My Prime Upgrade / First Month Solo Experience

Dennis, I love it! She's purty!

WE love it! It's Tom's fave color as well !!!!

Best wishes, good sir, always~

~ Anne & Tom ~

5/13/22 Day 1 Solo

I’m being sent BT to Lebanon, TN to pickup an empty trailer. Will be dispatched a load assignment from there. Not much solo freight in Springfield area right now.

I still get paid 53 cpm for the ~474 BT miles, so doesn’t matter to me.

Time to get rolling for ~9.5 hours drive ahead of me.

5/13/22 wrap

Drove bobtail from Springfield, MO to Lebanon, TN to pickup empty trailer.

Depart at 12:46 CDT and arrive at 22:20 CDT.

Total of 477 miles in 8h 50m drive time (54.0 mph avg speed). Total 9h 17m On Duty.

My 10- hrs break ends at 08:38 CDT on 5/14/22.

I’ll drive in morning to my 01 pickup customer in Covington, TN about 206 miles empty.

5/14/22 - Day 2 Solo

Summary: 449 miles in 8h 34m driving (52.4 mph avg) 9h 0m On Duty

Started driving at 08:46 CDT near Lebanon, TN and ended my driving day at 20:27 CDT at Beaver Dam, KY. It was not easy finding parking.

I stopped at Halladay, TN on I40 for a trailer washout. I sat waiting at least 35 mins for two guys to wash outside of a tanker. My trailer washout took only 10 mins.

I was going to pre-cool my trailer after the washout for last 100 miles to customer. I forgot to turn the reefer on, so had to pull off again later. This waisted about 15 minutes.

There was a bad accident on I40E bound with a travel trailer flipped over and torn apart. I40E was a parking lot for a few miles.

Luckily I didn’t have any traffic issues today.

I did a D&H at my 01 shipper in Covington, TN. Took my time to make sure all paperwork was done correctly for my first solo load of ice cream bars. I was at the customer for 2 hours from 14:11 - 16:10 CDT.

Pretty scenery through TN and KY. Saw a deer bounding at full speed across a field away from the highway.

Tomorrow I plan to start driving by 06:45 CDT.

A guy in a chicken suit at Cracker Barrel on Friday morning in Springfield, MO

I don't recall ever seeing that before.

5/14/22 wrap

I’m 755 miles tonight from my 90 customer. Tomorrow should be another ~470 miles day (including a shower at my fuel stop). Leaving 285 miles to finish up on Monday morning.

I have until 23:59 EDT on Monday to make the D&H.

Yezir. Gongrats! You earned this!

05/15/22 - Solo Day 3

So far so good. I drove 6h 4m nonstop to my fuel stop in Millersport, OH. A total 337 miles. Arrived about 14:00 EDT.

Fuel fill up cost $900 even! Good to be a Company driver. I was just into the red zone on tractor and reefer down to 1/4 tank. I had requested a best fuel solution before I depart his morning to see if might fill up sooner, but no, the computer kept my same stop. It worked out.

Had a nice shower and now eat, then drive on 3 more hours. After I stop for my 10h break will work out a solid ETA and PTA for my 90 tomorrow morning.

I’m discussing a pre-plan load with dispatch now that live loads in Bayonne, NJ on Monday afternoon. It is 125 miles empty from my 90.

The kicker is that this is a HAZMAT load with a 996 miles loaded run to deliver on 5/18.

I new that HME might come in handy. Not many HME drivers available tomorrow in the region.

I have to look at this hard. Did do any HAZMAT before.

You are 5 miles from me on the tracker.