It would seem that everything was conspiring against me to NOT make it to the 2nd receiver yesterday. Six hours at the first receiver. Actually more than that but thanks to HOS I couldn't really start the official waiting period until 6am...I was actually there all night waiting in line with the rest of the trucks. One guy had been there since 6 pm the previous day so I guess I can't complain TOO much...but I'm going to anyway. My dispatcher made a phone call and not too long after I got called down to dock. Got all snug in my assigned doc...went inside to check in...WRONG DOCK! That dock was for chicken loads only and I had beef. No dock for you! Go sit by the fence. More waiting...then FINALLY into a dock where I belonged. And finally unloaded.
Stopped to get fuel at a Pilot. Used the Comdata card...told it I wanted both reefer and tractor fuel. Didn't really pay attention to the screen and started to fill up. That damned thing cut off at about 25 gallons. Tried to run the card again and it told me to see the cashier. So I went in and the damned pump had only given me reefer fuel and I was pumping in the tractor. ARGH!!! He was able to get the tractor fuel set back up for me but no reefer...there was a two hour wait on the card before you could get reefer fuel again. No biggie. I had half a tank...it could wait until I got close to the destination.
BUT on the way to the Pilot this light that looks like an engine symbol lit up on my dash. Not long after the check engine light is on. Pulled out of the fuel island and found someplace to sit for a few while I called the shop about it. After much discussion and trying a few different things the shop decided the tractor needed to go to a shop to be looked at. So the only place they could find that was in the direction of the next receiver was in Knoxville...an hour and a half away. Got over there and after several hours of waiting they finally put the machine on it to read the codes. It's an issue with the stupid regen. It had already started shutting down "zones" as they told me. If I had kept going it would have shut down the truck completely at some point. So! The truck was going to be there overnight for them to look at it. Continental paid for me to stay at the Motel 6 (as they have a shuttle that runs from the Freightliner Dealer to their motel).
Took a wonderful shower after sweating all day. Ate some dinner at the Ihop (because I can't miss an opportunity to hit one up since there isn't one in my home city). Came back to the room and got to sleep to wake up an hour later VERY sick). Doing better this morning but tired as hell now.
So that's the end of my update for this morning. I have to get dressed and get my crap together to take the shuttle back over the dealer.
Stay safe my friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment