The Adventures Of Daniel B.

By the time they finished unloading me I was out of hours. So I had to do everything quickly and watch my clock carefully. I'll have to drive bobtail to my trailer at the dock. Then hook up and drive to security guard for inspection and then drive a mile down the road to the Flying J and hopefully they'll be a spot open.

I received paperwork and lumper reciept.

*A lumper is basically a service you can hire to load/unload your trailer so you don't have to do it yourself. Sometimes you're charged up to 300$ and sometimes it can be as low as 40$. Refrigerated loads deal with lumpers the majority of the time. Remember, all it is is just someone you hire to do the work for you. You pay with a comcheck. This is done differently at every company*

I drive bobtail to my trailer and back up to it. I stop about a foot away from the trailer and put on my gloves to clean my fifth wheel. You never want to hook up to a trailer with the fifth wheel plate being covered in snow. If there's snow near the locking jaws then that could prevent them from locking fully, which means itll eventually come loose and you'll drop your trailer.

After cleaning and making sure my fifth wheel is nice and dark. I hook up to the trailer and unchock it, hook airlines, raise landing gear and drive forward and move the tandems back into place.

Security checks me out and all is well. I now must rush to the Flying J without activating my hours.

Tip: The minimum duty status is 5 minutes. Meaning, you can't log Off-Duty for 3 minutes, the minimum amount of time you can be on a Duty is 5 minutes. Which means, you can drive for 4 minutes and switch your status to Sleeper berth and then once it hits 5 minutes it'll log all that 5 minutes as Sleeper berth even though you drove for 4 minutes of it. Finding ways to get around the Quallcomm is crucial to maximizing your miles.

Anyways, I get to the Flying J and its cramped! I did remember about the Truck Wash across the street. Trucks can park there during the night while the facility is shut down. So I parked in there along with a few other trucks.

Tip: A good memory is your best friend. Remember the small details! If I didn't know about this "secret" spot then I would have needed to keep driving around looking for a spot that probably isn't there. Learn where all the good spots are so you can use them when every other spot is full. Be observant.

This concludes this load! On time pickup and On time delivery!

Current Load: Columbus, NE to Redlands, CA . Freight: Medicine, Hospital Supplies Total weight: Approximately 52K. 1650 miles, 734$ pay for this load.

What an amazing load! This load was given to me when I was departing the Walmart facility.

A few crucial things to know about this load:

1. This routes me through I70 in CO/UT. I don't plan on following the companies routing so I'm going to add 70 unpaid miles to the trip by going I80 onto I15. All those mountains on I70 will slow me down severely.

2. The pickup for this load was 2 days ago. That's right! TWO days ago!

3. I'm going back to CA! I don't know why they keep me in the west but they do. Praying for a load up Northern CA so I can stop by home after this load.

This load had plenty of time on it. But since I'm picking it up two days late it'll make it a very tight load. There's no reason why I need to go to CA, which leads me to believe that they trust me to deliver this load on time. I'm not even near the pickup!

I woke up at about 0300 and walked outside and drained my air tanks. I was wide awake and ready even though I only had about 5 hours of sleep. I turn on my Quallcomm and it shows I still have 2 more hours on Sleeper berth before I get my hours back. I don't know how I woke up but I did. Well, two more hours means I'm going back to sleep. And so I did.

I woke up at 0500 to the interior of my truck being 34 degrees. No joke! Its an extremely cold day outside and there's a snow storm. I woke up freezing cold only to discover that my bunk heater has stopped working. Not even mad, I need to get up anyways. I put on my shorts in this 5 degree weather, being a Russian makes me hardy to cold weather. I get to the cramped up fuel island and top off my truck. I fuel and do my pretrip inspection at the same time. Killing two birds with one stone.

At this point I've been outside for a good 10 minutes and the interior of my truck isn't any warmer. I'm literally a popsicle. I walk inside the Flying J to wash my hands with hot water. That felt good. My truck is frozen cold right now so turning on the heater won't do anything. It needs to heat up.

