Breakdown!

Pictures of a lonely, broke down truck in the middle of "no where" Wyoming.

Well, it finally happened. When you spend day after day, week after week and month after month driving, it is bound to happen. Mechanical things fail.

We were headed back to Salt Lake in the final few hours of our trip and discussing what we wanted to do on our day off. It was also right at the time we were getting ready to change drivers. I had put in my full 11hrs with the left door shut, and puttin down the miles to get us home, when I all of a sudden I felt a shudder . Initial thoughts was I had a flat tire. I immediatly completely focused my attention on all my senses, slowing the truck down, headed for an exit just in front of us. While doing that, I noticed it didn't really FEEL like a flat, but I smelled rubber. Hmmmm,,keep focused, get this thing off the road safely, also got to remember we have hazmat. Nothing exotic, just flammible paint, and some pressurized cylinders. So I need to stop in a safe place.

I hit the exit which was a raise to go to a crossover road. At the top, I stopped and asked Kim to get out and check tires on her side. As I was setting the brakes, etc, she told me no flats. I got out and noticed coolant coming from under the hood. I told Kim we didn't have a flat, but come up and look. UH OH, this doesn't look good! I moved the rig on over the top to an area just off of the on ramp side. Another truck that had stopped at the top came by on their way back to hiway to check on us. They just wanted to make sure we had a phone, and drinks, etc. Thanks guys, we really appreciate that kind of caring for fellow drivers.

I popped the hood open, and immediately saw what the rubber smell was. It was the fan belt off the pulleys and wrapped around the pulleys. The top front pulley from the water pump had separated from the engine, and the fan and the entire assembly went forward into the radiator, punching holes in it.

It was quickly deducted (I am pretty smart that way :) ) that this was pretty serious and not going to be a quick roadside fix. I called roadservice and told them what was going on. They contacted a shop in Rock Springs, Wy (about 20 mi back) that had 24hr repair service and wrecker service to arrange a tow and repairs. I also had to call the fleet manager to arrange something to get the load taken care of. After a few minutes we got a message on the Qualcomm that a relay was set up and scheduled by 9pm. This was only about 5:30 now so we are going to be here awhile. We had already been an hour, so with nothing to do now but wait, we fixed dinner, listened to the radios, and waited.

Our relay team showed up about 8pm and we both decided we were not going to unhook where I had parked the truck. It was on the side of the on ramp, but was leaning pretty good. It will have to wait till the wrecker got here and pulled me out onto the flat road surface of the on ramp.

About 30 min later the wrecker showed, hooked up to the front of the truck and dragged us up onto the ramp. We unhooked from the trailer and the other team hooked up and took off back to Salt Lake.

The wrecker then came around to the rear of the tractor, and extended a boom under the frame, lifted the rear duals off the ground, chained it down, and pulled us back to Rock Springs. After getting the ticket written up to get the repair started tomorrow morning (Monday), the driver took us a few blocks to the local Best Western Hotel.

We had initially thought we would spend the nite, get some rest, then see about renting a car today and going on to Salt Lake and home since it will be a couple or 3 days. After getting here, it is a nice hotel, a pool, a nice room, cable tv, fridge, quiet,,,hmmm,,and no young adult running around making all kinds of noise,,,,this might not be so bad after all. So we decided to stay put and do nothing for a couple of days. If it looks like it will be longer, we'll see about getting home.

We have lost our first load out of Salt Lake tomorrow morning, so now we are done till Friday morning. Kinda nice, but the pay check will only be half for this week.

Oh well, stuff happens, make the best of the situation, and go on.

Till next time, keep it safe out there,,,,and waive at those big rigs on the side of the road, you never know! :)

Well, here we go with an update while enroute for a change. We have made the first round trip, and are now on round 2 and just passing Cheyenne , Wy, It is MUCH nicer weather-wise than last nite. We had blowing snow, and freezing rain between Laramie and Rawlins. Our windshield wipers turned into very ineffective popcycles!

The first part of the run went well. We gout out early again and got some sleep enroute about Des Moines, getting into Aurora about 1:15pm. Dropped the trailer, got an empty, and headed over to Gary,In. We had received a notice on the Qualcomm to get our fuel filters changed, so we thought we'd take the time in Gary at the Speedco next to the Pilot truck stop. Speedco offers quick lubes, oil changes, filter changes, tire changes for big rigs, kinda like JiffyLube for cars. Got that done, got a shower, and headed back to the yard to settle in for the nite.

