Hauled My First Heavy Load This Week

As a few may have read in my previous posts, I've had a bit of a time finding my place in the trucking community. Until recently I was working for a company where I would occasionally haul small dozers and excavators, nothing big. Well that industry is sort of seasonal and with winter setting in work got slower and slower to the point we shut down til spring. I somehow hit the jackpot though as my boss has several friends in the coal industry. He referred me to his friend that was in need of a few drivers. Made contact with the guy, did a driving test, urine screen and a few hour ride along to get a feel for the job. We both decided it was a great fit and I accepted the job. Unknown to him I was jumping up and down in my head with excitement as this is pretty much the exact job I've wanted since I was 5 years old or so. So now I think I may have found the company I want to retire from. We are a small (45 trucks or so) company where everyone is on a first name basis with the owner. The trucks are somewhat older (my truck is an 07 Freightliner tandem axle dump with the Detroit 60 series and an 18 speed) but they are VERY well maintained. I will be hauling the same loads at the same location 6 days a week from 6 am until 4 pm and until 1 pm on Saturday. The pay is excellent at $20 per load and I average 10-12 loads per day. Only downside is there are no benefits but that's why they're paying so much better than others. There are several different kinds of loads within the company from coal to asphalt to gravel and many different jobsites for each variety so the possibilities are near endless. As I said earlier I feel like I've hit the jackpot as every company I spoke to about similar jobs required 2-5 years experience. I guess it pays to know people sometimes. My truck is in the shop until Monday having it's regular service and a few other things fixed so when I pick her up Monday evening I'll try to get a picture to post here. There was probably no reason to make this thread but I'm so excited about this opportunity I couldn't help myself.

Forgot to mention the heavy load part. We haul generally 32-34 tons of coal each load on these dump trucks. We gross pretty close to tractor trailer loads. We can do this due to having a drop/tag axle setup and the county we haul in has weight exemptions for trucks hauling coal. In comparison I have an uncle in VA that drives a similar truck and he's only allowed 25 tons of product.

Congratulations Minnie!

Be careful with those heavy loads and always keep a comfortably safe following distance.

Sorry about your name, auto correct caught me slacking up on using the preview button!

Haha that's ok OS, autocorrect never liked my name much. The beautiful thing about this haul is it's on an old backroad where we are the only traffic for hours at a time but i still stay well under the speed limit since it can be narrow and curvy in places.