Ever wondered how truckers prepare for the fickle moods of Mother Nature? Join us, Patrick, and my truckin' comrades Chili, Buttermilk, Eric, Jerry, and the spirit of Don, as we swap storm-dodging tales and ponder the quirks of seasonal weather. From safeguarding tomato plants to managing the shock of hail-damaged vehicles, we've got stories that'll make you buckle up for safety and laugh at the absurdity of unexpected cottonwood flurries. It's a conversation that digs into the daily impact of weather on the road and at home—discussing everything from the sting of high power bills to the cool sanctuaries of basements used for last-minute podcast recordings.
Rev your engines for a salute to trucking excellence as we honor Warren Crane's jaw-dropping 5 million safe miles with Walmart. Uncover the secrets behind Walmart's success in fostering safety and longevity among their drivers, and learn how a rigorous approach to truck maintenance can keep you safe and sound—and your wallet happy. We share insider tips on vehicle inspections that avoid the pitfalls of 'pencil whipping' and the importance of checking every nook and cranny before hitting the highway. Plus, we chat about the latest in gas station expansions from Love's to Wawa, and how these chains are upgrading life on the road with more convenience than ever.
Cap off your journey with us as we brainstorm a Hyfield-branded cookbook for truckers, filled with recipes that turn small truck cabins into gourmet kitchens. Discover the allure of Yellow Springs, Ohio—our foodie treasure trove—and join our celebration as we mark a YouTube milestone, pumped and ready for more adventures. We dish out the struggles and victories of shifting diets, and invite you to be a part of our growing community, making each mile and story shared a group triumph. So, grab a snack, find your favorite spot, and tune in for a ride that mixes the practical with the pleasurable—all in the company of friends who understand life behind the wheel.
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
Instagram: The_OuterBelt
Ever wondered how truckers prepare for the fickle moods of Mother Nature? Join us, Patrick, and my truckin' comrades Chili, Buttermilk, Eric, Jerry, and the spirit of Don, as we swap storm-dodging tales and ponder the quirks of seasonal weather. From safeguarding tomato plants to managing the shock of hail-damaged vehicles, we've got stories that'll make you buckle up for safety and laugh at the absurdity of unexpected cottonwood flurries. It's a conversation that digs into the daily impact of weather on the road and at home—discussing everything from the sting of high power bills to the cool sanctuaries of basements used for last-minute podcast recordings.
Rev your engines for a salute to trucking excellence as we honor Warren Crane's jaw-dropping 5 million safe miles with Walmart. Uncover the secrets behind Walmart's success in fostering safety and longevity among their drivers, and learn how a rigorous approach to truck maintenance can keep you safe and sound—and your wallet happy. We share insider tips on vehicle inspections that avoid the pitfalls of 'pencil whipping' and the importance of checking every nook and cranny before hitting the highway. Plus, we chat about the latest in gas station expansions from Love's to Wawa, and how these chains are upgrading life on the road with more convenience than ever.
Cap off your journey with us as we brainstorm a Hyfield-branded cookbook for truckers, filled with recipes that turn small truck cabins into gourmet kitchens. Discover the allure of Yellow Springs, Ohio—our foodie treasure trove—and join our celebration as we mark a YouTube milestone, pumped and ready for more adventures. We dish out the struggles and victories of shifting diets, and invite you to be a part of our growing community, making each mile and story shared a group triumph. So, grab a snack, find your favorite spot, and tune in for a ride that mixes the practical with the pleasurable—all in the company of friends who understand life behind the wheel.
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
Instagram: The_OuterBelt
you ready to start?
Speaker 2:yep, let's make this happen. She'll go find a place to lay down. Go lay down, you wanted to come yeah, but I think she finished already.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Belt. I am Patrick, and you all know my friends here Chili, buttermilk, eric and Jerry. And tonight we don't have Don. He is back working still, so it's just the five of us tonight, but I think we'll make it there. I think we'll survive. What do you think, jerry? I think so Cool. Well, the first item up for topic is going to be the weather. As usual, the weather. It's hot. We had like six days of gorgeousness. Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we just jumped ahead. Gorgeousness what happened? Well, you know, we just jumped ahead.
Speaker 1:To summer. No, okay, is that summer out there? It's actually not even the heat. I don't mind the heat, it's the humidity. It has been humid. Where did that come from?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but it's building up for a week's worth of rain.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it starts raining tomorrow, Does it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they're like thundery storms evening.
Speaker 4:I think tomorrow, like they said, we're rolling in around 8 pm like very, very strong winds and large hail.
Speaker 2:Oh, good times.
Speaker 1:It's part of the wagon here outside.
Speaker 4:Eric's face. He's like a.
Speaker 1:I hope it doesn't hurt my tomato plants.
Speaker 2:I actually have tomatoes on them.
Speaker 3:We're actually supposed to be getting Scattered thunderstorms tomorrow morning at 9am. Wow, that'll be fun for our move in tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Just take some plexiglass and put over it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Over my tomatoes. No, the whole truck Just get a crane. I don't mind it Over my tomatoes, no, the whole truck.
Speaker 4:Oh okay, just get a crane hover it over.
Speaker 3:I don't mind it. It's just when the drivers show up unprepared for weather.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'm like here's your first lesson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it's just that it's a lesson, because I wouldn't have thought it. I mean, when I moved in, it was a beautiful day and I was not prepared for what if the weather is terrible, but that was also a lot different. Back then it was the company Eric and I started driving. For when we first started driving was here's the keys from a truck stop we didn't even pick it up at a facility or anything a truck stop and they were like here's the keys your truck's, the one that doors open. So there were like a group of like five trucks there and we had to go figure out which one it was, and that was the one that doors open. So they were like a group of like five trucks there and and we had to go figure out which one it was, and that was the one we got wow we made it a whole day in that truck and then, and then we got immediately swapped into a second truck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, but again I didn't come prepared. But you learn that quickly, you do.
Speaker 3:Being prepared.
Speaker 1:Be prepared for all weather all the times of the year. Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm kind of looking forward to the just naturally raining watering.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I found myself out there watering like a gallon of water on all my plants Last year. I didn't do plants the year before other than what already was growing at the house, but I did some flower baskets this year and a couple of tomatoes, and that requires daily watering, and I missed one day. We were out doing something over the weekend and I just by the time we got home it was too late and I went out the next day and everything was looking so wilty and I'm like. But it was only 24 hours so and I don't have quite enough to make any kind of a drip system. It's not that much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. We got to get our drip system working on some plants out in the backyard, in the front yard, pretty soon, because we're going to take a few weeks off and be gone for a little bit and it's like, okay, the pressure's on, it needs to be done before we leave, otherwise we'll come back to a graveyard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's no fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do most people show up prepared.
Speaker 1:No, a lack of preparation on their end? Or is it a lack of not knowing what to prepare for?
Speaker 3:It's not looking at the weather and knowing that, yes, I left home a day and a half ago and it was sunny and beautiful, and I get to Columbus a day and a half later and it's snowing outside.
Speaker 1:Well, there's no change to that happening for the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3:No, it's been snowing, dogwood, cottonwood.
Speaker 2:Cottonwood.
Speaker 3:Cottonwood the last couple of days oh my gosh. But that's not either here, or there.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised. We can all breathe. That's not either here or there. I'm surprised we can all breathe it literally as you're driving down the road. It looks like you're driving through a snowstorm. It does. It is insane.
Speaker 3:They just show up unprepared for the weather. They're not thinking through the process of what they have to do with the truck. We do a walk around. It doesn't take very long to do the walk around. Usually If they have questions it takes a little longer. I don't rush it. Yeah, you know, I'm like this is trucking, welcome to it, I'll offer. Hey, do you want to go put some shoes?
Speaker 4:on, so your sandals in the rain.
Speaker 3:I mean, they won't come up barefoot, but they might show up in sandals or yeah you want to grab a jacket because it's cold, it's cold outside, absolutely. So if they don't want to, okay, here we go, we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a part of trucking. I mean, I remember how many times you know you go down, you pick up a load in Laredo or somewhere and it's hot yeah.
Speaker 4:Hot, it's not warm.
Speaker 1:It's hot. Then you drive it up to Michigan or something and it is just snowing, it's butt off.
Speaker 1:I remember there was one time we picked up a miniature crane or something like that out of Laredo. We brought it up to, I want to say, iowa. It's where the company. No, it wasn't Iowa, it was Oshkosh Because the place we were at the company was named the same name as the city. I think it was Oshkosh Because they do a lot of heavy machinery stuff there. I was driving and you know when you're driving and you're in a climate-controlled truck, I mean you can drive whatever temperature you want.
