The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Truck Treks, Frosty Fixes, and Holiday Picks: Our Seasonal Adventures on the Road!
Ever found yourself wrestling with a frozen truck lock, desperately wishing you had a magic solution? We’ve been there, and in this episode, we share our unorthodox yet effective tricks for surviving the bitter winter chill on the road. From the inefficiency of gloves against icy steering wheels to our wardrobe mishaps that make for a good laugh, we promise to keep your spirits warm with stories of camaraderie and innovation. Eric, Patrick, Chili, Buttermilk, and Jerry—your trusty hosts—aren’t afraid to reveal their quirks as they trade tales of battling the freeze while keeping their wheels rolling.
As the holiday season rolls around, trucking takes on a whole new flavor, and we’re here to chat about the balancing act of work and family time. Ever wondered how we manage to squeeze in a Thanksgiving feast or explore the joy of outdoor mall festivities amid tight schedules? We unravel the challenges and triumphs of holiday trucking, sharing strategies for finding those rare high-paying loads and the importance of recharging with loved ones. Whether it’s a festive buffet at Kinley 95 or a heartwarming tale of camping under the stars, we capture the essence of holiday adventures on the road.
Coffee, anyone? The aroma of a perfect brew wafts through our conversations as we reminisce about life-changing decisions made over steaming cups. From savoring a morning ritual in a scenic Mexican hotel to debating the intricacies of Carrier and Thermo King refrigeration units, we cover it all with a blend of humor and nostalgia. Join us as we compare notes on the technical aspects of refrigerated transport and reflect on the joys of a well-brewed coffee, reminding ourselves—and you—that even on the road, it’s the little rituals that keep us grounded and ready for whatever the journey holds.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hysg@gmail.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
Call us at 1-833-493-4353 Option 1
Facebook: The Outer Belt Podcast
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Will you please start this already?
Speaker 2:No, so anyways uh.
Speaker 3:But he did Woo-woo.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, Welcome to the Outer Belt. I'm Patrick and y'all are my friends.
Speaker 4:Chili.
Speaker 2:Buttermilk.
Speaker 1:Eric and Jerry.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so great to be here. It's so great to be with you people, um I hate that you people.
Speaker 1:I can't stand for that, my mom hates you people also.
Speaker 4:She hates it.
Speaker 1:I think it was all the years of doing billing and collections, and they would always get on the phone. You people, you people ain't nothing.
Speaker 4:My mom also hates these ones.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm right there with her. Oh, oh, these people.
Speaker 4:No, these ones, oh no, these people On a side note.
Speaker 2:Listen, can I just first real quick. Just welcome to the Outer Belt. Yeah, if you didn't know where you were Therapy session.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we handle trauma. I'm going to hold my thought Go on. I was thinking, as I said, buttermilk after chili. I was like buttermilk goes with chili, Like buttermilk makes cornbread and cornbread goes with chili, but his chili's not that kind of chili.
Speaker 4:But it can be.
Speaker 5:I was just thinking how cool were chili and buttermilk.
Speaker 4:Like we make a great pair. I'm chili, you're buttermilk, eric's cornmeal.
Speaker 2:What's that make me Chopped liver?
Speaker 4:No, Jerry is honey butter. We got a whole meal now.
Speaker 5:I could go for some sharp cheddar cheese or saltines with my cornbread.
Speaker 2:I'm your saltine. There we go.
Speaker 4:Just cracker is fine.
Speaker 3:I thought it was a ginger. Well, you people have a great night.
Speaker 2:I was going to notice. I was going to say Did you notice that we all wore the same thing? We were in the last episode.
Speaker 4:We did.
Speaker 5:That's a whole week ago. How funny that we pulled out the same clothes.
Speaker 4:This is my daily uniform.
Speaker 2:It is yours, it is, it's true, and same here. I always wear a high-flying shirt.
Speaker 5:I thought I'd answer calls with my shirt.
Speaker 2:It makes me feel like I actually am at an office or something which makes sense, because today you didn't answer any calls you established that that's two weeks ago.
Speaker 5:I didn't answer calls, not today.
Speaker 2:It was so nice the freeze is on. So if you're listening to us right now and you're like, why are they so happy and cheerful, or whatever, we're done.
Speaker 5:What's the freeze? Yeah, the freeze. Nobody knows what the freeze is. I don't even know what the freeze is.
Speaker 4:The freeze is the weather we've had the last few days, so the freeze is when the temperature drops below 32 degrees as the high.
Speaker 2:Yes, so when it's below 32 as the high, that's the freeze.
Speaker 4:And the freeze. That's when the long johns come out.
Speaker 2:The freeze is on again.
Speaker 5:And the electric, the heated jacket, the electric jacket, it's electric.
Speaker 4:And the balaclava.
Speaker 5:Mel has Mel Lee who works in the yard with Vincent. She has herself some electric coveralls. I want to know how those are working.
Speaker 4:They're just insulated coveralls.
Speaker 5:Oh, can we talk about them, but are they insulated?
Speaker 2:No, they're insulated like a house.
Speaker 5:Are they working well for her?
Speaker 2:As far as I know, as far as I know, but if they're not, she needs to turn them back. I mean they are. She looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Girls.
Speaker 5:They are Is. Is she one of those commercials? Where the kid's in his snowsuit, but he can't get out the door to go play.
Speaker 2:Yes, she is that way I do think they're super comfortable and they are a really good brand and they're expensive and all that fanciness or whatever. But it looks like I could hit her, which I wouldn't, but she's my sister so I could you could blow on her and she'd fall over.
Speaker 2:No, she wouldn't fall over, she's planted. That is, I mean, like it kind of reminds me of. Did you ever see the Seinfeld episode where George gets the new jacket? It's really puffy and it's Gore-Tex and they like start punching him and he can't feel the punches. I feel like that's with Melissa. So again, I wouldn't hit her, but I feel like if I did she wouldn't know.
Speaker 5:Vincent are they keeping her warm, though, as far as I know. Okay, you just said that.
Speaker 4:I worry about myself being warm.
Speaker 5:Let's bring her in. Melissa, come over here.
Speaker 4:I don't concern myself with her being warm. We need an interviewer.
Speaker 5:I worry about myself. You do your electric coat.
Speaker 4:I do my electric coat In the really cold. The world, when it's cold outside, is getting into a cold truck Because you can't idle a truck long enough in 10-degree weather to warm it up. You have to drive it, you have to drive it to get the temperature up and it takes forever.
Speaker 5:It takes forever. What about the Espargator? Does that help you get warm?
Speaker 4:It does.
Speaker 5:That still takes a good 15 minutes.
Speaker 4:It takes some time the warm it does. That still takes a good 15 minutes. It takes some time.
Speaker 2:The worst part, though, is the steering wheel.
Speaker 4:The ice cold steering wheel. The ice cold steering wheel. The truck can be up to temp, but the steering wheel is still frozen.
Speaker 5:Yes, do you put those little hand warmers in your gloves and then hold it.
Speaker 4:What gloves Gloves.
Speaker 5:Well, wear gloves and those hand warmers and then hold it.
Speaker 4:I can't work in the gloves.
Speaker 5:Well, you said steering wheel. Are you working when you're steering wheeling it?
Speaker 4:Yes, but the gloves are just. There are no good insulated gloves that are good for driving.
Speaker 5:Okay. In my opinion, I haven't found them yet. Patrick's got the floor next.
Speaker 4:Patrick.
Speaker 2:Eric, remind me when we get done with this. I got to get my leather gloves. I forgot I had those. Thank you so anyways, he Right, the steering wheel is ridiculously cold. I did actually have the pleasure of moving some trucks recently and it was not 10 degrees, it was like a solid 18.
Speaker 4:It was 18 with a six-degree windshield which you don't get, the windshield inside the truck you don't, but the truck is still colder than outside.
Speaker 2:So from our storage lot to our shop that we prefer to use for most things down in Grove City, it's 30 minutes give or take. And I mean I'm telling you at minute 25, the cabin starts to warm up. It starts to warm up, so you go 25 minutes, it's just freezing, just freezing. And then, right as you turn the truck off, you're like, oh, it's warm, you don't get to warm up?
Speaker 2:No, it's just warm, it's just warm, yeah, and even with the heated seats, because we're outside working, we've got the thermals on, we've got the insulated clothes, we have the jackets and everything.
Speaker 3:You can't really feel it takes time to get through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't really feel the heated seats. We're not in there long enough. We're in there for a Sure.
Speaker 1:So, it's, I have to say, my last trip to Panther. When I got to the yard at 3.30 or 4 o'clock in the morning to get the truck ready, like I was out there doing my pre-trip, and I was like I do not miss this.
Speaker 5:It was literally like 15 degrees outside. Yeah, yeah, People ask me what I miss about the road and what I don't miss. And, jerry, I'm right with you. Yeah.
Speaker 4:We had a move in that morning, later on in that morning and the locks were frozen, yeah, and as soon as I realized I said, oh no, we took the truck we had to move in and the truck you took to panther and got them washed the afternoon before, like 3, 34 o'clock and they were still. That's why they were frozen, because it was below 32. It was below freezing and I said I hope Jerry didn't have to stand out there forever trying to get that thing to thaw out.
Speaker 1:I had to call you a little bit later that day, and that's the first thing he asked me. And I was like yeah, I'm holding my book bag, I've got coffee, I've got tea?
Speaker 5:Did you just dip the lock in your coffee?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. I had to get the key where we had the keys and so I went to open it and I was pulling and pulling and pulling and I had to set all my stuff down on the ground and then pull with both hands and I had it open.
Speaker 4:Something I've learned that works on those side doors, when the key works but they won't open because they're frozen is give them a push, because that'll break some of the ice and it'll be easier to open.
