Houston, TX

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there! This year there are three special guys.  My dad, and of course J, and then there is our son-in-law who is celebrating his first Father's Day as a Dad!!  After we dropped this load here in Houston, we grabbed a shower and went to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner.  I am so full right now.  As soon as I get this all typed up, it is time for bed.

I kind of feel like we are going in circles.  I should get used to it though since we run from terminal to terminal and not customer to customer.  We got our first load on June 9th out of Columbus.  Here is a list of where we have been.

Columbus to Cleveland
Cleveland to Pittsburg
Pittsburg to Chicago
Chicago to Phoenix
Phoenix to Los Angeles
Los Angeles to Chicago
Chicago to Phoenix
Phoenix to El Paso
El Paso to Los Angeles
Los Angeles to Houston

We delivered to Houston at 1:00 PM CST and we have a load coming out of here going to El Paso that should be ready around midnight.

It looks like in about 12 days we have covered close to 11,000 miles.  I did have two shifts where I didn't drive at all due to the loads not being ready and we got a complete restart on our hours when we spent the night in Genoa, IL with my closest high school friend and her husband.  I guess actual working days is has been about 9 working days.  I think it is safe to day that we are covering some ground!

For those of you that are not familiar with the transportation industry, there are a ton of regulations.  For instance, you can not work more that 70 hours in an 8 day period.  Once you have hit your 70 hours, you have to stop and completely reset your hours.  We call this a "re-start" and this is done by taking 34 hours off and not working.  You can also gain hours back.  Every 8 days, the 1st day falls off, and you gain those hours back to your 70 that you would be available to work.  It is confusing and I am not going to try to explain it! LOL  If you are interested, you can Google it! :)  J and I can do what is called a rolling re-start where he would start his re-start in the Sleeper Berth while I am driving.  After my shift, I would have to park for 24 hours.  Then J can take off driving because he has had his 34 off.  I would finish my re-start in the Sleeper Berth while he is driving.  It is a little easier for teams because we only have to "sit" for 24 hours, where a solo driver has to sit the whole 34.

They also have regulations on how much we can drive and how long we can work.  You can only drive for 11 hours.  You can only work for 14 hours.  You have to take a minimum 10 hour break before your 11 hour and 14 hour clock will restart.  Out of that 10 hour break, you have to have at least 8 of those hours logged in the Sleeper Berth.  

A new one that has come about since we were last driving is the mandatory 30 minute break during your 11 hours of drive time.  DOT regulations state that you have to have a 30 minute break BEFORE you have been driving for 8 hours.  If you are on electronic logs, like we are, and you go 1 minute over the 8 hours, it will flag you with a violation.  UGH!  More stuff to remember.  I don't really feel like we need to take that break.  Of course, I am a woman, so during that first 8 hours I probably stop twice to go to the restroom, so it isn't like I drive for 8 hours straight!  But I know some people do that, and then they get fatigued and get in accidents, so we have them to thank for more regulations.  

I suppose that is all for today.  J will pick up this load and we will head to El Paso.  We have to have it there by 16:10 hours and it is only 753 miles so it will be a piece of cake!