Team Adventure: December 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

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?

Monday, December 26, 2011

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!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

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!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

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!

ABOUT TEAM LINN and OUR ADVENTURE

We started our adventure 4 years ago. Our first trucking job was with Watkins Shepard out of Missoula, MT. Great company to start with. Gave us fantastic training in their 10-day orientation on top of our CDL training we already had. We stayed with them for a year and half and decided we wanted a change.

We went to work for Diversified Transfer and Storage out of Billings, MT. This was no longer a truckload, it was LTL, less than a truckload. We ran reefer and had a terminal in Denver, so we ran 4 weeks and had a week off. That part was great, but the company was not a good fit for us. Loved the LTL, couldn't deal with working for an owner who was a piece of crap. I wont even go into further detail....

Next...we wanted to go back to full truckload reefer so we decided to go with US Xpress. We were very happy with them for the first 5 months. We ran consistent miles from the east to west coast and loved it. Our Fleet Manager Mike Gibbs was the best Fleet Manager we have ever encountered in this business. We became one of the top Teams on the reefer board with US Xpress. We were called by the Fleet Owner, the VP of the Reefer division and the COO of US Xpress to tell us what a great job we were doing and how much they appreciated our service. But then it all fell apart and our miles started to drop and our awesome FM was thinking about transferring out of the division. Jeff and I saw the writing on the wall and we decided we wanted out of this company before things got even worse. I still speak with many Teams that run with US Xpress and they are having horrible issues. This was a driver friendly company, but since Pat Quinan passed away in January of 2012, things changed dramatically. Pat was the compassionate one that knew the company was about the Driver. Unfortunately after his passing things quickly changed to being about numbers on a spreadsheet, our FM moved on and we turned our truck in at the Irving Terminal and never looked back at our decision.

We then wet to The Waggoner's Trucking out of Billings, MT. Yep, can't seem to get away from Montana based companies. We now ran a dedicated run from Denver to Oklahoma City three times a week. We ran a flatbed, split axle trailer...which is only 48' now, instead of the 53" we were used to. We were met in Oklahoma City by the owner of the company David Waggoner to give us our new truck. We were no longer a number, but we were The Linn's again. We pulled into the OKC terminal and everybody knew our name and we knew theirs. We were part of a family again and it was so nice to be back in the surroundings we have missed from working at Watkins Shepard. We were in a Kenworth W900 Long Nose truck. We were home every other day in Denver and have Sunday and Monday off every week to enjoy our house in Denver again. We really debated on a dedicated run, since we love traveling the 48 states, but after almost 3 years, we have been to every state and it was time to get back to some connection to our kids, grandchild and our awesome house in Denver. It was so nice to be home more often. But on the flip side:

We ran this route for a year, yes dedicated was great, home time seemed to turn into one of us sleeping...even though it was in our own bed....however, we both got tired of running the same route and we only ran our route at night. Although the company was great, working 7 days a week was tiring and we decided we wanted to go back to enjoying why we started doing this in the first place...to see the country and meet awesome people so...this brings us to our next job change.

We now are working for Gemini Motor Transport, which is the trucking company that Loves Travel Stops owns and services their truck stops. We are working in the SW Region, which includes, CA, AZ, NM. Plus CO and WY when we come back home. We are hauling a tanker truck now, which is only 42' long...getting shorter, I'm liking that, and we haul DEF (Deisel Exhaust Fluid) only. We are the first husband and wife Team that Love's has ever hired. I am also proud to say that I am the only woman that works in the SW region that drives a truck. We are responsible for 33 stores and growing, along with one other solo driver in the region. Our job is to make sure that no stores ever run out of product in our region. Since teaming is new for Love's we will be sent to other regions as well, as needed, possibly the NW too. Our first week we serviced 11 stores in Southern California (all the way up to Corning), plus New Mexico and Arizona. It has been a big change, but once again, we are up for the challenge. I know I have never been so glad to run on a different road and see new things. There are good things about running a dedicated run, but I am so glad we made this transition and I think we picked a great company. We get a reset every week and we only work 6 day a week now. Plus we are paid by the day, not by the mile. We will also be home for every holiday...paid. This company is hard to get into and I am so glad they picked us. The Vice President of the SW region flew in to DIA twice to meet with us before we decided to take the position. He is our direct boss and an awesome one at that. We could not have made a better decision making the move when we did. The dedicated account would have been much more difficult to do with the new Hours of Service that changed in July 2013. So once again, we made the jump before it took anything away from our adventure.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have about trucking in general, teaming or any of the above companies we have worked for. We had to start out just like you and had so many questions, but not a lot of people to answer them. Shoot us an email @ hobotruckers@gmail.com we would love to hear your questions or comments. Thanks for following along in our adventures.

Team Adventure