The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Why Flexible Hours, Smarter Drones, And Self-Driving Tests Could Reshape Trucking
A dead fiber line, a panicked smart oven, and a workday ground to a halt—sometimes the little failures reveal how much our lives lean on invisible networks. We open with the chaos of connection loss and follow the thread into a much bigger story: drones washing concrete walls, spraying fields from mobile trailers, choreographing citywide light shows, and even navigating war zones with tethered fiber. The sky is getting crowded, and the rules are racing to keep up.
From there, we tackle a hot safety question: what happens when drones and small aircraft share airspace without universal ADS‑B? Spotting a Cessna is hard enough; spotting a palm‑sized quadcopter at 90 mph borders on impossible. We break down ADS‑B basics, right‑of‑way implications, and why any new policy has to reckon with human perception and worst‑case physics, not just ideal conditions.
On the ground, we switch to practical trucking. We share a clear, no‑nonsense walkthrough of CARB testing before entering California: dash lights that will fail you, the five warm‑up cycles that protect you, and the fine that makes cutting corners a terrible idea. Then we unpack the FMCSA pilot for more flexible hours—6/4 and 5/5 sleeper splits and pausing the 14‑hour clock—explaining how it can reduce pointless downtime at docks, sidestep rush‑hour traps, and give solo drivers more control without erasing safety.
Autonomy gets a reality check. Hands‑free driving in a new SUV looked brilliant in clean weather, then quietly bowed out when snow and heavy rain blocked sensors. That informs our take on “driverless” freight runs in Texas: long, straight interstates are perfect testbeds, but national scale requires robust redundancy, weather resilience, and honest plans for edge cases. The tech is promising; the safety case still needs daylight.
We close on heart: a 50th birthday, one last tutu, and the permission to stop a tradition when it’s served its purpose. It’s a reminder that change is constant—on the road, in the air, and in our lives—and that resilience is equal parts planning and courage. If this conversation sparked a thought, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review with your take on HOS flexibility and autonomous trucks. Your stories make this community smarter.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
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Oh, you gotta unmute it. How do we start the show again? Hey, everybody, welcome to the Outer Ballot. I'm Patrick, and you all know my friends. Buttermilk.
SPEAKER_01:But we're friends now.
SPEAKER_03:Zucchini Brad?
SPEAKER_00:We were. And Jerry. And the old guy.
SPEAKER_06:Well, she just had a birthday. She's the old guy. Well, unless there's things that have changed.
SPEAKER_02:Of course, we have uh You look like you're older than me currently.
SPEAKER_06:Well, it's all the gray hair. It's all the gray hair. It's just it's it's you're going full down here even.
SPEAKER_00:I haven't shaved in a little bit, and Patrick says I look old when I haven't shaved. Oh my gosh, you do. You look like Carl Winslow.
SPEAKER_06:Oh my gosh. Am I allowed to say that or no? Yeah, you can say that. Actually, it's not Carl Winslow. Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil. I used Uncle Phil a lot. Oh that I never knew you back then. But yeah, I could see it. Oh well. So of course uh we're we're blessed to have Chili here uh in his house with us. And yeah, um so it's been a hot minute. We've had some crazy scheduling conflicts. Ooh, crazy. We've been out, you've been out, you've been out, you've been here. Um, and have you been here?
SPEAKER_02:You've been here the whole time. It's everybody else that's been out to be a little bit more than a lot of people.
SPEAKER_06:I've been right here out everywhere. Nowhere. Well, he likes this internet. We got this, this uh what is it called again? Fiber. Fiber, yes. Oh, we lost our fiber. I got an email from Suvi. Do y'all know what Suvi is? Mm-hmm. So if you if you don't know, Suvi, S U V-I-E, Suvi is a uh kitchen appliance that cost way too much money. Um and it's uh basically a toaster oven. Um but you could put your food it's in in it when you leave in the morning, and it's got a refrigerator, keeps it cold, and then you can set the timer, or you can actually do it from your phone and say, okay, start cooking now. And it'll be like, all right, you know, like it's what 30 minutes from the yard to my house. Yeah, about that. So I could say leaving the yard, all right, start cooking now, get home, and then have a freshly cooked meal. Um, but it's connected to the internet, obviously, otherwise I couldn't do that. So I got a message while this past weekend while we were out of town going, um, your Suvie's been disconnected from the internet for three days. Wow. And I'm like, I hope we haven't lost electricity. Like, you know, I don't know what the issue is, but we get back and Eric, what was the issue? Because you you were here when the uh when the when the guy came from the uh internet uh mobility company.
SPEAKER_05:They've been doing construction off and on all over the street in front of our house. And one they were investigating something and opened one of the metal compartment things in the front yard, and when they closed it, they ended up clipping the uh extranet or the fiber line.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Crazy.
SPEAKER_05:So we dealt without internet for two or three days when we got back, and I was lucky I still have hair. Oh man. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01:We actually should have said something you could come to the house and use our internet.
SPEAKER_06:We thought about it. We have blazing fast internet. I think do we have the fastest internet of the staff? You do, I think. Yeah, we do. It's brand new. We just got it. It's not fiber, yes. Like maybe six months ago. It's we used to have basically a step above that you remember DSL? It was like that. Um, and we just got this blazing fast, great fiber. Love it. Uh, highly recommend it. Jerry, you should look into it. And um, but but as soon as you as soon as it goes down, the cell phone service here is abysmal. It's horrible. Like you'll get like a megabyte up, which how do you describe how fast that is?
SPEAKER_07:Very slow, like barely able to load a web page.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's crazy bad. So, you know, for three days, Eric had to work in his office on that and like do a document and then save it to his desktop and then upload it to the cloud like at night so that it would go through by the next morning. It was crazy. So there's two desks down below.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, you could just park in our driveway and use the internet.
SPEAKER_06:Well, I I typically do that when I'm looking up chloroform recipes.
SPEAKER_07:Um but you're not the only one I've had.
SPEAKER_02:Chloroform! You come to my driveway too for chloroform recipes.
SPEAKER_01:So they probably think it's hard doing it.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm sorry, back to you.
SPEAKER_07:I was gonna say no, I've been having internet issues as well. Like we've had spectrum out up to the house like multiple times and it's still dropping. And it's so weird. Like they said that the signal coming in was too powerful. And so they put a splitter on it to slow it down, which I get my full speed that I'm paying for. That's not the issue. The issue is is it will work just fine, and then all of a sudden it'll just drop out and then two minutes later come back on.
