Out with the old

In with the....... older? Last week I quit Gordon Trucking and moved over to Dillon Transportation. Dropped off my 2010 Freightliner Cascadia in Kingman AZ. Then flew out of Phoenix to Nashville TN. for Orientation with Dillon. A couple days later I'm in a 2007 Freightliner Columbia with 680,000 miles on it. But it actually runs pretty good.

After they gave me this truck they gave me a run. Trailer was sitting in the yard all ready to roll. A three stopper from Ashland City TN to San Bernardino, CA. with stops in Houston, TX. and Las Vegas, NV. When they gave me the paperwork for the run, they asked me which route I was going to take.

That was weird. I've been working for companies that told you where to fuel, which way to drive. I was seriously waiting for them to start authorizing me a place to sleep. Why as an occupation I was putting trained monkey. But now I feel more like a truck driver.

So far the company seems pretty good to work for. Not just the being able to route myself, but I don't feel like big brother is watching me. Feel like as long as I keep it safe, I can go back to some of the old school driving.

I'm not going to lie. There will be some things that I will miss. The biggest one is the APU (auxiliary power unit) I don't sleep very good when the truck is idling, and it's been pretty cold. So I've been idling the truck. And with the APU comes house hold electricity. I can't currently use my microwave or any of the other stuff I was able to plug into the old truck. But, when I get a few dollars together I can buy an inverter and the shop will install it.

The run that I'm currently on, the Las Vegas stop isn't scheduled until Tuesday morning. I'm about three hours away and probably won't leave the house until Tuesday morning. Going to hurt the pay check though. Our work week is Sunday midnight to Sunday midnight and paid on Friday with the first check held for two weeks.I'm guessing that usually I would have been able to drop this load in Kingman and get to another run. Making it possible to get this on the next check. but but holding onto this run and going home, I won't actually be done with this run until Wednesday morning, putting this run on the next weeks check. I'm thinking this is going to make money between now and Christmas a little scarce.

Alrighty then. I guess I've got stuff to do. So I guess I should get to it. I'll see if I can update more before I get on the road, since right now I don't even think I can charge my laptop in the truck :-(