Out w/ TE… The Final Days

Wednesday, 10/25:

The qualcomm had our next load when I woke up this morning, and had us headed for New Orleans, LA.  That didn’t exactly fit too well with our planned drop-off in Charlotte tomorrow, and when Val got to the truck he hit the ceiling and immediately left again to call his STL.  I’m not sure what was said when he called, but almost at the same time as he got back in the truck the qualcomm beeped again with a change of assignment.  Now we’re picking up a loaded trailer in Atlanta and dropping it off for relay in Charlotte.

We finally got going around 9am with Curtis at the wheel and made the Atlanta OC by 11:30.  We dropped off our loaded trailer (already assigned as a relay) and took a lunch break.  Around 12:45 we headed out again to pick up our next load and head home!

I took the wheel in Brasselton, Ga. and had us at the Charlotte OC by 8pm.  It only took about 30min. to drop the trailer and gather my stuff from the truck, then I was on my way home.  We’ll have to come in tomorrow to finish up a few things w/ Val, but our TE trip was over for the most part.

Thursday, 10/26:

Val and I met at the OC a few minutes before 7, our agreed meeting time.  After waiting until about 7:15 with no word from Curtis, he sent me out to do a 4 point check on the truck and bring it to the fuel island to top it off.  Curtis came dragging in while I was doing that but had forgotten to bring his paperwork, so Val sent him back home to try again.

In the mean time he had me couple a trailer and go through several backing scenarios we hadn’t experienced while on the road.  I could tell that I was starting to get the hang of this monster, guiding it into the designated slots without much problem at all.

After about an hour of that I uncoupled the trailer and we headed back to the cafeteria where Curtis was waiting.  I spent the next hour or so sitting in the back of the cab while Val put him through the same backing drills.

Once that was finished we pulled to the vacuum cleaner where Curtis and I cleaned out Val’s truck and gathered up whatever personal belongings we had missed the night before.  That was followed by about 45 min. of going through our TE packets to make sure we had covered everything in the past two weeks.

We stopped to grab lunch at the cafeteria while Val took time out to do our final evaluations.  Once he was done he took us individually to a ‘one-on-one’ room to give us our final feedback.  I was pleased with my eval, and Val had some nice things to say about my performance and improvement during the trip.

And that was that; we shook hands and said goodbye, and I was off until next Tuesday when I return for SQT.