SPEAKER_06:Well, that's because it went to the other side of the splitter. Probably.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, so it worked like nothing's wrong. It's your neighbor that's stealing the internet off then, right? Do what?
SPEAKER_03:If you haven't saved, you could lose stuff then.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and it's it's aggravating because they're like, Well, we don't see any issues, we don't have no problem with it. And then customer service is telling me, Oh, we see nothing dropping on our end. And then I hang up the phone, and five minutes later it drops, and it's like, why wasn't I on the phone when it did it? Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:We've had the kind of the opposite in the last couple weeks. Stellar internet. Oh, I'll get a text message from Breeze Line saying, We know there's outage in your area, our estimated time to have it back up is this time. And I'm like, Huh, I'm working just fine. So I'm just not gonna say anything, just let it work keep on working. Still downloading for a while.
SPEAKER_00:Hour later, you're back up. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:Thank you. And then they send Did they still send you like the uh like the five dollar discount on your bill for the time it was out or anything like that? No. Do you remember that happening back in the day? They used to do that. If they had an outage in your neighborhood, they'd be like, oh, we're gonna compensate you that$3.84.
SPEAKER_01:Well, HTT has been advertising somewhere, I don't know where, probably in a podcast or something, that they have the most of time, and if you're down for so much time on a cell network, then they'll they'll pay you or whatever. If you're down for more time on a fiber network, they pay you. I heard it's like seven days, right? No, it was hours. It was hours. Yeah, but seven days makes sense too. It does.
SPEAKER_07:It drives me insane because ATT fiber literally stops like a half a block from my house.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, get yourself a spool of fiber. I told him we could fix this. Dig a line, yeah. I know people. We don't even gotta do that. 12 pack of beer. We can get coax.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we could just get coax, we could put we could put everything in the fire in the plastic box right there, and then just run the coax or the ethernet back to your house. I'm telling you. And the best part about it, you ain't gotta pay.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Guys, they are all joking so you know. Yes, because ATT is gonna go down in a couple days, and then we're gonna be like introduced.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's not us. We're joking. We are completely joking.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and we don't advocate, you know, using uh fiber internet while you're driving one of our trucks. It gets uh hairy. It does get hairy.
SPEAKER_02:Might end up in a rat's nest.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, yeah. That can you imagine? Like just you make a left turn and you just take out all the traffic next to you break before then, right?
SPEAKER_00:How strong is glass? It's pretty fine, it's pretty fast.
SPEAKER_01:It's pretty strong. Yeah. Have you not seen the news recently of what's going on over in the um the Balkan territories with Russia and Ukraine?
SPEAKER_02:I thought you said Vulcan. I'm like, oh, we're in Star Optical.
SPEAKER_06:I did hear that like right now, I don't think Ukraine and Russia are getting along.
SPEAKER_01:They're not getting along. Okay. And so they're using drones. As one does. And they're now blocking the signal to drones. Oh. To get around the signal blocking, they're using fiber optic control drones, where the drones actually have a really, really, really, really multiply that by 50, long fiber optic cable that's physically connected to them.
SPEAKER_06:So it's like it's like you went to Radio Shack in 1992. Right. And around Christmas time, before Christmas, and they had the remote control Corvette. Yes. And it had the cable connected to it. Yes. And it would go straight forward, and then if you did reverse, it turned.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, exactly. And then you would reverse to turn the way you wanted it. Yes, exactly. Boy, that would be annoying with the drone. So they've shown pictures of the reversing and turn and then going straight. And the forest and and and roads covered literally in thousands of fiber optic cables. Wow. So if you're curious why fiber just went raised as expensive.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting warfare.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, like in 20, 30 years, we've gone from whatever to fiber optics all over the floors floor. We'll see. It seems kind of I mean, wow, just wow.
SPEAKER_06:Very similar but different. Very similar but different. Yeah. In South Louisiana, uh, in Baton Rouge, uh, when I was in high school, I think they've always been there, right, Eric? Um, since you've lived there. In high school, on the interstate, they have these giant concrete uh sound um walls. Do you know what I'm talking about? Uh going down the interstate. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Have those always been there?
SPEAKER_05:As far as I live there.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. So when I was in like middle school or high school, they were actually building those. Um and it was really cool how they do it because they're concrete, and they would just post two concrete uh posts that were actually like they look like almost like uh I-beams. Like I beams, yeah. Yeah, and they would slid like each little concrete plank down, and then the very top of them had this very ornate uh pelican thing. It was it's really cool. What they weren't thinking about was the fact that things uh mold and mildew in Louisiana in about 12 minutes. And so um and vines growing. And vines grow very fast. Oh, vines love concrete structures, and so uh that was all completely hidden within a year of them putting it in. But when it was brand new, it looked gorgeous. It was like, wow, Louisiana got something this nice. It was very cool. So I just saw they are now hired, I've hired a company. They've hired a company that uses drones to power wash these walls. So you see the drones and they have like just hoses, garden hoses, green hose, you know, with the yellow stripe uh up to the drone, and they're just pressure washing the walls. And I'm like, how powerful are these drones getting? No. Because the ones I've seen are are a little frail. Right. These are like military. Do they have a surplus?
SPEAKER_02:No, they're two inches. They're probably they look like a riding lawnmower with like bigger that width circumference. I the size. I've seen they're not as big as a riding, but if you're like aerial looking at a riding, you know what I'm talking about. The size of a seat. No, the entire including the blade underneath a big, huge industrial.
SPEAKER_01:They're large. Would you say like like three foot by four foot? Something like that. Something like that. I've seen where they're using drones for um uh spraying fields. Like what's worth what do they do with with full of crop dusting? Thank you. They're using drones as crop dusting. Okay. So they've got a 53-foot trailer basically. Full of Taco Bell. And they set up on top. No, it's got it's got well Taco Bell uh Diablo sauce. Diablo sauce, as one does. Exactly. As one does. And they they set up uh on top of it, they get to the field, they sit up on top of it with a workstation in the middle, a drone on each side. Uh-huh. And when the drone is the tank, and they they have the chemicals. So they have a tank on it. They have a tank, multiple tanks, two tanks, I think, on each one. Okay. For weight balance. They the drone goes out and sprays. It's on a it's on a pre-plant scheduled plan. Yeah. Um, when it comes back to refill the tanks, there's two guys up there, one has each side. They go, they swap the batteries, they plug in the hose for the tank, the drone fills up, they disconnect the hose, it goes out and does its thing. They're huge, like you said.