Speaker 1:So, I usually crank that maybe up to 75, wear shorts and a T-shirt while I'm driving, dead of winter. It's snowing outside, I'm short in T-shirt, just chilling, just comfortable. And I remember thinking when I got to my shipper or my receiver rather, I was like I can do this quickly, not go talk to the people, but like I know, like open up my doors and back up to the dock that I've already been assigned, and then I'll go inside and, you know, grab the stuff. I need to walk inside. I did that. I stepped outside and it was negative 10 degrees, oof, no gloves on no thing, shorts and a t-shirt. I ran back there, I unlocked the door, pulled both doors open, attached them to the side of the wall so it wouldn't flap around, got back in the truck and just sat there in the driver's seat Like literally was out of the car, out of the truck, for maybe 45 seconds. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's all it takes it's all it takes in those temperatures it's so fast and it was just like sitting there and just turned the seat heater on and just trying my best to thaw out as quickly as I could. It was miserable. But I mean, it's that lack of preparation kind of thinking like, oh, I can do it, no, matter what. I could not that time.
Speaker 4:We would always keep like two seasons of clothes on the truck because you just never know what you're going to run into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did all, just because well, we lived on the truck we lived on the truck. So, yeah, we, we did we had it all we had it all and there were times where you were, like you said, in shorts, whatever, down south, and by the time you drove your shift slept. Your shift the next day was the parka and gloves and the scarf.
Speaker 1:It was last week they had snow in Donner.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I saw that Lots of snow we're at the weather radar for the next couple of days and they're getting snow in Colorado, utahah, colorado, all across through iowa we have a buddy.
Speaker 1:I have a buddy of mine that I went to college with. He's in colorado right now, went out there, um, just to go camping like in a tent. It's just something he does every so often and uh, meet it with friends and all that are out there. And uh, he had a heated alive walking down the road going. Well, my plans are a little different and and he starts showing around and it's just snow everywhere. He's like last night there was no snow, it was beautiful. This morning this came through. I didn't know it was going to happen and Eric and I have actually had that happen to us.
Speaker 1:We were actually out there in Estes Park, colorado which is a beautiful area of Colorado if you get a chance to go and standing at the campground. Literally woke up the next morning Like the weather was beautiful all weekend, nothing to worry about because we checked all that stuff, and the very next day woke up and there's already like six inches of snow on the ground.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And we were like where did this come from? It was the first snow of the season and they were like took us by surprise too.
Speaker 3:The owner of the park was fine with us staying the extra day because the other people couldn't get into the park.
Speaker 1:We couldn't get out and they couldn't get in. It was hysterical, so the owner of the park was like I don't care. I guess, they'll get paid regardless.
Speaker 2:I watch Oregon weather, because that's where the kids live. They were having their last snow warning like two weeks ago and within six days of that or whatever, it was now going to like record temperatures and fire danger warning and I'm like, wow, that's a big swing from your last snow to the fire danger, you know to the fire danger.
Speaker 1:You know well, that was one of the things I really liked about moving up to ohio from louisiana was in louisiana you get winter, a week of spring and summer, and summer last eight months, and then you get a week of fall and it's winter again, and so when we moved up here it's like wow, there's, there's four real seasons, like that's crazy. I loved it and and it seems like, wow, there's four real seasons. Like that's crazy. I loved it and it seems like, at least for this year so far there wasn't much spring.
Speaker 1:Wasn't much spring at all. It just went winter to freaking summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm anxious to see what happens. Is it going to do the same for fall? Are we going to have a nice fall, or what's going to happen?
Speaker 4:I've been running my AC. Oh a nice fall, or what's going to happen. So I've been running my ac, I keep it on. I keep it on 75. Now that is sweltering hot for me. Let me tell you I'm dying and my office is on the second floor so I've got the fans going like I'm dying. But I got an email from aep power today and they're like just to let you know your estimated power usage has gone up 38% since this time last year. I'm like 38% and it's on 75? I'm not even comfortable.
Speaker 1:That's why you go ahead and just bring it on up to 70. Be comfortable.
Speaker 2:I mean you're already there.
Speaker 4:Because once it's holding at temperature. Right. But they say for every degree you go below 75, it raises your power bill by like $12.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we do ours at 70 and it runs right around $130, $135. I'll spot you a degree for next month. I'll spot you.
Speaker 1:We'll send the collection plate around Exactly.
Speaker 3:When are we going to start that GoFundMe for Jerry?
Speaker 1:I have a solution. We'll just do the GoFundMe to get the movers to move him into his basement, where it's like 68 degrees year-round.
Speaker 4:I went down there today to do some laundry and hung out for a couple hours. As soon as I got halfway down the staircase it's just like oh, this is heaven, it's so nice. Usually, I take the clothes back up to the bedroom. No, I stayed down there and folded the clothes. It was so nice.
Speaker 1:I came home today and I knew we were going to do the podcast tonight. So a little behind-the-scenes information this is not a normal night to record but for some logistics purposes we're having to bump it up a day. So I was like, all right, I knew we were going to record tonight, let me just walk downstairs. So I was like all right, I know we're going to record tonight, let me just walk downstairs and not even do that. I walked in the house and I was like, oh, it's warm. So I'm like that's not good. So I walked over. I know a few nights ago I turned the thermostat up because it was too cold, because it's doing that thing or it was it's not right now, but it was doing that thing where it would be like 80 during the day and 40 at night.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:No, not the room I mean outside so like it was getting pretty cold at night. I mean we had a fire one night last week in the fireplace. It was cold enough. I turned the thermostat up a little bit because of that and I didn't like it getting that cold in the house. And so when I got in the house today and it was so warm, I'm like all right, maybe I went too far right.
Speaker 1:Right. So I walked over to the thermostat and looked at it and it had that little weight thing on it. Have you ever seen that on one of your thermostats you ever lived in? Ours will do it here, and I know my parents' house. It would do it down there. If the unit got like too high a pressure on Freon and the circumference of the earth lined up with a solar flare, then it would do this thing and you just had to literally just wait a few minutes and it would like even the pressure out and then it would kick back on and keep going. And that's what happened today. Uh. But I was like, oh no. So I walked down here and I'm like, uh, it's pretty warm, like this is not gonna be comfortable. So I came and opened up a couple of the ac vents down here. I'm like, when does kick on? At least it'll hopefully cool this basement down some, Because this basement's a walkout so it doesn't have that same thermal effect Full wall, yeah, underground.
Speaker 1:Now the other part of the basement does.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But it's not big enough to film all this. It was definitely interesting. I spent the last couple days doing uh insurance stuff so a little over that, we had hail damage done on uh the jeep a few weeks ago and uh. So I put up a set up an appointment for an estimate to get the hail damage looked at and all that stuff. It's funny my insurance agent was like are you sure't?
Speaker 1:I mean, you have a decent deductible. I think it's 500 bucks or so. Like, do you not just want to cover the damage yourself? And I'm like it's going to be more than $500. Like I'm looking at the damage, it's, this is not. I have a couple days ago that appraisal done $4,000.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:The very next day, I had to go get another vehicle appraised, which is what I did today, and I'm like, I'm tired of this. Like body shops, wear me out, mechanical shops we use mechanics all the time with the company. So I kind of have an idea what to do with them.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Body shops are just in a world their own. They just treat everything differently. They're in no rush, they just, you know, yeah, well, whatever. So the Jeep, they're going to repair it, I think in August. We have the appointment to get it repaired, august, august.
Speaker 3:Wow, and it's May.
Speaker 1:It's in the May Wow and the other vehicle we're looking at September.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, both of them are still drivable, so it's not like not being able to use the vehicles, but it's still. You know, you're driving around a Jeep and you're just hail damaged all over the place. It ended up like crazy. I don't know, I'm not going to say it's embarrassing, but it does look a certain way.
Speaker 2:Sure, does that make sense yeah?
Speaker 1:Must have been a pretty good hailstorm, it was.
Speaker 3:We weren't here for it. It was in the airport parking lot the whole time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess y'all had that crazy hail storm come through a few weeks ago. I was the same when y'all went down to Key West. We talked about that on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We went down to Key West. It was the same like a couple days either before or after. But, melissa, I saw you brought an interesting article today.
