Bad Apple's

For the first time in over a year I need to vent about this load we just took...what a joke. We knew it was going to be an issue when we picked it up from the shipper....too shady. When a shipper will not let you sign next to your signature, NAOD and STC, which stands for, Not Allowed on Dock and Said To Contain, there should b a red flag. I was told I could not sign it that way and on the original Bill of Lading the shipping clerk used white out to mark out my abbreviations next to my signature. If a shipper hands you paperwork and you are supposed to sign for the product loaded on your truck and they won't even back up what the paperwork says and what they loaded on your truck, that's a BIG problem. A Bill of Lading is a contract and anything altered on that contract, makes that agreement null and void.

Bottom line...we had product refused, and I don't think this is a US Xpress or driver issue. We, as drivers, did everything possible to protect our product on our truck, and US Xpress. We deliver the product in the exact way it was loaded on our truck. If you look at the pics below you can see that the vendor that received the product opened up cartons and moved product from said cartons AFTER the load was received. Are you now going to tell me that we are responsible for every piece of produce that is loaded on our truck in cartons? Insane. I am beginning to think that this produce hauling is a open invitation to liability to the carrier...if we had damaged any freight during transporting, we would have gladly admitted fault. But with 30 pallets and three load bars on this load (one even being a double load bar) I can guarantee you that NOTHING moved or fell while in transit. The product was loaded that way from the shipper.

The next Apple I eat will sure make me think twice about what it went through to get to my mouth.

Weathered the Storm

So...we were worried about being stuck on the wrong side of Snoqualmie Pass with a storm coming and planning on dumping a foot of snow. We kept calling the 511 line...chains required...YUCK...then avalanche control...traffic stopped. Fine, ill just get my laundry done then. My clothes were just about out of the drier when Jeff came in and said...no chains and avalanche control is complete. Time to cruise. The snow was higher than our truck on the summit. We made it over the pass and are now getting loaded in Peshastin, WA and heading to Pageland, SC. Some nice southern sun sure wouldn't hurt mt feelings right now!

Old Man Winter

Well....our run from Swanton, OH to Kent, WA went great. Ran into quite a bit of weather, but still made our delivery on time.
We are now sitting at the TA Truckstop at the bottom of Snoqualmie pass in WA. Our load doesn't pick up until Monday and we woke up this morning to rain/ snow mix. Unfortunately, they are expecting a foot of snow by tomorrow and the chain law is already in effect for the pass. We will be heading to SC, but I'm thinking its probably going to take the majority of the week on this run.
I'm ready for spring....

It's Official....

We have now covered every state in the USA with our truck. We were missing MN and ND. From OH, we got a load going to Kent, WA. We took the 90 all the way to the west coast. Arriving in Washington state, no rain for the next 3 days. We have spent a lot of time in OR and WA and it is so beautiful. I have never been able to see Mt. Ranier, Mt. Hood and Mt. st. Helens all in one day and clear as a bell. We spent Jeff's 50 th bday at Jubitz in Portland. There is a really cool nature trail we like to take out of there and London loves it.
Next load from Portland to Conley, GA. Got to explore the Ellenwood terminal and then fueled at Tunnel Hill and took a load up to Swanton, OH...pretty much right off of Lake Erie. We then picked up a reefer trailer from Shippenburg, PA and headed to Peabody, MA where we picked up last night and are heading to Anaheim, CA...a sweet 3500 mile run! The weather was horrible last night with the storm coming in and PA and OH were pretty much blizzard conditions, but we pushed through and are on schedule to deliver on Monday afternoon in Cali. The weather from here looks like pretty smooth sailing. Sometimes you have to push through, weather wise, when you know the rest of the trip won't be as bad. Once again, running miles and lovin life.

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.