Catching Up...

Last I posted we were off to Pottsville, PA from La La Land. An hour b4 we pick up r load someone parked next to us and almost takes off our driver side  door. He caught it between his tractor and his trailer. My door was open because I was sweeping out the truck on the drivers side. So now that's two accidents when someone has hit our truck and neither time we have been moving...crazy. Needless to say we ended up at a Peterbilt, then a Freightliner dealership out by our Colton, CA terminal and our load was given away. Three days off and some hotel time were nice, but it was time to go.

The following week we headed to Mechanicsburg, PA and then shot straight back to Fontana, CA.
We are now going from Santa Fe Springs, CA to Columbus, OH...when we picked up our load we had to go down a few blocks to drop our mt trailer...had to bobtail past a taco stand...had to stop at the taco stand... It was 1 am in Santa Fe Springs and they were open...and I had shredded beef tacos and Jeff got the carne asada plate. It was yummy. We are now almost to Indiana to drop our load off in Columbus, OH by 07:00 tomorrow morning.

Next week:
Preassign already booked for all of next week. Pick up in Columbus on the 31st and head to White City, OR. Then down to Kent, WA we take a load and get to go all the way to Smyrna, TN by Monday. That's a nice 5000+ for next week.

Finally getting into a good rythm and rolling consistently. I will try to be better about my weekly postings, but as for now you are all caught up!

Stay tuned, next week should be an interesting one.

Back to Pottsville, PA

Another good week running the miles. We left Colton, CA on Saturday, after being loaded, at 7 pm and headed to Wally World in Pottsville, PA. The weather was good on the way. We learned a valuable lesson about this load. This particular Walmart will only accept loads inbetween 3 am - 6 am....we were looking at arriving at 8 am on Tuesday the 10th, but ended up having to wait until Wednesday morning to deliver. So we got to stop for a night. We decided to stop at the Iowa 80, the Worlds largest Truckstop. Had a good nights sleep without the truck moving. I got up early to take London for a walk and found the automated dog wash. Yes, an automated dog wash. It is SO cool. He howled through the entire thing as if he was being tortured...which took a total of 9 minutes, including the drying. What an awesome invention...I need one of these at the house.

We had some poblamo and cerrano peppers that were refused so we drove to the food bank to donate them. The guy at the food bank thought they were green beans. This explains why you can't get good Mexican food in the east...now it all makes sense. However it did make us pass the Steak Shack, with truck parking, and we stopped and had a yummy mushroom cheese steak in PA. We then dropped our reefer trailer in Shippenberg, PA and got to bobtail 175 miles into Pittsburgh to pick up a dry box preloaded trailer and head to San Leandro, CA. We ran into nasty weather starting in Chicago all the way through IA. Blizzard conditions. Saw many flipped big trucks and 4 wheelers and at one stretch crossing the Mississippi from IL to IA they had I80 eastbound completey closed.

We are now almost to Salt Lake City and have a preassign to head back down to Colton, CA then its back to Pottsville, PA heading out on Sunday. Loving the miles. This switching companies has been an AWESOME choice for us. We are loving it.

6080 Miles in 7 Days

Awesome week last week. The Maine trip went well...just the usual freezing rain once you cross the NH border, but we certainly can't complain about the weather this winter so far.

We were assigned to pick up a load on new years eve in NJ...we waited in NH until New Years day to pick it up. Neither Jeff nor I wanted to deal with all of the NYC craziness on that day. We got into California on early Tuesday morning and delivered our load. We decided to take a few more days off so we parked at the Colton terminal. It's been in the low 80's the past couple if days. Sure has been nice to get some sunshine on our bodies and just relax. London loves being at a terminal because he loves to wander. He is getting much better about listening and is able to just hang out outside of the truck without getting too distracted and taking off.

We leave tomorrow and head to PA. We are going through Vegas and Denver on this trip. Hopefully if the weather holds up we will be able to stop for a bit in Denver.

Had to take a pic of the broccoli we delivered...it was perfect looking. On our way back to Cali it is amazing how a days worth of driving can make such a difference. From cold, blizzardy Indiana on one shift, to my next shift pushing into the 60's across AZ. That's why this job is so cool. You go to bed and you never know what you might wake to to.

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!