Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Since Houston -- Days I Love -- Changes

Since Houston. It was nice to get a little break last weekend. We had told Schneider that we'd be available at 4:00 pm Saturday. We picked up an empty trailer at the place we had dropped our last load on Friday, took it Lacombe, Louisiana, and picked up a load headed for Chino, California, to a place we'd been to a couple of times before.


We had plenty of time on the load, so we decided to park at the OC in Fontana Monday afternoon when we got there, and go over to the mall, have a nice meal and shoot some pool. They have a Dave & Buster's there that we had gone to once before when we were there. We had an enjoyable time. It was sort of our last “pool night” before we split up as a team (more news on that later in the entry).


We delivered Tuesday morning and then had a live load to get over in Compton, California. It's the load we're on now, and it's going up to Naperville, Illinois, where we have a live unload on Thursday afternoon. We're going to get there early, so we're hoping we can unload early. If not, it will be good nap or computer time.


These are the days I love driving! Since we left Houston, all the way across on I-10 to LA, and now back east across I-40 (we are in Oklahoma City as I type this, getting on I-44), we have had ideal weather: clear skies, no winter weather, nice cool (or cold) temperatures – and out west, less traffic. It's those conditions, plus getting to drive all the way across 900 miles of Texas on I-10 and then out west for a couple of days, that make driving those days just my ideal job. It's those days that I can't believe I'm paid to do this.


Changes to our plans. Change truly is the only constant. We had our plans tentatively made on what we were doing, but our dispatcher called yesterday afternoon just as we were pulling out of LA on the 15 and let us know that right now, Schneider doesn't have enough trucks for all the drivers and we might be on a waiting list.


Not what I wanted to hear just a week away from when I was going to get in a new truck!


For now, at least short-term, we are going to continue teaming until something more substantive works out with a truck situation. We are just taking one day at a time, but both of us in our own way don't like the frustration of this uncertainty.


One result of this development is that for the first time I'm giving some thought to my other options as a driver, maybe going to another company (would lean toward Prime from some things I've read lately on a driver message board), or even trying to hire on with KRB and go to Iraq for a year to drive a truck – I think the pay would be in the range of $125,000 or so. I'm just thinking. I would really like to stay with Schneider and just see how things will work out driving solo with them again. But I also know that I can't afford to just sit around indefinitely waiting for a truck to become available.


I will keep you posted on how things develop (or not). Stay tuned.



That's all for this entry, I suppose.


Until next time . . . keep the wheels rollin' (if they can find you a truck) . . .


Allan


2 comments:

Scott said...

where are you guys

Scott

Allan Mills said...

Scott -- at the moment I am replying to you, we are traveling east on I-70 going to Dallas (we take US 287 from Limon down through Amarillo).

I'll update the blog soon.

Thanks for your question.

Allan