Speaker 2:So just for future, we talk about this and it's one of the reasons contractors well, it's one of the reasons why we don't use roll-up doors.
Speaker 2:So if you look at our entire fleet of trucks, they're all barn door style and one of the reasons we don't use roll-up doors is a that maintenance right, like that's a given, you have to those rollers. So it's like a garage door. You've got those little rollers. They have to constantly be oiled and they have to be done with food grade, because we haul pharmaceuticals, so. But that's one thing. But the other thing is freezing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because even in the dead of summer we run freezing loads right so the inside will ice up and you'll be on the dock and I've heard of people like having to like really hit the doors as hard as they can with their shoulder to bust that ice that's formed to be able to open the door. Oh, screw that A barn door, barn door Every time Opens up.
Speaker 4:If you can get your padlock on. If you can get your padlock off, yeah.
Speaker 2:So Eric and I, we used to.
Speaker 4:Now they got this chemical de-icer you can spray into the log and it works great.
Speaker 2:It's super concentrated.
Speaker 4:Except on the Western Stars, where they have the slot, the little thing that covers the oh and that's frozen. And that's frozen. So then you break out the torch and you very carefully heat it from a distance. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's what we had. I had a Benzomatic, a baby Benzomatic, so if you know what a benzomatic it's, the torch has a blue cylinder. Right, they made a really tiny one. It almost looks like a creme brulee burner but it is from it. It is benzomatic, it's actually for like um shrink wrap and stuff on on wires and all.
Speaker 2:So I had a little baby, one of those, and we took that on the truck with us our first winter. We didn't originally have it, but when we got home I grabbed it after trying to get a lock open enough times, and then that would work. You would just blow it on the lock for a little bit and then after a few seconds you'd see the water drip out. And once you saw the water drip out, it was thawed. At that point you just unlock it, even if it's still coming out.
Speaker 1:We would use just a regular lighter and heat the key up and then do that enough times. It would get enough heat in there to where you can twist it.
Speaker 5:Wow, what a great idea. I love all these ideas.
Speaker 2:I did the lighter so much that it burned my hand. One point where I was like we're not doing the lighter anymore, and that's when I went to the Benzomatic we were in it wasn't even my lighter, because I don't smoke.
Speaker 2:We were in, or neither one of us smoked. We were in I don't remember where, but the shipper we were trying to figure it out the shipper's out there and he was being super cool they're not all like that, but he was being super cool and he smoked and so he pulled a lighter out and was like going to give this a shot and I'm like yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean I was there holding it just trying to get the dang thing to thaw and it literally like started to burn my thumb because after a little while of holding a cigarette lighter open it gets. Hot it gets really hot, but that's what I had to do to get it done.
Speaker 1:We would do the key, get the key getting hot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't that smart Inside the lock.
Speaker 5:Well, why didn't you call me, couldn't you?
Speaker 4:have put that on your podcast podcast or something?
Speaker 5:Can we ask the viewers what are you doing out there in the wintertime. Theouterbeltpodcastcom, or drop it down below in the comments, or you can call me. You know. Whatever, I just want to know what you're doing during these times they're like Listerine, which would work.
Speaker 4:It's got a little bit of alcohol in it, which you shouldn't have in the truck. Even better yet hand sanitizer.
Speaker 5:Really, that's another one too.
Speaker 2:It's alcohol based. Not only that, but it's antibacterial.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 4:You can antibacterial your lock. You can sterilize your lock while you defrost it. You know what's terrible.
Speaker 2:Do not unless you're in a dire situation. No boiling water. Don't go put some water in your microwave, heat it up and then pour it on the lock. You will never get that lock to be able to close again. That's a one and done and you probably will ruin the lock.
Speaker 5:That's last resort. That's last resort, very last resort.
Speaker 2:Because then you'll be going to like a Home Depot and buying a new lock at that point.
Speaker 1:I was going to say worst comes to worst. Just get your bolt cutters out, cut it off and then buy you a new lock when you leave.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's even worst case scenario. I like these worst cases, but these new locks Say.
Speaker 3:not the case for FedEx.
Speaker 1:Well, our Panther, because we use those disc locks the disc locks, so the disc locks you only have like a couple of millimeters. I got rid of that as soon as I started driving for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah there'll be a charge in the settlement for $30. I Well, I'm glad to see that you know shirt-drying. Yeah, it was a nice paycheck.
Speaker 2:I tell you, when Eric and I started, we had on the back of one of our trucks the vending machine Coca-Cola lock. Oh yeah, that was awesome. And then it did occur to me one day. I'm like, if this thing ever jams or has an issue, I got to like cut the doors off the truck.
Speaker 3:Like it is. I know where that lock ended up.
Speaker 2:I know where that lock ended up too. We're not going to say, but I know exactly what happened. That lock never had a chance to break, but it was like there's nothing we can do. Listen, I do, I do, I do California. So anyways.
Speaker 3:I could probably find the road. I could too.
Speaker 2:Los Angeles, los Angeles, san Dimas, simi Valley, simi Valley, yeah.
Speaker 5:But we're not talking about that.
Speaker 2:We're not talking about that. Yeah, I could see the road too. Anyways, I have seen Vince multiple times out the yard. We'll be working on a truck and we pull everything up to our main shop area and you know, when they do an initial inspection so a truck comes back, they bring it. We used to do it like at the actual parking spot, but they actually changed that.
Speaker 5:They streamlined it.
Speaker 2:They streamlined it, so they bring the truck over to the shop and we don't have a shop where we can like pull a truck in. So it's kind of inconvenient, but it works. It works. We're in a multi-use place, so everybody else around us kind of knows what we're doing and nobody gives us any hassle, which is great.
Speaker 2:We have to go through, and what they figured out was if we're doing this inspection and there's little things we can fix, let's fix them, let's fix him, let's fix him. I can't tell you how many times I've been out there working with him and then Vince will just leave and go into the building. He won't say a word and he comes back out with safety glasses on and puts gloves on, and then I'm like what's he doing? And then he pulls out this circular saw that they use when they're tearing down skyscrapers and they have to cut the metal beams, the 12-inch I-beams Wow, it's one of those.
Speaker 4:I've not seen this one.
Speaker 2:And he uses this thing.
Speaker 4:It's two hands, it's jaws of life, if you had to think of something to cut off a three-inch round lock, I break out the angle grinder, I pull the power cord. The power is all the way in the back.
Speaker 2:It is a terrible spot.
Speaker 4:I pull the long power cord out. Get the angle grinder out 220.
Speaker 5:And you wear glasses over your glasses. I do, I like that. Safety first. Oh well safety first.
Speaker 2:If you saw the sparks, you would understand. Yeah, you'd understand. I love it.
Speaker 5:They are like I've not seen you ever do that. Will you call me next time you think you might do that I?
Speaker 3:will.
Speaker 5:I'll rush right down, I will, I'll even Uber.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I will Uber.
Speaker 5:Well we're a one-car family.
Speaker 2:We're making things super efficient.
Speaker 4:Can you wait an hour and 20 minutes my Uber.
Speaker 2:Black is going to be here in 42 minutes.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think that'd be super cool to see.
Speaker 2:I've never seen you angle, grind, move some load bars.
Speaker 4:Hey, next time you're there can you record it?
Speaker 5:That'd even be better.
Speaker 2:That'd be cool. Oh, we should record it and throw it on the channel as a short.
Speaker 5:Here we go. I'd love it.
Speaker 4:I contemplated buying a cordless one, but they're expensive.
Speaker 2:Would it be enough power? Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, I have researched it. That would be the expensive part.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have researched it, it's just.
Speaker 5:yeah, it's inconvenient to pull the power cord out and pick it up and do it, and there are little tiny guys that you can just do cordless. They're not little. For an angle grinder you can get little guys. Think about Jaws of.
Speaker 4:Life. The little ones aren't going to do it, they're not going to have enough power.
Speaker 2:Jaws of Life is cordless. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4:It takes two cycles. Sometimes people lock them on their grab handles.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they do.
Speaker 4:And they lose the keys. So that's when I have to cut them off, when they're locked on the grab handles.
Speaker 2:Or you put them on there and then you drive around in winter and salt gets in there and they're done. There's nothing you can do once that happens.
Speaker 4:I have had to finesse a few where you can actually turn the key all the way and the lock doesn't release. So I've had to play with them. And if you turn it slowly and if it's sitting on something not even heavy, just not even weight it down, it's enough weight that it won't turn. So you gotta raise it up. So it's free and it's. I've become the lock master.
Speaker 5:I have done quite a few you sound like you're off.
Speaker 2:Ghostbusters, I know I was the original lock master. Thank you.
Speaker 5:I'm the key maker.
Speaker 2:What movie is that from? Isn't that Ghostbusters 2? I'm the Keymaker. That's the gate. Oh, the Matrix.
Speaker 5:That's the gate.
Speaker 2:Master or something on Ghostbusters, you're the old white guy. Yeah, exactly Around with all the TVs.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 2:What a weird movie. Yeah, it was a weird movie. All three of those, yeah, love them, love them. Yeah, good stuff it's one of those movies that's like I don't want to watch this again. Two hours later you're like that's really good. Jerry, can you do me?
Speaker 4:a favor? Yes, somewhere in this part of this episode can you put a squirrel just walking through, because it feels like we're all over the place just watching the squirrels.
Speaker 2:Well, we say all this to say if we are in a jovial spirit, it is because the freeze has begun.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 2:And the freeze actually is from December 14th through January 2nd Second, second and a half Second and a half Second-ish. We have a freeze. What's the freeze mean? The freeze is a move-in freeze. We do not move people into trucks or swaps or anything.