Speaker 2:I did and I thought you might want to talk about it. So I came across this article and it really caught my attention and I think what surprised me the most was 5 million safe miles. So that's what caught my attention.
Speaker 1:So it's like a fleet of trucks that have run 5 million.
Speaker 2:It is a fleet of trucks, it was a Walmart driver but he hit 5 million safe miles and I'm like that's a lot of miles. And they put it into perspective and it says that will get you around the world no less than 200 times.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm sorry, this is not a fleet of trucks. This is a driver. This is a driver.
Speaker 2:This is a driver, A solo single driver.
Speaker 1:I thought this was like a fleet.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 2:That was celebrating like 5 million safe miles yeah yeah, his name I'll shout it out because I think it's a great accomplishment is Warren Crane, and he has achieved by himself, 5 million safe miles with the Walmart distribution and I just I thought, wow, what a great safe miles too. That's a lot of miles. Again, no less than 200 times around the world Second driver in the company's history to hit the milestone. The first was done in 2020 by another driver and this gentleman who just hit the milestone uh, the first was done in 2020 by another driver and this gentleman who just hit the five million safe miles he's been driving for walmart for 36 years. Wow. So five million miles, I guess, and is what you can do in 36 years so that means he got started when 88 or so yeah that's a long time to be with one company.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of miles it's a lot of miles it's a lot of miles how many trucks worth is that?
Speaker 1:walmart probably circulates their trucks every 300 000, so that's probably 10, 15, probably 15 give or take a few trucks. Wow, it's a lot, yeah, driving but I mean kudos to him.
Speaker 2:Man. Safe miles, that's hard to do out there in this industry as any kind of driver, whether you're in a personal car or a semi, so I don't know. It really piqued my interest, you know that to me is, you know, some dedication and pre-trips and all those wonderful things that you're doing out there to stay safe on the road. And he has achieved that.
Speaker 1:Well, that is awesome. I saw they threw him a celebration. They did, and they even escorted him around the Walmart distribution center by local authorities. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:I think he deserved it. He had, like they had, a big sign for him that he got to drive through with his truck. That said congratulations on 5 million miles, and you know a little pomp and circumstance.
Speaker 1:I think it's worth it. I mean again like celebrating people who have a commitment to safety in this industry and do so long in just the commitment to stay with the company. Now I will say Walmart probably one of the best companies at retaining their drivers. They have a pretty good history or pretty good record or reputation, you could say, of treating their drivers very well. They're paid probably the leading salary in the business, so it makes sense that this would happen at that company.
Speaker 3:They're also very picky about who they hire. They're extremely picky. You have to have so much experience, you have to have a clean DAC, a clean PSP. They won't just hire you with a year experience, they require two at least. And again, everything has to be clean.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Everything has to be clean.
Speaker 1:And because they are so respected and have such a good reputation, there's not a lot of people quitting.
Speaker 2:No, respected and have such a good reputation, there's not a lot of people quitting. There's not a lot of opportunities out there, right? Well, no, because this guy's doing 5 million miles out there, I know right.
Speaker 1:Think of all the people he's kept out of a job. Yeah, that's really awesome. I bet we start seeing, over the next few years, a few more people get that milestone as well. I like too. Walmart is one of the carriers that will, and there's a lot that will as well, but they'll put the million mile. You know. They'll put your name on a truck and they'll put the million miles which they did for him.
Speaker 4:Two million miles yeah.
Speaker 1:I've seen that with. I think Prime is another one that does it, I think they do, and a few other carriers.
Speaker 1:I really like that, because what a lot of people don't realize is companies like Walmart and stuff. They slip seat. So that means that you drive this truck on, like, say, you go out for a four-day shift, right. So you leave with your product and you're going to go hit two stores and be back. So it's four days, right. Then you go home for a couple days and when you come back you're not getting back in that same truck, you're going into a whole nother truck right.
Speaker 1:So you're probably back in a sleeping bag and a pillow and what else you know, whatever else you want. And a lot of people aren't crazy about that because you know, getting there, occasionally you're going to get behind a messy trucker and you have to clean up the truck before you hit your road and all that stuff. But, but, so they do that. So for them to dedicate a truck to one person, that means you've really hit a milestone and then you don't have to worry about that anymore because you're driving your truck. So that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool the way they do that. Wow, I can't even imagine. I mean, I think between Eric and I we have like 600,000 miles we've driven together.
Speaker 2:We never hit a million. I don't think we did either. Do you think we had a million? I don't know. Oh no, I have to think about that one now. You, you were out there longer, no we probably didn't.
Speaker 3:We did three years total, so I doubt we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in Expedite most trucks are averaging about 150-ish thousand miles a year, so that puts us about 450.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're probably below average on how on the miles we drove because we managed it so well. We probably did about 50,000 miles a year probably. Yeah you.
Speaker 2:You think you did a million.
Speaker 4:I may have, but I never tracked it or anything.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I mean, but I spent 14 years out there, so well, just that trip to Alaska had to be at least half a million, right.
Speaker 2:I felt like it.
Speaker 3:This one time I had a load going to the moon. Oh yeah, I mean it was just a quick turn, but it was challenging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get that, it was challenging, I get that. But that automatic transmission I mean all you got to do is just hit go.
Speaker 3:Right, but still, it's still a challenge. You know you got to steer around asteroids and comets and things.
Speaker 1:I saw the documentary.
Speaker 3:The International Space Station got in the way that one time. I mean we were communicating with NASA the whole way.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden Mission Control. I believe.
Speaker 3:Mission Control comes on and is like Houston, we have a problem.
Speaker 4:That's what I called my truck, my call sign was Houston, yeah, it was Houston.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I'm like what do you mean? We have a problem. I think you have a problem, I'm on course. Anyway, that's another whole different podcast. Maybe we'll do X-Flyer Boogie and you'll interview me about that or something, but we'll save that for later. That's terrible Good times.
Speaker 1:I imagine so, I imagine so well, that had to give you at least 100,000 miles it was like 25,000 round trip, or each way, each way, one way.
Speaker 3:Well, they cap it at a certain number, even though it's actually literally more miles than that. They cap it because they're not going to pay you they do split pay.
Speaker 1:I actually had to divert most of that for the next 20 years than that they cap it because they're not going to pay you all those miles.
Speaker 3:I actually had to divert most of that for the next 20 years.
Speaker 1:It's like an appreciation schedule.
Speaker 3:I didn't negotiate very well, though I didn't get interest on that money Again. We'll talk about it another time.
Speaker 1:That could have been compounding.
Speaker 3:It could have been compounding, I wouldn't be sitting here.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, it could have been compounding. It's like hitting the lottery and taking the lump sum, but not putting it away.
Speaker 4:Believe me, I'm still praying every day.
Speaker 2:That's funny.
Speaker 1:The problem with the lottery is if you don't play, you can't win.
Speaker 2:That's the truth. To that you play I play oh shocker.
Speaker 4:Do you use the same?
Speaker 2:Powerball numbers all the time.
Speaker 4:No, I just do quick picks.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Everyone that wins is always a quick pick Always. It's super rare that it's one person with dedicated numbers.
Speaker 4:I'm just praying for my ship to come in. Let me tell you that's funny Because I love Highfield. But I'm going to tell you what. That phone will ring so fast at 3 am whenever I find out I won.
Speaker 1:I'd be the complete opposite. Y'all just show up at the house one day for the next recording. Furniture. Everything will still be here.
Speaker 2:That's funny. My grandma played the same set of numbers for as long as I could remember and when she passed away I thought about it For as long as I could remember. And when she passed away I thought about it. I'm like her numbers probably were pulled the week after she passed away and nobody continued on playing her numbers, but faithfully. And then when they went to like Wednesdays and a Saturday drawing, now she's doing Wednesdays and a Saturday.
Speaker 4:They doubled the price.
Speaker 2:I know and I'm just like Now it's Monday, wednesday, saturday, now it's monday, wednesday, saturday and it's billions of dollars too you know, we were talking about the, the safe driving miles along with safe miles.
Speaker 3:You have to be careful. We're talking about um walmart and having a clean psp.
Speaker 3:Yes, and your psp is a playstation performance yes that's a newer one that's coming out yeah um, I think it's after the one or the I forget what numbers are but yeah, the PlayStation performance. Yeah, it's a record that the FMCSA keeps of all of your inspections roadside inspections and if you have infractions it goes in your PSP and some carriers will look at that and that's how your CSA score as a driver and as a carrier is calculated, based on violations. So you have to be careful and make sure that your truck is in working order, because even sometimes the smallest which you might think is a very small infraction on a roadside inspection can cost you your job. So you have to be careful and make sure that your equipment is up to snuff, or not even your job.
