MONDAY MORNING

I had a great weekend.  I was able to spend Friday night at home. Drove my truck back to Moberly On Saturday. Sunday morning Diane drove up to Moberly and picked me up. We drove over to KC to watch Logan's team play in the GLVC championship game. Unfortunately they lost in the second overtime 2-1. It was great game all the way up until they lost. Diane took me over to our terminal in Edwardsville, KS where I picked up the Kia. Diane followed me to Columbia where we ate dinner at a Crackle Barrel. Diane drove home and I drove back to Moberly.

I can't remember if I mentioned that I was offered a full time position driving for the Walmart dedicated fleet or not.  I accepted the job, so I will be able to get home on a regular basis. Today I got my preplan for the day.  I will be delivering to stores in Washington, Rolla and Osage Beach, MO. Then I get to.drive down to Carthage, MO to be reloaded live at 10:00pm this evening. I will spend the night in Carthage and drive back to Moberly tomorrow to deliver the backhaul load.

Have a great week out there and be careful on the roads.....lots of deer running around this time of year.....keep an eye out for them.  The males are chasing the females.....it is the rut season.......

Its is beautiful cool and blustery day

When I left you last, I was on my way to the Saint Louis area to make four deliveries.with the goal of completing them all by 10:00pm.  I didn't even come close!  I.got to my first stop in good time......then it took the store personnel one and one half hours to unload the truck!  This process normally takes anywhere from fifteen minutes to forty five minutes at the most.  Not last night.  When i got to the store there was a truck already in the only available loading dock and two other trucks waiting in line.  I had to sit and wait my turn.  Usually i get preferential treatment since i am hauling perishable goods. Not at this store. They operate on a.first come first serve basis. The guys unloading me did about half of what needed to be done and then disappeared.  They were gone for more than twenty minutes, when I finally got tired of waiting.  I.asked someone else to.call a manager for me.  It turns out the the original guys were told.to go.to.lunch, so.that is what they did!
Even though the rest of the evening went pretty smoothly, I didn't make my delivery times.  I communicated the situation to my dispatcher and they understood.  That is a good thing.  Drivers can be fired for failing to deliver on time.  If it is the drivers fault for being late.....they can be in trouble.with.the.company if they make a.habit if doing so. 
I ended up delivering to my last stop.at 11:0pm and headed back to Moberly.  I got in around 2:00 this morning.  Long day....
Today I woke up to bright cool windy day.  It should make driving interesting. The trailer acts like a big sail and catches any wind in the area. It makes it fun and challenging to deal with the wind gusts. I have my marching orders for the day.  My load is going down to south central MO. My first stop is in Salem, MO, which is only about twenty minutes from where I go trout fishing. Then I get to go further south to Houston, MO and then back to Moberly.  So only two stops this evening.  That's all for now.....Tom

Monday afternoon

Looks like I am headed to the following stores:  Manchester, MO, Telegraph Road in south Saint Louis, Waterloo, IL and Kirkwood, MO.  I have to have them all delivered by 10:00 this evening.  If I hadn't been home over the weekend, I would stay at home tonight.  Since I was just home, I am going to get right back to Moberly so I can be assured of another load for tommorrow. 

From adventure to job

It seems that my truck driving adventure has turned into a truck driving job.  Ever since I started driving out of the Moberly Walmart terminal the adventure part of my new existence has gone away.  Don't get me wrong.....I like what I am doing now.  It gets me home around once a week.  This is a very good thing.  I just don't seem to have much to.write about these days.  I will be doing pretty much the same thing everyday.........delivering frozen and refridgerated food items to Walmart stores.  The only thing that changes is the location of the stores.
I did get an interesting load last week.  I delivered to Cedar Rapids, IA then to Independence, IA then on to Waverly and Mason City, IA.  Once I completed all my deliveries to the Walmart stores, I picked up a load from a Kraft warehouse in Mason City and drove it down to the Kraft caves in Springfield, MO.  I was able to take a ten hour break in Springfield and was able to.watch one.of Logan's soccer games before picking up another load from the caves and brought it back to Moberly.  If I had been able to give Dave and Gary Buresh enough notice, I would have been able to visit them also since they live in Cedar Rapids and Independence, IA.  As it turned out, Dave was working and Gary was on his way to work on his new home,.......maybe next time.  The only real disappointment was that I didn't have enough time to contact my niece Alli and didn't get to meet her new.daughter Evelyn.
So I will continue to post to this blog. Hopefully it will have something of interest.  Last night I delivered to Chesterfield, then Warrenton and Washington, MO.  I got.to.drive over the new bridge on highway 47.  I almost stopped by my friend Duane's house but thought better of it......too hard to.turn around with a.trailer.attached.   I don't know.where i will be going today......I.will let you know........Tom

Boy have I been slow to update this blog!