Speaker 5:No new teams. No, nothing Swaps.
Speaker 2:During this time frame. And the reason is very simple. It's not that there's no freight during this time, it's just that it's very slow. And our experience has been you put a team in December 18thth. They come out, maybe run a load maybe a load then they sit through christmas and then maybe run another load between christmas and new year's if you're lucky and then sit through new year's and then, uh, january 5th, we have the truck back of the yard because they just sat for three weeks right, it rained two loads.
Speaker 2:And so there's no amount of conversation. We can have to prepare a team for this situation. Years of experience have showed us that it's like it just benefits everybody. Yeah, it's not going to work out and plus it kind of gives the staff a little bit of a reprieve, which is funny because we had to bust tail to get to the freeze. But then it gives all the staff a little bit of reprieve when it is slower.
Speaker 4:But we also had to bust tail before the freeze for after the freeze, correct.
Speaker 2:So we can get all that taken care of.
Speaker 5:Because then it's move-in time, it's go time.
Speaker 2:Well, what's really nice is like right now all of us on this podcast are actually in Mexico. We're just doing a quick little holiday thing down there. It's actually really nice. Jerry, you need more sun, but other than that it's been a lot of fun. That thing Melissa said the other day.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the nerve.
Speaker 1:The nerve.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, and the thing is, he really didn't speak English.
Speaker 4:No, he didn't, he truly didn't, he truly didn't. And she could not understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just didn't believe it, but you know the good thing is, that means he also didn't understand what she was saying, right?
Speaker 4:But the rest of us are looking at her differently now. Oh, I certainly do.
Speaker 2:But so we have this huge build up and that's over with and then. But our shops don't quit working. No, so we've actually staged, oh my gosh, like seven trucks at one shop, which we would never dump. Seven trucks at one shop. We got seven trucks at one shop. We've got seven trucks at one shop.
Speaker 3:We've got two or three trucks at another shop.
Speaker 2:We've told them when we get back these have got to be done.
Speaker 4:They've got to be ready.
Speaker 2:It is a nice little break for us.
Speaker 4:We did take them Christmas cookies, though, before we dumped the trucks on them. It wasn't just cookies.
Speaker 2:We did bring pound cake to that one person.
Speaker 4:We did give milk too.
Speaker 2:Two people wanted pound cake one person and milk.
Speaker 4:We did give milk too. Two people wanted pound cake and we're like it's not good.
Speaker 2:It's not good at all. Yeah, but something about Blackberry pound cake they really like, Very strange.
Speaker 3:And I didn't understand the person with the milk I prefer caramel.
Speaker 2:I agree, not pound cake, but caramel. Cookies or cakes are actually just caramel.
Speaker 5:Nobody asked for caramel.
Speaker 2:The caramel squares. Yeah, like just the Brock's caramel squares, uh-huh, buy them and bulk them at the grocery store.
Speaker 5:by the way, we do, Werther's. No, it's not the same. Give me the Brock's all day.
Speaker 2:every day I remember one time, because we used to have Brock's at the house all the time. Again, I didn't understand this.
Speaker 2:We had chocolate chips all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I remember coming home one day and Mom has the double boiler set up on the stove, yeah, and then she breaks open the bag of Brocks and I grab one of those caramel squares and I'm eating it, and then she starts opening them up and throws them in the double boiler and I'm like what are you doing? Like I thought she was ruining them and then she did that and then made a frosting out of it.
Speaker 5:I'm like oh, you can unwrap them anytime.
Speaker 2:She's like that's kind of what they're for. We eat them as candy, but it's really an ingredient, but still it was a lot of fun. So, yeah, we got to pass out Christmas gifts and cookies and breads and donuts. So hopefully they're going to have everything knocked out by the time we get back.
Speaker 4:Thanks to Don doing all the baking too. Yes, that was kind of cool.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Appreciate that.
Speaker 5:People often ask when we have, because on our Facebook page we post welcomes when new teams start, and people often ask why there's such an influx at specific times. So if you're watching this, there will be.
Speaker 5:I'm forewarning you there will be an influx of welcome posts for probably the first two weeks of the year. And again, that's because we have had this freeze and now everybody's moving into these trucks. Those first couple of weeks not not anything's happening, nothing's whatever. Some people think high turnover or all these other things, and it's just because right now again, we're on holiday vacation, we have a freeze and those trucks will all be ready after the first year. So that's why there'll be an influx of move-ins and we are so excited for the teams coming on board.
Speaker 2:I know it's definitely the fun time of the year, that's for sure. Yeah, Of course I love it. I see all these trucks sit there and Eric and I are the ones watching the bank and making sure truck notes are paid or whatever. So we see all these trucks sitting and we're like who really needs Christmas? I mean honestly, is it really that important? Is New Year's that important? But no it is. I'm actually such a huge Christmas person I might be the most Christmassy person at this.
Speaker 5:I think the biggest thing, I think the biggest reason for the freeze and kudos to Highfield for recognizing it, is not setting teams up for failure. And, like you said, if they're only going to run two loads in three weeks, how disappointing, and you know we share all this information. Now, next year, if you've run a full year, you can prepare yourself for maybe going home and enjoying that time and you've, you know, compensated yourself and stashed money away to enjoy those week and a half, two weeks off for the double holiday. Double holiday is really rough at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:Or at a family member's house. Some people choose. They'd rather spend.
Speaker 5:Maybe you want to go on a cruise too.
Speaker 2:We see a lot of people go on cruises. We see a lot of people especially Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Year's. We see a lot of people take their home time in three different locations because of that, this kid or this grandkid or this mom and dad's grand, you know house or whatever.
Speaker 2:So we do see that happen quite a bit because, again, home time for us is wherever you want it to be, sure, so home time can be Disneyland this month, and next month it can be the Grand Ole Opry, or next month it can be Los Angeles.
Speaker 5:We don't really care.
Speaker 2:It's just or not at all. Yeah, we don't really care or not at all. Some people don't go home, and it's funny too, because there are some people who have been out for a long time and they know that that one particular load comes out December 24th in that one particular location, and it's a good-paying load.
Speaker 5:So they set themselves up for it.
Speaker 2:It picks up in the North Pole, right it does. And they won't tell anybody where it's at. They won't tell anybody where it's going. They won't say nothing.
Speaker 5:But they'll set themselves up and they'll be plotted with their truck right there, so they'll get it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Which is okay to do too. It's totally fine, but you'll never I mean under penalty of death you'll never get them to what it is. And we see it because we see all the settlements. So we know every load that's ran and we're not talking.
Speaker 2:No it's top secret. If you're going to run that, because they are like the mystique of the $10,000 load, it does happen every year, every Christmas it will happen. This year we will see one, two, three of our trucks will do that. Now that's three trucks out of 120. So your chances are slim, but they do exist.
Speaker 5:They're out there, they're real. Vince, and I have talked about it we did that elusive Thanksgiving double load In three years it never happened and we just happened to be where we were at the right time. I'm sure those loads don't run on a regular basis, but again we were just in the right place at the right time, and I'm sure those loads don't run on a regular basis. But again, we were just in the right place at the right time during the holiday season and got compensated for it.
Speaker 2:Jerry's talked about it too, so Again, our Thanksgiving load was oh, you talked about it too.
Speaker 5:Again, it's not an always thing, and Highfield does encourage you to go home and just celebrate your holidays with people. I think it's so funny.
Speaker 2:A couple years ago I had someone call me. They were so mad because they heard that Highfield makes all their teams stay out for Christmas and New Year's and Thanksgiving and won't let them go home. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I've been a driver, I was a driver for years. Like I'm not going to tell someone to go home or just to stay out and work when I know there's very little freight and you're going to be better off.
Speaker 2:You're going to be better off more rejuvenated, seeing your family or, in some cases, being ready to get back on the road after seeing your family yeah like once you uh, once you go home and so it's like no, I, I go home, do your thing again. I don't care if home's disney world, like getting another truck, is a good thing yeah, not too often, obviously, otherwise nobody make any money. But like, when you do get those opportunities, take advantage of them.
Speaker 5:We were always refreshed and ready to start at the beginning of the year, and it usually started off with a bang and you're off and running.
Speaker 5:And the new year always seemed to be, profitable and set a good tone for the rest of the year. That's the way we always were, I think the first year we decided to go home, and every year after that we decided to stay out. That was our option for both Thanksgiving and then the double holiday. But those were our choices and I think one Thanksgiving paid off in three years when we stayed out, and then the others were just— Well, the others though I mean we always had a load.
Speaker 4:Generally we had a load that picked up Tuesday. Maybe we sat for Thanksgiving Day. Let me back up a little bit. I know we had one year we picked up on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 4:And that delivered like the following that was picked up like in Connecticut Yep and it delivered the following Monday In Texas, so we picked up Wednesday, delivered on Monday in Texas. We went camping.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you don't need five days, but we included a little fun with it.
Speaker 4:We did we had fun with it. Then we had the load.
Speaker 5:Where we were pre-dispatched.
Speaker 4:We were pre-dispatched on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It didn't pick up until the Monday after Thanksgiving. I gave them a number and they said, oh, I can't do that. And then they went through and broke down everything and threw me back a number. It actually didn't give me a whole. I gave them a whole number. They came back and broke it down and I did the math and the math worked out that it was more than the whole number. I threw.
Speaker 4:So I said, yeah, okay. So again Melissa starts looking and planning. We went camping from Wednesday to Sunday. Sunday afternoon made our way the rest of the way, which wasn't but a couple hours, to our pickup for Monday morning, and then the next one, the last Thanksgiving we were out, we got the magical two-part load. So you know it does.
