My First Week Continued

So I'm on my way to Georgia with my first real load 22,000lbs and man I haven't seen this many trees since Hahn Germany when I was a little kid!!😳😳 the trip was smoothe and uneventful I handled the city driving and even my first 6% downhill grade without any incident. Even the scales were easy peasy I have electing passes on my windshield and like unsaid I was only 22 so no signals to even pull into the shoes to the mountain pass. And I think that was only so there was enough spec between the trucks for a safe decent just in case there was a run away.

I got a ton of pics I posted to the site from that first trip. So I get to Georgia and again no where to drop is kinda cheated and dropped in a spot I was able to pull into at the end of the loaded trailer line place was closed for the weekend so no one told me not too😋😋.

So im like yeah ahead of schedule 12 hrs early lets get my preload hooked and reset.....NOPE paperwork was not there. 😒😒 a pattern is starting....well first and second load not enough to collate any type of patterns yet, woosa "stay calm, don't complain, don't wine!" I had a couple drive hours left so I head to walymart for a pillow, yeah rolled up blue jeans just were not working any more. My driver advocate had told me bout the walymart and a Chinese food ice near it and I swear I have never had real cheese food before this place was fantastic!!😋😋😋😋 now hall may be thinking on this guy and waiting but just so u know my load in was delivered early on the 10th 1613 hrs. Delivery was required 11th 0300. My load out wasn't to be ready till 12th 0500. So I guess it's my own fault having the desire to geterdone next deliver early thats shooting myself n the foot but I have this feeling it will catch up and in a good way!! So I'm Broke now and out of drive hrs so I bed down comfortably this time in the now familiar sleeper😴😴😴😴

Time goes by I get my load an hour early and I'm like yeah I do my pretrip and there are 2 lights out on the trailer...did I mention something before about don't give a rats @$$...fellow employees....both lights were full of water....so three hours later, I think night dispatch was trying to get their "I didn't want to work this morning at the end of my shift" point across to me. I mean I was told to macro my request on the Q.C. For any and all communications to the company...well after an hour I called to see if they got my message and that was when my previous edit statement was confirmed the disembodied male voice that I just woke on the other end of the line requested that I drive to a truck stop 60 miles away instead of having their vendor come out and service the trailer, now I'm a tall man 6'3"-5" in boots but there no way I'm gonna reach that Amber marker light way up at the top of my trailer without some seriouse spider man wall crawling skills.

So an hour later dispatch calls me back to inform me vendor will be an hour...or so....its 0600 now be I'm omits tempted to just drive to the truck stop but then the point I'm trying to get across to these people will be lost, my DOT pretrip inspection required me too pro my truck for repair and I am not willing to risk a ticket or points on my cdl it's clean and I intend to keep it that way...so the three hours was worth it, to me. So just to remind yall I'm flat broke so even if I had decided to risk it I couldn't have purchased replacement lenses anyhow but I wasn't about to tell him that...anywhoo

I'm finally on my way to Texas!! I'm excited cause that's where my apartment wife kids and kitties are😄😄😄😻😻 why am I excited...?...cause I haven't seen them for almost a week and phone calls and pictures are not what the family wants. I myself am enjoying the solitude of the road it is something I've always enjoyed.

Only a week out? Did you end up not doing OTR? I don't remember reading your first thread. I'll have to look.

Hey Paul, I enjoy reading trip posts and how things are going for folks out there "living the dream" :) please do continue....... I'd like to (read) more.

Paul you hang in there and with that attitude you will go far.

Very cool man!

I myself am enjoying the solitude of the road it is something I've always enjoyed.

I've always been the same way. I was actually pretty shocked at how much time you spend alone, isolated in that truck. I can still remember going down the road super early in my career thinking, "I'd better find ways to enjoy my alone time because there's a lot of it!" And that was in '93 so there was no Internet yet or Amazon Kindle so I carried around a box of books all the time. I read hundreds of em over the years. Fortunately it wasn't too many years before the Web came around along with satellite radio. That made the downtime a little more interesting.

Satellite radio was really the greatest thing ever for driving entertainment. The CB was fine but having regular old-timey radio stations fading in and out once an hour or two was tedious at best. And of course there was never anything to listen to. But satellite radio brought CNBC, ESPN, live games, NPR, and all kinds of super interesting stuff!

But in the end nothing beats a great book.

Very cool man!

I myself am enjoying the solitude of the road it is something I've always enjoyed.

I've always been the same way. I was actually pretty shocked at how much time you spend alone, isolated in that truck. I can still remember going down the road super early in my career thinking, "I'd better find ways to enjoy my alone time because there's a lot of it!" And that was in '93 so there was no Internet yet or Amazon Kindle so I carried around a box of books all the time. I read hundreds of em over the years. Fortunately it wasn't too many years before the Web came around along with satellite radio. That made the downtime a little more interesting.

Satellite radio was really the greatest thing ever for driving entertainment. The CB was fine but having regular old-timey radio stations fading in and out once an hour or two was tedious at best. And of course there was never anything to listen to. But satellite radio brought CNBC, ESPN, live games, NPR, and all kinds of super interesting stuff!

But in the end nothing beats a great book.

Thanks Brett and the others who are being incuraging This was why I enjoyed this site so much. As a matter Of Fact yall are what Gave me the courage To start this New Adventure!😀

I have been reading and yes I am OTR I just was fortunate enough to have a kid end in south Texas. My dispatcher told me to head To San Antonio and I took my 34 he reset here. 😋

I have been reading and yes I am OTR I just was fortunate enough to have a kid end in south Texas. My dispatcher told me to head To San Antonio and I took my 34 he reset here. 😋

Sorry load

I have been reading and yes I am OTR I just was fortunate enough to have a kid end in south Texas. My dispatcher told me to head To San Antonio and I took my 34 he reset here. 😋

Sorry load

Glad you clarified! I was wondering if I should give my condolences for a kid or not. :-P

Do you plan on staying OTR?

Satellite radio was really the greatest thing ever for driving entertainment. The CB was fine but having regular old-timey radio stations fading in and out once an hour or two was tedious at best. And of course there was never anything to listen to. But satellite radio brought CNBC, ESPN, live games, NPR, and all kinds of super interesting stuff!

Oh yeah.... would have loved to have Sat Radio in my truck.... I can vividly remember driving across parts unknown for hours on end with the radio in scan mode finding absolutely nothing....on both the am and fm side of the dial. I would set the radio scanning and forget about it for an hour or two until it would find and try to lock on to a distant and staticky religious or spanish station.... then would drop the signal and i'd have to start it scanning again. I would usually end up giving up on the radio and put in a cassette and hope that the radio would not eat my tape yet again.