When I showed up at the dispatch desk the next morning to get our load, there were 2 loads for Salt Lake City, one hazmat, one not. We were lucky and got the non-hazmat load......for now.
The Gary Conway yard just does not get the loads ready early, so off we went about our scheduled time of 4am.

We decided to take some time enroute and visit the truckstop at Walcott, Ia. It is the worlds largest, and has everything from custom trucks inside, chrome accessories, to dentists, barbers, and chemical for porta-potties! :)

After our little field trip in Walcott, we continued our adventure. About 1pm my cell rang with an ID of CFI. UH OH, now what?? "We need a favor." (With those words, you always know something "good" is coming next!) The other Salt Lake hazmat load was assigned to a hazmat certified driver at Gary, but he had to relay the load in Council Bluffs, Ia. Solo drivers can't keep rolling like we can. Thee 2nd driver has to relay it in Cheyenne, Wy. Well, the 2nd driver picking up in Council Bluffs was not hazmat certified, so we were asked to turn around and go back and swap trailers with him. I had just got thru the mess of Omaha, and was cruising toward Lincoln, Neb. Oh well, turn around we did, and did our duty for the company. :) We still got to Salt Lake about 4:45am, which was only about 30min past our norm, and well within the required 7am.

We were abit tired tho, so we took a 2hr nap, then got our new load, and headed back for Aurora on round 2. It's about time for me to get some time in the bunk to I can take over the command seat about 3am, if Kim can last that long. She did last nite, so I expect she'll do it tonite too. She is real trooper, I can't imagine relying on anyone else.

Keep it safe out there, and waive at those big red racers! :)

Our LOST trailer

Ok, finally an update. Sorry folks, I have been remis at updating this. I even have had an email asking if we're ok! That blows me away that so many people are reading (I put in a Hit meter to show how many people have read it also,,,wow!)and "know" us thru this blog. I am really humbled. Thank you for caring Pete and Rose, we are doing just fine and yes, still truckin!
By the way, if ANYONE has any questions about otr trucking, team driving, etc. send us an email @ roadie363@gmail.com and I would be happy to try to address them. As we are doing the dedicated run now, there is less to talk about since it is the same route each week.
OK, now for last week. We started out by getting the load early at 7:30 (not due out till 1000) and hit the road. As has been our normal with this first run, we got to Des Moines area, and shut down for about 5hrs sleep, then on into Aurora, Il. Arrived at 1:30 for our NLT 4pm delivery time. Got our empty, and headed on to part 2 in Gary, Ind. We are starting to get into a routine now. Dropped that trailer, and bobtailed about 5mi to the local T/A truck stop for a shower, then back to the Conway yard, and parked for the nite. My dad cursed us for this run. While talking to him on the phone, he asked us if we have had any hazmat loads lately. We have not, but,,,,,, guess what?! The next morning I went in to get the paperwork for this load, and viola! HAZMAT load. It had some drums of a corrosive, flammable liquid (sodium cloride or something like that) so we had 2 placards on each side of the trailer. That is one of the requirements, all 4 sides must have placards. This proved to be the problem with this run. We had quite abit of rain and winds thru Nebraska, and lost one of the corrosive placards. We did not want to be fined so we stopped at 2 truck stops before we found one. So on with the trip,,,,we thought. We lost 2 more placards before we got to Salt Lake. WHEW, we didn't get caught going across the scales (they were closed).
We got back to SLC about 4:30am Friday, and dispatch at Conway was just working on the paperwork for our next load (the trailer was already loaded) and waiting for us. Headed back out of town about 5:30 and and had a nice run back to Illinois. This time weather was really nice, hit 80 degrees on the way back. We stopped for awhile at a rest area on the Wy/Neb border, and fixed ourselves dinner and enjoyed the weather for awhile. Again, we stopped for a few hours sleep near Des Moines, and got to Aurora about 1130 this time. Got on over to Gary, and the next chapter of this story started. We could not find the trailer with our load! We drove around the docks and the yard twice, and called ops to tell them. The security guard said there had been a mix up on the paperwork for an earlier CFI driver, he took ours, then brought it back. Hmmmm,,did he have our trailer also?? If so where was his load? We could not find another loaded trailer. Now we had a missing trailer somewhere! This is not looking good. We drove around again I verified the CFI trailers that were there were empty. This is still not looking good! We headed back up to the docks and from a different angle, we found our trailer! All the Conway trailers had been pulled away from the docks because they were hosing down the inside. All trailers were pulled away,,,except ours. It was hidden down between two trailer. Oh well, the mystery is solved an hour and a half later!
We hit the road, and decided to stop near Omaha for some needed rest. This second round is not due in till tues afternoon (weekend pulls) so we were not up against the clock. The longer we take to get home, the less time at home Sunday for us. We are off on Mondays. We parked for a nice 6hr nite and finally made it home about 9pm Sunday nite. We had no plans at home for Sunday, so not much difference for us to get home Sunday afternoon, or Sunday evening,,this week anyway.
By the way, we did see something of note on one of our runs thru Omaha. We saw a large plane approaching the airport nice and slow. We watched it for awhile, and realized it was one of the planes in the Presidents fleet. Kinda neat to see that!
So that is the latest. We have abit of running to do today, laundry, shopping for drinks, food, etc to restock the truck, etc. Kinda nice to be able to do that each week.
Again, if you have questions we can answer for you, we will do our best. We are by no means experts out here, but will share what we can.
Till next time, keep it safe out there! "The truck you save may be us!" :)
Cheers