Speaker 5:certainly it's a game of odds. It's a game of odds, sure.
Speaker 4:But we were prepared to, if we didn't get anything and we sat the weekend. We were prepared for that, I think that's key right is being prepared for your downtime.
Speaker 2:What are you going to do?
Speaker 5:We were going to go camping and have our holiday, which we didn't need to go home and see family. We were okay with that, but we're like let's go do something anyway. That's fun, whatever that fun might be. Like you said, disneyland, we chose to go camping, so whatever that fun is.
Speaker 2:Our first Thanksgiving out on the road. We were in North Carolina and I want to say is it Kinley 95? Is that the one in North Carolina Sounds familiar, kinley 95?
Speaker 5:Is that?
Speaker 2:the one in North Carolina Sounds familiar. I think it's the Kinley 95. It's right outside of Raleigh and we stayed there. We had it's a Petro. Okay, so Kinley 95 is part of the Iowa 80 group, so it's an elevated truck stop Right. They don't have many of them, they've got four or five around the country, but they're super nice truck stops. So I remember we went there. We had, you know, thanksgiving dinner in their restaurant. And it was all. I think that's a Petro, so it might have been an Iron Skillet at the.
Speaker 2:Petro, it wasn't an Iron Skillet Okay, because it's their branded restaurant or whatever but it was basically an Iron Skillet right Like branded restaurant or whatever, but it was basically an under-scale. I mean, you know, truck stop dinners, truck stop dinners. But I remember they had a buffet and they had the ham and the turkey and all that stuff and it was actually tasty and it was good and at a very reasonable price, which is rare because truck stops they come from the lofts as a do-we-cheat-em-in-hell.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:And so we were. We were enjoying our time there. And then, um, when we finally did get pre-dispatch, it was one of those like monday or tuesday dispatches, so we ended up, uh, going into raleigh. We saw a movie one night at a really cool movie theater. That is a used to be a place where they built trains. They used to make locomotive engines In the movie theater, in the movie theater. So the guys would be putting on steam locomotives, they'd be putting these massive wheels on while watching Fern Gully, fern Gully.
Speaker 5:What a random movie have you?
Speaker 2:seen the remake Avatar.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 2:So no, they took this huge factory and converted it into a theater. It's very cool. The screens are small, which is kind of a meh, but the theater itself is awesome.
Speaker 5:And it's an experience that you're having.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 5:At that point which is making a new memory.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then the next time, or the next day rather, we went to a mall which was an outdoor mall and the weather was nice enough that we could be outside with just a light coat and be fine, and they had a huge town square and everything at the small. You know how they do nowadays with the outdoor malls, where they usually have a big town square. Yes, so they had a huge Christmas tree, all the decorations, santa was there. While we were there, they had a parade that went through the mall. So we're like marching bands and all these floats and Santa and everything goes through there.
Speaker 3:Craziness. They had a skating area too. They did have a skating area, Was it ice?
Speaker 2:skating? I think so. It might have been ice skating.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure we should talk about that one day. We did last week.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's right, I wouldn't hear.
Speaker 2:And so it made for a really great holiday. So we didn't go planning on not working over. Thanksgiving. We also, as a first year out. We just didn't know, yeah, but we still made the best of it.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you stay out and you say like I'm going to make the best of this. If I end up getting a load, great. If I end up not getting a load, great.
Speaker 2:We're going to figure something out with the local community, absolutely, then it's a lot of fun. If you are the kind of person you're going to be homesick and miss the kids and miss the fireplace and miss, you know, the gumbo that you have or whatever clearly I'm from south louisiana uh, then then go home. It's not worth it. There is no freight, there's no load that is going to make up for the memories you're gonna lose.
Speaker 2:So we, eric and I, did it once. We did it one year. We stayed out for thanksgiving, christmas and new years, yeah, and we never did it again. I did share the story where we did go home one year for Thanksgiving and they actually called us while we were at home and said Do you want this load to California Blank check.
Speaker 3:I was about to insert the thought. You can't always go home and just stay in service. You can, you can't get loads that way, absolutely Sure.
Speaker 2:You absolutely can. If you're in a good freight area, perfect. The only thing you got to keep in mind for that is for those of you that are driving. You'll know this already, but if you're not driving, you may not realize it yet. We can be drug tested, not drug tested. We'll drug and alcohol tested at any time. So if you are the kind of person who's going to go home and have eggnog, for Christmas or whatever you need to be out of service because you can get random drug and alcohol testing.
Speaker 2:If you're still in service If you're still in service, and it is federally required that they do pull those drug and alcohol tests Randomly Randomly so it's not like they're trying to get you, it's an actual federal mandate. 50% of the fleet every single year has to get drug tested and alcohol tested.
Speaker 5:So be out of service.
Speaker 2:So be out of service If you're going to go home and have turkey and you're going to have sweet tea and whatever. Stay in service. See what you can get. Sure.
Speaker 3:Also, if you do stay in service, if you don't drink, most of the loads that come out over the holidays are ASAP loads. So you need to be willing to drop what you're doing, hop in the truck and be there in 30 to an hour.
Speaker 2:It's true, expedite If they're calling you on a holiday.
Speaker 2:It is an emergency Absolutely, or it's a predispatch for three days from now. So it could be either one of those two, but a lot of times it is a true emergency. So you want to be able to go and obviously, if you've been drinking it's not an option. So If you've been drinking it's not an option, so, yeah, just be responsible with it. But again, if that matters to you, go home. I'm so glad after that first year I spent all my years at home, because my mom only lived four or five years after that, right, so I got to have four or five more Christmases with her.
Speaker 2:So like I get it, like we are totally on board with your home time, your family time matters.
Speaker 5:Well, we're enjoying our freeze. Yeah, it was all about the freeze. Go home. That's why we're closed for the freeze. Absolutely Because we want you to go home, we don't want people to move in. And well, quite frankly, no one's in the yard.
Speaker 2:Yes, Literally again.
Speaker 5:We are all in Mexico. No one's in the yard.
Speaker 2:No one's in the yard.
Speaker 5:No one's in the yard and we like to see your face and show you all about the truck and we will not leave keys in the side box for you to move in. Not the way we do things Can.
Speaker 4:I just clarify when Patrick says we're in Mexico, what he really means is we're in Mexico, I'm enjoying 80 degree weather.
Speaker 5:I'm near or on a beach, probably why this podcast is dropping. Enjoying a glorious sunrise with my coffee, because I will get up at yay hour to watch a glorious sunrise on the beach with my coffee, because I packed my coffee. I guess what I got today.
Speaker 2:Give me time what I got A coffee press.
Speaker 5:No, I'm so excited, so excited. Vince doesn't even know I got today. She will not Give me time what I got A coffee press. No, I'm so excited so excited.
Speaker 2:Vince doesn't even know, I don't. No, she's telling us now. So they don't have a.
Speaker 5:And it only weighs .05 pounds or something. What is it? It's very light. I got myself a one cup hot water maker. I can truly make my own pour over with my bottle of water in my own hot boiling water kettle. I don't have to order it from room service. I got my own water and make my own coffee because I grind and pack my own coffee. Anytime. You all know this, even on cruises, I pack my own coffee. I am so excited that I finally broke down and bought myself a little one-cup hot water maker.
Speaker 2:We were talking about this last week. I know we were and I bought it, not in the podcast. We were talking about it last week Personally. We were talking about how maybe you can buy a kettle once we get to Mexico. I got one today and it's so light and it goes in and it's a travel one.
Speaker 5:I know Vince doesn't know, but I did. I splurged the other day a whole $20 and got myself a single, I think it's like 13.
Speaker 2:Jerry's looking at you like it's like 13.5 ounces. Oh, come on. Jerry's looking at you, like send me an email, come on.
Speaker 5:Who doesn't like to pack their. Who else packs their own coffee? Come on, viewers, share with their own coffee. Come on, viewers, share with us who packs their own coffee. When you go on vacation, it is always, seriously, it is always. It is always the first thing I put in my. I grind, I bag the coffee filters, the pour over. It all goes in my my bag. There's always room for it. Usually there's a means to making hot water, but today, a couple days ago, I'm like I just buy myself a little hot water maker. I can boil my own water. I don't have to rely on a microwave, I don't have to do room service for a kettle of hot water, I can just make my own. So I'm super excited that I'm going to have coffee Well, that is awesome While watching the sunrise.
Speaker 2:The place that we're in Mexico. It's a special place for Eric and I because we literally, literally set because you're talking about coffee, we literally set on the porch of this hotel. It's not a resort, it's a hotel. It's not a resort.
Speaker 5:Got it Hotel.
Speaker 2:Hotel. So we set on the porch of this hotel, got a pot of coffee from room service.
Speaker 5:Yeah, which is okay to do they don't have a coffee maker at this place. Which is fine.
Speaker 2:So we got a pot of coffee. We sat on the porch and we sat there and drank our pot of coffee and discussed the idea of do we want to go back to our old lives or do we want to start high-field trucking? And we sat there in those chairs, for it had to be at least three or four hours.
Speaker 5:Drinking coffee.
Speaker 2:A couple pots of coffee and discussed how do we want to do it, what do we want it to look like, what are we going to buy, how are we going to do this and do we really want to do it? At this point we had been in the business for five months. I'm sorry, we had driven for five months. Long time For a fleet owner and we were like is this something that we are passionate about and really want to make happen? And that right there.
Speaker 5:Ta-da, and here you are, and here we are. Now I'm excited.
Speaker 2:So this place is really special. Again, hotel, nothing fancy, but it's a special place just from the sentimental value of it.
