Maine...NJ to Cali

Well...its been another good week. We got to our pick up in Yuma at 11 am on Tuesday...this is the first time that we have hauled produce...fresh romaine and broccoli, yum! 25 palettes with a butt load of ice thrown all over the top. Needless to say when we were finally loaded, scaled, mud flap replaced and 2 good naps later we truly began our journey to Lewiston, ME on Wednesday morning about 10 am central time.

We are now 125 miles away from our unload  in Maine and we are already scheduled to go to Jersey for a p/u and then bounce straight back to Ontario, CA...which is when we plan on visiting the Colton, CA terminal...need to do laundry and hopefully get the truck washed.

Pretty drive this week. London and I got to walk a couple miles in Yuma and got in his desert time...he loved it..so many smells, so little time. It was 64 degrees in OK City yesterday...nice, but a bit strange. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this mild winter so far. We can go further north if we get the craving for that white stuff.

Safe travels and Happy New Year to everybody. I'm still working on lobster for dinner...we are in Maine right?

Back in Action

We had a great trip back to Modesto weather-wise. Not a flake fell from the sky the entire way across from MA...including Donner, which we crossed on Christmas night...yaay! We stopped and had a nice Christmas dinner in Elko, NV at a casino.

Before we got to our appointment this morning we already got a pre-assign to deadhead to Yuma, AZ, 560 miles away, to get loaded and head to Lewiston, ME...another 3400 miles, sweeet! Looks like New Years will b celebrated on the east coast this year.

After getting unloaded we spent an awesome afternoon eating at one of our favorite taco stands,  enjoying the sunshine and took London on an awesome walk. We haven't been to Cali since working with Watkins...glad to be back.

We are both still trying to re-coupe from this horrible crud we caught, but seem to be getting "better" on a daily basis. Hopefully it is running it's course and will be done with us soon.
Hope everybody had a Merry Christmas. Cheers to crossing the country again and not seeing any white stuff fall!

P.S. Had to share the pic of the US Xpress driver. He was fueling his truck and hopped down and pumped off 20 push ups...impressive!

Team Linn...down in MA

So...this is the very first time since we have been driving that both if us are sicker than dogs and have had to park it and rest until we can get over this crap. We had a great couple weeks with awesome miles. Phx to Houston to Memphis to Portland to Gloucester, MA. We have a pre assign leaving on the 22nd going from MA to Modesto, CA...another 3,000+miles run. That gives us another entire day to rest and recoup.

Our MA delivery was a truckload full of white fish (from WA). Gloucester is above Boston and basically right on the edge of the harbor. Totally a fishing town...it was beautiful. The Gortmon's fisherman plant was right down the street.

We are very happy with our move to US Xpress and have been so happy to have found a company that appreciates their drivers. A women on the phone today from the home office said to us that she wouldn't have a job if it weren't for us drivers. In the past two years of driving that is a first. It's so refreshing to hear someone actually get what you do out here and appreciate it!

US Xpress...so far, I'm impressed

Sorry, its been a long two weeks. We made it down to Irving, TX (London in tow) for orientation and were hired on Friday, Dec. 2.  London made it through the first day alright in the hotel room, but the 2 nd day we got back to the room, every bit of trash that in the room was chewed up into tiny little pieces and scattered everywhere. No permanent damage at all...just a pissed off Beagle. The third day he got to take the shuttle with us to the terminal and hang out in a outdoor pen that they provide already on site. It was raining, he is spoiled and he is now over it. We then rented another car, and drove to Springfield, OH to pick up our truck.

We have just finished our first load in Phoenix and we get to pick up our next load tonight, and head to Florida.

Our truck is awesome. Everybody is really nice and helpful and quite frankly, the benefits of working for a larger company are fantastic. Better benefits, equipment, facilities...a shuttle van at terminals to take you where you need to go, how awesome is that?  The miles have been great so far. We feel like we belong to a family again...if London is happy...we are both happy!

Here we go Again

Well after two weeks off and Thanksgiving at home with the family, its time for the Linn's to get back to work. We went with a larger company this time. We wanted a company that we could grow with as well as a maintenance staff that takes care of their fleet. We will be heading to Irving, TX on Monday to start a 3-day orientation with US Xpress. We will still be running reefer, but all full truckloads and mostly drop and hook. The best part of our decision is we get a brand new truck! We are very excited.

This past week I sat down and re-created our past. We have driven 7, yes 7 different trucks in the past two years and have driven 348,000 miles. We are both ready to just get in a truck and set it up like home again and just start running some miles.

So stay tuned. I guess we are starting another whole new adventure...again!

Goodbye LTL World...

We have made a decision to leave DTS and go back to a full truckload company. There are many aspects that we liked about the LTL world, however, there are also many things that were frustrating...mostly company driven. We take the knowledge we have and move forward to yet another trucking company. Stay tuned, after next week at hone we will have the plan in place. As for this week...

We only had three stops, the first in Rhode Island and then on the MA, then ending this morning at a turkey farm in New Hampshire. What beautiful country the northeast is. We have really enjoyed the last few weeks, just missing the bad weather and enjoying sunny weather. I now understand the draw to this area of our country. I'm not sure how people can make it here over the winter, but the fall would make it all worth it. We are now headed back to Denver after picking up ice cream in CT, but get to stop in Chicago on the way in and pick up 9 more pallets.

Not going to miss sitting on docks and wasting our time where the company sees fit to leave us for the night. Looking forward to having more control over our week. We won't get home as often, but the trade off of not going crazy will be worth it!

Welcome to New York

Just, Wow...pretty much sums up our week so far. We kicked butt on our way out to CT only to have the load refused because they won't move other peoples product, in order to get to their product off our trailer. This isn't a mystery, its the customer's policy, but yet we still just keep hitting our head on the wall every week and think that is going to be different. Needless to say...we stop in NJ at an interliner to drop off all of our chilled pallets in the back of the truck, pull one pallet from the frozen section, ice cream, and put it on the tail end so we can drive into NY and hand off load it at a customers place of business....what a great idea. We only had 22 miles to get to the customer, sounds good right? Except for one thing. Entering New York on the George Washington bridge with 1000's of other trucks doing the same thing...oh yeah and the bridge is down to one lane too. Needless to say RIGHT before we get to the toll booth to cross the bridge, Jeff and I both see red and blue lights behind us and one of NY finest over the PA, yelling at the truck next to us for taking the car lane instead of the truck lane, and I mean yelling..."pull that piece if sh*t truck over you dumb mother f* cker"...exact words by the way...the cop proceeds to pull in front of us almost hitting the driver side and stops all 4 lanes of traffic trying to get onto the bridge. He gets out of his car and runs over to the truck he was pissed at, and demanded he get out of the truck because he was going to kick his ass. Unbelievable! The driver wouldn't get out of the truck, so the cop got pissed and slammed his door and the trucker took off. This is one of the craziest things I have ever seen and most people weren't even shocked by the whole display. Needless to say I called the customer while watching the show and he told me he didn't want to wait any longer and didn't want the delivery...AWESOME! So, that's why we crossed the GW bridge 3 times in one night. They say you gotta love New York...you can have it!