I drive away with the intent of getting a trailer washout at the York, NE Petro. I drive nonstop there only to see that there are 6 trucks in line. I'm not about to wait an hour. So I park in the back of the Petro and sweep my trailer in 10 minutes.

Looks great! I drive up US81 North and eventually get to Columbus, NE. I love this city. Been here many times, there's so many places a truck can fit. I can actually fit into a Pizza Hut parking lot and walk to the Little Caesars Pizza right next to them. There's also a shopping center that you can easily fit into and walk to Super Saver and a bunch of other stores. I love Nebraska!

I find the customer with ease.

I park on the street and walk to where it says "Shipping & Receiving". No response!

I find a small map of the facility on the door that states to go on the other side of the building. So I walk back to my truck and make two right turns. On the way I find my preloaded trailer sitting at their drop #2 drop yard. I park on the street on the other side of the building and walk to three doors and another "Shipping & Receiving" door. No responses at either door. I find yet another map and it says to go three miles down US81 to their other facility.

So I drive their and find their "Shipping & Receiving" entrance. I park on the side of their docks ensuring that I won't be in anyones way. I get stopped by two employees. I tell them I'm here for a drop and hook and where do I go?

They tell me to just drop the trailer at the first facility I went to.

Jeez, talk about back and forth! By now it has been 1.5 hours of going back and forth trying to find someone to talk to. My patience is wearing out.

So I head to the drop yard and backup my empty trailer into a spot. I'm not even sure that I'm supposed to drop it here but I can't find anyone. I drop my empty and pickup my preloaded.

My preloaded only weighs 22,300. So I'm extremely light! I review the Bill of Lading and do an inspection of the trailer. I move the tandems to the 6th hole to be legal for CA.

Then I continue driving. This load is very tight and I need to drive out my hours! I get to Big Springs, NE at Exit 104 and shut down for the day after topping off my truck and trailer as well as DEF.

I've been so busy lately and I must admit that I need a shower today. This is the second day without a shower. But as soon as I got down driving I hit the bed and never woke up! I'm just so tired!

It takes me through Los Angeles, Mexico and Denver, CO.

OK, I got it now. I thought you were saying, "Los Angeles, then Mexico, then Denver." But you were saying Los Angeles, Mexico as if it were PART of Mexico. A little politics, there, eh? Not that there aren't a whole lot of people who would like to see that come to pass . . .

"Viva La Raza"

Jopa

I wake up at 0330. My plan is to start driving at 0500 and drive 8 hours nonstop. I parked in the back of the gigantic truck stop so it was definitely a long walk to the truck stop. I took a shower first thing and got back to my truck at about 0430. Good timing!

I go inside my truck and put all my shower stuff away. Then I make eggs with ham and cheese on brown grain bread. Not that white bread High Fructose Syrup crap. I also prepare a nice smoothie for me which I made with Strawberries, Yogurt, Apple, Banana, and Spinach. This was a very good breakfast!

By the way, as a sidenote. I bought myself a new cooler. I originally had a small Koolatron then I needed more space so I bought an Igloo. Worst piece of trash ever. That Igloo Cooler lasted only 2 months before it stopped blowing cold air. Piece of trash. So I bought myself a Koolatron P25 Voyager Cooler. Its been amazing so far! I highly recommend Koolatron Coolers over every other cooler.

My load is light so hills are no problem. I can take any hill in my highest gear with ease. So today will be a nice day going through NE and WY.

About an hour after I started driving I encountered bad roads. They were covered in snow and ice all the way up to Laramie. It was pretty bad. I actually hit a spot of black ice and it made my left side drives lose traction. But I pressed the clutch in very quickly and thank God my tires regained traction almost immediately. I did feel it going left for a second. I'm wishing this load actually made me heavy so I'll have more grip!

Anyways, I got through the snow and ice and after Laramie, WY it was beautiful!

