Team Adventure: May 2010

Thursday, May 20, 2010

More Randomness

This is a the biggest Jesus I have ever seen. It is in Ohio along the Interstate 75 and is as tall as a 10 story building. It is really cool looking whether you are a religious person or not.

We finally got the opportunity to drive down to Florida. Here is a pic of the Florabama ocean . Did not see any oil, but I hear it is not looking good for this coast.

This is the Tennesse River which we have probably passed at least 8 times so far. Very pretty and I got to catch it on a nice clear day.

Our loads are always ready at about midnight or after coming out of California. This week we had the opportunity to start our run during the day. This is a pic of the CA/AZ border just after Needles. We have passed this probably 10 times since we have started driving and this was the first opportunity to see it in daylight. The only thing I knew about the bridge we crossed over before was that the speed limit changed from 55 to 65 (which is a great thing!) But who knew how pretty it was...now we do!

I have finally found the last thing to put on our bucket list. While driving through Indiana I saw a sign for: The Vacuum Cleaner Museum. No, I'm not kidding...this really exists. First of all, before I offend anyone, who in the hell would want to go to a vacuum cleaner museum? I just don't think I will run out of things to do before I die before I make it to this museum.

We spent my birthday in Dalton, GA...out of the truck in a hotel room with a king size bed that wasn't moving. It was fantastic! Thanks for all of the birthday wishes from everyone. I forgot my phone charger in the truck so by the time I got back to my phone for our load out to Ohio at midnight I got all of your messages. We went to Western Sizzler for a free birthday meal, it was yummy. I guess I am old cause resting and eating was just fine with me :o )

Friday, May 7, 2010

Random Photos

Both of these are of the Grapevine in California. This is a pass you must cross when coming from northern California to Los Angeles.

This is a cool tree that grows everywhere in souther cal. It looks like a Dr. Suess tree

This is a beautiful hybrid

number that we found in Port of Vancouver, WA

Mount Shasta Lake in Northern California.

Paper Plant in Washington State

Okay, for all of you printing geeks. We got to pick up paper rolls from the Warehauser Paper Mill and it was so cool. I really am a nerd. From being in the printing industry and then seeing where the paper is made and how it is made was so interesting. This was in Longview, WA which is a port of entry. Before you could even pick up your load you had to show ID and testify that you had no drugs, firearms or liquor in your truck...we passed by the way. We got a map with directions on how to get

to the proper building, all winding through logs, wood chips and other buildings that who knows what happened in there. We got our paper rolls and were headed for Quebecore. People were looking at me wierd when I was taking these pics in amazement, so I hope you enjoy them.

Is that like the coolest thing you have ever seen before? I think that is pretty crazy that they take your entire truck and turn it 90 degrees and empty it...kinda like an "E" ride at Disneyland.

It Never Fails

Jeff and I seem to hav

e a knack for being at the wrong place at the wrong time or we get lucky and hit everything when it isn't busy or crazy....well these last two weeks have been on the wrong place, wrong time mode. We ended up in Tennessee for the most rain they have had in their history, 20" in 2 days. The floods were incredible and the stories we heard from local people are truly sad and heartwarming. I have a few pics, but our job was to stay on high ground and make sure our load was safe, so we didn't get too close to downtown Nashville. We were about 25 miles SE of there when we decided it wasn't safe to be driving any further. We pulled into a truck stop to check the weather on the TV and it was incredible

. Tornado warnings, Flash flood warning

s and the Interstate 24 we were traveling on was closed about 12 miles up the road....okay, so that part did swing us to the lucky side. Some truckers were not so lucky. They were parked at the TA right in the heart of Nashville. The water got so high that boats had to start coming in to rescue drivers because the water rose so quickly it started coming into the cab through the windows...it was that high. The Cumberlin River rose to 48' in the heart of the city. We waited out the storm for 2 days and finally decided according to the chatter on the CB and TV reports that we should try to make our way over to Interstate 40. Well, other people had this same idea!

It was like a parking lot...no literally a parking lot. These trucks had been lined up on the road for the last 24 hours waiting for the interstate to re-open. There were about 4 - 5 rivers that cross under the 40, but at that time they were flowing over the 40, so it

was probably a really good thing that the highway was shut down. Nashville is a hard place to be stuck. There isn't a simple alternative route to take and heading NW or just West for that matter....Nashville is the hub that every truck has to come through.

