Many of you have asked us a bunch of questions about our new job and how we do it so...here ya go! There are several vendors that we load at, but I will cover our favorite place, Yara, in Port Hueneme, which is located on the coast of California in the Naval base just outside of Oxnard. It is literally right on the ocean and located in the Camarillo Valley, famous for its strawberries and all kinds of fresh produce, which I love. To stop at a fruit stand and be able to buy strawberries, cherries, oranges, peaches, tomatoes, avocados, fresh Cut flowers and all kinds of almonds and pistachios is dreamy...but I digress, back to loading the truck. DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) is basically uria (cow urine) and water. It is used in a diesel engine as an additive to burn off excess exhaust and keep the environment cleaner. By 2014 if a semi truck does not use DEF or a DPF system (a after burner type system installed on trucks before DEF tanks were being installed on trucks) their truck will no longer be able to enter California.
We have a dedicated 48 foot aluminum tanker trailer which holds 5000 gallons at a time of DEF. We only haul DEF, no fuel. DEF weighs 9.08 per gallon, so each load is 45,400 lbs. At Yara it takes 11 minutes to load our trailer from the top bulkhead. They are open 24 hours a day, just like the Loves stores we deliver to, so we never have to wait to be loaded or to drop a load at a store...we love this! No pun intended. We receive our deliveries once a week via a computer on the truck, so we know where we will be going the following week. Most stores take the full load of 5000 gallons but sometimes we have to split a load between two stores if they are both running low in order to make sure they don't run out. Stores have either a 8000 or 12000 gallon tanks and we can pull the levels of each store on our computer to plan our week according to what the store levels are. Our job is to make sure no Loves store runs out of product.
When arriving at a store we locate the drop point and position our truck to drop the load. If we can position the truck to drop from the back it is much faster than a side drop. Since we have no pump, everything is driven by gravity. We go in the store and pull a tape from the meter that gives us the exact number of gallons in the ground. This is to make sure that you don't over fill the tank. We have a 10 foot hose or a 20 foot hose. If you can get a good position, it is much less work to use the 10 foot hose, but sometimes it just isn't possible to reach and you have to break out the 20 foot hose. Yep, that's the most stress you would have dropping the load...lol. The bulkhead has to be open in order to release pressure. Once you hook up the hose, you open the valve and the DEF starts to flow through the hose and down into the holding tank. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to drop a load, depending on the angle of the trailer. I use the time to do paperwork, eat something or catch up on Facebook. We cannot be any further than 20 feet away while dropping a load. Once we are empty, we close the valve, pull the hoses and put them back on the truck and put the valve fitting back in our storage box on the trailer. Then head back in to the store, pull another reading from the meter. We leave a copy of the bill of lading and meter strips for the store, take our copies and Transflow (scan and fax machine) them ourselves behind the counter, get our receipt that it was received, and we are done.
One of the best things about this job is we don't have to wait on anyone to load or unload. Plus we run like a true Team. I can load anywhere and drop anywhere and don't need any help with equipment or hoses. When we ran flatbed I still couldn't get the straps loose once we arrived for an offload and always had to wake Jeff up for his help. Now he can go to bed and I can take over and do the job all by myself...pretty darn cool. One of the other nice things is we get to travel a bunch empty. This is so rewarding to travel up the Grapevine at 60 mph and not be bogged down by a full truckload, when you go over it 3 or 4 times in a day, it is awesome.
We are responsible for 34 different stores in CA, AZ, NM, NV, UT, WY and CO and will be adding 3 or 4 in the next year, including Grand Junction, CO by the end of this year. We even went to 2 stores in TX last week on our way home to Colorado. There is only 1 other truck that runs DEF in our territory, Deven, who is an old friend of ours from Watkins Shepard days. We basically run like an Owner Operator, but with someone else footing the bill. We receive free drinks and get half price food at all of the stores. We just pull up to the fuel island and put our employee number in to fill the truck with fuel and DEF, don't even have to go in and get the receipt. We were given a Loves charge card for our truck, so anything we need that the store sells, we just use our card. We are responsible for all the maintenance on our truck and since we drive a brand new Freightliner it is under warranty so we just stop at any dealership when we have the need, and get done whatever we need to have done without having to deal with any maintenance department giving us permission. This includes tires as well. All Loves Travel Stops have tire shops now, so if we don't like the way our tires are looking, we just pull into the shop and get them replaced...no questions asked. We run super singles on our truck, as well as the trailer, and Loves always has them in stock. We also are expected to get our truck washed on a weekly basis...and they pay us extra to get it done...just put it on the Blue Beacon account. But I have to say that the two best things about this company are 1) We always have a parking space whenever we arrive at a store and 2) An account at Danny's Big Rig Resort in Phoenix where I can shop to my hearts content for any type of chrome to put on our truck.
We are now sitting in a hotel in Santa Nella, CA watching the Broncos kick the Raiders butts. We LOVE our job!
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