Team Adventure: October 2013

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Consider The Piper Paid

Well...we made up for lost time. Since our truck was down for a week there were a bunch of stores that got kind of thirsty. We had the busiest week we have had since starting the job...13 stores in 6 days. Every store in Cali...Corning, Lost Hills, Ripon, Santa Nella, Coachella,Tulare, Tehachapi and Barstow. Then every store in Nevada...Las Vegas, Wells and Fernley. Then both stores in Utah...Salt Lake City and Cedar City. Not only does this make 13 drops, it also makes for 13 loads as well. We actually drove well over 5000 miles this week and picked up a new vendor, on the loading side, in Hesperia, CA.

We just finished our reset and took the time off in Mesquite, NV. For almost 5 years now we have driven past the signs for The Virgin River Casino, boasting their $3.99 hamsteak breakfast and $27 rooms. Our last drop was in Cedar City, so we decided this was our opportunity to check it out. We have learned now to figure out where we are going to end up at the end of the week and make hotel reservations in advance, mostly because of London. I know its hard to believe, but not every hotel is pet friendly. There is definitely more now than there were 5 years ago, but your choices are still limited, as well as the pet rooms tend to fill up faster. That being said, we made our reservation when we were getting loaded in Sparks/Reno on Tuesday for Wednesday and Thursday nights. I'm glad we did because by the time we arrived at 6 pm, the entire hotel was sold out.

The hotel is huge. I had no idea. They have 7 buildings with 3 floors in each building and 2 big pools with jacuzzis in each area. I thought the best thing about this pet room was it had a laminate floor, not scary carpet, that who knows what has happened to it from previous furry pets. It was clean and came with 2 queen beds...not the comfiest beds I have ever slept in, but remember... $27. We faced the desert and our window opened all the way to see the view and get fresh air. We had our hamsteak breakfast, tried the buffet on Thursday, it was steak night. For $11.99 filets or NY strips cooked to your liking, plus any kind of side you can think of, with salad bar and plenty of yummy deserts. The breakfast buffet on Friday was $6.99 and was delish.

We gambled, played skeeball and air hockey as well as got to go bowling and yes, all of this is in the same casino. Including the room for two nights, food and entertainment, we spent less than $200. We had a great time and would totally do this again.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Our Secret is Out

I'm not sure who had been spying on us, but whoever got this pic, thanks for ruining our plan for the last three years.

London earns his keep...LOL

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Margaritaville Time Coming to a Close

We stopped last week in Corning, CA to take our 34 and decided to stay at the Rolling Hills Casino. We have passed this place many times, but have never stopped. What a great place! Not only do they have the casino, they also have 150 truck parking spaces, a hotel, an Inn (pet friendly) and a club house, complete with laundry, driver showers (swanky too) a hair & nail salon and a doggy daycare, which is free for guests. The grounds are meticulous and there is a bunch of grass for some great dog walks.

We enjoyed our 34 and got back in the truck to start our week and she needed a regen. Tried to regen 3 times and we knew something wasn't right. We figured the filter was clogged and just needed to be cleaned out. Since our truck is brand new, everything is under warranty...including the tow, we waved goodbye to our truck and it went up to the Freightliner dealership in Redding...60 miles away. We decided to stay where we were at since it had been such a pleasant stay, plus the hotels in Redding were out in the middle of nowhere land...boring!

To make a long story short, that was on Wednesday. It is now Sunday and we are sitting in the comfort of our room watching the Broncos kick the Dallas Cowboys butts. We have toured the olive oil factory, had a spa day, London had his spa day, fun arcade time, nice pool time (a perfect 80 degrees out) gambled and drank way too many margaritas, have eaten like King and Queens...did I mention the breakfast buffet is included every morning too? Yes, its been pretty rough.

Our truck is supposed to be ready tomorrow sometime. Haven't gotten the full diagnosis yet, but there were several recalls that needed to be adressed as well. So I guess we have to remember how to drive one and ween ourselves off the margaritas. The truck breaking down is never fun...but this time I have to say...we have had a blast!

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