Speaker 1:It could also be future jobs down the road, right? Oh sure, so you know you have a bad roadside. Your carrier may or may not let you go, depending on what all the issues are. A lot of that kind of depends too on is it something you could have caught in pre-trip? Is it something you could have caught in a pre-trip? Is it something you did to the vehicle? Were you speeding on top of other factors and everything? If you have one bad one, it could be detrimental to you. Sure, it may not be. It kind of depends on what it is. But if you have a history of those, if you work for five different companies and at five different companies you have five different bad roadside inspections, the next company, number six, is going to look at that and go. That's not a coincidence.
Speaker 1:You didn't just work for five companies that didn't maintain their equipment. I don't know if I want someone like that driving my truck, not taking care of the equipment because it's bad for their CSA points. It's bad for public safety in general. It causes things like lawsuits when you have a wreck and so it is. There's a lot of companies that are. It's easy to kind of like gloss over it or whatever, but it really doing the daily pre-trip looking at all the stuff you're supposed to look at it's not an optional thing, it's super required.
Speaker 3:It is required and there's a reason for it right To make sure your equipment is safe so you're not out there running on tires that are illegal and they get too hot and you blow a tire. You can kill somebody, doing that Absolutely Yourself, but also the traveling public. So it's truly safety reasons that they're looking at these things. They want your truck to be safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think Kayla wanted to talk about it too, because we've seen across multiple carriers now a tightening of that where they are things they would have let go a few months ago or even a year ago, that they're not letting go anymore.
Speaker 1:There's definitely a tightening a squeezing of that. People are trying to really focus on getting their CSA scores better Again. It has such negative effects that it's worth making sure you try to keep that side of your business, of your driving career, clean. Right, and it's not really talked about a lot. What was the term I learned in sitting in orientation one day at a carrier and someone talked to me about how they could pencil whip a DOT or pencil whip a.
Speaker 1:VIR oh yeah, no, that's not. You know, pencil whipping is just, you know, going through and yep, fine, fine, fine, good deal, let's go. And it's like no, no, no, actually, get out, measure your tires at tread depth, use your gauges to check your tire pressure, check your brakes, check your exhaust hangers. You know things like that. That truck is vibrating down the road, things get loose, things happen that could be a literal hour. Repair at a Speedco or at a TA.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are seeing a tightening of that.
Speaker 3:To continue what you're saying, I think it's important that people understand if your air pressure is low, taking the few minutes to go to the fuel aisle and air your tires up is going to save you time being down down the road when your tires get too hot or just warm up just from general use and you blow a tire, or your tires get too hot or just warm up just from general use and you blow a tire or your tires wear unevenly and it causes you money down the road if you're paying for the tires yourself but also causes you downtime but also costs you money in the future.
Speaker 3:So it could be a little bit of time that you lose or it could be a huge problem that costs you a lot of money because you're not able to run your truck. So it's important to look at those things. Do your VIRs daily, do your pre-trips and make sure that your equipment is safe. So, one, you don't get pulled over for a roadside inspection and you have violations, potentially costing you your job. Roadside inspection and you have violations, potentially costing you your job. Two, you don't have equipment failure, which can cost you a lot of time in the shop if you don't catch it early enough Absolutely, and not to mention safety of others on the road with you.
Speaker 1:Well, I look at something like a tire. Like you said, A tire is a great example because tires are so commonly an issue If I top off a tire and I drive and I realize two days later I've got to top that same tire off. I've got to leak somewhere.
Speaker 3:I've got to leak somewhere.
Speaker 1:I need to figure it out, and it may not be. I look the whole tire over and I don't see a nail. It could be a bad placement on the bead. It could be a valve stem. It's very common.
Speaker 1:Valve stems fail and just taking like, alright, know, I got an issue. Let me, um, you know, on this load I've got like five hours of play time. Let me try to get this into a shop real quick and get this uh tire repaired, replaced, whatever I do, and then you're good to go again, as opposed to no, I'm just gonna add air and I'll be fine, and a couple days later it's down to 70 pounds, so I'm gonna tuck back off, which is very dangerous. Um, and that tire is just getting soft and then getting hard again. It's soft and hard and that rubber on the sidewall is just breaking down.
Speaker 1:And then when you have a low tire, low air pressure, every time that tire spins when it hits the concrete is when all that weight's on that section of tire, it actually expands the most and that creates heat. So, as you're going that tire, it actually expands the most and that creates heat. So, as you're going, that tire is actually getting hotter and hotter and hotter and most blowouts are because of that heat buildup and the rubber just can't take that much pressure. As opposed to like, oh, I had a nail in the tire and so the nail calls the tread to fail it. That usually doesn't happen. It's actually usually the heat buildup inside of the tire from that happening.
Speaker 1:So just taking the time to make sure you you find those things and you fix them as you go will save you money, will make you more money in your pocket, because if you don't catch it you have a blowout. You may have to have the load off your truck recovered, which means you don't get paid all the money you were going to get because you didn't run the miles for that load. It also cost you in downtime of like now I got to get it fixed what happens if you're in the middle of, but you know wherever iowa or our what's the other state that we hate driving through south dakota wyoming thank you what happens if you're, what happens if you're in the middle of wyoming, and that happens so you're in wyoming, you're out.
Speaker 1:You got, you know, a tire swap done or something like that. They got another truck to take a load off your truck. Now you're stuck in Wyoming, going. Where am I going to find freight? Because there is no freight there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So now you got a crazy long deadhead, which is miles. You're driving for free. It just all that could have been avoided with a pre-trip Checking your brakes, you know. I mean like brakes are so important and it's funny, the amount of people that don't take that seriously. On flat and level land, what you feel as your braking power will change when you're headed downhill. All of a sudden, that braking pressure you thought you had you don't have.
Speaker 3:Right or on a wet road, that braking Exactly your braking distance is longer. Yes, thought you had.
Speaker 1:You don't have right on a wet road, that braking exactly, it's slow, it diminishes distances longer yes, so that all that stuff makes a huge difference and the carriers are really tightening their grips on it I encourage you spend a little couple minutes extra on your pre-trip to do a thorough one and if you're not doing a daily pre-trip, do a daily pre-trip and the reality is that we're talking about mechanical equipment and and there are going to be breakdowns.
Speaker 3:Yep, there are some breakdowns we can prevent by doing our PMs, by doing our proper VIR or your pre-trip inspection, and others that we just can't prevent. You know, a power steering pump goes well, we've got fluid in it, but the power steering pump goes because it's just a bad power steering pump. We can't prevent that. Yeah, but how much downtime can we prevent by doing a proper pre-trip inspection? Yeah, you know a lot, quite a bit, quite a bit you're right.
Speaker 1:The other thing I would tie onto, that is um, listen to your truck as you're driving down the road. Um, there's a lot of times your truck will tell you when it's something's wrong. I know we had a batch of bad steer pumps with one model truck, a certain set of VIN numbers, and we pretty much had to replace all of those. You could tell when you're driving down the road when you would go into a turn and the steering would literally start fighting you.
Speaker 1:And then, it would quit and it would work fine again and it's knowing like, okay, well, if that's happening, that's my truck telling me something's wrong and I need to get this resolved. I need to get this fixed. There are little things. If you listen to your truck, it'll tell you.
Speaker 1:I think, paying attention to those, you know one thing that a lot of people say happens, but they don't do anything about it when it's just raining outside and you have water dripping into your truck from the inside of the windshield Right, a lot of people are like, well, it doesn't get on me, it doesn't pull up on the floor, it's not really that big of a deal. All that water goes right into your electronics. All that water goes right into your electronics and so all of a sudden, a window seal leak, which is a very easy repair, turns into thousands of dollars and weeks of downtime to get all those components repaired, or or find the one, to literally find the one that's shorting out and get that piece replaced. So yeah, listen to your truck when it tells you something, make a note of it and then reach out to um, if you own your own truck, get it to a shop to get it fixed, and if you don't own your own truck and you're driving someone else, reach out to them. Let them know we had some very exciting uh, not exciting, that is exciting, the right word we did.
Speaker 1:Y'all know we love truck. Uh, stop talk on this show. We've talked about all the truck stops a million times.
