Nebraska

Sitting in Lincoln today. Bringing some toilet paper to the Sooners...

I have the best intentions of doing this every day but has become a weekly output, and catching some down time. I don't deliver this load until 14 hours from now and have 2 drops. One at Sam's Club here in Lincoln at 11 pm tonight, and another in Grand Island at 3:30 am.

From Findlay, OH, I went up the road to pick up a short load over to Joliet, IL which I dropped on Tuesday morning. Then got a load that was supposed to be picked up on Monday going to Temple, TX for a delivery on Wednesday at Walmart. I had to hustle on that one. Ended up driving 7 hours straight without stopping in order to get down to St. Robert, MO by 5 pm Tuesday after picking up the load. That was when my 14 hours ran out. From St. Robert I figured I could just make it to Temple to deliver the load on Wednesday in my alloted 11 hours driving time. If I hadn't gotten that far on Tuesday, I would not have been close enough and would have been unable to deliver to Walmart on the scheduled day. That would have been a service failure and a no no. Problem was, since the load was not picked up on Monday and they gave it to me on Tuesday morning, it was left on my shoulders to figure out how to get it there legally. Only way I could make it work was to drive 7 hours straight after picking up the load and not stop for any reason. I made it to St. Robert at 5:05 pm.

What put it all in doubt was the fact that the preloaded trailer I picked up at General Mills had a broken pin on the slider for the tandems. Another company driver who was there at the mill, had to set under the trailer and hold the pin out while I inched the trailer back in order to get it legal. That cost me a hour of time doing all of that and resulted in the 7 hour push to make it work.

Delivered the load next day OK, then was given a load to pick up in Waxahachie the next morning going to Olive Branch, MS outside of Memphis. I picked the load up at 5 am and the preloaded trailer I picked up had the exact same problem as the one I had picked up in Illinois. This time I drove up to our shop outside Dallas and let them fix it. Took about 2 hours and I was gone on to Memphis for a Friday morning delivery. On I-30 east of Dallas I watched a CRST truck going west bound take an exit too fast. Looks like he left the road tried to over correct and he flipped the entire tractor trailer 180 degrees and on to its side. He ended up facing the way he came. Not sure whether he was taking the exit too fast or just left the road at a high rate of speed.

I delivered that load early and then spent the rest of the day making a double pick up around Memphis going to Big Lots DC in Oklahoma. The load didn't deliver until Monday night so they let me drop it on the Memphis drop lot and I picked up a load from Kellogg's early the next morning. The preloaded trailer was missing a lug nut on the right front wheel. I had to swing by truck stop in West Memphis to get one put on. It took them 2 minutes to put the $0.79 lug nut on the wheel, and then 1 hour to figure out how to bill my company $37.95.

I delivered the Kellogg's load in Minooka, IL outside of Chicago at 1 pm on Sunday, and then drove over to Elwood, IL to get a preloaded trailer going to Nebraska. No problems with this trailer. Yet...