SPEAKER_06:That sounds huge. Sounds a lot like what your dad used to do with the helicopters back in the day. Because he said, if I'm not mistaken, he was on top of the tanker, and a helicopter would come and literally just brrrrrite next to the tanker. He'd fill the helicopter up with uh the fuel, whatever they were. Not fuel, but crop dust, sure, whatever material Diablo sauce. Diablo sauce. And then uh they would run it out into the field and they would do their crop dusting as one does, and then they would come right back and um he would top them off again. So they didn't have to like it wasn't like uh around here they have like real crop dusters, the airplanes, and they have to come and they have to stop and they have to do the thing, and then it takes a whole lot of time. This was like super fast.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_06:Yep, pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:Um I just swear the drones are going, it's pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_07:And Dallas is now using Amazon and Walmart for deliveries. Really? They're using drones.
SPEAKER_05:I have more drone thoughts, but Eric. Doesn't take as much energy, but they're also using uh drones for a hybrid fireworks show, drone shows. Yes. King's I don't know how much power uh fireworks shoots off. Oh my gosh, in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_02:I never thought about that. Well, we just watched it in in Paris to some degree, and I guess I never thought about it.
SPEAKER_06:I believe the degree was 90. We were 90 degrees, so it just looked like a solid line. We saw the profile of it.
SPEAKER_02:We didn't see the weren't at the right angle for the fancy.
SPEAKER_06:They didn't pay enough for the 3D show. They did not. But what a nightmare if you're talking about something uh we talked about this a couple episodes ago, so I won't get too much into it, but what a nightmare like when you have a show that big where it's like please, everybody? Yeah, what what you okay? So um we'd like to put to we'd like to put together the drone show for you. Where would you like it to be seen?
SPEAKER_02:All over the city.
SPEAKER_06:A hundred square miles.
SPEAKER_02:In any direction.
SPEAKER_06:In any yes. Yes. Oh, and don't mess with the planes flying into uh any of the three airports. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Uh yeah, what a nightmare. Uh, but it was uh it was very cool. We saw it also in um oh, that was just you and I that saw it. In uh in Cincinnati last year for the preliminary fest. Yeah. Did y'all see the drone show too?
SPEAKER_02:No, we didn't go through this.
SPEAKER_05:So we okay it was just you and I.
SPEAKER_06:Yes. So I was excited. I thought this was gonna be an annual tradition. We're gonna go to this thing, it's gonna be great. This year we're gonna bring Don and Jerry, next year we'll bring Heather and um whatever. And uh Heather Multiple. Did you miss it this year? Heather Musolee. No, they only do it every other year.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, really? So it's a pretty big event.
SPEAKER_06:It was a huge event.
SPEAKER_02:So next year.
SPEAKER_06:So next year. So next year is all right.
SPEAKER_02:So next year we just have to bring everybody open invitations.
SPEAKER_06:2034, I think, is your year. Um it's gonna be a little bit, but uh yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_06:No, it's it was that was a cool event. But yeah, so I I do like those drone things. Uh, Eric was talking about um uh we should buy some of those and do them ourselves, and I'm like, yeah, but to buy some of those, you need like 300. What's a drone called these days? I haven't priced one lately.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, the name of the festival is called Blink Cincinnati. Yes, Blink, that's it. Yes.
SPEAKER_07:To do that type of stuff, I have no idea. What's what's just our uh DJI?
SPEAKER_03:It's like round one or two.
SPEAKER_07:I mean you can get like the little small ones now for you know like four or six hundred bucks. So what's 600 times 300?
SPEAKER_03:No, for pizza 18 and four zeros.
SPEAKER_06:$180,000?
SPEAKER_02:So uh and you're gonna and then you have to synchronize it.
SPEAKER_00:That's all computer programming.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Well, Jerry can figure that out.
SPEAKER_06:I'm volunteering. I'm volunteering. You have to be you have to be you have to be creative to do that job.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, sir. Oh, I'd love to get in with programming of drones. Also, I'm looking at their website. Blink is 2026, October 8th through 11th. So pretty much a year from now.
SPEAKER_06:Yep. Cool.
SPEAKER_05:I'll mark my calendar. We need to get our hot our new hotel.
SPEAKER_06:You might find that you have something on your calendar already. That would be fun.
SPEAKER_02:Every other year.
SPEAKER_06:Yes. And did we were we oh we were down there for your for that, weren't we? That's the whole reason we went.
SPEAKER_01:Two weeks before.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:The week before something we were done for her birthday.
SPEAKER_06:But they it was already, it was they were starting to put it out. They were on rooftops and yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was pretty crazy. Crazy time. So yeah, I like new traditions. Uh then we have to do some of the off-years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's not gonna be hard to do.
SPEAKER_06:Paris. There you go. There you go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I think it's very cool what they're doing with these. I I will say this. So there's a there's an article I read and I don't have it pulled up, and I do apologize. Uh, but there is a new uh ruling that the uh FAA is trying to push through right now, and they're they're talking about it. So I don't uh push through is not the right word. They're discussing it. And they are saying that drones uh now will have right-of-way against airplanes that do not have ADSB out. So what ADSB out is uh whenever you're applying in controlled airspace, so like you're next to a major airport or you're above 18,000 feet, or um even like some of your smaller minor airports, like the one near us is OSU's airport, Ohio State University's airport. It's pretty small. They only bring in small, tiny airplanes. Um but it has an airspace that covers uh like five miles around.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_06:Um and so in those areas you have to have this ADSB out. It's it's what tells the the control tower uh how uh who you are, how fast you're going, what direction you're going, how high off the ground you are. So it gives it a lot of information and and keeps everybody safe, right? They can see all of your planes. Um but when you're out in the sticks and at really tiny airports, you don't have to have that. The the FAA has said, you know what, you don't have to have that. Literally just looking out and watching and making radio calls is good enough. Um because there's not nearly as many. You think, oh, that's crazy. Kind of is, but there's just not that many airplanes flying.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_06:So you can pretty well watch each other and know, you know, uh whether or not you are gonna hit someone.
SPEAKER_03:And if you are, there's you get to the four away in the sky, and you get right away there's right away or the poster's coming in and doesn't tell everybody that the you know charter planes are coming in.
