The end of an era, for me at least

After 11 years with Dart and about 14 on the road with nearly 2 million miles driven, I decided it was time to stay home and took another job. I was going to quit in the spring anyway so I could spend time with my family while I still can, but dart managed to push my crabby button and got me looking for a job sooner. When I got on Craig's list there were 2408 driver job openings in Minneapolis alone, so it didn't take long to find one that suited me. I called them Monday, interviewed wednesday. They gave me an offer on the spot and just like that I'll be home every day. Can't say I'm not going to miss driving and seeing the country, especially meeting all my friends from here, but being able to spend time with my grandkids will hopefully make it worth it. And when I get the itch to go somewhere too bad I can always buy a piece of equipment somewhere so I have a reason to travel. Lol

So yesterday I started my last run and should be out 10 days to 2 weeks, then start my new job. Kruzer called it my farewell tour and I guess that's about right.

I came off the road after 38 years of field service. Never thought I would say it. But at first I missed the travel,lousy food and different bed every night. But now I could never see going back to it.

Hello Jon f mn,

Good for you!!! You will have to post back and let us know how good you are doing. Mobil did that to me, pushed the right button. After I left, I took a few weeks off, and found a teaching job 8 tenth of a mile from my house. Went home for lunch every day!

Guido.

Best of luck on your new venture. Ben

Will be watching for Dart trucks !!!

Good luck on your new venture! So how does that work with the truck you just bought?

jonfmn,

Congratulations on your new job.

I'm sure it will seem different for a little while... but I'm betting that you, your wife, your kids and your grandkids are going to love it in the long run.

Wishing you a safe last run.

Jon,

Congrats on the new position. My crabby button gets pushed more often also.
It will be an adjustment for you AND the family.
Best wishes!

Larry

You won't regret it, there is nothing like being home and having local work. I spent a lot of my youth working out of town and although it was good money, there was no home life and no significant other. 15 years worth and I had enough of it. Have to own 2 of everything, pack/unpack, weekend cut short, time off was a premium. The sacrifice is substantial when a person is on the road or working out of town.

Wondering the same thing.

After 10yrs of deployments and 24yrs of over the road I have given up driving and being gone. I am probably the most content I have been in years. I get to goto church every sunday and work on the farm.

I did the same thing years ago -- never regretted it --less money less spending -- semi retired so to speak -- 65 years old now and still tinkering on tractors -- have a good one on your new adventure -- Roy

I drove truck for 35 years. I was home everyday at sometime or another except for a couple of the years where I would be gone a day at a time with just one layover. I maxed out on hours of service every week and did make good money and I do have a decent retirement. I also ran my little farming operation too. Although my biggest regret is missing out on being around as my kids grew up. I didn't realize it though until it was too late and they were all gone. So it sounds like you are making a good decision before its too late for you. The end of my era was 58 years old, 8 years ago and I have no regrets.

Coagulations! Does that mean you won't stop at the Lakeville Truck stop anymore? Ron Mn

Congratulations!!!!! I am jealous!! Have checked around numerous times for something that would let me get off the road. Just too big of a pay cut. Sometimes living in a lower population community is a disadvantage. Wish you well on your new endeavor.

Congratulations! Don't like the edit on here.

Thanks for the grin, Ron!

And the correction... cuz man, we hope he DOESN'T coagulate.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I spent 30 years herding a truck around the country, 1978-2008, mostly on the east cost, the last 10 or so local Ky, In, Tn.
Sold my last truck in 05 and drove a company rig for three more when I decided that was enough.
I did miss the traveling for a while, meeting new people and seeing new places, but I haven't missed the GW Bridge, Cross Bronx Express or 495 Belt way around DC.

I have purchased a pickup in NJ, another in St Paul, Mn, a F-800 in Indy, a 3930 Ford in Birmingham, Al and a a tractor cab in Concord, NC.
Of course I had to go pick them up after they where purchased. :lol:
Long hauling cost me a couple of good relationships and I pretty much missed the kids growing up, but now I enjoy having time with the grandkids and I stay plenty busy here on the farm.

Money is pretty tight right now for me but it just is not worth it to be gone up to a few weeks at a time. Even with the local jobs I was already seeing that the sun shined while at work and rained a lot while on the days off. Not so bad with corn but tough to combine beans especially if autumn is on the damp side.

Yup know what you mean I am closing things down due to the new communist log rules taking effect at the end of the year. I already do miss the lack of traveling and the seeing what the crops look like in other parts of the country. I also miss the cash just not the time home to do things with the wife and farm. Though I was able to pretty much take whatever time I needed for the farm during the busy season.

Congratulations Jon and good luck with the next adventure. My son drove for 20 years, nothing long haul but sometimes gone for two or three days away from his family. A couple years ago he and a friend started a feed trailer leasing company that now is successful enough that he can get out of the seat and do servicing work full time. He now has lost 20 pounds, feels better and has less back trouble. Though he puts in just as many hours as he did before and has just as much stress he is home for his family more often. If a daughter has a volleyball game he can more easily take time off to go to the game. The kids are only young once.

You deserve to take it easier. You will be glad you did it, I'm sure.

Jon ,You Deserve a daily home run ,.. on your farewell tour ,..are you comin thru Louisville???

You deserve it. Being on the road like that's no life for a family man.

Congratulations and best of luck with the new job!! I don't know how drivers can stand it being gone for days and weeks at a time. I don't like being away from my wife more than one night!! Too much of a home body I guess. Hope it works out well!!

We all have to make difficult decisions in our life time. You probably made a good one. Enjoy the new job. Stan

My guess is that I'll get by there a lot since I'll be driving sell over the metro area and much of minnesota.

It's a lease so I'll just turn it in. Not sure what that will cost yet. My last truck left me $10,000 in the hole and I still owe more than $5000 of that that I'll have to pay.

you deserve a break,,best of luck to you and your entire family

Or you could call it your victory lap.

No idea yet, but if I do I'll be sure to let you know.

I did that in 1988.
I was married for 5 years and we had just had our second kid.
Was in a bad accident where 2 people died and I was out of work hurt for 6 months.
I told myself I will NEVER go back on the road again.

I now work for a LTL line in the city.
If the urge gets to me I take a single layover to Dallas or Nashville and I am back home.
While I have seen a few; You will be hard pressed to find a truck driving job that pays better or has better benefits than LTL.

Jon, good luck on your new job. Enjoy the time with your family.

JimB

Clearly a best practices decision. It allows you to practice what you like and avoid the stress of the constant highway. Congratulations for a job well done while retaining all your parts and a good attitude. Jim

I traveled in an auto this morning for several miles on I-75 near Valdosta, Ga. and remarked to my buddy how can any one driving a big rig in these conditions keep his sanity. I guess there's a reason truckers are prohibited from carrying firearms. All you long haul truckers have my admiration and respect. TDF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ElCpHuiWkA