The DELAYED run

Well, round 2 started a little slow. We showed up early (5:30am) hoping to get a jump on things since the trailer was ready early last week. Tuesday it was ready by 7am, and Friday it was almost ready when we got there at 4:30am. Unfortunately, they were abit swamped, and we were told it would not be ready until our scheduled time of 10am. We did get it early however,,,,9:30.
We made it to Aurora, dropped it, found an empty, and got over to Gary without any problems. We dropped the empty and bobtailed over to a Pilot, got a shower, and went back to the Conway yard for the evening.
Again, got our load the next morning and headed out. This time, we noticed the weather did not look so good. Rain across Iowa, then turning to snow over in Nebraska. Kim took the first round and drove in the rain all day to Grand Island. I took over, and the weather pretty much went to crap. Snow, and winds from there on. By the time we got to Cheyenne, it was really questionable as to if we should go on.
On of the resources a driver has is the CB. I asked about conditions between Cheyenne and Laramie, and was told by 3 drivers that the winds were so bad, it just about knocked their heavy loaded trucks sideways. That was enough for me to call it quits. Kim sent in a detained notice, and I called in to tell them we were parking due to weather. About that time we heard that I-80 was infact closed between Cheyenne and Rawlins and would remain so for awhile. We parked in the Pilot parking lot just before they announced the closure. It sure filled up fast after that. We timed it just right.
We watched some tv, and called it a nite early. Got a full nite sleep, and the next morning got a shower, and breakfast. They finlly opened the interstate about noon, but reports were still high winds, poor vis, blowing and drifting snow. We waited an hour for traffic and plows to work some more then headed out.
About the time we got to Rock Springs, there had been an accident that shut down the interstate again! We waited at Cheyenne about 16hrs, and at Rock Springs another hour and half. This load is just not meant to get to Salt Lake!
After we got going past the accident, we got notified that we had been un-assigned the follow on load at Salt Lake and Gary, and our next load was Tues morn. We were too late to get the second round in.
Oh well, we get a weekend at home , with some GREAT weather for a change. We had to take the tractor to Kenworth this morning for a new windshield. We got a rock chip and it cracked all the way across. Will be able to pick it up Monday afternoon, and ready to go Tues morning again,,,,,after we get some riding in this weekend, and relax some.
We still have not been able to run a full week leaving early, and getting no delays. We'll see what next week brings.
Till next time, keep it safe out there!

Dedicated, round 1 complete

We made to SLC from Gary, Ind about 4:30am and was told our next load would actually be ready in about 30 min. WAY COOL, we'll get some extra time on this load, or get in early to Aurora, and get in early to Gary, and get in early to SLC! :) We got back out of town about 5am and headed toward Aurora. We did not get any sleep in Salt Lake, so we fizzled out on the way to Ill, and parked for about 4hrs in Iowa, just east of Des Moines. It was really close to the interstate, so it was abit noisy there. We got up and headed on to Aurora. After parking the trailer, and hooking up to the empty, we headed on to Gary. This time traffic was not too bad being Sat morning about 10am.

They had the trailer waiting at Gary for us. We did spend a little more time than planned tho, the tandems on the trailer did not want to slide for us. This is the 2nd time we have had that problem with trailers here. When the trailers are heavy, the rear axles (tandems) can be moved forward or back to balance the weight on the drive tires on the tractor. Some states have a maximum distance for the tandems from the king pin on the trailer, limiting how much they can be slid back, so that has to be a concern as well. Usually, the terminals want the tandems all the way rearward so the trailer is more stable when loading it with the fork lifts. When we pick them up, we move them back forward by setting the brakes on the trailer, then put the tractor in reverse and push the trailer rearward while the axles remain in place. They are on rails, with pins that hold or release them. After we get them close to where they should be, we go to the scales and weigh the entire rig. We get weights for the front axle, the drive tires, then the rear trailer axles, and adjust if necessary.