Speaker 5:Sure, I can't wait to go.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time I went to Mexico, Ma and Uncle, we stayed at a hotel in can't cosmo in cosmo and we paid 27 a night super high end and had a great time, and the reason we stayed there at that hotel was it's an old dive hotel which there still are.
Speaker 2:uh, I don't mean dive hotel like you'd say dive bar, I mean dive is in, like scuba divers go there, and there are several of those still on Cosmo today. I mean it's a bed that has a mattress that was made in the early 1700s.
Speaker 2:This one had a window unit that was made in 1947. Which blew ice cold. I don't know how they were able to make air conditioners blow so cold back in the 60s, um, but tons of rust. But the shower was questionable and there was no hot water. Uh, but but that 27 hotel. We had a lot of fun because the person we were there with it's where they first stayed.
Speaker 2:And it was super sentimental and you know we took the stroll into town and had a great time. So it's not about like the super nice resort you're at.
Speaker 5:It's the memories.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's the memories and then being able to share those memories. So that's what we're doing right now.
Speaker 5:I'm excited for my hot water heater.
Speaker 2:Your water heater.
Speaker 5:I am so excited. I just can't tell you because before clothes go, before clothes ever go in my suitcase, it is always how am I getting coffee every morning that I'm at, whatever vacation we go?
Speaker 2:on. You know you're going to have people email us and drop us a comment. If you want to go ahead and do that now, the Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom. Which is.
Speaker 4:The Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 5:I always. That is my first thing that goes in my bag is sometimes I have to do like a Yeti cup Because I'm like, well, what am I going to put the coffee in if they don't have coffee cups? And I don't want to do room service every morning to get a coffee cup, room service every morning to get a coffee cup. I prepare myself.
Speaker 3:You don't use the paper cup. What about the paper?
Speaker 5:cup. What if they don't have paper cups? But what if they have the coffee maker that at least can make me hot water? Or what if they just have a microwave to make me hot water? So I always think of those things. But this time I'm like I need to complete my set. I've got the coffee cup, which is a Yeti small little guy. I've got the coffee cup, which is a Yeti Small little guy. I've got my coffee. I've got my pour-over. I've got my filters. I need something to boil the water. So I have now got the complete set that will always go in my pack, my suitcase, any time of vacation. I will always have my coffee.
Speaker 2:It's not complete. Here's why it's not complete. I'm so excited we're going to go stay somewhere rustic, where there's not going to be electricity.
Speaker 5:Or the wrong style plug, or the wrong style plug.
Speaker 2:So then she's going to do the plug adapter, which will work for a little bit. Yeah, then she's going to buy the little Sterno gas burner with the metal cup? Yes, so that she can make her own hot water regardless.
Speaker 5:I'm just going to do candle and aluminum foil.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's water Anyway.
Speaker 5:So At any rate, I just love starting my day. I even do it at home. Vince knocks me all the time. I'll get up a whole hour before I really, technically, any sane person probably should get up, even start their whole before they go to work. Get up yeah.
Speaker 5:I will wake up an hour before that time just so I can have my personal coffee time, and so personal coffee time for me. I guess some people might call it meditation, spiritual time, whatever you want to call it. There's just something about me and coffee for 45 minutes to an hour that I need to start my day and put me on day.
Speaker 4:I don't talk to her for an hour at least after that, because she's a complete and total very nice person during her coffee time.
Speaker 5:I just like me time. Well, I don't, that's what I call it.
Speaker 2:I don't do it, I know you don't.
Speaker 5:I don't have that, I do espresso, that's what I call it.
Speaker 2:I don't do it. I know you don't. I don't have that. I do espresso. I mean it's like you drink it and you're gone Like cups made just shoot it done Coffee is in and out and done. I can't. My morning is grab a bottle of water, get the espresso machine going grab my pills because I'm of the age where I take my morning pills.
Speaker 2:Now, take my pills, drink my water, buy that, buy that. The coffee espresso is done. Shoot the espresso. Set the little cup in the cause. I do have the little tiny espresso cups. You know the little, the little cause why are you going to? It is cause. What are you going to do? You like espresso in a full size coffee mug.
Speaker 4:It makes no sense.
Speaker 2:So you set the espresso cup gently because we have broken them Gently in the sink, a little water, because you don't want the black rings. It's gross. So and then I go to the office and I start my day.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's just like bang, bang, bang that a morning meditation time to show gratitude time to whatever is so healthy, and hardly any of us do it. It just you know, time is one thing, that we're so short on the thing that helps us the most is usually the thing that we cut out.
Speaker 5:I play Best Fiends. That's what I do. I'll quickly do my social media in the morning with my cup of coffee, but then I move on to Best Fiends and I'll sit there and I'll play Best Fiends and I'll drink my cup.
Speaker 4:Say that one more time. Best Fiends, are they sponsoring us? They are.
Speaker 5:But I'll drink my. Is that Best, fiends? And a half and each sip. I drink, though, pot of coffee and a half cup of coffee and a half, but each cup, each, each cup, each sip I drink. I really relish the flavor, like again I call it meditation.
Speaker 5:I really appreciate my cup of coffee and the coffee that I purchased. I know mr breville is sitting across from me giving me eye looks, but he understands me. I really enjoy and it's quiet time it's, and maybe while I'm playing my video game on my phone and having my coffee, I'm just, I'm relaxed, I'm comfortable, I'm getting my tone for the day, I know when I need to get up shower. Whatever, I do enjoy making Vince's lunch. I do that every day. I make it out of love. I do all that before I start my day. But I need that coffee time for me to get my brain in the right place and so I pack it when we go on vacation, because I enjoy my coffee and not always our pods or Nespresso or the hotel coffee or room service coffee. Is it what I want to drink?
Speaker 5:So, I personally like to take my own and I save space in my luggage for taking those items, and I'm excited to try this little hot water thingy.
Speaker 4:We've shown up to the airport before and her suitcase has been overweight and I've seen her take stuff out of the suitcase and throw it away.
Speaker 2:Throw the trash, but keep the coffee. It's like you could put that parka on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you could put that in mine, because mine isn't overweight. She just throws it away because she wants to make sure her coffee gets there.
Speaker 2:What I do when that happens is I take the underwear out and I just put it on over my clothes. Jerry we're on vacation this week.
Speaker 5:I know how much you love coffee. If you need a fresh pot or a fresh cup, or you want to sample mine.
Speaker 2:Room service is by dialing If you'd like to come over and sit on my patio or my room or anything.
Speaker 5:I'd love to make you a cup with my fancy new hot water maker.
Speaker 2:Speaking of coffee One second. May I Again, if you're curious what this is, because you're on a truck and you're like, I'd love a way to make one cup of hot water so that I can have my pour-over coffee, because pour-over is so trendy right now. It is.
Speaker 5:It tastes good.
Speaker 2:Please shoot us an email Leave us a comment, if enough people leave comments. By that I mean one.
Speaker 4:Melissa will happily share the.
Speaker 2:Amazon link where she got that from.
Speaker 5:Or.
Speaker 2:Walmart or Walmart or Bed Bath Beyond.
Speaker 5:I'll share a link. I'll just share my whole setup.
Speaker 2:We don't have that much time. No, I'll put it all together.
Speaker 5:I'll take one picture and I'll send it to you. If you send me the Outer Belt podcast, you'll want to know what my setup is. I'll snap a picture of my whole setup and I'll send it to you?
Speaker 4:What's the email address?
Speaker 5:Theouterbeltpodcastcom.
Speaker 4:No, it's not.
Speaker 5:The. V that's T-H-E. Outerbeltpodcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 4:What did I say Theouterbeltpod Podcastcom At gmailcom.
Speaker 5:Doesn't Embraer, do Gmail. It's either that or Yahoo.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't ate well, there's type of truckingcom Ock Cloud.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 5:I giggle when I take people's information because we need first names, last names, phone numbers and emails. And I giggle and I'll joke with people when they give me a Hotmail or a Yahoo and I'll joke and I'm like, oh, you must be over your email gives your age away. Do you ever see AOLs anymore? Occasionally.
Speaker 2:I have an AOL email address. I've had since I was literally 14 years old.
Speaker 5:Still use it.
Speaker 2:It still works. I still use it we haven't paid for AOL in 22 years. Wow, I don't know how or why it works. I don't know what server it's on. I don't know what country it's based out of. I don't know anything about it. There's probably. I shouldn't probably use it. Yeah, but it still works, and so I'm like okay, our dentist, our dentist. Yes, mine too.
Speaker 5:And I believe your dentist, because I referred you to them.
Speaker 2:You did. Did you get that nice referral check?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was going to ask him about that they have an AOL email address and I'm like oh, that tells you how old that dentist has been in and they know their stuff it's super unprofessional.
Speaker 3:And they do know their stuff. I love it though.
Speaker 2:But I love it.
Speaker 5:It gives me warm feelies that they still have an AOL address.
Speaker 2:I agree, but it's weird because they have all the modern technology.
Speaker 3:They do, yes, they do so it's like why do you have? All the modern technology and you're not using your own domain name
Speaker 4:for your email.
Speaker 2:It's so strange.
Speaker 5:Crazy. I like it. It makes me get warm fuzzies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great place. I love it because when you're sitting in the chair it's all glass wall you're staring at and it's of a park.
Speaker 5:And you can see the marmots running around. You can see the marmots, the bunnies, the squirrels, the groundhogs that's what I was calling marmots.
Speaker 2:I've been there when there have been deer out there. When it's winter, right now you can see the people, but generally when the foliage is out you can't.
Speaker 3:That's a really nice place.
Speaker 2:They have a TV and they're always like what do you want to watch on TV? I'm like nothing. This I want to watch.
Speaker 5:I would turn.
Speaker 2:Nature Channel on to see more of this. I get none of that.