SPEAKER_06:That exact thing. So um they are now saying so those airplanes that don't have ADSB out that are flying in those areas, a drone has priority over you. So that means guys coming into land at a small airport, he doesn't have ADSB out, which means he doesn't have any ADSB in, so he can't see it. And I'm telling you right now, seeing a airplane when you're flying, like a Cessna, which has a 35 foot wingspan. It's you know, like a Cessna, little bitty tiny airplane, it's huge. It's big, it's bigger than your any of your in our vehicles, any of our commercial trucks. They're huge. Um, seeing one of those is very hard. Like you have to train yourself to to it's literally part of the private pilot curriculum is learning how to spot airplanes. Wow, it's that important. That's super difficult. But now they're gonna have to keep an eye out for how big is the smallest drone?
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_07:Teeny. Yeah, teeny lights fit in your palm of your hand.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. And you think about like bird strikes, which are small animals, birds are not done, they don't have dense bones, they have very, very light little bones, they can take planes out of the sky.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So now you've got drones that you've got to keep an eye out for that you there's a good chance you won't even be able to see it until you're on it. And when you're moving 80, 90 miles an hour.
SPEAKER_03:You don't have time to move.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, you you're on it before by the time you see it, it's like it's too like. Are they talking specific size drones or types of drones?
SPEAKER_01:Like commercial drones?
SPEAKER_06:I think there is some rulings on it on on size, but uh again, I don't have the article pulled up, but from what I could tell, it is just a conversation. I think it's like your commercial drone operators have like if they're with the drone, they have a license that they take priority over.
SPEAKER_01:Now I'm sure there's also non-ADBS plus planes. Correct. Are those drones in communication with the tower? Well, those airports don't have towers usually. Okay, or do those drones have ADBS plus? I guess they don't need to because the tower doesn't, there's no tower. Exactly, so it's not required.
SPEAKER_06:Now, that being said, so the airplane I fly has ADSB out all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_06:So when I'm flying in, I have priority over that drone. Gotcha. But if you're in a like we have one A no tower zone doesn't really matter, does it? Well, again, I still have priority, so if I hit it and it takes me down or just hurts my airplane, that person's in trouble.
SPEAKER_02:I see. So they're doing priority for the end result of that possible accident. Yes.
SPEAKER_06:And so so at OSU, we have a airplane in the airport. It's really cool. If you ever get a chance to walk, you can go there, it's free. Um, inside the airport, they have a uh a piper cub from 1940. It's beautifully restored. It's gorgeous, flying from the ceiling. It's a beautiful airplane. That thing doesn't even have a battery in it. Like, if it were to take off from OSU, there are there's uh special uh permission they have to get. They would communicate with the tower with a light gun signal. Like, it is a big deal. That airplane, as cool as it is, really can't fly in and out of our airport. But those exist all over America and people fly those. There's Piper Cub uh clubs all over the place that that fly exclusively those. Those don't have ADSP, they don't have a battery. Like, those guys are strictly navigating off of a paper uh map, uh chart, and visible visibly what can they see in the ground? Wow. So those are the guys that are gonna hit those drones and stuff. So they're talking about it. I'm really hoping this that enough people push back and say we don't like this idea that this rule goes away. But since we're talking about drones, I just want to mention it that it's it's in discussions right now. So we'll see.
SPEAKER_05:I don't see I could be responsible for paying attention to something like you said, is so small you can't even see it. That's like you trying to watch out for birds while you're driving.
SPEAKER_06:Well, even when you're so even when you're flying, so birds instinctively know that if if they see an airplane and they're like coming towards an airplane, a a bird will dive. It just always does. So when you're taking off and it's like, oh crap, there's a bird in front of me, you don't do anything. The bird will actually dive. It happens every time. They just know they just know, right?
SPEAKER_01:Well, they're tough that, you know, it's like baby birding, mommy baby birding them. Kicking them out of the nest and they dive. Exactly.
SPEAKER_06:She's teaching them, which watch out for your flags. Yeah, or eagles or something else that might decide to make you supper. And uh so they will dive, which is cool. Um, that's why you don't have many bird strikes. They are relatively rare. Um, and a lot of times they do happen. They are And they're probably in groups. They were with in groups, or they were actually in a dive and they just didn't dive fast enough. So uh, or on a runway, that's another place you get them a lot of times. It's like you're coming into land and they're they see you, so they fly away, and you know, you're going 80 knots, which is 95 miles an hour, and they're going six.
SPEAKER_05:It's just not an extra FYI. Uh ATSB stands for automatic dependent surveillance broadcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Hey Jerry. Yes. I got a truck needs to go to California, and their carb test is out of date. Oh, what's a carb test?
SPEAKER_07:OTR services.
SPEAKER_03:OTR services.
SPEAKER_07:Columbus, Ohio. Check us out at OTR-services.com.
SPEAKER_06:So if I'm in Memphis and I gotta go to California. Don't call us.
SPEAKER_03:Unless you're somehow coming through.
SPEAKER_06:Well, that's what I was gonna say. The load picks up in uh uh what's that place called? Lockbourne. Lockbourne.
SPEAKER_07:If if you can get close to the Columbus area, then we will come out and meet you and uh take care of all your carb needs.
SPEAKER_06:What if I need to go to like Walmart and get some groceries for the truck? Would you meet me there?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, we uh actually have one that we're meeting tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02:We trade carb for carb though, if you go to Walmart. Sorry. Sorry. Think about it. If you're going to Walmart to go grocery shopping, you're probably getting carbs.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, true.
SPEAKER_02:So we'll trade our carb for one of your carbs.
SPEAKER_06:Nice, nice carb for carbs. Let me ask you, okay, one more time. My uh then being for real, my truck, it's a great truck, I love it to death. Uh does have a weird thing where the mill lights on, but it doesn't affect the way it drives. It's seems perfectly fine. That's not gonna be an issue, is it?
SPEAKER_07:It is gonna be a huge issue. Uh your tests will fail. So make sure you take care of any lights on your dash before you call us. And if you do have a light turned out, make sure you're doing five warm-up cycles, which consist of cold engine warming it all the way up and cooling it completely back down five times before you call us.
SPEAKER_06:So, okay. I have a I have a way to fix the light on our I get a little black electrical tank. It it it all the DOT inspections, they none of them catch it. That's that's fine, right?
SPEAKER_07:It is not. Um now I will tell you, you're more than happy to call us and we'll come out and test it for you, but you're gonna fail. There's no refunds.
SPEAKER_02:Oh. It's like it's like slugbug.