Congrats on the local haul job . it is nice to be home and sleep in your own bed . Now the down side is if you have a same route load after load job if you do not end up going BING BONG in a couple years that's great. I took one of them jobs many years back . Ran between Youngstown and Warren hauling COKE , no not the kind ya drink and not the stuff ya sniff . 7 loads a day 7 days a week with maybe two to four return loads . only time we got off is when the mill at either end had a problem . Then there were the days when the Coke haul ran 24 7 . same roads over and over again , only open road was from Poland Ave to Ohio Rt 46 and we got to use I680 , the rest was urban and city driving , lot of practice in gear selection, stop and go . Got to the point it was pushing me over the edge . told the boss that he either find something else for me to do or i was going to quiet . So he stuck we on keeping a concrete company stocked with stone . Yea really , this was no better as now it was all city driving 98 % of the time . Occasionally i would have to go to Thompson O. to get Pee gravel , nice ride out in the country . BUT on the weekends it was back to the Coke haul . In the winter months not much concrete work so it was the Coke haul. the straw that broke the camels back was the two snow storms in Jan. of 77 First one to hit i was on my third load for the day and it started coming down as i was getting off 680 and making my turn on to Poland Ave. with a load of BFF ( Blast Furnace Fines and the sky just opened up ) It was coming down so hard that if that Binder would have been a 4300 i would not have been able to see the grab handle on the hood . Made it into the mill and made the circle around the guard shack and gave the guard his copy of the bills and went on down to the Blast Furnace and dumped , When i came back up to the guard shack there was a small up grade and i had to cross the one road leading back to the Coke plant and it was a signal lane in and out deal. I stopped on the grade and i could not even see the guard shack a 100 foot away . I knew that there were two trucks ahead of me and they had to be in the back but Tom just may be on hhis way out . So i called on the radio and Tom said he was setting in the road way and could not see to come out and Carl was loading . So i sat there and waited . Snow let up for a little bit and here comes Tom out with a load and i called Carl and asked if he was moving and he said he was only a 1/4 loaded and to come on back in . Between the snow and all the steam you could not see and it took me about fifteen min.s to get back in . I got under the shoot as Carl only made it a couple hundred feet before he could not see with the next round of white out .I got loaded and pulled out and was setting behind Carl and you could not see ten feet . when it let up to where we could see and were just getting ready to pull out the one Foreman came up to my truck and said we are shutting down and tell the rest not to come back it's getting to bad and unsafe for trucks and we are switching to rail. FINE BY ME . Carl pulled out and was gone while i was talking to the foreman . and here comes the next round of white out . I had the biggest trailer on the haul and i could get five to eight thousand pounds more on plus i had a lift axle and i could keep it up and dump more weight on the drives . I could here on the C B that 680 had turned into a junk yard and Carl had made it up onto 680 and got hit by a straight truck . SOOOOo the only way to warren was down over the market st bridge and make a left on Ft. St. and over to 422 up to 169 up to Warren and the mill . 2 hours and 45 min.s later as i was coming down 169 and setting at the traffic light by the bosses house and our parking spot i backed in and called it a day . And here comes the boss yelling and screaming because i came in loaded and not delivered the load. And i told him flat out that after two hours and 45 min to get here loaded that my life or someone elses life was not worth the 200 dollars that that load paid. Then his other truck comes in empty and being empty Bob could not back in off the street and i had to use my four wheel drive pick up to drag him in , when Bob stepped out of the truck he plum lost it on john . I went on home and even with a 3/4 ton four wheel drive with really good big meaty tires the 21 mile drive home took me three hours . We got like 27 inches of snow on that round . I put my plow on and went plowing and i got a call from a friends wife to come down and plow out there lane so her husband could get in with his truck and in the doing so i slide off there lane down into a revane and had to call for help to get up and out of there , while doing this i found the weak point in my truck and blew the spider gears ion the ft. rear end . Then Thursday we had the Blizzard hit and i got trapped five miles from my house . And had to spend the night at a buddys place . Next day Mike and i had the only two trucks that could get around I had the ft. end fixed and was back in operation with four hours of work and 27 dollars in parts. anyway Mike and i worked non stop digging people out of snow drifts , hauling fuel of all kinds , taking food in to stranded people dug our way in to a couples home to get them out and there daughter to the hospital , while Mike was doing that i went ahead of them and started cutting a path up St. Rt 9 one drift was huge over top of the bubble gum on top the cab of a 73 F250 I blasted a hole thru it 7 and a half feet wide when the state truck could not put a dent in it ( he just did not hit it fast enough . Like i said we worked non stop till around five on Monday when i went home and died . Most north south roads were still closed and around 3 in the morning on tuesday my boss callls and say Coke is starting at FIVE i live 21 miles SOUTh and John and i had short hostl works when he told me you have four wheel dirve you be here , ah you are 100 feet from my truck and the key are in the ignition so you set in the dinniing room looking out the windwon and if i am not there at FIVE then YOU drive the blanky blankty thing yourself and hung up . Tried the oil field till Aug and that drove me to buy my own truck .

Best of luck to you. I hope it works out well and you are happy. If you don't have time to find daily funnies we will survive, lol. Take care of yourself and your family.

Congratulations Jon. I always tell people that you gotta do what is best for you! I work for a massive corporate global company now and am really getting tired of all the politics involved. Massive companies in my mind are not concerned about little people, just about profits I think. Good luck to you. Family should come first. I hope all goes well and hope you have more time for your family, friends and farming too.
Kow Farmer Kurt

I'll have to keep on eye open on the local roads. Let us know what you're driving so we can get out of the way. Hope to see more of you at the local shows.

I'll add, Jon, you and the rest of the long haulers have to be made of tough stuff. The work isn't hard physically in a way but in another way it's very physically taxing on the body. The hours, the food, the sleep routine are never regular unless you have a dedicated route and even that is tough. I commend you guys and gals for transporting the products we have so readily available to us.

