Well, now I have a chance to catch ya’ll up on how yesterday went. First, all of the services for 3truck have been completed. Chatty Cathy has been retired and replaced with the all new Zonar System. We have been learning it and i can say it is much easier to work with and keep track of everything. I really like it so far. The only thing I don’t like about it is the fact that the turn by turn navigation is not working properly at this time. They are aware of it and hopefully the full navigation will be available. In the meantime, we have a work around.

So, yesterday we picked up the truck from the shop and just couldn’t get the Zonar to turn on. We went back to the shop and it turns out they forgot to connect the ignition power wire lol. Got that fixed and found an empty trailer. As we went through the automatic truck wash, we noticed that one of the big arms that has all the rubber flappers that beat on the truck really did beat it up! It somehow went behind the batwing and ripped the bottom fiberglass supports off. So, we had to drop our empty trailer and make a visit to the body shop for quick replacement and to file a damage claim.

Then off to the first of two local runs yesterday. We had an open live unload scheduled yesterday but when we arrived, they said they couldn’t unload until 10pm. No biggie, we waited until that time then was told it would be midnight. We threw a fit, then they asked if I wanted to just go ahead and drop it! So, we dropped it and then headed to the next shipper back in Springville. We arrived just ten minutes before the shipping office closed for the night!

We then had to get to our 330am delivery and arrived in time for that. They took their sweet time, but in the end we got a nice bonus extra pay if we could complete both local runs. We did it and arrived at the truckstop for our break.

It took some fancy usage of all the hours of service rules to get it done, but we ended the day with zero violations!

Oh, somewhere along the way yesterday, we had a white suv cut us off ado a hit and run. If you find the timestamp, you can link to it in the blog comments. We got no damage but since we are a commercial driver, we are still obligated to file a claim with safety just to cover our own rear-end. Yup, it was captured by our broadcast as well as our onboard driver cam.

Our next trip is now posted but will not be available until late tonight so we will run with it Saturday morning. We do have an empty trailer shuttle to do shortly, but boy, do I need a break!

HOWDY! Well we have been waiting for a door at the shipper in Henderson, Nevada for more than ten hours. We aren’t the only ones though. There are trucks here that was here when we arrived. I can’t get an answer from anybody about what the delay is. I have seen multiple trucks come in and go right to a door. Others I have seen do a uturn and leave right away. What a joke this is. I was awake to drive here. Then we have been awake waiting for the door. Then I’m expected to drive in the morning – that is if we ever get loaded. Las Vegas is one of those busy cities that if you don’t find parking by 5pm, you are out of luck. The bad thing is once we leave the city, it’s all backroads until Oregon, so very limited parking along the way. This has really messed with our schedule and sadly, alot of shippers and receivers all have total disregard for trucker schedules. If we are late, they throw a fit and fine us as much as $500.00 AND then reschedule. But, they get away with it, so nothing will ever change.

Onto other news…a little story about a chat I had with the driver parked next to us that is also waiting. During our conversation about parking and the lack thereof this time of night, he asked about what truckstops were around. I told him the general locations but he seemed really confused. So, to make things easier, I pulled up the addresses on my tablet and wrote them down. He looked at the paper and told me he doesn’t know where “that is”. That what? Those are two truckstops. Then he told me he doesn’t have any idea how to get there. Huh?

I then said “wait. You are a trucker that has to find thousands of customers all aroundthe country but you can’t find this?” I told him to put the address in Google maps to get directions. He told me customer addresses are automatically on his truck navigation so he never uses Google. All I could do was shake my head. Is there no way you can think of to find your way to a truckstop? After he told me he wished I would just tell him where they are I just walked away. I can’t believe this guy was that clueless. How does he survive as a trucker? How does he survive in life period?

And so goes our night. Still waiting. Still trying to keep my sanity. No idea of what the broadcast schedule will be but I’m sure you can find the way to our stream once we do get driving. You can, can’t you? 😆

Fom being thrown off the Main Street Bridge in Belvidere, Illinois and then being forced to out float 599 other ducks in the Kishwakee River, the winning duck has found his home! The winning bid on the Duck Auction was $400! Many thanks to all the participants for helping out the Belvidere Lion’s Club! The photo shows the duck packing for his ride to his new home!

Welcome to the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, my old stomping grounds! Hope you enjoyed the ride around downtown Dallas. Our next trip is now posted and we will go load up in Fort Worth shortly.

Oh! And we met up with OutnAbout in Anna, Texas this morning and he brought us a Whataburger and plenty of other great stuff such as fresh blueberries, peaches, pie, and more!

Morning! Aren’t we supposed to be out painting and crayola-ing in the middle of the street? Actually, it has been raining nonstop. Just when it quits it starts up again. Everything is on rain delay for now. We will see how the duck races go. We will try to broadcast something when we can.

The good news about this steady rain is the area needs it horribly! This constant steady slow rain is good for the grounds:).BTW, our store has more American Spirit hats in stock and they are on sale!,

Hey, Good morning! Yeah, it’s a Monday alright lol. We picked up a chunk of metal in our trailer tire yesterday and tried to get the tire shop to fix it but they didn’t have a tire mechanic available until this morning. We are now in the shop and getting it addressed. Just add another wrinkle to the morning because of the absolute bad attitude of the tire tech. We talked to the shop manager and got that addressed as well. We are actually pulling a different companie’s trailer so having to talk to two different organizations proves to be rougher than it should be. Ggrrr.

At any rate, we will continue on to Salt Lake City to hand this load to another driver then we might go in the shop for our regular service and get that air issue fixed, or they might keep us rolling. Either way, we are short on hours, only 8 today and six tomorrow!

Welcome to Arizona! There were many emails about Sunday Song submissions. I appreciate them all. I have more news to mention here, but it is changing each minute so will wait on that.

Last day to get our American Spirit hats at a 20% discount and last day to get your final bids in for the Belvidere Duck Derby winning duck, which happens to be ours! Auction proceeds go to the Belvidere Lion’s Club.

Well we are unloading at our delivery 24 hours later than originally scheduled. No biggie, it all works out. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time on our clocks to do everything, not enough drivers to accomplish the trips, then you add in time stealers such as the places that take more than their fair share of time to load or unload us.

This week’s Sunday Song was contributed by Steve Swanson

Howdy from Denver! I was really concerned about the poor reviews that other truckers had posted about our delivery customer. The average rating over 62 reviews was a whopping 1.5. The chief complaint was them taking 6, 7, 8+ hours to unload. Guess we were lucky because we were there just 3 hours!!

Rough afternoon here with the allergies and general blah feeling. Our next trip is now posted and we will head out in the morning to go pick it up. I just got confirmation that the loaded trailer that wasn’t supposed to be ready until after 1pm tomorrow is actually ready right now!!

The route has several route points to make the trip map accurate. Interstate 70 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado is closed due to road damage and massive mudslides. We will just stick to the big roads and make it a much nicer ride.

We also have our next trip after the one posted, and it is over 1,000 miles!