SPEAKER_03:Slugbuggle. A budget refund does not make the electrical problem go away.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so the five warm if I if I go if I go to uh uh like the Freightliner dealership here or the Kilmer dealership here, and I get uh the the mill light fixed, right, and that's good to go. Uh I can just do I need to do the five warm-up cycles or no? It's fine from there.
SPEAKER_07:You do need to do the five warm-up cycles. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:All right.
SPEAKER_07:There is also a mileage requirement that you can do, um, but we have found that that's actually not working out the way the state of California says. So it's best to be on the safe side and err on side of caution, do the five warm-up cycles.
SPEAKER_02:Right, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06:And it's the right time of the year because I can turn my engine off and I don't need the APU. It's not too hot. It's nice weather windows. Yeah, it's nice weather.
SPEAKER_02:So you can't even run the APU? No.
SPEAKER_07:No, if it's connected to the engine like our trucks.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Duly noted. That's important on my warm-up cycle.
SPEAKER_06:It is. It is. It is.
SPEAKER_02:It'll be nice because if I'm having a hot flash, I might want that rooftop AC.
SPEAKER_06:That's when you go to Walmart.
SPEAKER_07:Cherry, how long does it take to do one of these tests? It takes more time to put the information into the computer. The whole test takes a minute.
SPEAKER_05:So literally you could have them hook up and they'd be done before you could get your groceries and be back out.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Does the tester have to drive the truck to do the test?
SPEAKER_07:No. Yeah. No.
SPEAKER_01:All right.
SPEAKER_07:We we we do not enter your vehicle. We stay on the outside the entire time. We will ask you to start the truck, but other than that, that's it.
SPEAKER_06:You need to get the the the door open, right?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Because you have the little device. We have to plug into the OBD port. OBD port. That's that little green port under the engine we've never used. Oh, it is black on the sample? Ours are all green. Peter Bills? Ours are all green. We don't have Peter Bills.
SPEAKER_01:What we see on the on the outside on trucks with Samsara is actually black because that's the splitter that comes from the Samsara.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:But it the one that comes with the truck, well, trucks is green, yes. But we might see a black one.
SPEAKER_06:So clearly I don't uh I don't test these very often. And by often, I mean ever. Ever. Uh well, very cool. Uh well, I want to thank uh OTR Services. Uh again, if I do want to sign up and get that carb test done because I want to go to California, I don't want to get in trouble because it's a crazy fine out there, right? It's like uh 800 bucks, something like that if I get busted.
SPEAKER_02:Is it really?
SPEAKER_07:It's actually 10,000.
SPEAKER_02:Is it really monopoly money?
SPEAKER_06:That's they look the same. That's crazy. That's absolutely insane. So it makes sense to go ahead and get it done. Be out there, be safe, be legal.
SPEAKER_07:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and I've actually heard y'all talking quite a few times. Uh the care motor carriers, a lot of them are starting to require people to have those now because they're catching wind of it.
SPEAKER_07:Tons of calls right now from surprisingly, I I'm assuming they do a lot of independent contractor type model or stuff, but a lot of Amazon.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amazon's mostly so Amazon didn't have their own authority, so they're all independent. Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_07:And we get a lot of calls from dispatchers. Like I can hear our other people talking in the background, and they're like asking questions, and how can they get the truck near us? And wow.
SPEAKER_02:That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_06:That's crazy. Well, I'm glad this uh service exists, and and honestly, for the cost, it's it's minimal to be safe. And then it's good for uh six months right now.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, right now it's twice a year every six months, and then in 2027 it is going to four times a year. Okay. Of course, that is dependent upon any current legislation that is going on right now.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Well, I think anything in transportation right now is uh up for up for grabs. Like we could say the uh the administration is a is uh doing all kinds of weird, interesting things with the uh with it, including uh an article I just read uh like a week ago, and I thought it was interesting. I wanted to bring it up because it this comes up all the time. So um I think uh Chili and Melissa, Jerry, y'all were mentors for uh high field trucking at one point, were you not?
SPEAKER_07:Yes.
SPEAKER_06:A lot of people that come into driving and they know that team driving and we're gonna work, uh, me and my husband or me and my partner are gonna work together, right? And we're gonna drive down the road. So like I'm gonna do like, I don't know, four or five hours, because we do on our normal family trips, and then he's gonna take over and drive four or five hours, or she is four or five hours, and then I'm gonna take over, you know, after I've caught a kidnap and and and go. Like, have y'all heard that before? Because I've gotten that feedback and I've not been a mentor. Oh I've heard that before. Yeah. Is that it and and then how uh upset are they when you crush their dreams?
SPEAKER_02:That you have to do a long stretch?
SPEAKER_06:Do a long stretch. Like ten hours at a minimum. At a minimum.
SPEAKER_07:You can do eight two slip.
SPEAKER_06:You do a that's complicated.
SPEAKER_02:It's complicated. It is, but you could do it. You could compare it.
SPEAKER_06:It depends on the carrier. So uh we work with several carriers, not every carrier allows it.
SPEAKER_02:Also, it's confusing to green teams. So let's keep it very basic. That's the way Vince and I kind of I agree.
SPEAKER_07:I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I actually did a video on Xplare Boogie back whenever I was out on the road because we had a run that required us to do that, and I hated it the entire time across the country.
SPEAKER_06:Eric and I did explosives a lot. So we did uh back when we were driving, so we did A2 splits quite often. And I remember there was one time we got a basic uh surface expedite, which doesn't even exist anymore. Uh that the whole that whole brand of FedEx didn't even exist anymore. Got a basic surface expedite. This means like we picked up lawn furniture and had to bring it across the country. It was super easy, and we were like, we get to do a normal shift. Like it was like, oh my gosh, we get a break. It was like it's like luxurious. Like, oh my gosh, I get to sleep for like because I'm gonna say sleep for 10 hours, but I think if you've been in the back of a truck, you know you don't sleep for 10 hours.
SPEAKER_02:No, but it may be a good eight, eight, yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_06:Like you actually, oh, I'm of us it was only five. It's well, yeah, exactly. It depends uh so for me, it was uh the first night, because it took my body a little while to get used to it. First night on the road, two or three hours sleep, second night on the road, might squeeze in four, might it over 12 hours, I might get four hours of sleep in. And then by night three, I was so done, I would get my like eight or nine hours of just yeah, beautiful sleep. But it it took me getting used to driving or getting I guess that worn out, and then once I got on that schedule, I was good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I get it.
SPEAKER_06:But coming back from home time, it was always a three-day always.
