Flying J Barstow

We all have our own ways of doing this "OTR Trucking" thing, this is the way I do it, it may not be perfect but it works for me.

First i get a proposed load assignment, this basically tells me what they would like me to do, it gives me the following information.

• Name and address of shipper (sender)
• Date & time of collection
• Trailer number, temperature and reefer mode.
• Name and address of consignee (reciever)
• Date and time of delivery

I then look at the map and see if its possible to be in the 2 places, considering, time, distance, road conditions and my available working hours, if all is okay then i commit to the job and relook at how i am going to do it, this is where the laptop and Microsoft Streets & Trips comes into its own.

I program the route in and it tells me the distance and time. I have already got Flying J's programmed in so i can see them along the route, i pick out the ones that are about 10 hours or about 500 to 600 miles apart and those are going to be my nightly stops. Sometimes a Flying J isnt convenient or its off route or its too close or just too far away. I then look for other options, these would be Pilot, TA or another Travel Plaza and i always try to use the ones that i carry rewards cards for as this is how i get all these free showers and coffees. Another thing to concider is how busy the Plaza gets, some of them you can get a parking space 24-7, others are full by 18:00.

The most critical stop is the last one, i always like to get within 100 miles of my delivery location, and closer the better, this is the one i aim to be at the night before the delivery, i will always try to get to a propper Plaza so i can get a shower, shave and good brush up so you look smarter where you turn up at the customer, this is one of the differencies between a good driver and a bad driver.

Another concideration is your fueling stops, i dont worry too much about fueling where i pull up for the night, i plan my fuel stops separately and yes you guessed it, i try to fuel at a J, this isnt always possible so next choice is Pilot and TA after that, i always try to keep 2 showers on my J card.

The H&R trucks dont have large fuel tanks, the reason being it wastes valuable cargo weight on the drives and steers and we dont always get too much choice when and where we can fuel and here is the reason.

North America has 2 types of gas station, retail for car drivers and Cardlocks for commercial traffic. We have a girl back at the office whos sole job is to search for the cardlocks with the cheapest fuel and she unlocks them and those are the ones we have to use, our sattelite gives us a list of all the available ones, listed alphabetically by State or Province.

Anyway, here is a couple of pics from my last stop in California, this is where i stayed the night before my delivery, the town is called Barstow.

Barstow is about 100miles East of Los Angeles, its a medium sized town by California standards, very windy and dusty, a real desert type atmosphere, the J was quite good, clean showers and restrooms, shop was well stocked and the staff very polite and helpfull.

A nice place.