based, so one of the down sides of switching to a new job is that you've got to prove yourself all over again before you start getting the choice loads.  So I'm expecting things to be a little slow at the beginning for me, until the dispatcher gets a feel for what I can do.  That relationship between dispatcher and driver is built upon trust and experience.  I don't think it will take very long before we've got a good working relationship going, and he's already indicated several times that he is pleased with what he's been seeing.

So far I'm enjoying this new job.  I'm still getting accustomed to the way they do things here.  One of the differences is that they like to hear from their drivers.  This is so different from Western Express that I'm having a little trouble getting used to it.  At Western Express we would get these fleet messages all the time telling us "DO NOT CALL your driver manager unless you have a dire emergency. All your communications should be done on the qualcomm - we are too busy and we cannot get our jobs done because you are tying up our phone lines."  They would have about seventy drivers assigned to each dispatcher, where as here my dispatcher only has about fifteen to twenty drivers he's dealing with.  My first few days I would get phone calls from him asking me is everything okay?  I haven't heard from you.  It had been so pounded into me at Western to not contact them that I was still operating that way.  What my first employer wanted is apparently what makes these people a little nervous - what a contrast!  So I'm having to get accustomed to some new ways of doing things, but all in all it's a positive thing.

I forgot to mention that they have a really positive bonus pay program here that pays out quarterly bonuses to the drivers who reach the mileage and efficiency goals set forth for the fleet.  As best as I can tell right now I should have no problems getting a nice bonus check each quarter.  I don't see too much of  a challenge at meeting the goals they have laid out.  Again, it's another positive thing that I never could get at my former job.

Well, I've rambled on here long enough.  I'm taking a little break today in Delhi while waiting on a load headed to Akron Ohio.  I'll be posting some more as I move around and get settled in at my new job.  Oh, by the way, here's a couple of shots of my new "office with a view".  The first one is the first time I saw it, and the second one is at a SAPA plant in Cressona Pennsylvania where I picked up a load of aluminum pipe that went to a coal mining operation in West Virginia.

A couple more things - this new truck is really nice, it rides very nicely and is very quiet inside for a big truck.  It also has two beds!  No more sleeping on the floor for me when I have one of my daughters with me.  One more positive thing is that Abigail can ride with me now.  At Western your passengers had to be eighteen, but at Knight they allow anyone over ten years old.  Woo-Hoo - I can't wait for her to come along.  And if my dear wife could ever figure out how to come with me it would just be the greatest thing I could imagine!  I miss them all, but hopefully this new change will help me see them more often.

Some Days It's Hard To Believe I'm Getting Paid To Do This

Well it seems that after I delivered those light poles I have been bouncing back and forth from Southern California to Arizona for the whole week.  It is a wonderfully beautiful desert area that is intriguingly harsh and yet has it's own appealing features.  I kind of figured that I would get dispatched to one of the copper mines in the area while here, and finally I did go to one in Hayden Arizona.  This is one that I have not visited before, but I would like to return someday as it was a stunningly beautiful journey.  The driving was as challenging as the scenery was breathtaking.  I passed through a portion of Arizona that is an Apache reservation territory that includes a beautiful canyon called the Salt River Canyon.  Here is my truck loaded down with about 48,000 pounds of copper anodes sitting high atop the ridge of this canyon.

Signs like this are not exactly a welcome sight when you are trying to keep 80,000 pounds of rolling steel under control and still be able to half way enjoy the view.

I've covered this nation pretty well so far in my travels and I've go to tell you that this was one of the most scenic routes I've been on yet while driving this big truck.  I also learned something about truck drivers that I didn't know yet.  Apparently truck drivers have two sets of ears, and the state of Arizona expects us to use our "lower ears" when trying to descend these mountains.

Maybe our "lower ears" don't pop as easily while going down these steep mountain roads.  That sign just tickled me, it reminded me of my story about the sign that had something about the "Untied States of America" on it.

Well the old saying says that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'm so tired tonight I'm not sure I can produce a lot of words, so I am just going to let you take a look at what I was trying to look at while descending into this beautiful canyon while earning my daily bread this week.

The Little Sacrifices That Help You Succeed At This Stuff

One of the keys to success in this field is being able to make sure things happen in your favor - it becomes a part of my regular trip planning, and then again sometimes it just happens on the fly depending on the situation I might find myself in.  Anytime you can get yourself off loaded a day ahead of schedule and or first thing in the morning it will generally work out in your favor so that you are the one the planners have the first choice of giving their "good stuff" to for that day. I was a little surprised that none of the other flat-bed drivers thought of this, but I slept right there outside the gate of the construction site and woke up to an early morning sand storm over there in that California Desert area. Can you see the sand flying around in the air in this picture?