Speaker 5:Do you go the other side?
Speaker 4:No, I've been on that side.
Speaker 5:Oh, they let you down and you can't.
Speaker 2:The other side has TVs too. I was on that side once.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but I don't get any of that oh.
Speaker 5:Oh, you can't see. They ask you to take your glasses off, for those of you that aren't watching that are listening.
Speaker 4:I wear glasses. My glasses come off when I get dental service.
Speaker 2:So you just see a blur, I just see a blur. That's funny, is that a?
Speaker 4:groundhog? No, sweetheart, it's not a groundhog, that's.
Speaker 2:Dr. Obviously, I have these braces, yes, and I'm trying to get my teeth fixed. I'll be glad when that's done. I will too. I'm so sick of these. Anyways, that place they have these really cool lights in the ceiling, but when you sit there they can sometimes get in your eye. So the first thing to do is give you a pair of sunglasses.
Speaker 5:They do.
Speaker 2:It's just. I think it's hysterical. We had a lot of people reach out from last week's recording and also from the recording we did on the APUs. Yeah, about the reefer units, you don't want to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 4:I did, but I realized that was against the rules. Well, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:So we did have people reach out to us and they're like okay, why do you run all Thermo King?
Speaker 5:on our reefer units. They're the best. Thanks, Jerry, for your opinion over there. So why do you run exclusively Thermo King on our reefer?
Speaker 2:units. They're the best. Thanks, jerry. Thanks, jerry, for your opinion over there. So why do you run exclusively Thermo King on your reefer units? And then the caveat is the real sleuths of you are like when all of your first reefer trucks were carriers. Because if you look at our old pictures you will see we used to be exclusively carrier.
Speaker 5:For your reefer.
Speaker 2:For our reefer units and then we did convert over to Thermo King so I thought I'd talk about it real quick. So first off I got to say we originally were carrier people. I bought my first reefer truck had a carrier Super 860. I'm sorry, 850. Reefer truck had a carrier super 860. I'm sorry, 850. And then we brought a. The next one had like a 960, which is just amazing. The 960 is the greatest reefer to ever exist. We could pull negative 20 in like 45 minutes.
Speaker 4:Would you call it the cat's meow?
Speaker 2:I would not, but I would say that it is the.
Speaker 1:Cat's.
Speaker 2:Meow.
Speaker 5:Cat's Purr. I'm like what are we going with?
Speaker 2:When you turned it on, though, you realized you were in high cotton.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:So did you ever have a 960, jerry?
Speaker 1:I don't remember what model I had. I had numerous carriers, though.
Speaker 2:Probably the Supra 850s in that generation. They made that forever. They don't anymore, but they made that for like 30 years. It was a very long running. And there was a group of people that said, well, if an 850 is so good, let's buy the next model up. It'll be even better. Let's buy the next model up, It'll be even better. Because the Supra 850, 860, which was the benchmark for so long for these reefer trucks Like Kerry Irvin said, if you had a 22-foot box, this is the reefer you should use. On a normal refrigerated load worked great. It just pulled 40 degrees, no big deal. 5 degrees Celsius, no big deal. 5 degrees Celsius, no big deal. On a negative 20 load, negative 20 degrees Celsius, it would do. It Took a while, but it took a while. Right, Like you'd be hours to get down to that temperature.
Speaker 2:So if we put the 960, spend a little more money up front, we can pull it down faster, and they're not wrong. That thing would pull down so fast that it actually got them in trouble. So those reefer units would pull the temperature so fast down that it would actually exceed the set point, and so then it would cause damage to the product because it cooled it down too fast and too hard. So say, your set point was negative 20, it would pull down to like negative 25, negative 30 before it was like ooh too far, wow, and we're going to cut ourselves back.
Speaker 2:So they were actually banned from FedEx for a little while. There was a carrier dealership that did actually go through and fix the programming to where it would have a tighter tolerance so that wouldn't happen anymore and that's how we were able to run what we had. But that 960, amazing, amazing, uh, carrier reefer unit, uh, but then we bought a bunch more with carrier 850s, our 860s. So the 850 860 are the 950, 960. Um, the the 60 was just a newer version of the old 50 version.
Speaker 2:Basically, what that really meant was they went to a brushless fan. So I don't know, did you ever have one where it had fan brushes and the fan brushes had to be replaced? Yes, so these older carriers so Carrier and Thermo King have very different ideas on how to run their fans and their reefer units. To blow air, carrier has an electric fan, three of them to blow the air, to cool it, like your house would have an electric fan right. And those 850s all had traditional old-school brushed fans motors, and so you have these little brushes that run around in a circle and that's what gives it electricity, passes through and makes it run. But those brushes would wear down over time.
Speaker 2:Because they actually made physical contact, because they made physical contact, yeah, so they would actually wear down over time and so you would have to go in. And it was really cool because Carrier knew this. They sold a brush pack so they'd actually pull it apart and replace all the brushes and then stick it all back together and you'd go on down the road and you could tell too, because you would lose one fan and the other two would be working fine, but all of a sudden all the cooling got like super slow and then finally you just walk in the back and you'd see like, oh yeah, that fan's not running. Those two are. Look at him shaking his head he's like where's all this?
Speaker 1:100?
Speaker 2:so that was a huge issue with uh, the carrier 8, the 50 models, the 60 models moved to brushless fans and that changed the game just suddenly. Their reliability went through the roof, so much better built product. Did you ever have one of those, or were you always the 850s with the brushes?
Speaker 1:I think I always had the brushes Okay.
Speaker 2:So they moved to the brushless and that made a world of difference and I was super, super happy with that product. And so we decided we're going to keep building carriers. So we finally brought a reefer truck from Jeff Jones at Stoops Freightliner truck from Jeff Jones at Stoops Freightliner. Jonesy was like the guru of T-Val trucks through Stoops Freightliner, just like John Lalonde was with FIDA Freightliner. They were the two gurus. They knew what they were doing. Jonesy was hell-bent on Thermo King and like you gotta buy a Thermo King, you don't with the carrier. Thermo King's so much better. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Later in life I found out it's really more of a political issue with his local carrier dealership. But you know, when you're new to the business you don't always see all those dynamics, sure. And so I said no, I really want a carrier. Like can you quote it to me and build it with a carrier? And he said, okay, fine, I'll do it. And then he gave my information over to the guy that runs Thermo King in Fort.
Speaker 2:Wayne and had that guy call me, and so he sat down, explained to me all the great things about Thermo King and why we should buy them. Well, let me back up a second and say Thermo King had just released their new model, the T880.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you what no one knows model numbers like you do.
Speaker 2:I'm failing to remember what model number this was. Anyways, they just released this model and I don't know if you remember this in like early 2011, 12. These things were failing pad test left and right. These thermo king units could not, could not make it happen, they were just given fits.
Speaker 2:Um, so what they did was it like a traditional reefer unit, which is what Carrier runs on a truck is? It blows ice cold and it turns the ice cold off and it blows ambient air. Then it turns back to ice cold. Your air conditioner in your house does the same thing. It's either on or off. Right, and what Thermo King did was they said we're going to adapt this new technology which says we're going to be able to regulate the temperature. It's an inverter system, just like those split units they use all over the world you may have been in a hotel that has a split unit and so they're able to actually control the temperature of the air coming out, not just on or off. And so this system. The system worked, but the programming was bad, and so at that time, if you failed pad test more than twice, I think FedEx would only let you do that every six months, right, correct?
Speaker 2:So, if you failed pad test twice you had to go six months without being a T-Val truck Oof and then you could re-pad test again. So they're having lots of issues with these reefers and I didn't want one. I'm like I'm good, I'll stick with my carrier products, love them. So he calls me and he tells me all right, thermic. And Guy calls me. He says look, all of those issues are resolved.
Speaker 2:It was a software issue, which it was he wasn't lying to me Software issue. We just reprogrammed some stuff and boom, it works fine. Now I'm like, okay, give me a better reason. They're whisper quiet. What does that mean? They're significantly quieter than carriers, hard numbers, significantly quieter, which they were. And then that was like, okay, that's nice, but they're really not that loud in the reefer. Well, they were when they were underneath your truck, but up in the air they're really not that loud.
Speaker 2:So then final thing he shows me was they had a plan still do called a Guaranteed Maintenance Plan, a GMP, and it's part of their svc, which is our thermo king service plan. And they said if you pay whatever dollars it was a month for this many years we will guarantee that equipment will run that whole time. So if the reefer ever breaks down for any reason, at any time, 24, 7, weekends and holidays included you can bring it to a thermo king and we will fix it and get you back on the road, and we won't charge you a penny. Oh yeah, and we're also going to cover all of your oil changes and pms on on the reefer on the reefer now.
Speaker 2:Now we had owned enough at that point reefers to know that reefers only break down at night Only on the weekends and holidays.
Speaker 4:Am I right?
Speaker 2:You're right, they do not break down during business hours. No, they refuse.
Speaker 2:Holidays, and weekends too Holidays and weekends and to bring a truck to a shop and have a guy come out from his house to the shop, it's like an immediate $600. Sure, on top of whatever else we're getting done, $600. Now it's like $1,200, $1,500. It's ridiculous, but back then it was like $600. And then the price of repairing these things, which they're very expensive pieces of equipment, evaporator coil that's $1,250. New compressor, that's $4,000 or $5,000. Everything is just outrageously expensive. And so they were going to guarantee all that and cover all that.
Speaker 2:So I'm like alright. Well, it's not as good of a reefer in my opinion. I thought at the time. But that right there, like especially because the early days it was just Eric and I, we had no staff obviously we were still running a truck ourselves, so I would drive from 1 pm 1 in the afternoon 1 in the afternoon to 1 in the morning.