ABOUT TEAM LINN and OUR ADVENTURE

We started our adventure 4 years ago. Our first trucking job was with Watkins Shepard out of Missoula, MT. Great company to start with. Gave us fantastic training in their 10-day orientation on top of our CDL training we already had. We stayed with them for a year and half and decided we wanted a change.

We went to work for Diversified Transfer and Storage out of Billings, MT. This was no longer a truckload, it was LTL, less than a truckload. We ran reefer and had a terminal in Denver, so we ran 4 weeks and had a week off. That part was great, but the company was not a good fit for us. Loved the LTL, couldn't deal with working for an owner who was a piece of crap. I wont even go into further detail....

Next...we wanted to go back to full truckload reefer so we decided to go with US Xpress. We were very happy with them for the first 5 months. We ran consistent miles from the east to west coast and loved it. Our Fleet Manager Mike Gibbs was the best Fleet Manager we have ever encountered in this business. We became one of the top Teams on the reefer board with US Xpress. We were called by the Fleet Owner, the VP of the Reefer division and the COO of US Xpress to tell us what a great job we were doing and how much they appreciated our service. But then it all fell apart and our miles started to drop and our awesome FM was thinking about transferring out of the division. Jeff and I saw the writing on the wall and we decided we wanted out of this company before things got even worse. I still speak with many Teams that run with US Xpress and they are having horrible issues. This was a driver friendly company, but since Pat Quinan passed away in January of 2012, things changed dramatically. Pat was the compassionate one that knew the company was about the Driver. Unfortunately after his passing things quickly changed to being about numbers on a spreadsheet, our FM moved on and we turned our truck in at the Irving Terminal and never looked back at our decision.

We then wet to The Waggoner's Trucking out of Billings, MT. Yep, can't seem to get away from Montana based companies. We now ran a dedicated run from Denver to Oklahoma City three times a week. We ran a flatbed, split axle trailer...which is only 48' now, instead of the 53" we were used to. We were met in Oklahoma City by the owner of the company David Waggoner to give us our new truck. We were no longer a number, but we were The Linn's again. We pulled into the OKC terminal and everybody knew our name and we knew theirs. We were part of a family again and it was so nice to be back in the surroundings we have missed from working at Watkins Shepard. We were in a Kenworth W900 Long Nose truck. We were home every other day in Denver and have Sunday and Monday off every week to enjoy our house in Denver again. We really debated on a dedicated run, since we love traveling the 48 states, but after almost 3 years, we have been to every state and it was time to get back to some connection to our kids, grandchild and our awesome house in Denver. It was so nice to be home more often. But on the flip side:

We ran this route for a year, yes dedicated was great, home time seemed to turn into one of us sleeping...even though it was in our own bed....however, we both got tired of running the same route and we only ran our route at night. Although the company was great, working 7 days a week was tiring and we decided we wanted to go back to enjoying why we started doing this in the first place...to see the country and meet awesome people so...this brings us to our next job change.

We now are working for Gemini Motor Transport, which is the trucking company that Loves Travel Stops owns and services their truck stops. We are working in the SW Region, which includes, CA, AZ, NM. Plus CO and WY when we come back home. We are hauling a tanker truck now, which is only 42' long...getting shorter, I'm liking that, and we haul DEF (Deisel Exhaust Fluid) only. We are the first husband and wife Team that Love's has ever hired. I am also proud to say that I am the only woman that works in the SW region that drives a truck. We are responsible for 33 stores and growing, along with one other solo driver in the region. Our job is to make sure that no stores ever run out of product in our region. Since teaming is new for Love's we will be sent to other regions as well, as needed, possibly the NW too. Our first week we serviced 11 stores in Southern California (all the way up to Corning), plus New Mexico and Arizona. It has been a big change, but once again, we are up for the challenge. I know I have never been so glad to run on a different road and see new things. There are good things about running a dedicated run, but I am so glad we made this transition and I think we picked a great company. We get a reset every week and we only work 6 day a week now. Plus we are paid by the day, not by the mile. We will also be home for every holiday...paid. This company is hard to get into and I am so glad they picked us. The Vice President of the SW region flew in to DIA twice to meet with us before we decided to take the position. He is our direct boss and an awesome one at that. We could not have made a better decision making the move when we did. The dedicated account would have been much more difficult to do with the new Hours of Service that changed in July 2013. So once again, we made the jump before it took anything away from our adventure.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have about trucking in general, teaming or any of the above companies we have worked for. We had to start out just like you and had so many questions, but not a lot of people to answer them. Shoot us an email @ hobotruckers@gmail.com we would love to hear your questions or comments. Thanks for following along in our adventures.

Team Adventure