Scrase trucking, week one

So its friday, May.22, 2009.

Get up at my usual 11-noon time, and start looking for jobs on line, thinking it'll just be another hit and miss day. So I'm looking on kijiji.ca and I find a newly posted ad with a fax number to send a resume to, so I ask my sister to fax it off to the number and 30 minutes later the guy calls me! "Do you want a job?" "Who's this?" I reply, we start talking and he asks me to come into St.Albert for a road test, I tell him I'll be there in an hour, hang up and go get ready. An hour later we meet up at the Rona where hes parked and he walks me around the truck, shows me everything, then we jump in a head off down the road, My shifting is a little rusty as I hav'nt driven a standard in over a year and hav'nt driven at all since December. Anyways I obviously pass as he hires me and tells me the load has to be in portland, OR on sunday. I go home and tell my family the good news and start packing. (Sorry Karen for missing your 25th, as this was that night). The only downside is that hes a small company, so he dos'nt yet have a yard, so I have my parents drop me off at 9am saturday morning. I get to his house and we fill out all the necessary paperwork, blah blah blah.
He then drives me back to the truck where my stuff already is (thanks mom and dad!) and I do the pretrip and I am off!
So I first drive into Edmonton to the ESSO cardlock on 118th ave. to fuel up, his fuelcard is set up in a weird fashion, so I have to call him 3 times before I am authorized to fuel, with that out of the way I head to Acheson scales to shift my load to get er legal and then head down the road.

Im estatic to find out his truck can do 110kph and later will find out 122 kph! Anyways I make it to Nanton in 4 hours and end my day an hour outside of Spokane,WA on an Idaho backroad.

Day 2 is a short one as I cover only 694km and deliver to the small town of Molalla,OR , which is just south of Portland. It takes an hour for them to start unloading, but then about 15 minutes to take all the peat moss off, I then head to a truckstop on the I-5`and call it a day.

Day 3, drive empty to Stockton,CA, all at 55mph (screw you Oregon, California, and all you other 55 mph for trucks states!) I cover the 969km in 11 hours and sleep at the shipper. nothing interesting happened today, it was a holiday monday and the I-5 was empty.

Day 4, Sit, sit and wait some more, I`m picking up cherries destined for Cambridge,ON but they wont be ready until later that nigh Thats OK, It`ll ggive me a chance to get some tacos (authentic Mexican ones), over the day I proceed to pig out with seven tacos carne asada and one pig tounge taco (tounge meat was minced, tasted like regular pork). Ahh tacos! Anyways after being up all day they finally call me and get me loaded up in 20 minutes, at 1230am. So i pull out of the door and park to sleep.

Day 5, I complete my logbook as to show that I loaded this morning so I can gain a logbook reset of hours, then head north on the state highway CA99 towards Sacramento and follow the signs to Reno and the I-80.
about 4 hours later once I`m passed Reno and Fernley, I open it up to 75mph! I fly across the state, fueling up in Winnemucca and stopping for a drink in Wells. Coming back to the truck in Wells, my truck wont start, I give it 10 minutes and try again... Nothing... huh... I call Darren and he figures its either a fuel problem or a sensor (electrical) problem. I try the truck again and it fires to life. I continue down the road into Utah and stop in Tooele (basically Salt Lake City) Making sure Im at a truckstop just incase the truck acts up again.

Day 6, Wake up at 530am, head inside for a shower and start the truck with ease! Start driving through SLC with no backups in traffic and get into Rawlins,WY to fuel up, I leave the truck runnung just in case... another 6 hr drive and I stop in Elm Creek, NE in central Nebraska.

Day 7, up at 430 for an early start, still doing 75mph until the Iowa border, which is 3 hr drive away. I pull it into the Flying J in Gretna,NE to stop for breakfast(Mmmm, biscuits and gravy...) and my truck wont start again! Im told to buy some ether and fire that into the air intakes, that works and I continue into Iowa (70mph) then Illinois (55mph, screw you Illinois!) flew through south Chicago, into Gary,IN for the night.

Day 8, up at 430 am again today, fuel up and start heading towards Sarnia,ON via Michigan, I get to the border and shut my truck off to talk to the customs officer and present my paperwork. My load is'nt in the system even though Livingston told me it was over the phone... jerk! Anyways I try to start the truck... Argggggg! The bridge authority pulls up behind me to push me out of the way, I then use ether again to start it up, and leave it running as I go inside to get my paperwork redone. Which takes two hours... I then head to Cambridge to unload, they have anti-idiling signs everywhere, as I ignore them completly! 5m (Ontario time) I'm unloaded and I drive the 45 minutes into Mississauga to the Freightliner shop and find out it was a sensor. At 8 am they are ready for payment so I call Darren (6am in AB), hes groggy but happy that its done. It is now day 9 (sunday) and I'm told I'll have to wait until Monday for a reload

Day 10 (monday) Told I'll need to wait until tomorrow, but it'll happen for sure tomorrow, so here I sit in Milton,ON, only good thing is that I'll gain another much needed reset.

All together, he seems like a good guy, trying to start in a very competitive market. I drove 4100 miles (6600 km) in the first week, my second week won't be as good, but it'll still be decent at about 3000 miles.