Speaker 2:I say we keep talking about it. Love's just reopened a remodel in Ranger, Texas that's a lot of R's. I know, anyways, but I know that's not what's going to be talked about, but I saw that just before we sat down.
Speaker 1:What could be any more exciting than that You'd have to have like?
Speaker 2:It's in the middle of nowhere land east Texas too.
Speaker 1:Which is where they need truck stops, because there's nothing there.
Speaker 2:It was probably an older truck stop or an older Love's Sure, so One of those with three pumps on it. Probably.
Speaker 1:We've all seen those really old Eight truck stop parks. Yeah, exactly those really old.
Speaker 3:Love's with one row of truck parking and three pumps.
Speaker 2:In very rural Texas In.
Speaker 3:Arby's usually. Yes or no, they have the subway right there by the cash wrap. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes it's the same person working both. Yes, exactly, Exactly. You're like can you wash your hands?
Speaker 1:between cash and sandwiching. I'm glad they renovated that because hopefully they put more parking in and all that stuff. Yeah, there was some stuff on it, cool, cool I think the only thing that can be more exciting than that is if maybe one of America's beloved gas station companies that everybody really likes were to start a truck stop.
Speaker 3:What gas station companies everybody really like. Everyone hates gas stations.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. What other ones do people really love Down south? There's the I'm partial to Sheetz.
Speaker 4:Sheetz is really good. I like me some Sheetz too, Sheetz is really nice.
Speaker 3:Sheetz has a few truck stops. They do.
Speaker 1:Trail.
Speaker 2:Market.
Speaker 1:Trail Market.
Speaker 2:Oh sorry, that's not chain Big Sorry.
Speaker 3:It Big. Sorry, it's also not a truck stop oh.
Speaker 1:No we're talking about gas stations aren't we?
Speaker 3:This is a gas station. It is a gas station. Yeah, they make a mean breakfast burrito.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do.
Speaker 3:I do love a mean breakfast burrito. As long as it gets kind, because if it's mean all the way down, that's no bueno. If you ever find People love Wawa, I've been inside a Wawa maybe once to get gas for a rental car in Florida. What I think?
Speaker 2:that's the only place we've been.
Speaker 3:That's the only time I've been to a Wawa. Was that with me? No, it wasn't with you. Oh, okay, that's why we were on the truck, because there's a Wawa outside of Orlando, in Orlando, outside of the airport that we always stop at to top off our car. It may be that I've been there with you and just didn't go inside or something, I don't know. I don't know. The Wawa I remember was in Orlando. We were taking a rental car back and we stopped at Wawa for gas.
Speaker 1:How'd you like it?
Speaker 3:We stopped for gas.
Speaker 1:But people love Wawa. Do they have quick food and stuff like that in there as well?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah. So apparently Wawa is opening their first travel center in North Carolina. The article reads very strange, so I think that's what they're saying. So this travel center is going to open in Hope Mills, north Carolina, in the second quarter of 2025. So it's still a year away. The travel center will offer expanded restrooms, more parking, parking for RVs and other large vehicles and in-store seating For the professional driver. The travel center will have high-speed diesel fuel, a CAT scale and free tractor-trailer parking and merchandise. So this is an expansion for Wawa into the truck stop world, versus just a travel center. Jerry mentioned that he and Don would stop at one in New Jersey occasionally, so they do have other Wawas that have truck parking and I think let me clarify that now that I think about it.
Speaker 4:I don't think that was classified as a travel center. It was a Wawa gas station. They did not have diesel pumps, they did not have CAT scale, they didn't have any. The only thing they had was a huge parking lot in the back that they allowed truck parking. It was actually sectioned off for trucks.
Speaker 3:So this may be their first true travel center. Again, it's just hard the way it reads to understand if it is expanded bathrooms, but it didn't say like shower facilities.
Speaker 1:I wondered the same thing I didn't hear laundry and I didn't hear shower facilities those are two things I was listening for as far as food. They do in-house food, so they don't need a restaurant per se.
Speaker 3:It looks like Wawa is expanding in North Carolina. This article is from the CSP Daily News, but it is a convenience store publication.
Speaker 3:There you go. They talk about convenience stores. They're looking at opening up 15 stores in just the Fayetteville area over the next five to eight years. They're also expanding across the country. They're looking not just at North Carolina but Ohio, pennsylvania, delaware, new Jersey, maryland, virginia, florida, dc. They're looking to open up over. They have I'm sorry they have over a thousand stores currently in this area. In those areas again, that's pennsylvania, delaware, jersey, maryland, virginia, florida and dc. Uh, they're looking to expand across the midwest with 160 additional stores in kentucky, ohio and indiana and that's over the next uh, five years or so kudos if they can do travel centers, because that's just more parking right.
Speaker 4:Even if you don't have a shower or a laundry facility.
Speaker 2:But if you're putting me closer to a city center and all of the big chains are full, you know why not park at something like this. I see it all the time when we go to Circleville. There's a couple of them that one that is across from the casino down that way. I think there's another one that just opened up, but they've all added additional parking for at least your trucks and it just makes sense. You know great place to stop before maybe you have to make your way into Columbus.
Speaker 3:And Jerry mentioned Sheetz. Sheetz has a truck stop down there where they have truck parking. Sheetz doesn't have showers. Where they have truck parking, sheets doesn't have showers. They do have larger bathrooms in the larger facilities.
Speaker 2:There's one here in Obitz that has a lot of parking.
Speaker 3:They have fuel. They have no showers, but they've got larger bathrooms to accommodate more people.
Speaker 1:You know, I stopped at a Sheets today to get diesel. I was up in Delaware, north of Delaware, and coming down through like Bass, sunbury and all that, if y'all know where that's at by chance and there's a pilot across the streets, sheetz, and I did not have my fuel card on me so I knew I was going to be paying with retail price and I'm like, well, I don't really want to go to pilot and pay, but I figured you know what I, I'll go, I need to get diesel. Um the next, there wasn't another loves kind of on my trip so I had to go way out of the way for that and I didn't need a whole lot of diesel. I just wanted to top it off before I parked it. So I was going over the hill to go to the pilot and pilot was three dollars and 81 cents 85 cents, okay for diesel, and sheets was three dollars and 2485 for diesel, and Sheetz was $3.24 for diesel Sheetz diesel was cheaper than their gasoline.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen that in a very long time. Wow. So I swung in there and I ended up going to Sheetz and using their very nice truck stop, sure, very clean. I mean it's brand new. Obviously because from what I can gather, they're relatively new to the truck stop game. Obviously they're brand new to Ohio. So if you're at a Sheetz in Ohio, even if it's not a gas, even if it's not a truck stop, it's just a regular gas station. It's brand new.
Speaker 3:Because they've only been here a couple of years.
Speaker 1:I was going to say a couple of years at least.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so maybe not brand brand new, I mean how many times have you pulled into a brand-new Love's and six months later it's trashed? Yeah, so I mean even the one in Obitz. It's still a clean store. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, I thought it was great being able to go in there. Especially, I thought to myself you know we get really good fuel discounts, so that fuel pump price, you see, is not what we're getting. That's how we fuel mostly at Loves or TA or Petro. But if you don't have a giant fleet, if you are someone, a solo owner-operator, or you have an RV or you have a pickup truck or something that takes diesel, capitalize on that. I mean you're talking, what is that? $0.60 a gallon or something like that off the price.
Speaker 1:It's huge.
Speaker 3:That's a giant discount, and with your Sheetz reward card you're saving $0.03 additional.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and they actually did offer me to put the Sheetz reward card there and everything. So yeah, I was very impressed.
Speaker 1:Nice, I was super impressed and again, everything was really nice. Their food's good. You know, if you like, you don't want just a little nicer, a little fresher. They make really good, great, fresh salads. They have all the wraps and all the hamburgers and everything else you want. It's a nice store. It's a cool concept. I like it. The only thing I don't like is we're going real picky here. When I get bottled water, I find that sheets never has bottled water on sale. They'll have everything else in the world on sale, but not bottled water. Interesting, could just be the times I've hit it. Yeah, I don't know, but every time I go to Love's, love's almost always has one liter bottles of something two for $2, two for $3, something like that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, how exciting for Wawa.
Speaker 1:And I think I like Wawa better than I like Sheetz. I'm excited about them moving to Ohio.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've not experienced Wawa. I do like going to Sheetz. They're nice, clean stores, but we'll see. When Wawa comes to town We'll give them a shot, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a nursery rhyme when Wawa comes to town.
Speaker 1:You know they're based in Pennsylvania, I think, so it's insane.