We headed out of Gary about 11am Sat, and our GPS said we had about a 10am arrival time if we didn't stop. That would be really nice, to have most of the day Sunday at home, and all day Monday. However, our bodies caught up with us, and we needed some sleep enroute. We stopped between Omaha and Lincoln for about 4hrs, then made our way home. We finally got in about 4pm Sunday, so still had some time to enjoy the weekend. I immediately took off on the motorcycle for short ride. I have been having motorcycling withdrawls, so it was nice, even if a short ride.

Got up this morn. to see it snowing here! GRRRRR, we were hoping winter was over. They have nice weather during the week, then the snow follows us for our time at home. OH well, eventually spring has to come,,,,,,,,,doesn't it??

First week of the dedicated route was ok. We need to figure out a better way to run the 2nd round instead of trying to go back to back with no down time on the run. We were trying to get back to SLC as soon as we could Sunday. We may have to settle for Sunday early eve instead of noonish.

We figured out this week we hauled approx 125,000lbs of freight between SLC-Aurora, and Gary-SLC. First 2 loads were around 27000lbs, the 3rd around 35000, and the last from Gary to SLC was 40000.

The route also gives us just over 5700 miles/week. Not bad $ either. It's about as many miles as we were getting before, but now we have a day and a half off at home. I think this will work out good for us as soon as we figure out the easiest way to run it.

Dedicated route, round 1

We had a really nice and relaxing weekend at home prior to starting our dedicated run. We got to SLC about noon on Sat, dropped the trailer, and went home. Our dispatch got us home a day or so earlier than we normally will. We enjoyed sitting around, fixing some food to take with us, and restocking our supplies. It is not easy to shop when you're on the road 24/7 in a semi. Can't exactly just pull into a grocery store parking lot somewhere with the tractor and trailer.
We had been told by the dispatchers at the Salt Lake terminal that our load would probably be ready about 7am. We were scheduled for a 10 am pick up. Cool, we'll get some extra time on the load! We finally headed out about 7:30 and surprisingly, traffic wasn't too bad getting out of town.
We got a few hours up the road on I-80 in Wyoming, and heard about the interstate being shut down! WHAT??!!! Everyone said that parking past Little America was almost non-existent, so we found a nice little rest area just prior that exit, sent in our detained notice, and parked. Apparently there was a bad snow storm the previous nite, and there was a bad accident where a tanker exploded and burnt up the road. Sure hope the driver got out ok.
Well, we waited about an hour and a half and heard the road was open at Rock Springs where it previous had been shut down for east bound. We started out again, go 30 min down the road and heard it was still shut down between Rawlins and Laramie. DAMM, so we pulled off and waited another hour until we got the all clear. 2 1/2 hrs down the tubes. We sent a message to our dispatch and asked for the original delivery time to be reinstated (they shorted us the 3hrs we left early, sneaky people). No problem, got the time back, so we're still lookin good, gotta be in Aurora, Ill by 1600hrs on Wed. We drove till about 4:30 am which was just east of Des Moines and sleep for about 3hrs. We still got in about 1:15pm so it was a good trip. Next chore was to pick an empty and get over to Gary, In. Easier said than done. There is no straight route over there, and the best route was all under construction. Go figure! Anyway, we did it, just took a little longer than it should have, but hell, we have untill 4am in the morning to get there!
We arrived here about 3:30pm, dropped the empty, and parked in the back of the lot for the night. It is kinda nice to relax in the middle of a run. We keep feeling like we should do something, or the Qualcomm will go off with some unexpected routing, etc. NOPE, all is good, fixed some braats and potatoe salad we brought with us, and kicked back watching tv. I think we mite be able to get used to this. A hard day, then an easy one. Now it will be a couple of long days to get back to Salt Lake, pick up a load, go back to Aurora, then on over here to Gary. Next time, we won't have he 12hr wait. The weekend loads are pre-loaded, so it will be ready whenever we get here. We'll hook up, and head for Salt Lake. The harder we run on the second time around, the more time we'll have at home. Gotta balance it tho, don't wanna be totally wiped out when we get there.
Bottom line is so far, so good.
Till next time, keep it safe out there.