My plan worked out well because the crane truck was a little delayed in getting there. As the other trucks scheduled for a Monday delivery started showing up, they had nowhere to park but behind yours truly in an ever lengthening line. Take a look at all the trucks lined up behind me at the gate - you can't really tell from the photo, but when I left I counted the trucks lined up on the road. There were nineteen trucks waiting in line as I left out of there with my next load assignment. I've got a one thousand mile load and I'm certain I was loaded and on the interstate before the final truck in this line got unloaded. Three or four trucks back in line is another driver from my company who had stopped for a restroom break on Saturday at the truck stop where I was taking my 34. We had visited at the stop and he told me he was needing to take a 34 hour break but he was going to go ahead and get to the location so he could get unloaded first. I asked him what day his delivery was scheduled for and he replied Monday, so I just said well mine isn't scheduled until Tuesday. That's how I left it, but he was all astonishment when he came up there and realized I was ahead of him, still got my 34 in, plus got the best load available when I left there.

I love doing this stuff, and I really enjoy sharing my experiences with you all. Hopefully if some future truck driver rookies stumble across this little blog they will catch on to some of the ideas and strategies of how you not only survive in this career, but excel in it. Now let me explain one thing further about this scenario. I know it is more comfortable to stay at the truck stop, and that is what many of these drivers did - I know because as I passed the truck stop about twenty minutes from this location I saw a lot of these flat-bed trucks with the same poles that I had, just sitting there in the parking lot. The other advantage that I now had over them was that they have started their fourteen hour clock - not me - I'm sitting there watching the sand storm, sipping at my hot tea and just patiently waiting for that crane truck to show up without a care in this world.

On A Roll

I one time either heard or read a little saying that said, "if you're on a roll, you just might be going down hill".  It has stuck with me, and I thought of it today as it seemed like I was going pretty much down hill all day today.  When I got over to Flagstaff, Arizona I turned south onto I-17 which takes you down to Phoenix.  The elevation of Flagstaff is 6,903 feet.  When I finished my day's driving and got myself parked at the construction site where I hope to be the first in line to get unloaded tomorrow I looked up after I had parked my rig and here's is what I saw.

Now maybe you can understand why it feels like I've been "on a roll" today.  I-17 from Flagstaff to Phoenix is one of my all time favorite stretches of interstate in the country.  You start out way up high in some really beautiful forest land and you have an eighteen mile descent of 4-6% grades that settles you down into the Yavapai Valley.  It really is a beautiful drive full of panoramic scenery of all sorts of flora and fauna, and every type of Mesa, Buttes, Tablelands, Gorges, Mountains, Draws, Washes, and Cliffs.  Louis Lamour's skillful and voluminous descriptive word pictures of this type of territory don't even come close to doing it justice.  I would have loved to provide you with progressive pictures of my descent, but it was only safe and prudent for me to stop at one resting point and take several shots from that vantage point, but hopefully you get the idea.  I'm hoping when I get to take Abigail with me for her eighteenth birthday present we will get to travel through here together.

When you enter Southern California on I-8 you come right through the Imperial Sand Dune Recreation Area.  This is pure desert country - not a drop of water anywhere, and it was 110 degrees here today.  I had driven eight hours at that point and was forced to take the D.O.T. required thirty minute break here, so I took a picture of each side of the interstate from where I was parked in a roadside rest area.

The sand here is simply amazing, like a huge beach only without any water.  It goes on and on for miles just piled up in ever changing mounds controlled by the whimsical desires of the ever present wind.  While I was driving I saw two or three "dust devils" that were maybe 60 - 80 feet tall prancing across the plains as if they were being choreographed by some unseen hand.  They looked like little juvenile tornadoes testing out their skills so that one day they could release all their fury on some unsuspecting trailer park.

I had a good day today, very pleasant in many ways.  It felt good to be moving again after taking that 34 hour break.  I guess I am a real truck driver, something starts to bother me if I'm not moving down the highway.  I love what I do, I love ending my day with a brief and always pleasant conversation with the finest woman I've ever known, I love the way she keeps the home fires burning, I love the way she loves me.

Bait and Switch!