Speaker 2:They got all the way to Florida, but they haven't made it here yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is, but you know I will say this about sheets. You're talking about the clean store, eric, and I had to take a trip out to where did we go uh, pittsburgh, yeah, no, uh, the other one philadelphia, philadelphia we got to philadelphia a couple months ago, maybe three or four months ago.
Speaker 1:Uh, on the way out there we stopped at a sheets and got gas, something to eat, and that was one of their older stores. You can tell because they do their awnings different and everything. It was an older store and it was super clean, it was nice, people were friendly. So you can definitely tell it's a culture thing they're building inside their company and Wawa is the same. Every Wawa I've ever been to has been clean and the people are nice.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you to please turn it off and leave the store.
Speaker 1:I'm finding more and more places are starting to do that.
Speaker 4:There's airlines now that won't let you uh record anymore there was multiple times when I was out there that they asked us to, you know, turn the camera off or leave. And there's another couple youtubers that I follow and she always misses the same thing, like she's from the philadelphia area, and every time she would go back home like she'd be vlogging or something and she'd be like, oh, I forgot, I took my camera. And that's the first thing they said as soon as I walked through the door yeah, they're very picky about it but you know what?
Speaker 1:the fact that they have those strict rules and vloggers still go, yeah, that tells you how good the store is. We've been talking this past couple weeks, brainstorming. I love that. Everybody's kind of starting to run with it and we are tossing around the idea of possibly, maybe considering Possibly maybe. A Highfield-branded cookbook. Hmm, what do we think?
Speaker 2:I love that idea.
Speaker 3:Vince. I think it's a fabulous idea.
Speaker 1:Eric. Well, it's like pulling teeth, isn't it?
Speaker 4:I love it too.
Speaker 2:Jerry.
Speaker 4:I hate it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Squash it Get it out of here. What's the name of it? I can't remember the name of it.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you said that, Jerry, because I agree with you. I completely agree. I think it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:I'm like, can we all be yeses? I think it's a great idea. People have got some great recipes out there. We are talking about cooking down the road, ooh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so obviously, since we're in trucking, we thought it would make sense to do a trucking-based cookbook. How could you cook inside of your truck? I'm going to say why you're going down the road, but I don't mean physically with a knife up cutting carrots, all right, um, so we've been spitballing ideas like the, the picture in my head of like, okay, we're going down the road, we're cooking, what are we cooking? Well, we're cooking an instapot or we're cooking a slow cooker so we can be driving and that can be cooking and etc. Right, so that's kind of how I came up with the concept and we were talking about, you know, ideas for recipes and things like this and we're talking about well, one issue I've always had is, typically, when you look at a recipe, it cooks for four to six to eight people, right, and so, as a truck driver, I don't need that. We don't have room for leftovers, minimal room for leftovers, I guess. So really, I'm thinking like I want to cook for two people. I need to have healthy options, because we're trying to eat healthy on the road, right, most of us are. That's kind of the point of cooking in the truck and also saving money and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:So we've just been spitballing all these ideas about should we do this or not. If we do, how are we going to break up the chapters? How are we going to put all this together? And then we had the idea of once we get the cookbook built and once we get it ready for publication, then taking all those recipes and this is the part that Melissa really hates and we're going to have cooking with buttermilk and she'll be able to go through and cook the meals and do a YouTube presentation of it or whatever. So we can either drop it into one of these episodes, we can make its own freestanding thing, Then people can see it and cook it and make it.
Speaker 1:I just think it'd be a fun thing to do. You know, yeah, a piece of my brain I keep thinking back to, like this is silly. But um, back when I was a kid, the church put together a church cookbook and that's exactly where I'm like. I know we're not a church and that's ridiculous, but that's the the concept, that's the idea I have.
Speaker 1:That kind of led to this I have my mom's from her church yes, a great thing yeah, yeah, very potlucky kind of stuff, very potlucky and a lot of potlucky and a lot of the stuff. But it was a great idea and a lot of the stuff was cooking for 8 to 10 to 12 people. You know it was a good fundraiser.
Speaker 3:I think though that that isn't necessarily a big. I mean, I think, yes, the cooking needs to be two-person portions, absolutely, but you can still scale those recipes if you want to. Meal prep.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Oh, that's a good idea.
Speaker 3:We do have a lot of teams that will meal prep. Have you seen the fridge in our trucks?
Speaker 4:They are quite large. It's a good-sized fridge.
Speaker 3:It's not your tiny tractor-trailer college dorm room fridge. It's a good-sized fridge and freezer, so to be able to meal prep and store stuff in the fridge or the freezer, I think this is a good idea.
Speaker 1:They're 7 to 8 cubic feet and your average dorm or fridge is 1.2. Yeah, and then inside of some of your little sleeper trucks they might be .8. Tiny, so 8 cubic, literally 10 times bigger, with separate freezer and all. Yeah, we've got some ideas. A lot of our trucks have induction cooktops Not all, but a lot of them do. A lot of our teams have Instapots, which is a pressure cooker or a slow cooker. You make rice in it. You can do all kinds of stuff with it.
Speaker 3:It's really handy and Instapots is a brand name, with Ninja makes them. There's all kinds of different those type wall-in-one devices out there Air fryers.
Speaker 2:I've seen those.
Speaker 1:Yep. One team told me they were the first team that ever told me they were like instapotting while they were going down the road. All I could think of was how do you keep it on the counter? You don't, you don't.
Speaker 4:You put it in the sink.
Speaker 1:And I was like, oh, that's so smart, you put it in the sink, then you don't have to worry about it. One person said, well, my instapot's too. I guess I can see how they would do that. But like, yeah, absolutely ways. And you hear about people getting like ribs or pulled pork and all this stuff that takes hours to cook and it's like oh, that's how they're doing it, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:I also thought about like a whole section on grilling, because so many teams go and get either the baby Traeger or they'll get. I think it's called Ranger, right.
Speaker 3:Yes, the Ranger, the Ranger, the small Traeger is the Ranger, yep.
Speaker 1:And that's like $500. About that. But there's other companies that make them cheaper, that make knockoffs, that does the same thing. Sure, Then there's also a lot of people that just get the you know 1999 at Walmart for the little charcoal grill. Can't take gas in the truck. No propane grills are allowed on the trucks because of the hazardous yada yada yada. So we can't have those. But nothing says you can't have a charcoal grill.
Speaker 1:Buy your charcoal right there at the camp store, and I thought we'd have a whole section on grilling just to kind of talk about those kind of things. How can you do some of that stuff? I don't know. I think it's a great idea. I thought it'd be a lot of fun, healthy choices Healthy choices and also some not healthy choices.
Speaker 1:You know I'm trying to convince Don. So far he's not agreeing with me and I can say this because he's not here on the Double Tree Chocolate Chip Cookies. I don't know why, but I'm going to try and work it out of them. We'll try and get it and we'll put it in that cookbook if we can. But yeah, because you need healthy choices on the truck, you do. Sometimes you need a cookie or a brownie, and what's better than fresh-baked brownies? And you're thinking like, how can you bake brownies? All of the trucks have convection ovens in them. Yeah, microwave convection ovens so you can bake.
Speaker 2:I do breads, I know I've said it before my go-to pan in the whole truck outside of the Instant Pot. But a pan was the 9-inch Pyrex pan, Pie pan.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So a pie dish, but you could microwave it, so I could put, like vegetables, vegetables in it, saran wrap over the top and microwave them, or I could put something that I wanted to bake in it, um foil over it or whatever. But yeah, so, yeah, exactly. But um, typically I would bake when we had down time and I would do things like a bread or like one egg cake recipe that's my grandma's recipe, but it was a smaller cake, you know would fit perfect in there um a scone kind of recipe.
Speaker 3:You know those kind of things well, we had a contractor it was a friend of ours that would bake on the truck all the time zucchini bread, banana bread, yep and they'd roll into town and Desserts.
Speaker 1:They'd do a drive-by caking.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. You would see them for 28 seconds and you would get a half loaf Exactly Of whatever your favorite bread was, yeah, the little mini loaves. Oh, they were so good, yeah, amazing. So it's possible to bake in those convection ovens, yep.
Speaker 1:So I think it'd be cool to kind of put that together work on it. I'm excited, I'm curious what your thoughts are, A and then B. I don't have the email address for it yet. Would you all feel comfortable submitting your recipes in for this cookbook?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm expecting Dana to send us something about grilling he loves his.
