We arrived in Ohio with our flowers for Mother's Day and lettuce, but we had to stop at the Springfield terminal to get a new seat installed in the truck. The back of the seat broke and the only thing holding it up was the cabinet behind it. Plus we needed to get our clutch adjusted.
Since starting with USX in December we have taken 4 days of home-time...I know, most people would say, you could go anywhere to take a break, why would you want to do it in Springfield, OH? Well...$35/ night for a hotel with London and an indoor pool and hot tub, not too shabby. We ended up staying for a week. Had some good food and met some really nice folks. I finally got to see a doctor, it had been 3 years and we just got to relax. It was really nice. We received 3 phone calls from USX while on our hometime...the first one wanted to know if we would repower a load, the second one wanted to know if we,would help them recover trucks...from people abandoning them and quitting, and the third one wanting to know if we would help them road test all their new students...we declined each and every one, which is the complete opposite of our usual answer of..."sure, whatever you need"...but it was our downtime and we weren't going to get sucked back in.
We were told our truck was ready on Friday and we were scheduled to head out on Tuesday. Decided to spend Sunday night back in the truck to get it all cleaned and straightened back up again. It is amazing when you are running hard how things just get out of place and it just gets dirty. We were bobtailing over to get something to eat and realized our engine break wasn't working. We had already been assigned a 2700 mile run back to Cali that was due in our usual 2-day turn on Thursday, but without an engine break as well as our shop isn't known for moving at the speed of lightning, we let our FM know that he should re-assign the load to make sure USX didn't receive a service failure for a late pick up. To make a long story short, they downloaded the new idle software and it wiped out our cruise control and engine break...well that took some guy from Volvo..figure that one out cause we drive a Freightliner, to go line by line on the software to find the mistake. It took a couple of hours, but we got that issue resolved.
Then the next issue...finding a reefer trailer. The one we brought in for service, that we wrote up to be fixed over a week ago now, was still sitting in the same spot we left it in. The guard said there was one other reefer on the lot, but after perusing around it was nowhere to be found. So we parked again and got in touch with our FM. While sitting and waiting a reefer trailer appeared through the gate and backed into a spot, then somebody else jumped out of the truck, pulled out of the spot and re-parked the trailer. It turns out they were using the only reefer trailer in Springfield to do road testing...brilliance at its finest! I ran over and got the trailer number and our FM, Mike, who completely ROCKS by the way, quickly assigned us the trailer. We got under it as soon as they dropped it and we were finally ready to roll...whew.
We are now picking up at Nestle and deliver in Commerce, CA on Friday. Sometimes this job is never easy. Every little thing is a chore. Both Jeff and I are glad to be back on the road again and when London got out to potty this morning he had a little pep in his step too. I think he enjoys it as much as we do!
I just love reading about your adventures, AND your rest stops! When we are on the highway and I glance up at truckers we are passing, they are real people to me now. :~)
ReplyDeleteThanks e. Always appreciate the feedback. If you could educate more people that we truckers are real people maybe we all might start being treated with respect. I cannot believe how some people talk to us and treat us like we are lower class citizens. Consumers need to remember that if it wasn't for us, the shelves at the stores would be bare.
ReplyDelete