A week into my hols.

Hi all, been home a week so its time to update.
Arrived in Manchester and before even getting out of the airport I wanted to turn around and get back on the plane. The main reason was ignorant people with no manners or a care in the world for anyone else.
Took the train home and had a quick pint in a pub outside the train station then walked the short distance to my brothers. Its been great seeing everyone again, my mam and dad and friends.
Had a few nights out in the town and am suprised I am still alive, funny how people think the worst when you say hello and automatically assume you either want to have sex with them or fight them. I have lost count of the number of times people will turn there heads or look away when you walk past them in the street just so they dont have to aknowledge you.

Saw my niece and cant believe how much she has grown, she is an absolute honey and very very funny.

Taking my old landlady out for a late birthday party tomorrow and as for the rest of the time I am at home I am at a loss as to how I will spend the time.

The new camera does me proud.

Click on any of the pics below to supersize and see them properly


Shot in Montana with standard settings while driving past Not far from lethbridge taken at about 6pm
Used vivid setting for this and it came out well, I am pleased with this.Took this just south of sacremento about 8.30pm, its a point and shoot pic..nothing fancy but I like the blue sky and clouds while the sun is setting7X zoom, pretty impressive
The big one. 10X zoom, taken with no tripod as the image stabilizer takes care of the camera shake. The camera sorted out the exposure, copy it and use it as your desktop!!!

Going home.

Howdy.

As in the previous post I think its time to go home. Its been almost a year, work is quiet for me so it seemed the right time.
I gave Dave F. a call and explained that my credit card had a limit of $1000 which might not cover the cost of the flight. Thumbs up to H&R as not only did they offer to foot the bill, which I would repay but also they would book the flight. Superb.
The weekend passed and I received a satellite message from Dave asking where I wanted to fly from. I gave the details, told him about a flight I had seen on the internet and within 10 mins I had the confirmation it was booked and a copy of the transaction would be left in my pigeon hole. Superb again.
While all this was happening I had forgotten to book the time off with the vacation staff but once again, even at super short notice I had the time off approved so its thumbs up again.

All is good, if not brilliant so far................until

I got the bill from H&R the following morning. I am not prepared to discuss figures but I thinks its wrong for a company (even though they have footed the bill (initially)) to benefit financially from a driver to such an extent. I hold my hands up and accept responsibility as I never asked how much the total bill would be but it would be safe to say that I will never ask H&R again to help me out financially.

So, the flights are booked. I fly out on Friday 22 Aug and I am really looking forward to seeing people back home, especially my parents, brother and grandad. I will update the blog regularly as I have some American, Canadian and European readers who read the blog just because it is an interests to them.

I spent this morning emptying "piglet" of all of my worldly belongings, I have accumalated so much stuff its hard to believe that I legally make it across the scales. Also I spent an hour or so cleaning her, I know she is immaculate but I would hate for a driver to jump into her and think " dirty bastard, how did he live in this" Just on the off chance I do get her back, I would be grateful if she is returned in the same condition, thanks !!

Safeway...same all over the world !!

Hi, time to catch up I think.
Safeway, same as all supermarkets all over the world are a law unto themselves. You are used as mobile storage, the people who work there hate it and they couldnt care less about the drivers schedule or deadlines. UK, Canada or the USA they are all the same. I sat for 8hrs at Tracy, I was loaded with the same product so there was no pallets to split and yet it took 8hrs to unload and check everything. As with Walmart I had to pay for the privilege to be unloaded. Surely something is seriously wrong with that ?????
Next I ran to Salinas california and had two picks, the first was a dream and was loaded in less than an hour, the second was the stuff nightmares are made of. I arrived at 2.30pm and was told I was booked for 9pm, ok, fair enough. I was called to the loading dock at 10.30pm and left at 0200am ?? The load was on the bay ready to put on the trailer when I backed onto the dock so could someone please explain why it took 3 forklift drivers 3.5hrs to move 15 pallets about 15 feet onto my trailer as I am at a loss. To summarise, in the last 28hrs I had sat on a dock for over 20hrs, pretty shit by anybody's standards.

Once again the customers had screwed up an easy pleasurable trip.


So I headed North, loaded with celery, broccoli and sugar snap peas.

As you may be aware I havn't exactly been busy the last few weeks and have been thinking about going back to the Uk for a while, this last trip was the final nail in the coffin as I would rather be at home earning nothing than being here earning very little.

It was time to ring the boss, Dave Foder.

In Lethbridge and going home for hols

Hi all, will update on the last trip and also on my upcoming holiday back in the UK tomorrow as I will have a better internet connection when in the Sandman Hotel.
Cheers for now, Phil

Rolling across the Rockies.

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Hi.
Eventually got a load for British Columbia late Monday afternoon but decided to leave the following morning and by late lunchtime I was wishing I had gone the day before. Its a big drive to BC, I was fully freighted and the 600 miles take 13 to drive. Its a depressing trip but at least the weather was glorious and I met up with a mate I havn't seen for a while so that helped and we chatted on the CB.
It seems its not just me thats having to hang around for work, fingers crossed things pick up soon..
The new camera took a bit of a hammering, snapping away at scenery I have photographed on numerous occasions, just wanting to get the perfect shot. I am really impressed with the zoom and quality of the pictures, its opened up a whole new world of previously unreachable or unimpressive snaps. Really like this one, normally it would be like "yeah, snow on the mountains" The detail is awesome at 10x zoom.
I have my next job through, its a load of blueberries going to Tracy California and delivers at 0030am on saturday which gices me 950 miles to cover in 2 days.

I have been seriously looking at flying home for a few weeks pretty soon, the cost of fuel has hit the airlines and prices have soared, its not going to drop soon so I need to bite the bullet and hand over my hard earned cash.