Speaker 1:Traeger. Oh, I thought you meant like grilling, like yelling at someone he could probably give us something on that too, like that as well. Uh, yeah, he does do a lot.
Speaker 2:I'm even thinking, you know what, if it's just something that you came up on a whim, because we did that too, right, these are the ingredients. I have. Sure I kind of whim did, I judged it, I did a pinch of this and a dash of that and a whatever of this, um, but then it became kind of a regular. It's like oh, that was delicious, sure, now let's do it more often. So if you don't have exact measurements, I mean, do your best, you know. Or or two, two pats of butter, whatever pat looks like to you, or pinch I think all of that is still interpreted and a pat to me is not going to be a cube. That's kind of common sense, right? A pinch isn't going to be a tablespoon.
Speaker 2:Unless you're making for a larger quantity Sure sure, but if you're still doing for two people, you know, don't be afraid to submit those kind of recipes. You know the measurements will work out and maybe, on the testing of the, we can come up with a quarter of a teaspoon or whatever that might look like. And if you have a hack too.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're like hey, we're going to show you how to make this salad and I need two hard-boiled eggs. And like a hack is I go to Love's and I just walk inside and buy a two-pack of already boiled eggs and that's my, you know, because that way I don't have to dirty another pan, I don't have to figure out where do I get fresh eggs from? Yada yada yada. So you know, that kind of stuff goes a long way, I think as well.
Speaker 2:Looking for all those cooking tips and tricks, I think it's going to be a great cookbook.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's nothing that's out tomorrow but, I'm definitely looking forward to putting something together like that. I'm looking forward to being a guinea pig. You know, you make these things and put a dish in front of me.
Speaker 1:We're not throwing it out.
Speaker 3:It's not getting thrown out.
Speaker 1:We're going to have to try it, which means all your cakes and brownies and cookies recipes. We're going to have to sprinkle those in.
Speaker 2:So we don't have. Like, I'm excited because everybody comes from different walks of life.
Speaker 1:Yes, and.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to see that smorgasbord of culture kind of come in on what people are eating on their truck.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm curious to see the whole menagerie of what people have to bring.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yes, that melange is going to look good, yeah, is going to look good.
Speaker 1:Well, since we're talking about food, we're talking about health and all that stuff, let's talk about the weekly weigh-in, patrick's weekly weigh-in. First and foremost, we have to do our Octavia Fueling of the Week. Courtesy of Eric. Our Octavia Fueling of the Week is the Frosted Cookie Dough Bar. Remember I talked to you a few weeks ago about an oatmeal cream Cream Oatmeal, about an oatmeal cream pie, oatmeal raisin, oatmeal cream pie One of my favorites. I love oatmeal cream pies. I haven't had one in years. Oatmeal raisin, thank you. So this is very similar. It is cookie dough, chocolate chip cookie dough. It's been squared up into a bar with real chocolate chips in it and then on the backside it is that same white frosting that you would frost over an oatmeal cookie. Thank you, because it is real. It is one of the much smaller bars. I can't even show you it's tiny Because, again, they're all the same nutritionally similar bars as each other Same caloric intake.
Speaker 1:Same calories, same carbs, all that stuff. So this is a dense. I mean, cookie dough is dense, right, right, so this is a dense bar. It's very flavorful. This one is extremely good, but because it is real chocolate and they're pretty sure it's real sugar and stuff in here as well, yes, it is, because it is that it is. They just change it in quantity, right.
Speaker 1:Make it a lot smaller, so it's not like a go-to all the time, because I think you do kind of feel like, oh, I didn't get everything I wanted, sure, but it's so good, it's a nice treat, it is really nice. I would have one of these once a week kind of thing, sprinkle them in over the course of a month, and really liked them. And it does have 11 grams of protein, so it has that protein to help you feel full, right and keep your muscle mass and everything and not have you get tired or hungry too quick. But yeah, big fan of this one, really like it.
Speaker 2:Good dessert one.
Speaker 1:Great dessert one oh yeah, At nighttime watching TV.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, big fan of it. Awesome, never had it in the morning. It's just too sweet, yeah, for morning time. But um, so this weekend I decided I thought it'd be fun if we took a drive, and so I invited uh, mel and vince out to yellow springs, ohio, which is where dave chappelle lives. It's a very hippie dippy area what very very hippie dippy place and there was a.
Speaker 1:Very, very hippie dippie place and there was a couple breweries I wanted to go to out there. I thought it would be like, hey, let's go out there and we'll visit these cold breweries. It's such a hippie dippie place we're going to find some good, healthy food to eat you know all that stuff. So we get out there. Thank you for the laugh and it was fun getting out there it was.
Speaker 1:So we kind of got a late start, but I still took the back roads. So I turned my GPS to no highways and so we took all back roads to get there.
Speaker 2:That was really pretty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it took us an hour and a half hour and 40 minutes to get out there. Beautiful drive. A couple segments were just cornfields, but the majority of it was actually really nice, really pretty. Got some hills. That was always fun, because Ohio is so flat that it's kind of fun to get some terrain, even if it's hills and made our way out there and went to one of the places we wanted to go and then we went to a shopping store that we found right next to it. That was super hippie, super.
Speaker 2:Lots of incense.
Speaker 1:Lots of incense. Patchouli was in the air Lots of water pipes and water pipes of different, mostly glass. Yeah, interesting Art pieces Kind of reminded me of when we were in Milan, not Milan In Murano.
Speaker 4:Remember all the fancy glass. It was kind of like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah it was kind of like that Fancy glass.
Speaker 1:And then we left that store and went to our first brewery and at that brewery Eric was like because we got a flight of beers, small little two-ounce pours, but still Eric was like after a few sips he's like well, if we're going to go to another brewery, we found that there was a distillery there too. We didn't know that was there. So Eric's like if we're going to that distillery and we're going to the other brewery, I got to eat something. So we're like cool, let's go find something healthy. So Eric's like I got a place, it has great reviews, let's go.
Speaker 2:So over to In the back, in the back of another building In the back of another building with plastic makeshift lawn furniture and plastic tables.
Speaker 1:He brings us to a taco truck so that we can go have our healthy meal, and it was like all right well.
Speaker 3:No one complained. No one complained. It was really good.
Speaker 1:It was really good. It was really good. They weren't lying. They had your favorite barista.
Speaker 2:No, I did not have barista.
Speaker 1:What is it called?
Speaker 2:Berea.
Speaker 1:Berea, berea. Yes, that's a town in Kentucky, right, I don't know, is it Berea?
Speaker 3:Yes, it actually is. Yeah, I know. Yes, it actually is. It's a different spelling, but you're right South of.
Speaker 1:Lexington. What is it? It's lamb.
Speaker 3:No, it's beef braised in sauce with lots of chilies, it's just really good.
Speaker 1:You described to me as like a Mexican French dip.
Speaker 2:It's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:They serve it with a cup of consomme Like asho.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really flavorful and it makes a amazing taco well, I still tried to behave as much as I could. I got a queso fundido, which is um like three cheese. It's not always three cheese, but this one was three cheese dip and they put chorizo sausage in there. Love a good queso fundido, um, I shared that with eric and then we split a chicken quesadilla.
Speaker 3:That was delicious as you can imagine, I had the carnitas quesadilla.
Speaker 1:You did, that's right.
Speaker 3:Nice crispy pieces of carnitas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wish I would have got that. It's really good. I mean, chicken's always a pretty solid bet.
Speaker 3:Sure and some would say healthier than pork.
Speaker 2:We don't do a lot of walking we did do a lot of walking.
Speaker 3:We did do a lot of walking.
Speaker 1:We did a lot of walking Up and down the street and I want to go back because there are some waterfalls and stuff in that area we need to go check out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Pop into a few stores, bought coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Bag of coffee. Bag of coffee.
Speaker 2:I wish it would have gone darker.
Speaker 1:Oh was it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, time, but she says that to me, but the darker would have gone darker, but the darker looked pretty dark and I was a little nervous it might be like bitter and I didn't want bitter coffee. Yeah, so when he asked what I, what flavor I liked, I said medium to dark, heavier on the dark, but I still ended up with a medium coffee, but it's not bitter coffee.
Speaker 1:So this this was so cool. It's one of those buildings that was built in like 1828. Yep, Back when Jerry was a kid, and you know. You walk in. It's a wood floor and it creaks as you walk Right and the shelves kind of wobble as you walk by them and typically I see them as antique stores. It's rare that you see them as a grocery store that's selling coffee and wine and chocolate and all this other stuff, and I ended up getting a shot of espresso over there. It was really good.
