Ride Along On The Road With Old School

I love this thread!

My guess for your solution to this problem? Something involving the split sleeper... Take 8 hours now and then take your 2 after delivery?

Yes! I was thinking exactly the same thing... Looking forward to Old Schools next entry to find out if we are on the money...

I don't think O.S. can use a split sleeper, because he has only four minutes left on his fourteen hour clock. Pushing those minutes two, or six, or whatever hours ahead doesn't give him the hour he needs to drive to the delivery site. I suspect that he's making sweet on the telephone - i.e. rescheduling - because he has a good relationship with this receiver and knows that they may have other slots he could arrive in.

Hey Old School! !! Are you in Harrisonville Missouri? There's SAPA truck here tonight at the Flying J

Hey Old School! !! Are you in Harrisonville Missouri?

Robert, I'm in Ozora, Missouri at the Ozora Truck Stop & Travel Center tonight. We made our deliveries this morning and we made them both on time! It was tight, but here's how we worked it out. Yesterday after I started my clock so that I could get that job finished in time to turn it in on that week's pay period I ended up waiting for about four hours until they had settled on what load they wanted me on. Anytime I go into a waiting period like that I put myself immediately onto the sleeper berth line - that is a good practice. It can really help you sometimes on your next driving shift, and it can certainly help you conserve your seventy hour clock. Even though your fourteen hour clock is running, it is not burning up your seventy if you are on the sleeper berth line.

I don't think O.S. can use a split sleeper, because he has only four minutes left on his fourteen hour clock.

Michael, what I accomplished by being on the sleeper berth line for a minimum of two hours was set myself up so that I only needed to take an eight hour break that night and then my available time would go back to what was available to me at the end of that two hour break. So, after my eight hour break I had approximately five hours that I could drive. My first appointment was in Cedar Rapids between the hours of seven a.m. and eight a.m. I was able to get there at 7:50 a.m. - On time with ten minutes to spare! My second appointment was in Dubuque between the hours of ten and eleven a.m. We made it there at 10:30 - perfect! After getting unloaded and sending a few messages to my dispatcher we had about one hour left on our drive time. So, now we parked at a very close by truck stop, put our clock on the sleeper berth line and took it easy for two hours while enjoying a nice lunch of Italian food! Now I have done a back to back split sleeper combo and after that nice relaxing break we have approximately eight hours that we can drive. So we accept our next dispatch which is a dead-head run back to Delhi, Louisiana so that we can get on another SAPA load. I drove almost the entire eight hour period with only a brief fuel stop and that put me down near Ozora, MS where I am sleeping restfully tonight. I'll be in Delhi tomorrow afternoon, and they will find me something good that goes out on Friday that I bet will keep me moving all weekend.

I know this stuff is confusing, but several of you already had it figured out - Congratulations! Those of you who are still struggling with it can easily master this little legal way of getting ahead of the game when you need to by mastering that logs section in Brett's High Road Training Program. Time spent in there is well worth the effort.

Hey Christina, I couldn't dare adopt you - I already have way too many females in my life! Abigail took some photos of the inside of our truck for you to look at though. Maybe it will help you just a little to get the idea of what it's like in here.

Abigail has been quite amazed at how much corn we produce in this country while driving through Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota. She also discovered that rather unpleasant odor put out by a feed lot that is trying to produce some nicely marbled corn fed beef! She's been having a great time, and I even caught her "horsing around" with the big green "Sinclair" dinosaur at a truck stop near Pocahontas, Iowa.

She has also gotten quite accustomed to the truck stop shower routine. She says these showers are nicer than hers at home! If you are a newbie, and you are reading this, we are going to give you a look at a typical truck stop shower so that you can put your anxieties to rest about those public showers. For the most part if you stay with the major chain truck stops you will have a very good shower experience.

I took three days off this week, two days at home, and one day with Abigail at Silver Dollar City in Branson. Yesterday we turned in our paper work for our pay period and I had a total of 1708 miles. That is not a typical week for me, but I wanted to post it here for you because the reality of this job is that you get paid for what you accomplish. If you run around the country acting like you are on vacation you will go broke doing this. I also wanted to illustrate for those who are interested how you can manage to do some fun things while you are out here if you learn to take advantage of the times where you might have some extra time on a load.

This week is all business, when we get back around to Wednesday I'll post my miles, and you will see what you can accomplish if you keep at it.

So, would it had worked out if you would've put your log as "off duty"? I want to do the same thing while I'm out there, but I am unsure of where to put my line when I'm waiting to be loaded/unloaded. I want to be as productive as possible and waste little time of my clock on "on duty not driving" Because that just burns my driving time.

A little update from my last post on here. The sleep apnea test result came back, minor-moderate so the Doc gave me the 2 year card (wohoooo!) Later that day I went over to Knight and did my driving test with a local driver. I was a little nervous but everything turned out good, the truck was a nice volvo, 9 spd and I shifted with no problems. The local driver was really cool so that helped a lot. The only thing I messed up on was at the Pilot, I position myself wrong and had trouble backing up, so he backed up for me. I had requested to go out with a trainer anyways so that didn't affect me, but I'm glad everything else turned alright. My backing is not that great, I was used to the oil field sites where there's usually a lot of space to maneuver, I never had to back up in a truckstop or anything, so I need a little bit of practice.

Now I am waiting for the background to get cleared (there's a delay with one of my past employers not getting back to Knight for emp verification) and after that I will probably be waiting for a trainer and on to my adventure OTR. I chose to stay on the 11 Western side, but once I get more comfortable and since we don't have force dispatch at Knight, I'll probably run more towards the midwest, I am just afraid from all the rumors you hear of the East coast, so if I don't have to, I rather not go there. I know eventually I probably will but for now I am happy I have the option to run in the areas I am familiar with.

Thanks a lot OS for your advice and sharing your adventures with us. I enjoy reading them and the useful information you provide. Hope to run in to you at one of our yards some day.

Thank you, Old School and Abigail! That was very sweet of her to take pics for me! She is a fine young lady!! I plan to visit a dealer soon to take a tour, just haven't made it very far yet.

Robert, I'm in Ozora, Missouri at the Ozora Truck Stop & Travel Center tonight.

Dang! I would have been right there mid morning. But a semi trailer roll over just south of Ozora took up all my extra time. Well, I waved!

Kudos OS, l have yet to see pics of truck interiors as clean and uncluttered as yours.

Kudos OS, l have yet to see pics of truck interiors as clean and uncluttered as yours.

I guess I should have posted some photo's of my trucks over time. I never left out in the morning without my bed being made and everything put away before I rolled out. I hate having things rolling/moving around while I am driving down the road. Unsafe in my opinion. Just never know when you might have to make an emergency stop, not good having things flying around while that is happening.

Ernie

Kudos OS, l have yet to see pics of truck interiors as clean and uncluttered as yours.

I guess I should have posted some photo's of my trucks over time. I never left out in the morning without my bed being made and everything put away before I rolled out. I hate having things rolling/moving around while I am driving down the road. Unsafe in my opinion. Just never know when you might have to make an emergency stop, not good having things flying around while that is happening.

Ernie

Lolol Ernie, l will be waiting for those photos.