This is a new trailer for this driver.  Normally, he pulls trailers with hydraulic necks.  He forgot that this one didn’t have a hydraulic neck, so we dragged flat bottom right across the road at the intersection.  Fortunately, these two roads are not heavily traveled.  In the three hours we worked to free ourselves, we saw maybe six vehicles.  There is a gravel pulloff at that intersection, so traffic was able to get around us.  Finally, my friend and partner Dave Hibbard went into Del Rio to a hardware store and got some big timber.  With that, we were able to get backed up and approached the road from a different angle.  As bad as today was, tomorrow has GOT to be better!

Next up is the issue of how to get through NM.  We have about three options to get from El Paso to Cortez, CO.  The load actually is going to central California, by way of NM, CO, UT, NV and CA.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to complete this trip.  I have a medical appointment on Thursday in Big Spring, TX.  I will try to get them through the Albuquerque area, providing we can get through there on Tuesday…but I will have to break free after that. It is a shame.  This will wind up being about a 2800 mile trip…PLUS it is going to an area of California where I have never been before.  That’s life!  This is a medical appointment I’ve been waiting for about six weeks for.

We made it to Eldorado, TX.  There is one motel and it certainly is NOT the Fairmont!  We got in too late for the one known restaurant…so I had mystery meat (they called it chicken strips), and some milk.  Now, I’m heading for bed!  We leave at 6:30 AM.

The rear escort brought a trainee today.  I think that is great!  I really think his new boss is doing the wise thing by actually training this young man before putting him in a truck and pushing him out in front of or behind a load.

This young man got a terrific education today.  He saw a broad range of the types of things that an escort needs to know.  We ran high pole on the interstates, through some urban environment, and on skinny two lane roads.  He got to see how blind even truck drivers can be.  On one two lane road, our wide and high load was crossing a skinny bridge.  I was in front with two sets of wig-wags running, plus my four ways, headlights and police style lightbar going…and I was 3/4′s of the way into the other lane and waving my hand at an oncoming truck driver who completely ignored me.  Self preservation being what it is, I got out of his way and warned our truck driver that this truck was NOT going to stop.  When the oncoming truck driver got over the hill and saw my load, he hit the brakes and went into the ditch.  The new trainee had a chance to learn that no matter what we do, even professional truck drivers ignore us at everyone’s peril.

He also had a chance to see some great teamwork.  The rear escort (a woman who also is a big truck driver) anticipated the driver’s every need, kept me informed about speed changes, talked the driver through tight turns…the entire gamut.  This one day was almost a complete training session.  Imagine what he’s going to learn tomorrow when we go through a densely populated metropolitan area such as Las Vegas tomorrow.

After leaving that load, I came back to Albuquerque to perform a route survey for a 23 foot wide load going into Colorado on US 285.  I thought it would be relatively easy, but I found that several different construction sites in the Santa Fe area that nixed that idea.  So, I’ve had to be creative.  I will finish up that survey tomorrow and then return to Gallup to resume that load.

I’ve been asked to come up with a chase escort for this load to Nevada.  Getting a decent escort for the price they want to pay is not easy.  We all are between a rock and a hard spot.  The big trucking companies set the rates which they will pay, acknowledging that fuel prices have gone up dramatically but they are holding their rates.  It is understandable.  With the economy wilting the way it is, shippers know they can demand cheap rates because the companies need the business.  The same is with us:  the trucking companies know we need the business, so they hold the prices artificially low.  This makes it difficult for small pilot car companies and newly established ones to survive.

The best we can do is to try to minimize our costs, maximize our profits, and do what we can to stay in business at reasonble, profitable rates.  There is a danger in overpricing ourselves out of the market.  One trucking company instructed their pilot car brokers to not hire escorts out of our area because our rates are more than they want to pay.  It is foolish economy.  I know of one load where the high pole escort could not get certified in NM and the chase almost didn’t get certified.  The end results was that the load was delayed for more than four hours until a replacement high pole escort could get to the load…and the load will be a day late, as a result.