Ellen and I are fortunate enough to enjoy a Dedicated Run. For those who don't know what that is; Drivers, especially Driver Teams can occasionally be given a load to haul from one place to the other and back again - always the same customer - always the same route. That is a dedicated run.

Our run begins in Salem, Illinois at the Con-way Freight yard and takes us directly to the Con-way Freight Yard in Laredo, Texas. Once we have delivered there we go next door to the Con-way Truckload yard and pick up a load bound for Pocahontas, Illinois where we deliver it to our drop yard for another Driver to carry on later. After a quick (51 mile) deadhead to Salem we begin the route again. Not only do we keep running and therefore not waste time and potential productivity at the weekend we take the load to Con-way Truckload's Headquarters in Joplin, where we live, and take a day and a half off at home. We make three turns of the run one week and two the next week which means we arrive home on either Friday or Saturday depending on the number of turns.

Most OTR Drivers spend 3-4 weeks on the road before coming home but as Drivers on a Dedicated Run we enjoy being home for a short time every weekend. Obviously there are certain advantages to this kind of work in the trucking industry. Firstly we get plenty of miles and we know almost exactly how many miles we will get from week to week and secondly we are able to take care of the things that home ownership requires. Take our grass for example, it never gets so tall that we unintentionally invite a tribe of Pygmies to move in.

This is Memorial Day Weekend so there is a change to the normal routine, normally we would be in Laredo on Monday but because of the holiday they don't want it until Tuesday. Last week was our short week, only two turns, next week should be our long week with three turns but instead we will spend an extra day at home making next week another short one. I think we are happy with that but before I decide that happiness is a good idea in this situation I will check with Ellen and make sure that is okay.

Next week we have a crew coming in to install Solar Panels on our roof and since it is during the week we will not be here to see it all come together but we will have someone here to make sure everything goes as it should. We will be able to check on the work when we come home next weekend.

We are in a good position at Con-way Truckload and enjoy our lives.

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