Anticipation

We have had one day at home since the first of May and we are getting ready to go home for several days in July and the days are moving slowly! We have many adventures planned for this home time and anticipation is running high. We are very lucky our daughter shares our house with us so we do not have to worry about all the mundane duties to much. Bob does have a few honey do items but they will be short and painless to fix. The Lincoln County fair is happening, I plan on going fishing at a neighbors pond, hopefully lots of horseback riding and my sister will be arriving at the house so I hope to have some family time with her.

After our home time we will be attending the Expedite Expo which is held in Wilmington OH at the Roberts center and promises once again to be the highlight of the year. Lots of old friends to see and new friends to make. We are always exhausted after the Expo from all the talking we do!

July is just an awesome month!

Mentors

How would we survive out here without Mentors? We tried being drivers once without mentors and found out how disheartening that can be. The second time around we did our homework and we formed a network of support from fellow drivers and from the company we are leased to. As time has progressed our mentors have changed and to some we have become mentors. We are very careful of who we listen to and who we let influence our lives. It only takes one rotten apple to start eroding your confidence and your attitude. We have found that in this downturn of the economy we have needed influence from others outside of expediting to keep us from getting a prima donna attitude on what we consider expectable load pay. Our mentors keep me going back to my books and looking at my figures and seeing how we can trim our expenses and keep making a profit. Without our mentors giving us attitude adjustments we just might not have such a great outlook on life.

To those that have helped keep us grounded I only have the highest panegyric praise, without them in our corner who knows where we would be. So to Vince, Henry, and Terry you guys are the best at dealing with the two of us out here running around in ½ a truck.

Who knows where you will meet?

We had a busy day socializing yesterday in Cincinnati and in Kentucky! We had enough time to get to our pickup we were able to stop in Cincinnati to meet with Lawrence at the expediteonline.com office and then go enjoy an awesome Thai lunch, then we were off to Kentucky to a Wal-Mart to meet with other driving friends. Now the last time we saw this couple we were down in Naples FL and the time before that was in Alabama and who knows on the time before that. We were able to go have a nice supper and then since their truck has a nice table and bench seating we were able to sit and enjoy the rest of the evening and get caught up face to face instead of our normal email correspondence.

One of the neatest aspects of our way of life is that the United States becomes a very small area to traverse and meet up with fellow drivers. We have met one truck in Tampa Florida and enjoyed Busch Gardens and all the awesome roller coasters then the next summer we met up with them in Gilroy CA. We all rented a car and spent the day at Fisherman's Wharf and then the next day touring the Winchester Mansion. Now it has been almost two years and we can not catch up to them.

You just never know when you get up in the morning how the day will unfold. Of course most often as a team driver the first think I think of when I get up is where am I and which way is the building with the restroom!

Totally FREAKING Ticked OFF

Had an interesting Friday afternoon and a phone call just about made me lose my cool. Accepted a pre assignment on Thursday picking up Friday afternoon going to Louisiana for a Monday delivery. Short load but this would leave us free on the weekend to see a movie, eat out, clean the truck and in general be untethered from our house on wheels and in the expedite world this is a great stress reliever. Get a phone call Friday afternoon after dead heading 53 miles to get load "Oh by the way I think I forgot to mention..." This weekend load we have done a few times before for this customer now has new requirements one of which you must ALWAYS be with the truck till you deliver. I said "Do What?" then mad set in and I knew it was time to get off the phone, take a chill pill as it sure is not a dispatchers fault the rules have changed. After the attitude adjustment took place I made another phone call a little higher up the food chain to give voice to my displeasure and why this load is a burden. I must admit I handled this with more decorum then normal and found out the cause for the change in the load and was told if we wanted off the load it would happen. At this point we had invested 53 miles and pretty much put ourselves out of contention for another load. So we said yet we will run the load but this will be the last for this customer anywhere in the United States. They are one of our largest discount customers and they are flexing their muscle. After getting "my big girl panties on" we made the best of it and thinking it over we saved a lot of money as I cooked in the truck and no movies and popcorn! Will we do this again NO as it is way to frustrating to tie up your weekend for what this customer pays and if there is no changes to pay or requirements we would much rather be available for dispatch.

How heavy is it?

While talking to another driver who drives a "big" truck we compared weight that is hauled during the year. Last year the total weight we hauled was 376,679 with most loads less then 5000 pounds. Now for some reason this truck him funny and when he quit laughing he informed me that in less then two months his flat bed hauls that much or more. Just goes to show we share many things with our cousins the big trucks but in many ways we are a world apart. He hauls his loads steady and we sit much more then he does but when we run we run hard with no stops for breaks. Often on loads we cannot stop for more then two hours without a phone call asking "Is there a problem?"

Even though we are in somewhat different worlds as our big cousin we have many of the same hardships. We have to follow the same logging rules, we haul less weight but we still have to be legal on each axle, we have to have the same drug tests, the same maintenance records, and we have to drive the same rough roads, fight the same traffic and the list goes on. We have a lot of things much easier as can always find a place to park without to much hassle often just because we usually run all night and park in the day.

So for now we will keep our "little truck" and haul our sailboat fuel and keep making a decent living while enjoying each day we have out here!

A different adventure

Ready to go and watching Bob get on his camel!

