West of the Mississippi

[DannyD]

In this incarnation of expediting I've noticed on thing that hasn't happened when I was in this before. There's a lot more runs that leave the midwest. That part of things is good. I'm finding I like longer runs better than the 300 or so milers.

The bad news in this is I'm finding that when I get west of the Mississippi, I never get anything back. So far the best I've done in terms of getting back is a DH of a lil over 500 miles before getting a run. Check that, I did get a lil run from Houston to Dallas, then the 500 mile DH before the next one. Overall though, going west has not been profitable for me in the least.

It could be bad decisions on my part, bad luck, bad timing. I'm not sure, hence me asking here. It seems from the experiences I've had though, that taking something west of the Mississippi is a bad business decision.

What is your thought process when offered a run out west somewhere?

 

[nightcreacher]

maybe its the carrier your with.and where you are west of the big muddy

 

[x06col]

It would most likely have something to do with the Carrier, or more precisely the load hunting crew of the Carrier. The importance of a Companys effort to network with the freight world cannot be over emphasized. If you are with a company of telephone anserwers and board watchers, versus a company of telephone users and board searchers, the the difference in results can be significant. Seems when you nix a Company for one reason, you should prolly nix the next Company for anuther reason. Seems the don't wannas will ALWAYS get you in the end.

 

[redytrk]

The size of your unit matters. Tractor Trailers can usually get loaded back. "D"s pretty good, For "C"s and "B" you can pretty well forget it.

 

[x06col]

Running for fedup I completely understand where you are comming from.

 

[guido4475]

I wont go out there in a van,it just doesnt make sense to me.I stay east of 35.I might go to Iowa,but that's about it.I've always had to deadhead back or sit too long going out there, so once bitten, twice shy.I am doing very well running where I am.

 

[jujubeans]

But west of the Mississippi is the ONLY place to live!

 

[layoutshooter]

But west of the Mississippi is the ONLY place to live!

I won't not quite go that far. Where we live offers much, other than the politics. Lots of water, great fishing, good hunting, hiking, swimming, boating, scuba diving, ice fishing, and the list is never ending.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Never had a problem getting loaded out of the mid west...Tulsa,
KC, Omaha anywhere in Iowa, Missouri is good even Minnisota,Luck of the Scotch I guess...

 

[OntarioVanMan]

I won't not quite go that far. Where we live offers much, other than the politics. Lots of water, great fishing, good hunting, hiking, swimming, boating, scuba diving, ice fishing, and the list is never ending.

We can do all that and still be conservative...

 

[Jack_Berry]

we dropped in so-cal and sat that day and the next two then headed back east to eloy. got a call for tucson p-u that took us to nor cal. spent the weekend in lebec(near the top of the grapevine) and got an import load from so-cal going to ark.

loads are possible. who do you drive for?

 

[layoutshooter]

We can do all that and still be conservative...

No you can't!! I have been through South Dakota, looked at maps. Seen it from the air. South Dakota is a water impaired state!!! LOL!! Not much for vast expanses of wood lands either. You have a lot of stuff to be sure, but not as much of so many different things.

 

[letzrockexpress]

The size of your unit matters.

Yeah, I keep hearing that on the radio...They say Enzyte works pretty good.

 

[layoutshooter]

Ok OVM, here is the poop, the whole poop and nothing but the poop. South Dakota, 1,100 square miles of water within it's boundries. Michigan has over 40,000. Michigan has more than 36,000 miles of river and streams. I can't find the figure for South Dakota.

 

[jujubeans]

Ok OVM, here is the poop, the whole poop and nothing but the poop. South Dakota, 1,100 square miles of water within it's boundries. Michigan has over 40,000. Michigan has more than 36,000 miles of river and streams. I can't find the figure for South Dakota.

But Michigan also has Detroit..*LOL*

 

[layoutshooter]

But Michigan also has Detroit..*LOL*

Yeah, nothing is perfect, but hey!! It might not be there long if it keeps it up!! Just imagine, restoring all that lost wetland area!!

Some more for you OVM, I don't rag on your lovely wife, just you!! Michigan is 2nd only to Alaska in water surface. South Dakota is 30th in the country for water surface. It also has the longest area of FRESH WATER coast line in the country.

Check this site out. It's fun!!!


50states.com - States and Capitals

 

[greg334]

South Dakota is a water impaired state!!!

The entire state of Michigan is common sense impaired, so there is a trade off.

I think I would rather see Michigan return to open spaces instead of what it has turned out to be. Detroit is trying hard to make that happen, they want to concentrate citizens by condemning their houses and forcing them to relocate - must have some Chinese officials in Bing's office?

By the way Layout, I sat through an hour of environmentalist crap today. It was a very interesting time, seeing that the two sponsoring professors were met with a lot of opposition on their position within their own little world. It seems that they were clear that we must "preserve nature as it was and is today" but the problem is as one of the opponents pointed out that as man, we can't control, preserve or regulate a world that we are a part of. Their point was simply that nature is in flux, always changing and as man being one of many destructive animals, we are not Gods. It was a pretty good discussion and these opponents made a very good case on limiting preservation by man and letting nature actually act as nature.

 

[layoutshooter]

Nature cannot be controlled. Some of the damage that man has done can be. We can restore wetlands, they are VERY important to man as well as nature. We can never restore them all. We are not doing a good job today.

We can stop new invasive species from getting into the Great Lakes, that is not that difficult nor very expensive. Ridding the Lakes of invasive species is a different kettle of fish so to speak. Far more difficult and expensive. It might pay in the long run to work on that, hard to say. There are many schools of though on this subject and I tend to sort of fall in the middle. I do know one thing for sure, it has taken about 300 years to mess it up to the point we have now. It will NOT be fixed in 5.

Detroit is a lost cause. Restore the wetlands, send those who live there to California. Let Arnold deal with them.

 

[Turtle]

I just spent the last 6 weeks west of the Rockies, and did rather well.

 

[DannyD]

I drive a B unit, so that's some of the challenge. I work for Metro now, but even when I worked for 2 companies simultaneously before the challenge was the same.

Metro has some pretty good dispatchers from what I can gather. From what I can tell they're pro-active. They're the ones who told me to stop in Tn (from that satellite post). There was one mix up in communication yesterday, but that was my fault.

I appreciate the comments. From the comments on here & my recent experiences I'm inclined to think it's just better business to stay east of the Mississippi for the most part.