While I remember I need to say "Hi" to Uncle Joe, I know you keep my grandad up to speed with what I am up to so thanks for that. We can maybe down a few cans together and you can show Alan (Grandad) that he is not too old to surf the web.

So, to finish off, I have 2 days of easy running in the sunshine ahead which I am looking forward and quite possibly a few weeks in the UK in the not to distant future.

Bored of being bored !!!

The new camera, 8.1megapixel and 10x optical zoom.

Still sat in Calgary, dont know whats happening in the despatch office but things are really slow and I have had enough of sitting around waiting.
Was preplanned on a load to go to BC but as of yet there has been no confirmation that the load is ready.
Although I am sitting around waiting its not really time off as you are on call and expected to go when the load is ready, thing is, unless you get a layover paid then its all done for free.
Bought a new camera the other day and have tried to get the hang of using it, there is a lot of functions and will need a bit of practice to master them all. It seems ok, the zoom is superb plus it will fit into my pocket which is what I wanted so providing H&R get me on the road soon there should be some nice pictures.

Heading up north.

Hi all, sorry but the camera has totally given in so a new one is now number one priority.

Ok, so got unloaded at Otay Mesa but it wasnt so clear cut, nor was what happened later and hence this post is being written.

I am sure you all know a little about layovers now and that ideally you need a hold up of at least 12hrs to receive some kind of payment. If we go back to the beginning of this trip I sat for around 9hrs at Lakeside packers Brooks, for that I got nothing, not even the $30 for loading as I didnt load it. Customs was easy and fast enough but cost me 30mins, as I didnt have to do meat inspection I got nothing. I unloaded at Otay Mesa, was booked for 0730 and was done by 1300, for that I received the $30 bonus for unloading.

So, up to the present. I loaded bananas out of San Diego and again sat for 3hrs, for that I received the standard $30. Then I had to finish loading the trailer up at Port Hueneme which cost me 2hrs and again received the standard $30. When loaded the airbags for the trailer suspension would not inflate so waited about 3hrs for that to be sorted which again was done for free.
I still have to fax the paperwork to the brokers which thankfully is only 2 sheets and will still take 30 mins, I have done loads before where the time taken for copying and faxing has taken 2.5hrs. For all of this there is no payment made to myself.

The reason that I have written about the time you dont get paid for is that things balance themselves out, I had a good run down into California and will have a good run back but there is aspects of the job which taint it a little and that is wasted time caused by the customers.

Unloading at Otay Mesa

I-215 running past San Bernardino on the outskirts of LA

Well, here I am sat on the dock waiting for the customer to arrive so they can offload there stuff.
As I stayed up late listening to the bands at Eureka Casino I slept late and woke Monday morning at 9am. Had a quick wash, drank some coffee and was on the road for 9.45am.

First stop was Mesquite where I had lunch at the Whiskey Petes buffet then sat in the sun for an hour reading a book.

After a 2hr stop I put in another couple of hours, fuelled at Barstow California then ran to Otay Mesa.

Arrived at 9pm and found the customer no problem.

Discounting the wasted day in Canada waiting for paperwork the following is a list of what this trip entailed.

Mileage..1450 miles
Driving and working hrs..27hrs
Ontime delivery?....12hrs early
Average speed.....57mph
Time lost in traffic....about 2 mins
Tired? ....nope
Stressed? ...nope.

So there you have it, a typical trip just the way I like to work it. I like to run like this 7 days a week and to me its not work

Onto the next day.

To carry on, I slept until I woke on Sunday morning and left at 0745. First stop of the day was at Payson in Utah 3.75hrs later for fuel and I took the chance to make a few calls home. Left there after an hour then ran to Parowan Utah and had a shower as I had a plan for the night.
Now the people who think that I should have to work like a slave will love this as I had a choice of 3 places where I would park and after 6.75hrs driving today I thought I deserved a good night. I could park at the Oasis Casino at Mesquite, drive another 1.5hr and spend the night in Las Vegas or carry on for a further hour and stop at Whisky Pete's Casino at Primm. Big decisions eh !!!!
In the end I stopped at Mesquite but went to Eureka Casino to check it out. I had the buffet which was $3 more expensive than the Oasis and in my opinion it paled in comparison. There is no proper truck parking (8 spaces in a no park zone) against parking for about 100 at the Oasis. In future I know where I will stop for the night.
All in all it was a really easy day yesterday. Started at 07.45, drove for 8.5hrs and covered 511 miles. Throughout the day I took 2hrs off and ended up parking at 18.30.

Lovely !!!!

Brooks AB to Otay Mesa CA in depth.

Havn't done this for a while so for this trip I will write about it in depth. What time I start, mileages covered and so on.
The trip got off to a bad start and I arrived at Brooks Alberta, saturday, around noon with an empty trailer from Calgary, dropped it then went into security to find out that I was waiting for paperwork.
Got the nod at 8pm that I was good to go and picked up what must be H&r's oldest trailer, slid the axles and set off.
Ran to Lethbridge for them to sort out their side of things, ran to Milk river and parked up around midnight. Did a whopping 256 miles in around 15hrs which is not a good payday !!!
The load is classed as "in bond" which means its just transiting the USA on its way to Mexico so therefore it does not have to clear meat inspection which is a bit of a blessing but I dont receive the $30 bonus.

Left at 8am on Sunday, poured 145 gallons of fuel into Piglet (3120) at Shelby, bought a Subway sandwich and set off southbound.
Stopped at the Walmart, Helena in Montana and got some grocery's then again at Butte to check my emails.

Ran for 4hrs to Fort Hall Idaho and called it a day at the Casino on the Indian Reservation, ate and gambled a little too much then went to bed.

Did a 12.5 hour day and drove 520 miles which leaves me 932 miles to cover in 2 days which is music to my ears.