A Bit Hungover...

What a great weekend. Having not seen both Zach and Ashley since our Watkin Shepard days, we picked up right where we left off. It's been almost 3 years since we have seen eachother, but we didn't skip a beat. They left Watkins about the same time we did and made the move to North Dakota when we decided to run LTL reefer with DTS.

They left both of the girls (their puppy dogs) at home this trip, Yang and Jezebel, which we missed seeing again, but we ate and drank and caught up with eachother til the wee hours of the morning last night. I had forgotten what great people they are and how much we have in common...even though we are miles apart, it was like we had just seen eachother at the terminal in Santa Fe Springs on Friday night. It was a weekly event, one which I know Jeff and I always looked forward to.

Less liquor was consumed this trip, a testament that we are all getting older and becoming light weights, but as they drove away this afternoon, I got that warm fuzzy felling that there still are good people in this world that "get us".

It is now our turn next time to go to North Dakota and see their new life that they have created in the oil fields. We will make sure to make it a visit in the Fall. After the stories that we heard, I don't want to see anything up there in the winter! They can have that.

Cheers you two and thanks for an awesome weekend. I think we all really needed that. As promised, it will not be as long between our visits next time.

P.S. Sorry the Avs couldn't pull it out for you on Friday night...but on a good note, the Rockies won their home opener.

I am Woman

Hear me ROAR! I feel as if I have graduated to another level in the flatbedding world. I recently received a gift of my very own, a cheater bar, from Jeff. Helping him figure out how to load the truck, throwing straps and stepping on the deck to belly-wrap pipe or product has been great...but with another cheater bar (that's the bar that you use to tighten all of the straps in the buckles) I'm thinking I am going to have to step up my game. I might even risk breaking a nail....or even worse...building upper body strength. Let's face it, women aren't normally built with biceps. I have never had great upper body strength, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Besides, by the time we are finished loading, I'm not looking or feeling like a pretty Rose. This is hard, long, sweaty and dirty work. But it is rewarding work. After taking a pile of pipe, motors, smart-tools, satellite boxes, 40 foot baskets and what-nots (that's some female talk thrown in there) it is pretty cool to stand back from a load, that is worth multi-millions of dollars in drilling equipment, and know that together we have figured out a way to stack it on our deck and strap it to where nothing moves and drive down our not-so-smooth roads we call highways.

We take pride in our job. It isn't for everyone, that's for sure. But it takes team work to accomplish this. If we didn't have the bond that Jeff and I have, this job would be a lot harder. I love my 6'4" man and wouldn't trade him for the world!

Welcome to Waggoner's Trucking

I would like to welcome Pal & Jo to Waggoner's. We met them through friends that read this blog, Robert & Regina Lopez, who worked with us at another trucking company. Big shout out to them for hooking us up. Both Pal & Jo only had a year's experience driving, but after many lengthy phone conversations they decided that they wanted to give flat-bedding a try and chose to go with Waggoner's. Normally Waggoner's requires two years of experience before they will even consider talking to you. However, Pal is very persuasive and they turned in their truck in Irving, TX on a Friday and drove across town and started orientation with our company the following Monday. After orientation they headed to OKC and we helped train them on how to load the deck and how to strap the loads for the entire week we ran to OKC. They also rode with our city drivers in OKC for a week to get even more experience. I am proud to say that they took their first run to Canada last week and did an awesome job. They will now be running with us on our dedicated account from Denver to OKC.  They are now flatbedders! Both are great people and we are so proud to have them on our Team.

Secondly, we would like to welcome old friends of ours, Ken & Deb Olsen. They have come from our first company that we ever worked for, Watkins and Shepard. They are both million miler drivers...score! They completed their orientation in OKC where we got to have dinner with them one night while we were in town. It was brief, but always good to catch up with them and share grandbaby pics. They are also expecting a new addition to their grandbaby clan and are very excited for the new arrival. Ken & Deb live in Boulder, MT. They will be running from Houston to Canada on a weekly basis. What a great addition to Waggoner's. I know they will make us proud. The bonus is now we will get to see them more often.

Why...you ask? We will now be running strictly from Denver to Midland, TX for the same dedicated customer that we have been going to OKC with for the last 9 months. We tried the rotation of the runs, but with our HOS (hours of service) aka logbooks, it just didn't work and we started running out of hours for the driving week. We got to pick our run and chose
Midland, just for the change of scenery. We will miss going to OKC and home away from home and all of the new friends we have made, but this should give us a lot more home time in Denver on this run.

I believe that all things happen for a reason and we are looking forward to our new route and routine.

You Wanna do What?