That's why I like hauling logs. People just seem to be afraid of them and want to get away from them. Still the idiots out front though.

Best of luck to you in your new adventures.

How well I remember those days. When the first one hit I was in Michigan on my honeymoon and just made it back home. I knew I had to get back because Dad could not handle what was coming. Then 2 weeks later the second one hit and we were without power for 7 days. I live in northwest Ohio. The day before Jan 7 was shirt sleeve weather, then rain in afternoon-evening and froze over night. Heading north on a 4 lane in Michigan decent driving untill saw a salt truck coming from the other way and at that time the roads turned to ice. Turned around and headed home and part way home snow got so heavy could hardly see to drive. Later found was only 20 mile from where we were headed to a friends place. Wife remembered things to her diying day.

Best of luck Jon. I feel honored to have met you and had breakfast with you in Princeton, West Virginia a couple of years ago. If you ever get back through this part of the world again,let me know.

Don't blame you at all.

Hope all works out well, sounds like a good decision.

Good for you. Bet them grand kids are going to be some spoilt little guys.

Life is short at the best, so we need to make the most of it on our way round.

I enjoy your posts.

Good luck.

I was an owner operator dirt dummy for two years until construction stopped in '07. I now drive part time for some friends. I make a lot less per hour, but somehow what I get to keep is much greater per hour. I am sure that you will soon wish that you had done it sooner.

I hope you do well Jon.

Congrats John. You deserve it.

(quoted from post at 12:34:13 10/07/17) If you don't have time to find daily funnies we will survive, lol.

Click to expand...

Speak for yourself!
I've grown quite accustomed to reading his daily funny with my morning coffee. :lol:


John

Congrats Jon,

It's seemed like you weren't real happy there for awhile. Glad you're being proactive and getting out on your own terms. Adjusting to change, and second guessing, can be hard. Go with your heart, full speed ahead!

Truck drivers are NOT prohibited from carrying firearms. At least no federal ban. Simply must abide by the federal and local laws that apply to non drivers

Good for you Jon. I am a home body myself,I don't mind a night away once in a while, however it's nice to be home. Just think more home time is more Case time. And no more Ohio coffee hot chocolate conflict lol.

Good luck! I think you did the right thing. Please continue to entertain us daily with a laugh.

Congrats, Jon. Time with the grandkids is priceless. I hope this doesn't mean the end of today's funnies.

Then under those restrictions that would pretty well preclude a long haul driver from being armed, n'est pas? TDF

Yeah, well I'm in Columbus tomorrow so......

Hey jon. There is life after the road. Life s to short to put up with the sh!t an over the road driver put s up with. To me local isn t much better. Good luck on your new adventure. Hope you can do the things you want to do now. Enjoy the grand kids and CASE equipment. RB

Congratulations. I don't know you, but I'm positive you will enjoy your home life.

I wrote a few months ago my daughter had started driving. She has her license now, did her 30,000 miles and is in the process of getting her own company truck this week. I hope she is successful and safe as those of you here that have chosen this profession. She seems very happy.

Not really. My CCDW license is honored in 36 states. Plus some states have a "Constitutional Carry" law. If you can legally own it, you can carry it. Only have issues in the states that don't believe in the second amendment and refuse to honor out of state license. Even those are required to provide for "transport "across that state.

Good for you Jon. You are doing what is important. Best to you in your new "adventure". John

Jon, I hope you really enjoy the new career. I had sort of the same thing happen to me as you did, when I not only changed jobs, but my profession as well. It was hard to walk away from what I went to school for, and had spent 9 years doing, but I am so glad I did. I learned a lot at the other job, and wouldn't give up most of the experiences there, but this job fits me so much better, and I just love it. I hope yours new job fits you much better as well.

Ross

I applaud you, if that is what you need to do. I am at the end of my first year driving. My wife passed away over 2 years ago and I lost my last job. I spent over 40 years growing callouses where it counts in my previous career.. Driving is both a new job and a new career. Quite often I wonder if I made the right decision. 25 states I have visited. 120,000 miles more or less. I still have your number and you never know if I may call you for advise. Roy

Best of luck with the new job. You did well at the old one and you'll do good at this too.

Okay, I'll shut up. I still respect most truck drivers anyhow. TDF

never did get time to show you around the farm ...if you get throu here give us aholler ..