Well, just about the time I got started moving this load toward Connecticut I got a message saying they wanted me to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico and swap loads with another driver.  This is somewhat disappointing but all you can do is follow the instructions dispatch gives you.  They don't ever explain to us why they need to change the plan, and there could be a million different reasons, but I must admit I was looking forward to that nice lengthy run.  I don't mind not having to go to the North East, and I really do enjoy being out West, so I was glad to see that the load the other driver had was bound for Imperial California.  Immediately upon getting the loads swapped I realize that this is Friday and the load I just got is scheduled to deliver on Tuesday morning, which means I've got a load with only about seven hundred miles and four days till the delivery.  That's not good.  So, I start contriving a plan of how to make the best of this situation.

While I'm driving I'm running scenarios in my head trying to come up with the best way to handle this load.  I figure out that I could go ahead and take a 34 hour break and reset my seventy hour clock, that way I could stop running on my re-cap hours - that would be a positive.  That still leaves me with an extra day that is wasted time before I deliver, and as a truck driver who is having to spend his time away from his family I want to make the most of that time as being productive toward the purpose of supporting my family.  So I decide to give the customer a call and see if I showed up a day early would that be acceptable and could they have the equipment available to unload me?

By the way, this load is two large base sections for some very large light poles.  The kind of poles you might see at a coliseum where they hold sporting events such as Baseball or Football games.  Here's a look at what I'm moving across the Arizona desert and into Southern California.  Imperial California is near the San Diego area.

After speaking with the contact person whose phone number was on the Bill of Lading papers, I find out this is a construction site, and they would be glad to have me show up first thing Monday morning.  So my plan is formulated to drive into Holbrook, Arizona and take my 34 hour break at the Hopi Truck Stop, (everything in this area is run by Indian tribes) then that will put me within a distance that I can drive the rest of the way on Sunday (today) to get to the destination, where if possible I will sleep on the site and be ready to get unloaded first thing Monday.  The reason for sleeping at the site is so I can get unloaded first before any other trucks start arriving.  Little things like this make such a big difference in this job.  The earlier you can be ready for a re-load the more likely you are to get it quicker, and the more likely you are to get something that is good for your paycheck.  This truck driving gig is very much performance based pay, and those who succeed at it have got to understand how the game is played.

We will just have to see what kind of loads I get after this one - the trip to Connecticut was an excellent run, and it was disappointing to be switched off of it, but I've got a sense that all is not lost.  My new dispatcher has been doing a great job so far, so I've got to trust him that this will turn out well.

Mountains and Valleys and Goats!

Well, if you recall, I speculated that I might get a load of copper out of the copper mine at Tyrone New Mexico.  I was wrong on that, but I did get dispatched to the copper mine over at Morenci, Arizona.  So I got up at 3 a.m. and headed out at about 4.  I had three hours of driving time just so I could get there by six o'clock.  If that doesn't sound right to you it's because I crossed the time line and there's an hour lost in the transaction somewhere.  Yes, that's one more little piece of math work that a truck driver has to understand when planning out his trips.

So, this is a great job to get - 2,700 miles on this one.

I've been to this mine before so I kind of know what to expect.  There's a quaint little town called "Clifton" down in the Gila valley just before you make the ascent up the mountains to Morenci.  It goes back to the "Gold Rush" days when folks packed up and headed west to seek their fortune.  This whole area reminds me of my all time favorite movie starring Humphrey Bogart - "The Treasure of the Sierra Madres".  I like it because it illustrates human nature, that is also why I will endure watching those lengthy Jane Austin movies with my girls - Jane Austin was a great illustrator of human nature in her works.

The little community of Clifton is sort of a ramshackle looking place to this day - it still has the look of an "Old West" town.  I kind of expect to see Miss Kitty or Matt Dillon coming out of the store fronts every time I come through this place.  It's still an active community, but it has an aura of days gone by about it as it sits nestled down in that peaceful valley below this giant copper mine up above on the mountain tops.

Here's a few views of the town, I might could have gotten some better photos, but I really didn't have the time to stop at different places and take pictures like a tourist - I am working as I come through here.

Here's an entrance to an old hand dug mine in the side of one of the hills that I came across.

From there I wound my way up to the top of the mountains where the expansive copper mine is and here is the view looking down on to the community of Clifton while I am waiting in a line of trucks to get my "High Value, High Security" load.

Here we are waiting in line to get loaded - believe it or not we hauled several million dollars worth of copper out of this place today.

Just to give you an idea about the altitude and the wildness of this area as I was leaving with my loaded truck I was getting weighed on the scale by the security people and look what was right there in front of my truck as I was getting weighed - two mountain goats gingerly grazing around in the few scrubby plants available to them.

Okay, just one last thing for you from me today.  It's a test - can you spot the mountain goat in this picture?  Here's a hint he's looking right at you!