Speaker 3:Well, they had the whole other side, so the place was kind of split down the middle.
Speaker 1:I think it was two stores, yeah, and they just opened up In between Between them.
Speaker 3:So one side was just tables. They had a little stage in the back. The coffee part, the coffee bar, went across both sides.
Speaker 1:Kind of an U.
Speaker 3:But they had seats and tables, so they do live music there apparently occasionally.
Speaker 1:They were advertising for a guy playing a guitar. I think I read Poetry Slam competition. It was very book-y.
Speaker 2:They have got bookshelves with books on them. I don't know if it was a booky. They have got bookshelves of books on them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if it's like a book exchange, yeah, but it was a really cool store it was a really cool store and all was just interesting, it's very interesting that's a good way of putting it like all their fire hydrants are uh decorated, and obviously that's illegal. So to make up for it, the city has gone in, they're allowing it and they put these tall plastic poles that are highly reflective on them. They're like the snow poles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're in an area that snows a lot, if you have signs, that'll be extended with a little barber pole type, tiny but small, but they go up the top so you can see when it snows. This is where your curb is. Yes, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yep, and so they had that going down the line. All their trash cans were custom pottery made trash cans. I mean it was just. It's a super neat little town. A lot of skunks in the area. Lots of skunks, Like as you're walking around, you just smell skunk everywhere.
Speaker 3:How many skunks were spraying that?
Speaker 1:day A lot of skunk and then a beautiful bike trail. We walked down. Yes, it was had a pretty good time. We left there and ended up going up to actually into Dayton, into downtown Dayton. Some friends of ours had told us about a cigar place there, and so we went there. By the time I made it back to the house, 1 am.
Speaker 2:Midnight 30. Yeah, again we got a late start.
Speaker 1:We got a late start. It was a long day. It was a very fun day. I paid for it the next day.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:When I stepped on the scale and realized sugary drinks and beer and tacos and queso fund and all that apparently are not on the diet, Imagine that I didn't know. I thought I could eat more carbs. But no, I definitely immediately. And it's so funny because, Jerry, you have experienced this, I know we've talked about it before Like if you're on a low-carb diet and then you eat a bunch of carbs, you want more carbs.
Speaker 1:Well, not only that, but that and the water. Oh yeah, it's that whole thing of you eat a one-pound cheeseburger and you gain three pounds and you're like how does that work? But that's really what happens, right.
Speaker 4:That's all the water weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah it just immediately you're like, oh my gosh. So for the past few days I've been really trying to get back on plan and behave and I have actually done a pretty good job of it.
Speaker 1:But, as of this morning, I was 270.4. I think I was 270.2 on the last show, so I'm more or less. I mean, that's such a little number, who knows but I have actually gotten it back to where it was. But there was a couple days I was like, ooh, that is not good. I have not Minded your P's and Q's, I have not minded my P's and Q's and I'm paying for a not a plateau, but a stagnant week. Well to be fair.
Speaker 3:you're supposed to wait tomorrow morning Because we are recording a day early.
Speaker 1:It's true.
Speaker 3:So tomorrow morning I'm sure that Jerry can overdub your voice and tell you what your weight is tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1:No, we'll let the next week be a day exaggerated, Hopefully get under that 2.7. Hopefully be taking me somewhere with a 2.6. But yeah, I've behaved myself since then. I've, you know, had a tilapia with pan-seared tilapia with spinach and cream cheese. Spinach dip on top Some. What was the side? Carrot, Carrots, yeah, Just pan-seared sauteed carrot. So fairly healthy meal and I don't have the cravings I know you're talking about, like when you eat a bunch of carbs the next day you're like oh my God carbs.
Speaker 3:I want more.
Speaker 1:I guess now I'm past it. Good, it's been enough time that I'm not really struggling with that.
Speaker 3:Glad to hear that.
Speaker 1:That was brutal. Like to have to go through that. That's, I think, kill to have an oatmeal cream pie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're going through the carb withdrawals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's real, I think it's real. It is real, I know it's real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because your body's transitioning from burning carbs to burning fat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it takes time, and when you initially do it it takes a long time, you know. I mean like it takes a week or so, jerry, to make that transition, or it could be longer, depending on how much you have to lose, so to speak.
Speaker 4:It can take up to that long, it just varies. I would say on average you're about two to four days of the excess stored sugar that's in your bloodstream. Your liver stores roughly 72 hours of stored sugar at all times, unless you completely deplete that.
Speaker 1:yeah, so it does take about a full week to get through all that yeah, and I have noticed, though, like, if I do screw up and it is a like just a day that I screw up throughout the week, pretty quickly, within a couple days, I'm back on track. Um, it doesn't. It's not like restarting from zero.
Speaker 2:I guess you could say but it's a bummer.
Speaker 1:You know when you're trying to lose. Especially when you're trying to like. You know, for me it's like a goal to be lower each week, and then it's like, okay, well, I got a crappy week this week, but at least it's not. I mean, I know it's .2 pounds higher, but at least it's not higher.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's not two pounds higher. That would be a different story, yeah Well.
Speaker 4:I think that about. Does it for us. Make sure you hit that thumbs up button. What?
Speaker 2:And what else you didn't give your good news before you go into that? Oh, your good news.
Speaker 1:We forgot all about it.
Speaker 3:You did forget your good news we hit 1 million I wish.
Speaker 2:Definitely not 5 million either.
Speaker 4:We hit 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. Woo, thank you everybody. Yeah, very, very excited. We're just over. It was so funny too. I woke up yesterday morning whenever I seen it and I didn't post it yesterday because I got the badge today from the software I use anyway but it was funny because I woke up and I was like, oh, my god, we're dead on 1000. We hit it whenever I woke up and checked it at like 8 am and I was so happy. And then, probably like 30 minutes later, I refreshed the page and we lost a subscriber and I was like, really so then all day, then we lost another, then we lost three and I'm like YouTube's good about that. It will fluctuate big time Interesting, it really does. But then I woke up this morning and it was why do we lose subscribers?
Speaker 1:Is it that they just don't really our content's not important to them anymore? Or is it the algorithm is weeding out people who haven't looked at the channel in years?
Speaker 4:No, People do unsubscribe. But I think it's more along just the algorithm. I think it just fluctuates because I woke up this morning and we were at 1,005. Okay, so I think it just does that fluctuation, and this morning was whenever I got the official certificate you're over a thousand.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool, nice. Why did I mean to interrupt you? How can we find us?
Speaker 4:highfield trucking. Youtube highfield truckingcom. If you would like to check us out and get into the expediting industry trucking, uh, learn more about highfield and all that we have to offer. Hashtag highfield family. Um, hit that subscribe button, hit that thumbs up button. It really, really does help us out on the algorithm.
Speaker 4:And, uh, send us an email if you have any suggestions, thoughts, questions comments concerns or anything like that, send us over an email at the outer belt podcast at gmailcom. Miss annie would love to talk to you. Um, she'll reply personally, I'll make sure of it, and um, yeah, you know that's funny.
Speaker 2:You should say that, because there are some times when I'm on the phone and, as you know, I work from home, um, anyways, she's in the background giving whatever for what, I'll try my best to like mute. If the person's talking, I'm like mute and I'm like any, any, any, and I'll try to get her to stop and I'm like uh-huh, or sometimes she'll do it and it just is what it is in the background and someone's like what kind of a dog do you have?
Speaker 3:and so it's and she's like v.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's not a dog. She tries her best to do direct emailing, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she only knows one word Woof. Yes, exactly, but it's all in the inflection Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly, it really is, it truly is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited that we got 1,000. 1,000.
Speaker 4:Just keep watching the channel. Make sure you keep giving us the views. We do have to get the hours up before we can progress to other things with. Youtube and progress and everything like that. But yeah, we're over that 1,000, which is, in my opinion, the hardest part.
Speaker 1:They say the first 1,000 is the hardest good. Well, how exciting is, in my opinion, the hardest part.
Speaker 2:They say the first thousand is the hardest it is.
Speaker 1:Good Well, how exciting. This is so much fun. I love having my therapy session with y'all every week, until next week.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, alright, y'all stay safe out there and make good decisions.
Speaker 3:And don't leave money on the table and keep those wheels a-turning.
Speaker 2:Bye, good night decisions, and don't leave money on the table and keep those wheels of turning. Thank you,