Some people are just crazy

ok so there is a saying among drivers, what is the difference between a fairy tale and a trucker's story? well one starts out "once upon a time...." and the other starts "you'll never believe this shit, but...." i start out by telling you this for the simple fact that some of these stories you are gonna read and say, "ya right i call bs", but i'm telling you these things did happen.

for example i was at one of my companies terminals out in the western states during the winter and three great stories happened:

1. i was stuck at the terminal because there was a problem with the truck. now at the time i was driving a kenworth w900 long nose tractor with a newly designed cat engine. well the shop was having a hard time figuring out what was wrong, mainly because the mechanics were all students qualifying for school credit. when the shop foreman was finally back on duty they said to him they needed to take apart the engine, fortunately the foreman said lets step back and start at the beginning so have you checked the fuel system how are the filters? turns out frozen. got bad fuel (fuel with water in it) at my last fuel stop and the filters froze in the cold weather. all of like $3 worth of parts was the only prob and they wanted to rip my truck apart.

2. there was a mentor and his student at the terminal. i talked with them for awhile then  they got a load going about 1000 miles away so they got  their stuff around and went to leave the yard. the student was driving off the yard and the mentor was riding shotgun. well back then there were these huge boulders marking the edge of the drive to prevent drivers from running over the grass, well as the mentor later told it he noticed the drift of the tractor and said you need to straighten up you're gonna hit the boulder on the right, well as we witnessed the student did not correct in time and indeed hit the boulder on the right. now this is where the story enters omg time, so the company arranges for the mentor and student to get a loaner truck to do the load and come back while the other truck is repaired. so we are talking and the loaner is ready so they head off, i continue to talk with other people till it gets late so i head off to bed. the next morning i head into the terminal and that mentor is sitting in the drivers lounge. now i know that teams can run fast but i was like there is no way you ran down to your stop and back in such a short period. he said nope someone else is finishing that load, my student got over to that big mountain pass and we were climbing up it i guess he got lazy or something because next thing i knew he was putting the nose of the loaner truck into the rear end of another companies trailer. this kid had screwed up 2 trucks in less than 12 hrs.

the last one from this trip ill tell you later. i had a long day today and need some sleep.