Never-ending Boobery
Last time I was online we were running FEMA loads to KY. The boobery when dealing with the federal government is quite high, but never forget that whatever the government can do private enterprise can do it so much better. That apparently goes for boobery, too. We got taken off the FEMA runs and put on a 4,500 mile trip. Definitely the longest single run I’ve ever had.
The start of the trip was in Memphis so we deadheaded (drove empty) to Memphis to pick up the load. Everything went well in Memphis this time and we headed to the LA area for the first stop. Got to LA without anything of interest happening and found our way to the first stop. It turned out to be a drop-and-hook which was a nice surprise. Then they even had one of our empty trailers that we could take which was an even bigger and even nicer surprise. So we hooked up to the empty and headed out. Our next stop was about 20 miles away but didn’t pick up until the next morning.
I decided to surprise Stace and go to what is probably one of her top three favorite restaurants in the entire country. We stumbled across it about a year ago when were were stuck in LA for a couple days and haven’t been able to get back there since, but I was pretty sure I remembered how to find it. Oh… I know I could have gotten my computer down and looked up street names in the general area that I knew it was, but that would have given away the surprise. Besides, I generally just assume I can find something if I’ve been there before. So evening rush hour in LA we head out trying to find the Thai Food place we ate at a year ago….
No dice. I thought sure I knew how to find it, but it just wasn’t happening. And it was wall to wall traffic so there wasn’t even any place that I could pull over to look at the computer after finally admitting failure. I decided to go ahead and go to our next stop and see if they would let us drop the empty trailer in a dock door so we didn’t have to worry about dragging it around and then let us come back there later and sleep over night since our appointment was for 09:00 in the morning. Then I was going to look up the location of mystery Thai Food place and head back up there.
Found the next stop ok, but they didn’t want us to leave the trailer or to sleep there over-night because they had a security guard that patrolled their lot every 50 minutes and he wouldn’t like a truck there all night. Sigh. One of the dock guys did give me the heads-up on the local streets that trucks usually parked on at night, though. And I did sit in their lot long enough to figure out how to get back to the Thai Food Place. I was only two blocks away earlier when I finally gave it up. Damn! Two blocks away!
So off we flew crawled back up the interstate. Found the right street and made our way to “Hooker Alley” which is what we call an alley where hookers bring their Johns. We sat there one night last year and watched probably 20 different vehicles pull into this little alley that is only about a block and a half long and park for anywhere between five to fifteen minutes with their lights off. Then they would roar off without turning their lights back on. I guess it could have been drug deals, but I prefer to think it was the domain of a couple of hard working Working Ladies or possibly Working Guys. Anyway, it is a very quite street — except for the occasional Ho — so we were able to drop our empty without being too worried about it getting stolen.
Then off to the Thai Food which was every bit as good as we had remembered. Woo Hoo! After an excellent meal, we picked up our empty and headed back to the shipper to find the secret sleeping spots the dock guys had told me about. Idiots! Both of the spots they told me about had red curbs. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever parked against a red curb…. let me tell you what happens if you do. A police officer may get peeved if a four-wheeler parks against a red curb. But he has a conniption if a truck does it. His face gets real red. He starts sputtering. As he tries to pull his ticket-book out of his pocket he starts jumping up and down. Suddenly a normally very dignified officer of the law looks an awful lot like Yosemite Sam. I wasn’t parking there and I couldn’t find anyplace else to park, either. Ended up going to the shipper and parking there. Hoped the guard wouldn’t harass us too much and would let us stay…
This is the end of part one of Boobery-Never-Ending-Trip and the actual Boobery hasn’t even started yet. Stay tuned for Day 2 in LA.
probably a stupid question, but when you ‘drop an empty’, do you have to go back to pick it up? Then you buy a truck, does it come with one of those, or do you just pic up those from other places?
Normally you do go back and pick up the same empty you dropped, but sometimes TWMNBN wants us to “spot” our empty which means we take our empty trailer to some business that needs one. We drop our empty there and go someplace else to find a different empty trailer for our own load.
Spotting an empty sucks because it is almost always done in big cities during rush hour and they almost never pay us all the miles it took to find a second empty after we spotted ours.
If you’re an O/O it depends. O/Os who are leased on with a company such as TWMNBN just use regular company trailers. O/Os such as those who drive for Landstar will either rent a trailer from Landstar or buy their own. O/Os with their own authority have to buy their own trailers.
There are advantages to either. If you own your own trailer you never have to worry about going on a 4 hour empty hunt. But you never get to drop and hook, either. And you have to pay for all the maintenance and upkeep as well.
I don’t care — if we ever strike out on our own I want to buy our own trailer. Then I’m going to have under-carriage boxes installed on it so I can carry a couple of lawn chairs, a bike, and a grill and charcoal.
Hedon you are so funny! I’ve seen plenty of spare tires in racks under the trailer, but never picnic supplies + bike.
LA is one of the worst places for boobery. I delivered there once to a WalMart DC, and of course couldn’t park there because I was not a WM driver…so the guard told me where the nearest WM was. I parked there, but while I slept I kept hearing rattling of shopping carts. I slept best I could, but when I woke up the next morning there were shopping carts UPSIDE down all around my tractor. Nice. I just pushed them out of the way with my tractor and left, but please, there is zero parking in LA, yet they keep ordering trucks full of more product.
Ugh – California’s parking is horrible – even AT the truckstops.
We went to the port in Long Beach and found a nice quiet side street the first night and for the weekend, we stayed at the parking lot of Home Depot in Signal Hill. Perfect place, right off the 405 and plenty of room for trucks. They even let us use their hose to get water for our shower and sink!!
I talked to the manager and he was very accomodating.
Totally off topic here, but in watching the news about the tornadoes in Oklahoma yesterday, they mentioned that one of the fatalities was a truck driver who was passing through. Which made me wonder… Do semis come equipped with weather radios and if not, why not? It seems that being in constant touch with the weather would be of great importance in a job like that. So I thought I’d ask the only truck drivers I currently know.
It seems like every truck we’ve had has included a radio where you could access the weather band. What is better, though, is our CB, which will automatically turn itself on and emit a bloodcurdling screech whenever we enter an area that is currently under a warning for severe weather. This is meant to let you know that you should turn the CB to the weather band and hear the latest warnings.
If you survive your screech-induced heart attack, then you are now in a position to survive the weather as well.
I guess one has to wonder if that guy had his radio OFF. I spent 7 and a half years living in Oklahoma, where tornadoes were a normal part of life, with two major interstates going through town. I always wondered when I lived there, how these guys fare. Was there a radio alert or did they just keep their eyes open? Since one of the tornadoes I was in was at night, I was hoping there was a radio solution.
I’d, too, have to guess that he had his radio off. I think after a while, some of these guys out here get lackadaisical about what they are driving, and forget about the dangers.
That’s why I like our CB — it won’t let us get complacent. Once a few years ago, on a night in Kansas City, the CB alerted us to a tornado warning in the area. We were able to track the tornado, and discovered it was less than a mile from us. We changed course to avoid it, and were prepared to stop, run and hit the ditch if need be.
That driver in Oklahoma paid too high a price for not spending about $70 on a decent CB.