SPEAKER_02:Definitely from home time. Yeah, it was three days from home time.
SPEAKER_06:Uh I agree.
SPEAKER_02:So this new thing?
SPEAKER_06:So this new thing that they are uh the FMCSA is piloting, uh doing a pilot program with a few carriers. We are not uh one of them. Um, but they are actually giving um they have a couple different programs. So one of them is they are allowing truckers to split their 10-hour off-duty period into more flexible combinations, including a six out of six, four, so six hours on, four hours off, or a five and five. So five hours on, five hours off. The other one is that uh they're allowing um truckers to pause the 14-hour on-duty period for no less than 30 minutes and no more than three hours. So they're giving them the opportunity to go like, all right, we're gonna pause this so that you're your 14-hour on duty, so that you can take a rest break, and then you can go back on duty and finish your 14 hours. The cool thing about this, because it sounds like, well, it just sounds like they're trying to make them work more. I I understand that, but what they're actually trying to do is you get to a delivery, your delivery won't take you for two hours. You can actually put your your your on-duty cycle on pause, go chill out, get in the sleeper, take a nap, fix dinner, whatever you want to do, you have two hours off, and then you can go in there and pick up and do it again. Whereas right now, if you're doing that and you're approaching your 14 hour, that clock just keeps on ticking. And so if in two hours you're over your 14 hour tough, you gotta wait 10 hours and then you can make your delivery. Yeah. So that really hurts a lot of truckers. So it's very cool to see um them kind of pull all this together. Now, granted, in that second example, we're a team operation, so if I can't do it, then my partner can. Sure. It's not a big deal. But for solo drivers, it's huge. It's huge. Being able to have that flexibility. Um, Vince, you did solo for a little while, right? I did. Were there ever times where that would have been advantageous to you at the end of so far?
SPEAKER_01:And you can't make any money because you just money because you you gotta sit for 10 hours so you can do something else. Yeah. So it it really did hurt a lot of times.
SPEAKER_05:Especially when you run out of hours while you're at the dock of a one dock business.
SPEAKER_06:We've had so we've had situations where teams uh like one of them's been off the road uh while the other one's still driving. So we don't really like it, but it does happen, especially when you have like someone has a health issue, they need to go to the doctor. We had a team, one of them um uh got hurt on the truck, um and they went home and recovered. And while they're recovering, their teammate kept driving, and then once he was fully recovered, he got back on the truck. It was cool. But that those kind of situations do come up. Uh sometimes people got to take care of kids and loved ones. It it happens. So if it's limited time, we generally allow it. And we have had a few situations when that's happened where a t a solo runs alone through the night, gets there, can't make the delivery, and and uh Panther or FedEx are obligated to make those deliveries, and so they'll actually send a tow truck out. The tow truck will pick up the truck, bring it over to the dock, drop the truck, let it do its delivery, tow it back to where it was, and just to be able to make that that on-time service. So it's crazy expensive. It's it's frustrating like for the driver, because even if you're like, okay, well, they're gonna be down sleeping for that amount of time, you can't be in the sleeper of a truck while the truck's being towed. Yeah. So it it disrupts that person's sleep, it eats into their so this is just so much more flexibility to be able to manage your clock where it actually makes sense for you. And they've done a lot of changes over the past several years. I know uh, Jerry, you've been driving longer than I have, but even when I've been driving, like there was no 30-minute rest break period requirement. I could drive 11 hours. If I could drive 11 hours, keep my eyes open, I could do it. Um, and I did several times, and uh I've come as I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate the requirement for a 30-minute break. Like I've done 11 hours sitting and now I understand circulation, it's not a good thing. So um it it is it's interesting to see what they're doing, and and I love the the 6455 because it it comes up so much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:You know, and one person I saw where they're saying uh in the article, they say faced with traveling in an urban area during the height of rush hour, you can now split your berth to where you don't have to. Right. That kind of thing is great. Because how many of us have hit Atlanta at 4 30 and you're like, boy, if I could just pull into a TA or gloves, shut down, sit here for five hours and about nine o'clock take out, because nine o'clock traffic in Atlanta don't exist.
SPEAKER_03:So it really sucks when you picked up and you had to get a couple hundred miles down the road, yeah, and you were right in the middle of rush air traffic, and it would take not a normal Oh le like leaving uh Philadelphia. Philadelphia Los Angeles Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_06:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh, Los Angeles four hours of traffic and you've gotten 90, and you're like, I have another 190 to go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like I'm like, uh-huh, and I put the dependents on him, and I've got them. Do I have the puppy pen on them?
SPEAKER_06:No, that's when you understand why we have all other seats.
SPEAKER_02:Uh you're like, I could have gone a few hundred miles in four hours, and I've only gone 90. You know what you would there goes the rest, area.
SPEAKER_06:You do it a couple times, and then you learn about trip planning. Yes. And boy, trip planning comes in handy, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_07:Sometimes you don't have a choice, you know, especially in California. You pick up uh there's you know, three o'clock afternoon, three thirty, and it's like as soon as you pull out, there you go.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, and it's always already started at three. No, it's always it's always like three thirty in Santa Monica.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_06:So you have all you have all of it to get through.
SPEAKER_01:We had a regular load that picked up in El Segundo, okay, which is on the coast, yeah, south of Santa Monica, but the same idea. Yes, right. And we'd get there early, like let's get loaded early and try to get it could keep this traffic out. And we'd every time it was, oh, we're gonna load our own trucks, then we'll get to you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then they'd get to us, and it'd be that same idea, and I'd be like, Well, Melissa, I tried. We try we tried all the time. We tried, and it was just yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'd always be so thirsty and parched by the time you got to be into the couple hundred weeks. We don't drink water coffee or because you can't. Yeah, Annie. There's puppy pads on the floor for you if you need them.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Hashtag trucker issues.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I know, right? You you figure it out, you work it, you do you, you get to you get past your goal, and then you're like, all right, next loves, TA, Petro, Big John's Waterworks, whatever it is. I'm I'm stopping.
SPEAKER_00:I'm stopping. I'm stopping.
SPEAKER_06:I'm stopping. What is this? A circle K that can uh fit nine cars? Sounds good to me.
SPEAKER_03:Cracker barrel.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, yeah, Cracker Barrel. I've I've I've we've done a few swap driver swaps at Cracker Barrel. Of course, we generally tend to go in and get some mama's pancake breakfast. Unless you're driving, because mama's pancake breakfast is not conducive.