Speaker 2:Eric drove 1 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon, so like at nighttime it would break down. Two o'clock in the morning I'd get a phone call and the comfort of being able to say pull up Google Maps, find the closest thermo king, go straight there and get it fixed. Versus, this is about to cost me six grand. Right Like and all that Like. That won me over and we put it in place. We bought the truck, put it in place, saw how it worked and I'm like I'm done from now on. Then, our first truck we built through FIDA that I put the Thermo King on because I liked it so much. I was like let me just build some more of these and try them out. I remember the first time I was in the sleeper and I kicked the Thermo King on and walked back there and I was like holy cow, so much quieter, so much quieter. I was genuinely surprised. I'm like how were they able to make this so much quieter than the carrier? It was night and day.
Speaker 2:So I was like okay, well, this is a winning combination for me. A couple of other minor things. Thermo King runs their fans Remember I was talking about the carrier fans. They run them off of the engine. So like, as the engine's running and it's turning the compressor, it's also turning the fans. So you don't have an electric motor running those. So you've taken that issue completely out of the equation wow uh, the other thing that I like, and you might remember this, therm carriers did not like to get wet.
Speaker 1:I was about to say this.
Speaker 2:They did not like rain at all, at all at all. And if they got wet they would immediately throw up an alt code for the alt data, because the belt would start to slip and the alt data wouldn't be able to get a good charge code for the alternator because the belt would start to slip and the alternator wouldn't be able to get a good charge. And so, because you're running these fans off the alternator, it needs that power, it needs it bad. If a Thermo King throws a belt and you lose the alternator, you've got hours to get it fixed because the only thing that's running on it is computers. That's the only thing that's running on it is computers. That's the only thing running off that battery. The computer is a starter, but a carrier is pulling a lot of power to run those fans off of that battery.
Speaker 2:And so, oh man, I can't tell you how many issues we had with all. And then it's like go to a carrier, have them throw a new belt on, yada, yada, yada all the time. So you're constantly 300 here, 200, 400, 500 there, like all the time. So you're constantly 300 here, 200, 400, 500 there, like all the time. So having that problem disappear oh, loved it.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many times I would be driving with a carrier reefer and throw that alt code, and I knew it would as soon as it started raining. I just knew it was coming, you embraced yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah it wasn't, if it was just a matter of when I knew it was coming. So as soon as we would go through a heavy rainstorm or anything like that, we literally would stop every truck stop we've seen pull under the fuel island, sit there for five, ten minutes, let it dry out and it would fire right back up. I'd let it run, get back down to temp and then I'd take off again. Yep.
Speaker 5:Wow, and I did that every time that's called trip planning. Yeah, every time. Trip planning is finest.
Speaker 2:So that was a little annoying. So we did, we pretty much went all exclusive Thermo King. I ended up selling off all the carriers and we've been exclusively Thermo King for quite a few years now, I was just going to ask do we have any carriers left? So not left, but we have since bought some carriers.
Speaker 2:So, Not left, but we have since bought some carriers. So, as you all know, trucks have been hard to get over the past few years and the dealerships aren't building new ones like they used to be, and so it's literally like if I'm going to get a truck I have to special order it and I'll get it next year sometime. Yeah, like it's been rough. It's not a quick turn, it's not a quick turn at all. I've actually gone out and we've bought um used trucks or or things like that that we normally wouldn't get, and, uh, we've put those out in the out in the world and some of those do have carriers. Now carrier has changed a few things um, the big square with the lid dumb controller the carriers had. That's gone, doesn't exist anymore. Now it's a nice uh digital controller, much like thermoKings have the alternator issues. I don't know what they've done.
Speaker 5:But an issue I don't want to know.
Speaker 4:Are they still running the fans off? Individual motors.
Speaker 2:They still run the fans off individual motors, but they are now the brushless motors which remember. I said earlier was a huge difference. So we've had the new carriers are significantly better than what they used to be. I think Thermo King really didn't give a chance Like it was, either like get your product better or you're not going to have a product to sell.
Speaker 5:Makes sense Competition, which is good in the industry.
Speaker 4:Yes, I think the Thermo King controller is simpler than the carrier controller.
Speaker 2:I agree, but here's what I've seen, because I've just been doing this longer is the old carrier controller was beautiful, Manual control on and off switch like a little thump switch.
Speaker 2:And then they had a piece of plastic over every other button so you'd have to flip the plastic up and then you could adjust your set point and that's all you ever had to do on it. Period, set the set point, hit enter, oh, and changing the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Super easy, okay, and then close that cover and you were done with it. It was super nice, very basic this. It had a little tiny screen on it that just showed you what you had to see, and that was it sure. And then thermokin came out with theirs and it's computer controlled. It's a little more advanced, it's nicer, right, and so that was the more modern. The thing I didn't like about it was now I had to tell you like, set point was easy to change, right, but how to go from Celsius to Fahrenheit was not. Now you had to actually go into the system and I had to tell you how to get there and change it.
Speaker 2:Carrier has taken that and made a smarter, better controller. But because it's better and smarter, there's more levels to it. It's more complicated, yeah, so now you have to run that a little more, I think a big part of me.
Speaker 4:So they've enhanced each other over the years I think a big part of me the Thermo King versus the Carrier Controller. The Thermo King is a little more plain English and the Carrier is a lot more symbols Agreed, and if you don't know what the symbols mean, so we have so few For me. I use the Carrier so infrequently that I just don't know it. I've read through the manual months, maybe a couple years ago, to see what was what. Now I just call Jeremy over at CT Power and hey man.
Speaker 2:And carrier has some cool functionality to lock things out. So I remember about the first one we couldn't change from Celsius to Fahrenheit and we couldn't change the set point. It was locked in at 40. And so we had to. It was an all-supply chain truck which all they do is run 40. So we actually had to go to CT Power, which back then was W2 Looms, and they had to reflash it to give us the ability to change the settings and everything, because it's a requirement at fedex.
Speaker 2:You have to be able to. If the shipper wants celsius, you do celsius, they want fahrenheit, do fahrenheit, because they do change depending on the shipper. And then, uh, the set points are all different stuff, so you have to have access to that, but it, um, it can lock you out of all that, whereas the new Thermo Kings don't do that and the old school carriers definitely don't do that. Now here's what I didn't like about the old school carrier and I'm curious if you ever did this. The truck in particular I'm thinking of that Eric and I drove that had that carrier on it. It was mounted just above the cup holder and there were more than a couple times where I'd go to grab my pilot coffee, because it's the best coffee on the interstate, pick it up, drink it and set it back down and cut that baby.
Speaker 4:It just turned it right off, just turn it right off that switch, just so.
Speaker 2:You, yeah, just, it was like it was spring-loaded for off. It just set it down and just, and it was like oh no, and again it's an older dumber system. So it is like full cold, full hot, full cold, full hot. So when you fired it back up, like maybe it was doing a really good job of moderating the temperature, when you fire it back up, oh, it goes berserk and the temperature drops way low and then it goes way high and it's like no, no, no, please, please, please, please, please, get to normal, before FedEx notices that I turned this thing off on accident.
Speaker 1:And then you're getting messages, and then you're getting the phone calls.
Speaker 5:You're like leave me alone.
Speaker 2:I don't know what happened, oh yeah, and then, because you just did that, it goes into defrost mode. Yep, wow, and then you're dealing with that. So it was crazy. But we are still primarily Thermo King and we have five trucks on order right now that are going to be all Thermo King units. We have incorporated some carriers in the program and I don't dislike them. They are actually pretty solid, good units. If you are used to a Thermo King and you switch to the carrier, you will notice it cools faster, it heats faster. It's just in my opinion. The carrier is will notice it cools faster. Uh, it heats faster. It's just like. In my opinion, the carrier is a little more robust from a how fast can it cool, how fast can it heat up, than the thermo king is. But the thermo king excels in holding that tight temperature. Yeah, if it's five celsius, it's going to get to 5.2 and it's going to get to 4.8 and it's going to hold that super tight range, whereas you're going to see a couple degree difference on the carriers. It's chilly.
Speaker 5:People often wonder why we never drink purple Kool-Aid. We didn't have to deal with carrier thermo. We didn't.
Speaker 2:That's all I got to say no, you had a Comfort Pro on one of your trucks.
Speaker 5:Okay, well, I'm talking about holding temperature.
Speaker 4:All of our trucks had Comfort.
Speaker 5:Pros or coffee caps or flipping the switch, but we didn't deal with.
Speaker 4:No defrosting. We were very fortunate with our APU where the worst thing we had to do every now and again was reset the breaker.
Speaker 5:Yeah, little red button. Only on one of them did we have that issue, I would trip it, but once we figured that out, yeah, so you know APU PM, but otherwise we were very fortunate in that sense.
Speaker 2:If you ask me, I agree with buttermilk On a Comfort Pro. You should be able to run the water heater, air conditioner, induction cooktop, microwave, convection oven.
Speaker 5:Your hair dryer the hair dryer.
Speaker 2:Instapot.
Speaker 5:Yeah, air fryer.
Speaker 2:The air fryer and the kettle. The small one-cup hot water kettle yes, I'm sure that one too the Blackstone, the electric Blackstone Television satellite Wi-Fi device Charge all your devices.
Speaker 4:I'm kidding.
Speaker 3:All of them.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm kidding. While I don't have a long history with the carriers, like I do with the Thermal Kings, because I deal with them all the time, we have great relationships with both those shops here locally.
Speaker 2:Yes, Great relationships and they're both great shops.
Speaker 4:We are super lucky, they handle business for us.