I made it all the way into UT and because of my good efforts today, it looks like I'll make this load on time.

I do have to admit though, I am very hard pressed on my 70 hour clock. I have just barely enough hours to get this load delivered and after this load I won't have anything left and no recaps coming back. So I'll be forced to take a day off. Which means I would have worked 70 hours in 7 days. Yep...

I did want to annouce, as soon as I become a trainer this thread will officially retire. About time, eh? Its been dieing slowly but I keep annoyingly reviving it.

I will be making a new thread documenting my adventures as a trainer with a trainers perspective. So I'll be discussing the day, what I focused on teaching to my student, and how the student is doing. Just a overview and detailed log of my days. So then you can have this thread to see what being a solo driver is like and then you'll also have a thread discussing life as a trainer. Day to day!

TruckingTruth just keeps getting better and better!

I woke up at about 0300 and walked outside and drained my air tanks.

Is that like "Cooling a tire ","Choking the chicken", "Draining the lizard", "Hosing the porcelain", "Flushing my buffers", or "Making my bladder gladder?" You know truck driver lingo . . . or were you just draining the air tanks?

Jopa

I woke up at about 0300 and walked outside and drained my air tanks.

Is that like "Cooling a tire ","Choking the chicken", "Draining the lizard", "Hosing the porcelain", "Flushing my buffers", or "Making my bladder gladder?" You know truck driver lingo . . . or were you just draining the air tanks?

Jopa

No I was actually draining the air tanks. This is very important information that you must know.

Air brakes use compressed air to make the brakes work. Air brakes are a good and safe way of stopping large and heavy vehicles when the brakes are well maintained and used properly.

Compressed air usually has some water and compressor oil in it, which is bad for the air brake system. For example, the water can freeze in cold weather and cause brake failure. The water and oil tend to collect in the bottom of the air tank.

You need to drain your air tanks daily. Especially in cold weather. The goal is to have fresh, dry air in your air tanks. Moisture builds up in your air tanks and when you drain it you release all that moisture.

Not draining your air tanks can lead to brake failure.

Current Load: Columbus, NE to Redlands, CA.

Freight: Medicine, Hospital Supplies

Total weight: Approximately 52K.

1650 miles, 734$ pay for this load.

I woke up early in the morning because I want to ensure that I'll make it on time for the delivery. So I woke up at 0330. Made myself eggs for breakfast with a banana and water. It's been a while since I ate truck stop food, and I prefer to keep it that way.

I started driving at 0400. I'm on I80 in UT near SLC. I took US40 E to US189 detour around SLC. It saves me 20 miles and I'm light so I don't mind the hills. I'm hard pressed for time on my 70 hour clock so if I can save myself a minute I'd be thrilled!

Now, this delivery is already a tight squeeze. I really won't have much time remaining on my 70 hour clock after the delivery so I'm planning on stopping at the nearest truck stop in the San Bernardino area and calling it a day.

However, after about 5 hours of nonstop driving. I get a message from my DM. It reads:

"Morning Daniel I'm trying to figure out if u wud be able to reld tomorrow out of Cabazona about 30 miles from ur delivery looks like u have about 8 hours avail thru tomorrow nite it may getcha to the shipper whatcha think"

For people not familiar with DM messages. They are usually filled with spelling errors and abbreviated words. My DM is amazing and a brilliant guy, but he does have 65+ drivers and simply doesn't have the time to correct "nite" into night.

reld= is an abbreviation for reload.

So I know for a fact that when I arrive to my delivery location I'll have less than an hour on my 70 hour clock. Now they want me to try to get to a pickup also! Oh man. As if you weren't burdened enough, then you get even more work.

However, you may be thinking "are they crazy or something !?"

But you would be the one who is wrong to think that. Sure it will be tight. But this is a huge blessing in disguise.

You see? The typical driver would say "no way man, I'll already be under an hour on my clock. I can't do a pickup."