The awesome view once you're moving. When riding bareback you actually sit behind the camel hump with a rolled up type blanket that you rest your butt against. Camels do not smell as good as horses do.

A discussion on Facebook made me thing about another "ride" and how much fun this was! I have always rode horses and let me tell you riding a camel is not the same thing. They do not move like a horse and you sure do not sit on them like a horse and you dang sure do not get on them like a horse. Ok and I hate to admit this I think the camel is smarter then a horse. Oh and the camel is much noisier then a horse and they are very quick to let you know they are displeased or they do not want to do something. Sort of reminds me of trying to load a pig in a trailer wow can that get loud. We were able to take a trip so see Bob's brother Dan and his wife in Oman and they were kind enough to let me choose an outing. After I made my choice to take a camel ride and spend a night in the desert at a Bedouin camp I think maybe a few were regretting letting me pick. Bob was so sore the next few days he could barely walk. To me it was just awesome! We slept in a grass type hut, had a meal with a Bedouin family with local entertainment, had a Bedouin supper and breakfast, one concession we had was a modern bathroom which might have been modern to their standards but to us... At least it did not have a squatty potty...

We were lucky enough to ride bareback on the camels so we were lucky to feel the power they have when rising and laying down for ease of getting on and off. While walking they have a very loose undignified gait but it was not unpleasant. I started discussing a week long trek in the desert on camels but I believe I would have been on my own. The experience was awesome and one I will never forget for different reasons then Bob will never forget.

I named my camel Sheba as she was a very nice dignified camel and she did not mind a goofy person from Arizona giving her lots of hugs.

Linda and Sheba after the ride!

Unexpected Surprise

We had the worst luck trying to get a load yesterday! First load offer was to Michigan and after we accepted the load and received the notes we found out we carry to much freight moving equipment and they would not load us. So we lost that load. Next load came in needing 22 foot of floor space for 12 skids and 8500lbs. We accepted that load then had to call in and ask if two skids could be stacked as we would not have room for our pallet jack. Customer said nope cannot be stacked so we have to take you off the load. We call in and say can this load be decked as we have the ability to create a deck in our truck and set skids up there as long as they are not to tall. The load can be decked so we move most of our equipment to get to our plywood so when we get to the customer we are prepared to load the freight. We get to the shipper and they have nine skids as they have all ready stacked and shrink wrapped the freight and the best part the load only ways about 4500lbs! Talk about awesome and so much easier to load. Glad we were prepared with the plywood out but even more pleased we did not need to use it! Now if we could just get unloaded this morning....

Hotel Rooms YUCK

We sometimes have to use a hotel room but 99% of the time it is not our choice. We have to do this when we are at a base and they do not have a "Safe Haven" for explosive trucks. The Safe Havens are within a fenced area often with lightening rods and wires running across the top. We are placed in the Safe Haven and usually parked in a numbered slot and then locked in. As other trucks come in throughout the night they are then parked in the Safe Haven with care being given to what kinds of explosives we are all hauling. Some explosives are not compatible with each other so they try to keep us apart! Throughout the night a security guard will drive by checking on all of us. When this is not available we have to park the truck in a locked remote area of the base and get a cab to a hotel. Sometimes this hotel might only be used for 3 hours till we have to be back at the base to unload. Very frustrating to pack up a few things leave our comfortable bed, coffee maker, supplies for breakfast to go into town and get into an uncomfortable bed with bad pillows to get an hours sleep. It just doesn’t happen! Even if we have the whole night to spend in a hotel it just does not compare to our truck which is set up for us to live in. Even on vacation I dread the hotel experience and have found one hotel in the United States that I really enjoy going to and that is the Cambria Suites in Akron OH and that hotel is just awesome from the time you walk in the door till you check out. Staff is very nice, rooms are awesome and the amenities are over the top. Heck I even volunteer to stay there and they have a small area for truck parking. The one down side is Molly has to stay in the truck as no dogs allowed which after you see the interior of the place I can respect that.

We have stayed at the Ritz, the Atlantis in the Bahamas, the Venetian, Excalibur, Treasure Island in Las Vegas, and various others and I still put this hotel above all of them. This is a picture of the work area and the sleeping quarters are behind the partition.

Explosives and Radioactive

Class in over and we are re certified for Hazmat and Radioactive for three years. FedEx Custom Critical has an awesome instructor who lives and breaths Hazmat and is under the impression everyone should love the details! Melissa is a great teacher as she actually can convey how cool some of this stuff really is and why hauling radioactive loads is one of the safest HazMat loads you can haul. We covered proper shipping names, shipping classes, what is compatible and not and where to find the the information. We were in a class that was all re certifying so that sped the class up some on the basics and we could get more into the intricacies of when you need to press your panic button, how to handle being pulled over by the police or DOT and what to do if an officer or custom agent wants to try and cut the government seal. Now we will need to look into getting another card as it looks as if the TWIC card will replace our CAC card showing we have had a background check. We carry a few cards like this we have had a back ground check to go into Canada with our FAST card, we have had a background check to haul government loads, we have had a background check for our drivers licenses, we have had a background check to carry our CAC card, we have had a background check for our passport, and now another background check to go into ports and haul sensitive loads. It would be awesome if we could combine some of these background checks and only have to write one check but NOPE we get to pay for basically the same background check several times with varying fees!