Speaker 5:no, problem, I'm just teasing. We had other reasons why we didn't drink the Purple Kool-Aid. We'll go into that in another night.
Speaker 2:That'd be fun to talk about, because I know, Jerry, you only did FedEx and you would never consider Panther. And you only did Panther, you would consider FedEx.
Speaker 4:Eric and I have done both. I've got Jerry pretty close to wanting to drive for Panther with his trips up there recently and dealing with the folks locally.
Speaker 3:I know, they know him, they know him.
Speaker 5:They know him. He's pretty close, he's got it in. He's rubbing elbows.
Speaker 2:He's going to deny it.
Speaker 1:You were just there.
Speaker 5:Friday, you're going to be there again.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, you were there on Friday, but now you're in Mexico. I don't know. Don't get me wrong. I like them, they're nice people.
Speaker 5:But there's a but.
Speaker 1:There's a big but. I enjoy the reefer freight. I enjoy it.
Speaker 5:I think that's what it's all about, and I do think it's personality. As a recruiter, I often talk to people about that. You know what is your personality, because that's really what it's going to come down to.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 5:You know, with freight. But that's another topic for another episode and we will discuss that. I love your story about Carrier versus Thermo King.
Speaker 2:I know it's a little boring, but y'all asked, and who?
Speaker 4:am I going to deny all the information? Some of us like it in the weeds.
Speaker 5:like that, though, an 8.5 or 5.0 versus an 8.6.0 or whatever you said. We also use primarily.
Speaker 4:Well, not primarily.
Speaker 5:It was a.
Speaker 2:Thermo.
Speaker 5:King T800, and we're on the T880 now, which was a disaster when it came out and it's better now.
Speaker 2:I didn't even get into that, but it's just been a fun over the years.
Speaker 4:The other thing that we didn't get into was even in the APU conversation. We don't run any Thermo King APUs at all but we run Thermo King.
Speaker 2:They offer those. Our very first truck had a Thermo King APU. We haven't had one since. Sorry for the another day.
Speaker 4:We haven't discussed that at all, so it's a really interesting thing that we use the equipment that works the best for our needs versus let's go with just one brand.
Speaker 2:Well, and what's really interesting too, if maybe you don't know trucking, maybe you're starting to absorb it and learn it. You're like I know Carrier. My home air conditioner or my last home had a Carrier air conditioner right Same company it's the exact same company, ThermoKing. You may not know ThermoKing's owned by Trane. Trane is Carrier's largest competitor. Trane owns American Standard, so Train and American. Standard are both home air conditioning brands that you've seen everywhere.
Speaker 4:They do commercial, though, too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, giant commercials, so does Carrier when it comes to refrigeration they have somewhat different names, but they're both massive corporations. I wasn't aware of that and they're stealing their ideas from one division and passing it to the other. Everybody's getting better, so we're working with two of the best when it comes to refrigeration. Two of the best companies out there.
Speaker 5:That's cool.
Speaker 2:But you're right, we do have great shops we work with. We're very fortunate to be in this situation. We really are, we truly are and.
Speaker 4:I've never dealt with. I know that you've taken trucks out to Thermal King and Fort Wayne. I've never been to their shops out there so I don't know any experience with them how good or bad they are. But I imagine they're pretty good because we do deal with them a lot, dennis.
Speaker 2:Dennis is a genius, a savant one might say I mean just like he helped actually develop the TVAL program for FedEx. Like he's genius level and Don out there the guy that talked to me into Thermo King originally he's still out there. He still runs the dealership. He's an amazing guy.
Speaker 2:Super nice guy as well, like just good salt of the earth kind of person, and I've enjoyed getting to know them very, very well over the years. But I don't want to sell the carrier dealership out there, crosspoint Carrier. They're an excellent carrier shop and we've had them work on our APUs. We've had them work on our reefer units. They're another great company out there as well. So yeah, we've gotten people like and that's not always the case there are certainly bad Thermo Kings. There's bad carriers across this country. I have been to some where it's like ooh, make a note, we don't send anybody else here. I can name one right now.
Speaker 2:But you know, it just is what. It is Everything in trucking. There's Freightliner dealerships we won't work with and there's LOVs and TAs we won't work with, but most are pretty good With that. We would like to say a few words.
Speaker 5:Yes, Jerry. From our sponsor Jerry.
Speaker 1:Make sure you hit that thumbs up button. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. It really does help us out with the algorithm. And if you're interested in learning more about high field trucking and all that we do or joining high field trucking, check us out at highfieldtruckingcom or give us a call and talk to Recruiting at 833 Highfield. That's 833-493-4353.
Speaker 2:Let me ask a question, if they didn't like the video.
Speaker 1:Go ahead and hit the thumbs up. Anyway, if you hit the thumbs down, hit it twice, but hit the thumbs up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, hit it twice to let us know how much you really don't like the show. Yeah, hit it twice to let us know how much you really don't like the show.
Speaker 2:Two thumbs way, way down. Two thumbs down, anything else?
Speaker 3:Thank, you for the information.
Speaker 5:No, I'm excited. I'm excited just to keep hearing where I mean. I know I said that when we first started this season, but I just love hearing the history and why things are the way they are and why we have what we have on our trucks. I mean, why do you have more than one toolbox? I guess those are kind of I'm just excited about those kind of things. You know why, Highfield, you and Eric chose to do things and spec trucks, here's a fun one.
Speaker 2:Why do some of our trucks have two toolboxes and some have three?
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, that's a conversation. Here's another question. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Why do our Panther trucks have way more freight securement than what's required?
Speaker 5:Oh, excellent question, excellent question Until next time and next time and next time. We got some videos on, if you'll bear with me for the next two hours.
Speaker 2:I would love to wax poetically about our.
Speaker 4:There was one time where we got a load offer and it required 15 straps. Vegas, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Vegas, you were in Vegas. Oh yeah, it wasn't Vegas. Flop machines.
Speaker 4:So I went and bought three additional straps so we'd have our 15 straps. Got them, these two.
Speaker 2:Four, four.
Speaker 3:Four.
Speaker 2:Vegas. For us it was Vegas and there was one particular place and it was like 22 straps. It was some ungodly number.
Speaker 5:Did you use all of them? No, six, five or six, the most. They wanted you to have them, but you only needed that many. That's hilarious.
Speaker 4:We had a load where they provided their own straps and told us when you're done, these are yours. Wow, Thank you. Don't need them, but thank you.
Speaker 5:We've also done some where they did the little D-rings in the e-track.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And they did twine, but then they gave you a.
Speaker 5:FedEx envelope and they're like when you get to the other side and you offload, cut all the twine off, put all the D-rings in hand, it to the lady at the front desk, which was at a hardware store, and she'll ship all these D-rings back to us. It was a load of windows, but I'm like what? The darnedest thing I've never seen anything like this before.
Speaker 2:FedEx the securement. Fedex did that with IBM. All kinds of fun stuff.
Speaker 5:We, just we have so many more stories to tell you, Between all of us. So many stories. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 5:In the meantime, are we running into the Christmas holiday.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say we will not have an episode next week, so we do want to wish all of you and your family happy holidays. Merry Christmas, feliz Navidad, happy.
Speaker 5:Hanukkah.
Speaker 2:Happy Hanukkah. Have a great new year.
Speaker 1:Happy.
Speaker 2:Kwanzaa. We just want to share, from our Highfield family to yours Happy holidays, merry Christmas. It is so much. I feel so good knowing that y'all have been around with us for this ride. We didn't know if we would last a couple weeks before we got sick of doing this, and here we are, so many seasons later, and we look forward to the new year 2025. And doing this some more. We have some interesting coming next year.
Speaker 5:Oh, I like that season, but we still have a couple episodes left in the season.
Speaker 2:Do we? I don't know, do we Sure? Why not? So is a season like fall is one season, or is a season a fall and spring A?
Speaker 5:season is a moment in life A season happens between your travels.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest, I personally think that this probably concludes the fall season. Your travels. Let's be honest, I personally think that this probably concludes the fall season.
Speaker 5:Aww.
Speaker 2:And next January, when we pick back up it will be winter officially. It will be winter which solstice on December 21st.
Speaker 5:That's because today's the day. That's today, I just realized that's today.
Speaker 4:Today is December 21st. The days are starting to get longer. It's the shortest.
Speaker 2:It's an amazing day.
Speaker 4:Amazing day.
Speaker 5:How exciting.
Speaker 4:Very excited.
Speaker 2:Anyways, she doesn't get it, she doesn't get it.
Speaker 4:It is an amazing day.
Speaker 2:We will see you at the New Year in January.
Speaker 3:Yes, we will.
Speaker 2:I think second week of January, 3rd January and a half, I know the first week of January I'll be out of the country. Sorry, but we will be back. I think for this we're going to shoot for second week.
Speaker 4:So there's not going to be a show on January 4th, the 4th of January. Yeah, probably a good thing too, so people can celebrate my birthday properly, because they don't have to watch an episode of. The Outer Belt. They can just go out and celebrate my birthday all day. Fair enough, yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2:Anyways, we love y'all. Jimmy Mac happy birthday. It's his birthday, right it is, it's coming up. Jimmy Mac, happy birthday. We hope you all have a wonderful time. Celebrate New Year safely, responsibly. Responsibly, Go out of service. If you need to go out of service, and for those of you staying out there and you're like we're going to do it, kill it. We hope and wish the best for you. In the meantime, until next season, stay safe, make good decisions.
Speaker 4:Be responsible the entire holiday season. Be responsible. Think about what you're doing, make good plans, make good decisions, as Patrick says, and don't leave money on the table.
Speaker 1:And keep those walls of tournament.
Speaker 5:Woo-hoo, good night, thank you.