So, you want to give us a brand new truck AND pay us more money? Not sure about the truck, having a love affair with mine still, but we will always take more money!

Call me crazy, but our 2006 Kenworth is awesome. It has a big red 550 hp motor, aka a Cummins, and 13 speeds, with a bigger sleeper than the new truck. It also has a 286" wheel-base which makes it ride like a lead sled in the wind and wintry conditions. We had to trade our Oklahoma plates for Montana ones so we could be grand-fathered in to Canada, our truck is normally too big to run Canada. But one of the best features is it doesn't take DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid). DEF is a lovely additive (not!) that the government made mandatory on trucks after 2007. It burns off excessive diesel fuel particles and is supposed to make your exhaust run cleaner...kind of an oxi moron. Unfortunately if ur truck runs DEF, you have to pay for it every time u fuel ur truck, plus there are so many other complications with filters that get clogged and what-not that it just makes things more expensive and more break-down issues. So after 2014, we can't go into the state of California, so what? We don't run there anyway and by then she (Ethel) will have over a million miles on her anyway and it will be time to let her go. I do miss going to Cali, so eventually we will end up with a new truck, but in the mean time, we are going to enjoy every minute in this beast that the company pays for fuel.

We have been running our new rotation going to OKC, Midland and Calgary, which had been fantastic! Nice to see different stretches of road. But after running Denver to OKC for the last eight months, it was so fun to come back to OKC and all of our regular haunts. Calgary is going to be great. Could not have picked a better time of year to pick up that run!

We have been running every single day of the week for the past month and are now being off-loaded in Denver and looking forward to a few days off. The truck needs some TLC and we need some time away from her as well. All in all, life is awesome and getting home every other day is truly something we never thought possible. The Calgary run is Wednesday through Saturday, so we have even more time inbetween runs and it pays even more than we were making before. Life is fantastic right now. Finally a balance between work and home has been established, could not be happier.

Stay tuned as we train a new team we brought aboard from USX that will be running with us.

Birthdays Rock

So...this year for Jeff's birthday I wanted to do something special. Ever since we started this trucking job his birthdays have pretty much sucked. One year we had to put our dog down on his birthday, the following year we were so busy we couldn't even take the time to celebrate his special day. This year was much different.

I booked a suite in Blackhawk, CO for the weekend at Ameristar Casino. No children, grandchildren or dogs were present...just the two of us in a jacuzzi suite, with fireplace and a wet bar. We checked in on Friday night and stayed for two nights. Everyone wanted to know how we did at the tables and what we ended up doing for the weekend....needless to say, we only left our room one time to visit the most awesome rooftop pool and hot tubs ever...other than that, all I can say is my husband arrived back home on Sunday afternoon with a huge smile on his face and told me it wad the best birthday that he has ever had...I did GOOD!

It was a great getaway and would definitely stay at this hotel again.

We're Back....

Woke up to these pretty flowers

It's been a month since my last post. Both Jeff and I have been sick with the flu and just starting to feel human again. We both lost our voices for several days....pretty quiet truck! As usual, we worked through the holidays, but now that we are home every other day, it didn't seem like we worked through the holidays. The weather has been cold, but not a lot of snow....however we have been off this week and being home in 60+ weather has been fantastic.

So shiny and pretty

Same old same old here. Still running from Denver to Oklahoma City three times a week. We love our company that we work for and are very happy with our truck. We are now going to be rotating with running from Denver to Midland, TX and then the following week Oklahoma City. This will not only give us a change of scenery, but also it will give us more time off in-between runs at home. This is the first holiday that we have worked at a company that was worth working through the holidays for. We didn't miss a beat. We are guaranteed our three runs a week, even if we run empty, .which makes it worth staying out for the holidays.

Home Away from Home

London's new collar

After off-loading in OKC we head for the terminal to fuel and then it is off to home away from home to park the truck and get out and enjoy the day. We don't load again until around 4-5 in the afternoon so we usually have at least 4-6 hours between loads. London loves our route, since we run at night he is usually sleeping through most of the drive and as soon as we are off-loaded he has our routine down. He loves the fabrication yard where home away from home is located. It is fully fenced and he rules the roost. He spends his afternoons chasing bunnies and has befriended Stinker the cat which stays in a room at home away from home. He is now donning a new collar which was made for him by Stinker's daddy Dave H. Waggoner. Dave as taken a shine to London and he can't wait for Dave to get home from work every night. His new collar makes him look like a big dog...he is pretty proud of it. Monogrammed with his name, it's pretty sweet.

It's been pretty quiet and drama-free around here lately....just the way I like it!

Cabovers ready for Recycling

Festive Christmas

We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.