But this is the most perfect time to distinguish yourself from the rest of the drivers.

YOU are a hard worker.

YOU are more dependable than his other drivers.

YOU will do favors without a single complaint.

YOU will become your DM's go-to-guy.

YOU are the best driver on his fleet.

So prove it!

Rejecting this is the worst thing you can do. Yes, it makes my day a lot more difficult. But its a favor for my DM and if I can do it you best believe that I will do my best. This is the time when I show my DM that I'm willing to work!

So I stop for 8 minutes and review everything. I make the decision that I'm going to go for it. This is a fantastic opportunity to impress him! I reply with:

"I would love to squeeze in a pickup tomorrow. Unfortunately, I am very low on my hours and will most likely have under an hour left on my 70 hour clock tomorrow when I deliver. But I'll hustle extra hard today and I'll make it work. I promise. But when I get there I'll definitely be out of hours so I'll have to park for the entire day. So count me in! By the way, thank you for running me hard! You guys are amazing!"

Notice how I let him know that it'll be tight? That way he knows that I'll be going out of my way for this pickup. In the end, I also thanked him for running me hard.

Rules to follow when speaking to your DM:

1. Try not to sound like an idiot.

2. Be respectful and kind.

3. They appreciate quick responses.

4. Always thank him.

5. Never complain. If you're going to constantly complain then get the hell out because you're going to fail!

Anyways, sorry for rambling. I tend to get carried away on extremely important subjects such as this. The key is to recognize your opportunities and take advantage of them!

So I get a reply from him:

"good deal ill put ya on it, im pretty sure there is parking at the shipper thx"

He thanked me, thats HUGE. He also said "good deal", read between the lines - he's very happy that I'm committing myself to picking this load up even though every single minute is vital to me because I have hardly any hours remaining.

Anyways, I continue on the road and stop at the Pilot in Las Vegas, NV. I notice that I'm actually far ahead of my schedule! Awesome! So I take an hour off instead of just 30 minutes to take a shower and clean my smoothie blender glass jug.

I parked in Barstow, only 80 miles from my delivery. Because of my hard work, I will easily make this delivery on time and I made my DM happy!

Its been a good day!

Ya know. I've been driving on I80 and I15 the last two days and I've been seeing a whole lot of Western Express Flatbed drivers. I'm always on the lookout for Old School but It didn't appear that any of the drivers that I saw were him. Unfortunately, the drivers that I saw didn't have gray hair and didn't look ancient so it was obvious from the first moment that I glanced at them that it wasn't Old School.

You didn't know that Old School is going backwards in age? Everybody else knows that on here. Look at his tarps. Only a 20 year old can make them look that good.

You didn't know that Old School is going backwards in age? Everybody else knows that on here. Look at his tarps. Only a 20 year old can make them look that good.

Haha he really is. All this joking around between me and him, its all in good fun. He likes to make fun of my youth and I like to make fun of his age. In fact, we laugh about it on the phone. Then contemplate if everyone else reading it actually does think that we hate each other. Haha! But like I said, its all in good fun. He gets me, I get him. But all joking aside, I have much respect for him that he's doing what he's doing and consider him a friend.

Its also interesting to know that we both joined truckingtruth at an almost similar time. We were both reading up on here and asking questions. I started school slightly before he did but we've pretty much been side by side career wise. We've kind of "grown" in this field being only a month apart from eachother. And eventually we gained enough knowledge and experience to start helping out folks on TT.

I woke up at 0330 and immediately got ready to drive. I'm low on fuel and I got to top myself off at this TA. I'm 80 miles from my delivery so leaving two hours before the appointment time is perfect. The general rule is to arrive 1 hour before the appointment time. So why am I leaving two hours before the appointment so that I will arrive very close to the appointment time? Well, the receiver doesn't open the gates until 0600 and that's when my appointment is. They also don't have onsite parking or overnight parking.

I fuel and spend about 450$. Not my money!