SPEAKER_00:It is not, it will put some staying awake.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that yeah, oh that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah. It's like it's just saying, yeah. If you're going to sleep, load up, get that maple syrup because they got that good maple syrup over there.
SPEAKER_02:And then the carbs. Yeah, the car not the carb test, but the carbs.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, yes. And then decaf coffee or sweet tea. Oh. Anyways. Decaf.
SPEAKER_02:Well, is it to sleep? Oh, he didn't care.
SPEAKER_07:He didn't care.
SPEAKER_02:I don't care either.
SPEAKER_07:Drink a half a pot and go to bed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. What if you had a truck though that didn't have a driver in it?
SPEAKER_06:Uh it would just sit there.
SPEAKER_03:And it was making trips between Houston and San Antonio.
SPEAKER_06:I would call it the producers of Christine.
SPEAKER_03:So I don't know if you guys are. That's the one, right?
SPEAKER_06:Christine was the one that's a good one.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, Stevens. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I was about to say, I wonder if she you're referring to um bought auto? Yeah. Self-driving trucks.
SPEAKER_02:We've talked about them before between that section. They are the 45? Is that what they're on?
SPEAKER_01:No, she's talking about San Antonio to Houston. That's site in. But we used to see them all the time going from San Antonio at 45.
SPEAKER_02:Isn't it 45?
SPEAKER_01:45, yeah. Between San Antonio and Dallas. I think it's Houston and Dallas.
SPEAKER_02:So you're doing San Antonio to Houston. There's autonomous ones.
SPEAKER_03:I think they've got approval.
SPEAKER_06:It stresses me out so much. And I at first I'm like, well, this is the this is the next thing, right? This is what has to happen. Great Jetsons. Um and then I have a uh uh YouTube channel I I watch and we've talked about it before. Uh Jeb Brooks. Big shout out to him. He's great. If you like travel, he's got some awesome stuff, especially if you like flying. And lately they've been doing um just travel stuff that's actually really fun. But um they were just somewhere where they took an autonomous car and he shows like sitting in the back seat, nobody in the front seat, they're driving, they're going through a tunnel, and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm mature enough for this yet. I'm like, and that's a and that's a that's a Toyota Prius. I uh I don't know about an 80,000 pound uh semi.
SPEAKER_02:Like it just literally no one in it. Yes. So not even someone like who could take over the controls and the passengers.
SPEAKER_06:Exactly. Like nobody's nobody. There's nobody. We get in a wreck and we just hope the safety systems of the vehicle are good enough. Curtain airbags. But we uh you know they won't flee the scene, right? We we uh we were just in uh Oregon.
SPEAKER_02:No, you were not.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, I noticed you were in Oregon.
SPEAKER_02:No, yeah, we were on the Oregon Trail. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_06:We were in uh we passed trail on the Oregon training trail.
SPEAKER_01:The Oregon Oregon Trail, right? We ate in trails. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:What we were in trail.
SPEAKER_01:I don't remember that. We actually didn't eat in trail.
SPEAKER_06:No, but Eric and I went through trail. We were in trail. We stayed in trail. In Oregon. In Oregon. We were on the Oregon Trail.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, fine, I'll give you that.
SPEAKER_06:So um boy, this is so complicated, isn't it? So we were uh we were on the Oregon Trail, and uh the I rented uh uh I rented a crossover vehicle from Enterprise. Not a big deal. I knew there was gonna be four of us, yeah. One luggage space, and it was good enough. I could have got more, but it was good enough. Enterprise sent me an email. They were like, you know, for only$12 more, we can upgrade you into a full size SUV, and I'm like, yes, you can.
SPEAKER_02:For$12 more.
SPEAKER_06:So I accepted that offer, and then uh we get to the uh the counter, and the lady's like, all right, I've got you in a premium crossover, and I'm like, Well, I guess it didn't go through. Like, no, I wanted the full size for the extra twelve dollars. For the extra$12, yes, exactly. And so I told her, she's like, oh, well, babe, I got you in a in a full size, anyways. And I'm like, oh, thank you so much. So we get it, it's got a it's brand new, 3,000 miles on it. Wow. Brand new Ford Expedition. Yeah. And this thing was nice. It was the Platinum Edition. It was nice. Not to brag. Uh, you were there?
SPEAKER_04:I was.
SPEAKER_06:I was there eventually. Eventually, eventually. Eventually. So we uh we started driving in this thing, and I I kept like, why is it broken? Every time I hit cruise control, it would just randomly change speeds on me, and I couldn't figure out what's going on. And I finally figured it out. It knows the speed limit, and it was automatically adjusting the speed limit whenever I changed speed zones. Because in that area, there's like it'll go like 65, 55, 45, 35, 45, 55, 65. Like, there's a it's a lot of up and down, a lot of changes. So I'm like, okay, that's what it's doing. That's really cool. Yeah. It it kind of aggravated me at some points, but like in general, it's really cool because it would slow down and other cars wouldn't. So they would just zoom past you, and then they would slow down. Um so that was kind of cool. And then at some point, I was driving and we were on the the bypass. There's a big a bypass there, um, and we're on a bypass, and I looked at the uh steering wheel thing and it said hands free, and I'm like holding it. I'm like, what? So I took my hands off. Now my my uh Jeep has that feature where it'll hold the center lane of the lane. So if you're driving, it holds center of the of the travel lane, but if it detects that you've taken your hands off the wheel, it freaks out alarms, everything. Put your hands back on the wheel. Like, this is not self-driving car. That thing literally said hands free. So I took my hands off the wheel and it took care of everything. And I was like, it followed the road, it slowed down in curves. It like it did. It was crazy because we're on a 55-mile hour road, and it actually we'd get to an area where like they'd have the like slow down to 50, you know, or slow down to 40 or whatever, and it slowed down, and I thought it was funny because it would slow down, like if it said 50, it'd slow down to like 46. Like it knew you don't really have to go that slow. We know the vehicle, you can actually do this higher speed. And so it did all that, and I thought it was really cool, but it still wasn't fully self-driving. There were roads that didn't work on it, only worked on major highways. Um but that was my first experience. But at least then it was literally just to grab the steering wheel, hit the brake, and I'm under control.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_06:I just think when you're sitting in the back, yeah, and there's you have there's nothing.
SPEAKER_02:I get it.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it messes with me.
SPEAKER_02:I get I think it was.
SPEAKER_03:I like driving. I enjoy driving, so to have a vehicle that drives for me, just look what's the flannel.
