Fun With Reefers

I finished my hometime this morning and drove out to the Budweiser plant in Fort Collins to pick up an empty trailer. After a while, I found the trailer, and it was certainly empty. Of fuel. And battery charge. I call my dispatcher who sends me to road repair who tells me that my dispatcher needs to decide whether to have me get the trailer fixed now or go find another one. This is the fun part. For over an hour, I send messages over the Qualcomm asking for a solution. I also called a lot, but got an automated message saying that my dispatcher is "away from their [sic] desk".

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHH!

I finally call the Prime "all purpose" number and get transferred to the supervisor who discovers that I'm being dispatched from Salt Lake City today (my normal dispatchers get days off?!) but the phones aren't transferring properly.

After all this is straightened out, it is decided that I am to go get this trailer fixed. First, I go to Johnson's Corner in Loveland since it is close and not far out of route. I get the trailer fueled and find that the shop doesn't open for another hour and decide that instead of waiting, I'll just drive down to another shop that's near my pickup. Great idea, huh?

Fast forward to the Tomahawk Truck Stop in Brush, Colorado. One guy is working the shop. Needless to say, this takes a while.

So after waking up at 4 am to get a trailer and get my load, I finally roll into Fort Morgan and grab the load at 3PM. Great start, huh?

Headin' HOME!!

Finally, I'm on my way home. I've earned it, having been out for over a month now.

Anyway, things have been going well at Prime so far. The last week wasn't so productive because your options get VERY limited once you have to go in a particular direction. But that's ok.

I spent the last week driving around New England, delivering frozen vegetables and picking up and delivering ice cream. Had a four-stop load of ice cream treats to Ohio to supply the ice cream trucks. Man, talk about some messed up backing situations at those places.

I talked to my ex-codriver tonight. He had found a new codriver, but that arrangement lasted only about a week before he got fed up with the guy. Since then, he's been back at the Ford account as a utility driver and is starting Monday morning at Knight Transportation. Good luck, dude.

You want me to drive WHERE?!

Prime wasn't able to get another truck to take my load before I took off yesterday, so I just started driving as hard and fast as I could to gobble up some of those high-paying miles on the load, planning to stop at Glade Spring, Virginia. Late in the day after I passed Knoxville, Tennessee, I received a message on the Qualcomm: "Can you make it to Hagerstown, MD"? WTF? As in, 300 miles past my planned stopping point? Do remember, I started out near New Orleans.

Umm... I don't think so. Almost 1100 miles in one day is way too much, and I don't have millions of dollars to spend on any negligence suits that may crop up if I were to crash and take someone with me. Needless to say, they found me a swap. And the driver I swapped with brought me a gift: a two stop load to Delaware and Vermont that pay $1.91/mile to the truck. And the first drop (Delaware) doesn't drop until 6/4! That means I really don't have to start driving until the afternoon!

Now to get a PM busted out...