I arrive at the receiver at 0520. 40 minutes before my appointment time. Had no trouble finding the place. I park on the street with another truck until 0550. Then I drive up to the gate. I wait and wait and wait for someone to finally show up.

Its 0620 and finally someone shows up. He starts everything up and I give him my Bills. At about 0630 I have a door and was given my bills back. I was told to back up to the door, break seal, open doors, chock tires, slide tandems back, and disconnect from the trailer.

I did just that. I looked at my Bills which now had a lot of writing on them from the security guard. One thing I noticed that I didn't like was that he put the arrival time at 0620 on the Bills.

So I wrote on the top of the paper "Driver Arrival Time: 0520"

And I crossed out his 0630 arrival time and entered 0520 instead. Just because he got here super late doesn't mean he should put that I arrived after my appointment time on the Bills. They weren't saying I was late. Of course not. But I don't like the idea of putting in an arrival time after the appointment time when I arrived on time.

Just covering myself. Don't want anyone to think that I was late when I wasn't. The employee was late to get the gate open, not my fault.

So I get unloaded pretty quickly and receive my signed Bills at 0810. I also receive the load information for my next load.

It picks up at 1630 today. Is supposed to weigh about 43K and delivers to Salt Lake City, UT on the 28th at 1100. This will easily be delivered on time, my recap hours are more than enough to cover this. I also sent a message to my DM telling him that I want to spend the day after my delivery on the 28th at the terminal for some truck repairs. I have a few small things that need attention from a mechanic. There's a loose, disconnected wire near my clutch pedal. I accidentally hit it with my foot and disconnected it. My bunk heater switch is loose and requires both hands to move. And there's a 7" crack on my drivers side windshield.

My DM says no problem as suspected. While I'm waiting to be unloaded I was looking for a trailer washout facility on my route. Remember, I have less than an hour on my 70 hour clock. And I really can't afford to go out of route.

So I took the exit that I'm supposed to take to get to my shipper. There's a small truck stop with no parking spaces there. But there are trucks parked across the street on the dirt shoulder. So I park there and take out my broom. I sweep the trailer spotless in 15 minutes. It was a bit of a struggle because its super windy here. When I cranked that trailer door open it threw me with it.

Trailer clean and I'm two miles from my shipper. I call my shipper and ask if its possible that I come in and get loaded early. They said no like usual.

So I drive to my shipper and enter the facility and park where the rest of the trucks are parked. And that's where I sit right now typing this. Its very windy over here and as I'm typing this my truck is steadily rocking back and forth and I can actually see my trailer shaking. Pretty cool stuff!

This past week has actually been my most productive week at Prime.

In a 7-day period. I have driven 3442 miles.

I have worked 69 hours and 30 minutes.

In a 7-day period, I have earned 1,531$ exactly. Which rounds to about 220$ per day. Not to brag, but the more info I give you the more informed you are. Also consider that I get paid .445cpm.

If I worked at my old company making .31cpm like I did, I would have earned 1067$. So just because I work at Prime I earned an extra 464$ in a 7-day period. If you're going to be doing something, why not make more money doing it? Best decision I've made in my life.

Also consider that my truck is governed at 57MPH. So its a whole lot more difficult for me to get above 3K miles in a week. Getting 3,4K in a week is pretty damn impressive and extremely difficult at 57mph. I can't tell you how tired I am and how I just feel a complete lack of energy. Since today is a slow day I'm definitely planning on catching up on sleep! Maybe playing some videogames while on here and go for a walk. Actually rest finally.

I don't understand the drivers who don't ever get any miles. I've had great miles ever since I joined Prime. My first three weeks were slow because they were testing me and seeing what I can handle. I did well and wasn't ever late so now I'm given more work than I can shake a stick at.

Having a good attitude, being safe, reliable, and working hard is the key to a successful career in trucking.

Jeez, every single one of these posts get extremely close to that 5500 maximum character limit. Brett, can you increase this limit just for me?