I last left you when I was stuck in my home terminal in Edwardsville, KS.  I have back driving since last week.  Once i got all the new computer equipment and my inverter installed, I was able to take the E-log class and get back on the road.
Since I was forced into a break by circumstance, my status has changed with the company.  It seems that I was the player to be named later... to use a baseball analogy.....I have been put on loan to the dedicated Walmart fleet.  This fleet is located on Moberly, MO at a Mini Swift terminal located on the grounds of a Walmart Distribution Center.  The only freight I will be hauling in the future are frozen and refrigerated items to Walmart stores in a three state area. Missouri,Illinois and Iowa.  So far I have taken loads to the Saint Louis area, Central Missouri, southern Iowa and western Illinois.  The nice thing about delivering to the Saint Louis area is that I can take my ten hour break after the deliveries at home.  So far I have been able to do that twice and it looks like I might be able to.do it again this evening!
From what they tell me, it looks like I will be on loan to this fleet through the holidays.  The mileage on the loads aren't as long as the over the road loads, but it looks like I will be spending more time.at home.  Some things are just more important than money.

Last night I delivered in southern Iowa. I drove one route up there and decided to go a different way back to Moberly. I was rewarded for this decision by seeing a sign telling me that the "The American Gothic Home" was located just west of Ottumwa, Iowa.  I wonder what that really means.  Is the house that is featured in the famous painting located there? Did some enterprising individual build a house that looks like the one in the painting in hopes of developing a tourist attraction?  Is there some.type of museum there dealing with the artists works located there?  Who knows!  There is.a road sign dedicated to it on highway 34.   I just wonder why someone would want to drive off of the interstate highway to look at the outside of a house you can see in a painting........just a brief insight or what runs through my mind when I drive by these informational signs I see.....OK time for a.shower and some food before I head off to Festus, Desloge and Farmington, MO Walmarts with their frozen and refridgerated food items......Tom

Listening to the Cardinals and catching up on my blog

When I left you last, I had just gotten my truck and it had broken down.  That happened a week ago.  My how time flies.  I have been assigned to a.different truck and have driven six loads since then.  I have gone from Ohio to Saint Louis.  From Edwardsville, IL to Edwardsville, KS.  I was able to.pack all the things I had brought from home then.  I sat around all day Sunday until very late at night.  I got a "repowered " load at 11:30 in the evening.  When a truck breaks down, the company assigns the load to a different driver.  The new driver has to find the first driver and they switch trailers.  I had to drive to a truckstop in Oak Grove, MO to pick up this load.  It was going to a Kohl's store in Lincoln, NE.  I then had to drive to South Sioux City, NE to pick my next load.  I ran out of hours after I got there so I ended up spending the night in their parking lot.  I drove from there to Cozad, NE to drop that load.  I then drove to Imperial, NE to pick up my next load. 

This last load was the most unusual load I have had yet.  I ended up picking up 45260 lbs of potatoes They were lose unpackaged potatoes. I had to back my trailer over a conveyed belt that the potatoes were riding on.  They would get to the end of the belt and fall off into the back of my trailer.  Every so often I would have to pull the trailer foward, until eventually the entire trailer was full.  Usually all of the freight we haul is  sitting on pallets.  The receiving department usually uses some type of fork lift to pick up the pallets and carry them out of the trailer.  I couldn't for.the life.of me figure out how they were going to empty the trailer when I reached my final destination of Topeka, KS.

I was amazed by how they did it.  I had to back the trailer up onto a large steel platform. I then had to unhook from the trailer.  Once my tractor was clear of the trailer......they opened up the rear trailer doors and put a large plate accros the opening of the back of the trailer.  The plate was placed about 18 inches above the bottom of the trailer.  The platform turned out to be a giant lift or hoist.   It began to tilt the trailer on its end!  Imagine looking at a 53 foot long trailer being lifted to a 40 degree angle so gravity does all of the unloading for them.  The plate on the back of the trailer opening keeps the potatoes from falling out into one giant pile.  The potatoes fall into a hopper of sorts.that sends them on their way into the plant to eventually become hash browns.

After delivering the potatoes, I was almost out of fuel.  My driver manager had me drive back to our terminal in Edwardsvillle, KS to refuel. Once I got to the terminal I had to drop my trailer and park my tractor. I finally got.to.meet my driver manager.   She informed me that I had to get a new style computer installed in my truck.  I also had to have an inverter hard wired instead of using the kind that plug into the the cigarette lighter.   The company requires anyone who.sleeps.with a cpap machine to have this done.  The fear is that the machine could draw too much current through wires that are too small in diameter causing a potential fire risk if it isn't hard wired directly to the battery terminals with thicker wires.  She also informed me that I had to take the electronic log class.  So I have to sit and wait until all of this has been accomplished.  Today I was able to get the computer installed and get the inverter hard-wired.   Now all I have to do is take the e-log class at 9:00 tomorrow.  Then I will be available for another load.  Hopefully that will happen sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Well the Cardinals just lost game four to the Brewers.  Time to go.to bed.  I'll write more later.....Tom

Tom update

As many of you have commented........I have been lax in my blotting responssbilities.  For this I am sorry.  I am not sorry for the reason.  I have been very busy.  So busy in fact that I haven't had the energy to write.  I am amazed at how tiring driving can be.....so I am making this short.......I am alive and doing well
.....I promise to write more when I have more down time........ Thank you for your concerns.

Tom