I got a call from dispatch shortly after I posted my previous article. They had an oversized load for me picking up in Salem, SD heading back to WI. Cool. I really like the big loads because they pay better. It couldn't pick up until the following morning, "8:00 am SHARP" according to the old fart at the farm implement place, so I headed on down to Sioux Falls and back to the Red Eye Saloon for a second night. That put me just about 45 minutes from Salem. I had a pretty good time but again ca...

Monday I delivered the oversized load, a piece of construction equipment, in Paris, AR. When I had called to check in Monday morning the dispatcher told me he had a reload lined up for me, a milirary 5 ton truck coming out of Ft Chaffee going to MN. That was cool as I was delivering only a short distance from Ft Chaffee. When I unloaded the construction equipment and called in he said that the load had fallen through and to just find a truck stop and hole up until he found something. Damn the...

It's been a while since I've been able to blog. The last time I blogged I was waiting out a snowstorm in NY. I picked up a load in PA and ran it to WI with a stop in IL. I then loaded up an airport crash truck and hauled it down to Mesa, AZ. I am now on my way vack out of Mesa. The weather is pretty typical for this time of year. I'v gone from pretty warm to snowstorm. I'm spending the night in Amarillo and it's snowing here. Such is the way it is this time of year. I spent some time...

I am still sitting at the truck stop in NY waiting for them to find me a load. Yesterday's major snowstorm pretty well closed down a lot of shipping, especially for the type of stuff I haul. I spent the day sitting and watching it snow. The truck stop filled up very early in the day as more and more truckers found the roads too dangerous to travel. One truck went off the road and rolled over about 5 miles from here. I never did hear if the driver was ok. Today it's cold but the sun is shining...

I'm taking the weekend off in upstate NY just to get some much needed rest and to take some time to do some laundry as I was totally out of clean clothing. This morning I went to the local laundromat and naturally took my knitting along to work on while the clothes went round and round. Once I had my stuff loaded into the washers I went to sit down and saw that an elderly lady sitting on the bench opposite from me was knitting with a pair of straight needles. Of course I asked what she...

I spent last night at a truck stop in Hubbard, OH. As I was sitting around talking with some fellow drivers the conversation naturally turned to the economy and how slow business has been. That's when this young driver from CT spoke up and said with a great deal of vitriol "Yeah, Bush destroyed the economy!" We all just kind of stopped and looked at the kid. I asked him what, specifically, George Bush did to cause a world-wide economic recession. His reply? "He lied about WMDs." Huh? ...

I am now on my way to CT and MA. Not at all my favorite part of the country, but at least I am running instead of sitting around. Late yesterday, after getting my truck out of the shop (just routine servicing), they loaded up another piece to go with the machine I picked up in IL. It was a huge steel ring. We had to prop it up at an angle on the trailer so it wouldn't stick out over the sides and constitute an oversized load. That was something of a circus and took a while but it was final...

Writing this on Tuesday, 2/10/09 12:30 central time, to be posted later.   This morning I went into Seattle to deliver my final generator and associated parts. I met the guy at about 20 past five and he guided me in to the jobsite. It was a high rise building right downtown and I had to park in an alley beside the building for the crane to unload me. Just getting in there was a bitch. I was there about an hour before the crane was due to start, which was ok as it gave me time to pu...

No wifi service here so writing this on Sunday to be posted at a later time. I slept in some this morning, finally getting up around 8:00 Central time. Of course that was 6:00 local time and the sun wasn't up yet. The first thing I noticed when I got up was that my back wasn't as stiff and sore as it was yesterday morning. I was able to get dressed without too much pain or difficulty. Sadly, that didn't last too long and as soon as I got out of the truck to walk inside for a cup of cof...

Yeah, this is basically a whine. I hurt my back a few days ago handling tarps. When I woke this morning I knew I was in trouble as I couldn't even roll over in the bed without some serious pain. It took me over 30 minutes and a great deal of pain just to put on my socks. I can barely walk and can't stand straight at all. This shit basically sucks. Yeah, I am whining about it because there's pretty much nothing else I can do about it. If I go to an emergency room it will cost me a lot o...

After dropping my previous load, going to Pocatello, ID and making a mad dash to deliver some emergency response generators to Indy, I am now back in WI and back on the Pocatello load. While I was gone to Indy they removed the part of the load going here in WI and had one of the local guys deliver it and replaced that stuff with three generators going to Washington state. That really adds some financial gravy to the load. Today was a very cold and tiring day. I picked up some steel in Chic...

Joe Users are a very generous and caring bunch. In response to my current economic woes several JUers ,kindly and caringly prompted and coordinated by Little Whip, have sent cards and money to help me keep my home. I have to say that I am truly touched by this and very, very thankful. I won't name names here, I will thank each person privately once I return home again and go through all of the envelopes. I just want to publicly acknowledge the fact that we truly do have some angels among our ...

This afternoon I got a call from R in dispatch. He wanted to know where I was in my trip to WI. I was in Lake Station, IN. He said he had a "hot load" coming out of a generator plant in Oshkosh tomorrow that needs to be in Indianapolis first thing Monday morning. So now I will be dropping this load at the yard in the morning and picking up generators in Oshkosh instead. Ah well, such is the trucking biz. I really didn't want to go to ID anyway. The bad part of this is I won't get to watch ...

Despite the mechanical issues and delays therein, I finally made delivery in PA yesterday. With business being slow I half expected to be spending the weekend sitting in PA. Once I unloaded I headed over to the nearest truckstop for some breakfast. Dispatch called me before I finished eating. She said she wanted me to load in Cleveland Friday morning. The load is a two stop load, one in Milwaukee, WI and the other in Pocatello, ID, and is paying pretty well. I told her I'd be there to load fi...

This morning I put my truck in the engine shop in Fargo so they could find the source of the coolant leak as well as get my heat working again. I was literally freezing in my truck. It pretty much took all day for them to do the repairs and to test to make sure it was really fixed. They had to replace the thermostats and the radiator cap. They thought the head might need to be replaced (again) so they put it on the dyno and tested for compression. Turned out the head was ok this time. Once...