Sunday, October 25, 2009

THE TRAINEE HAS LANDED

Craig has been busy the last couple of days. After loading in Durante, CA, and when I say loading, Craig had the pleasure of pallet jacking the 22,000 pounds of wine onto his trailer himself. True to my husband's adventurous spirit, he made quick work of it and was back in the driver's seat and on his way North in short order. He decided to make the company yard in French Camp, CA his stop for the evening, which was a great idea, because he was able to make good use of the laundry and shower facilities there.

Up with the sunrise, which these days hasn't been until after 7am, he called his next pick up destination in Sonoma, CA to see if he couldn't arrive earlier than the 1pm appointment. Sure, it would eliminate any chance of getting any detention pay, but if his calculations were correct, he would make it into Spokane a full two days ahead of delivery, and therefore get himself in position to drop the load early, and head out with a new assignment well ahead of the drivers coming back from home time on Monday. Arriving in Sonoma, amongst the backdrop of vineyards, he was loaded and on his way in under an hour. With a stop down the street at a public scale, he was on his way once again. Craig did have the opportunity to photograph another milestone with his truck, when the mileage rolled over to 400,000 miles. Seems like it wasn't all that long ago when I had documented 300,000 miles, but when you spend most of your time driving, it doesn't take long for it to add up quickly.While headed north with a destination of LaPine,OR he received a phone call from his new trainee, who had been put on a truck that was headed south. After a bit of discussion, it was decided to meet up at the Pilot truck stop in Chemult,OR and as I was talking to Craig on the phone around 10pm Friday night, the trainee was delivered to his door.

I haven't had the opportunity to ask the hundreds of questions that my curiosity ridden mind has, but they arrived in Spokane, WA last night, where they were indeed told to drop their trailer and hook up with an empty. Once that was completed, they dead headed to the Tyson meat plant in Pasco, WA where they dropped the trailer, and then bob tailed to the company drop yard and picked up a loaded trailer of frozen french fries, that will be delivered to Long Beach, CA Tuesday morning.

As far as the trainee goes.... as Craig and I like to say........so far, so good!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many miles were on the truck when you started driving.

Unknown said...

Craig was assigned the truck in May of '08 when he switched to TWT from the System side. If my memory is correct, it had about 220,000 miles on it.

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