SPEAKER_06:It just makes me think of one of Eric's favorite movies.
SPEAKER_02:Wally.
SPEAKER_06:iRobot. And yep, definitely. And there's a section of that movie where the guy takes the autopilot off and hand controls his car, and there's ends up almost wrecking the car. Yes, and there's warnings and there's sirens, and I think the police might be called after him. Like it's just crazy town because, like, what are you doing? You can't self-drive your own car. It just feels like that's the direction we're heading.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So I don't know. It was cool to experience. That was my first time being in a car that kind of drove itself, even if it was in a limited capacity, but it still makes progress. That was the exit back there. Yes. If you've seen the movie, yes, you'll get it. Uh so, anyways, it's uh uh yeah, the the the self-driving thing. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Um have you seen them? I have not personally seen one. I would I would look for them when I was down in Euston area, but I did not see any.
SPEAKER_02:I remember when they were like beta testing some of that stuff down there, and you could still see someone, but you could tell which ones they had like the big like almost like a light bar, like an ambulance. Or something, yeah, you know, big thing on the top. Yeah, you could definitely tell you. It took a while to figure out what they were, and Vince is like, those are like autonomous and they're teaching and training and they're trying to figure it out, but there's still someone in it, he says.
SPEAKER_06:It reminded me of like the bar that went across the window, it was like uh when they're pulling mobile homes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, with the with the extra wide mirrors. With extra wide mirrors on it, it's what it reminded me of. So Heather just sent the article over. It looks very similar. It's a Freight Waves article from September 16th of 2025. It still has the great big bar across the top, and then right below the side mirrors, it's got other sensors as well. So still very similar looking. Um, but they're very proud that this is their first fully autonomous trip across Texas.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, one more thing that makes me nervous. So I just told you about the great expedit expedition that was 3,000 miles old, practically brand new, self-drove itself. Great cruise. Even so, even the sections where it wouldn't self-drive itself, it still slowed down for curves. Like it's still new. Right. So Eric and I we decided we were gonna take a drive up to Crater Lake, Oregon. It's a national park, it's breathtaking. Yes, we had tears when we saw it.
SPEAKER_02:Um that's a funny joke.
SPEAKER_06:Uh it is a funny joke. It's an insider joke. Uh so if you're on our Patreon, you'll understand. So uh we um we go up there and on the in it so Crater Lake is in uh the base of a volcano.
SPEAKER_02:It is.
SPEAKER_06:So the top of a volcano uh blew and then it collapsed, and so it created this huge lake. I knew this, but I didn't realize that so much of the mountain still existed. Oh I thought it was pretty level. I thought it I thought it was pretty level. So when you're driving up there, you have to like drive way up a freaking mountain to get to it. And when we got to the top of the mountain, it is like white out snow, crazy snow. I mean, like, because we went from not a drop of snow to like, what was it, like 60s outside?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:To blizzard. It was It was a combination of snow and fog. Yeah, it was it was crazy. So we get up there and we do our thing, and then we drive back down, and as I'm driving down, uh, and this happened to me three weeks ago when I was driving uh back from Memphis in one of our commercial trucks, uh same thing happened to me, which is the front sensor for the uh adaptive crews and and and emergency braking and all that stuff, it was blocked by snow. So enough had gotten on there, pack had gotten on there. When I was in the uh commercial truck, it was a torrential downpour. I mean like it was a hoo-ha, like just crazy downpour, and that's what made it stop working. And as soon as we dried out, it fired right back up. But uh in the in the in the expedition, and it it kicked down a little thing saying you're this is not available, it's not available, it's not available. And so my question is when that's not available in a car like the expedition or in the commercial truck like our Freightliners, you just have to now use your eyes and your feet, and you have to control the vehicle yourself manually. What happens when there's nobody in the cab?
SPEAKER_01:So they talk in the article about the redundancy, like the the super crazy redundancy. Um trying to find it here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what if they have fog or what if they get rain and tornadoes down that way?
SPEAKER_01:There's a lot of redundancy invalidations that are done ahead of time, but that's a very still a very good point. What happens there? They don't spell this out in plain and simple English. The one thing I did find that spelled out in plain English very at the very bottom of the article was this was one time that they ran this fully autonomous. Okay, they've been running it autonomous with a person in the in the truck, but they've done it one time fully autonomous. Um for now, it's the only trip conducted, but they expect more to come.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So it's not a regular ongoing fully autonomous thing. They do have somebody in the in the truck when they're running other ones. Now I know we talked about in a previous season that they were doing a similar study. Was it um JB Hunt? I think it was JB Hunt that was doing it. Dallas out I-20 to El Paso, or it might have been somewhere. It was on I-20, but it was some stretch of highway that no one likes to drive because right now was it fully autonomous?
SPEAKER_06:It was not fully autonomous, no, they still had a driver. So Dallas seems to be a hotbed for these tech companies. They do. Because I've seen like uh in God rest their souls, they're no longer in business. But I I uh we did a lot of work with double-A sleepers down in Dallas, or Fort Worth, Texas. And um, so I would go down there pretty frequently, and I would see them quite often in that area. And as soon as you left that area, I would always go up through Arkansas, they were all gone. You won't see me.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's why you saw them there in Texas because there's such such long stretches of highway between El Paso and Dallas. And yeah, you've got mid and Odessa, but there's nothing out there. Yeah. So you have that huge long stretch of highway where you can just run a truck straight for days and test a bunch of different things. Yeah. Or even San Antonio to Houston is a long stretch of I-10, more populated than I-20. But I think you just have those long stretches in Texas that make it a little easier for that type of thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, that is definitely a lonely road between uh Dallas and Texas is I like it.
SPEAKER_06:That Dallas Dallas to El Paso, I think it's therapeutic.
SPEAKER_03:It is beautiful in the Kansas is what I can't stand.
SPEAKER_06:The kids are up in them almost. Well the corn? Oh, yeah. The corn the Kansas, the wheat. Not the corn, the the um is it wheat? The wheat. The wheat. Oh snooze fest. Snooze fest. But at least Texas, it's kind of barren. You do get like deserty.
SPEAKER_01:You do get some terrain. Well, the fun part in Texas is looking out for the burn-off flares out in the distance.
SPEAKER_06:At night, hard to do the day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but that's so much fun.
SPEAKER_06:Uh R at night driving up and you see like just a sea of red diamonds that flash and then go away. Yeah. And then flash. Yeah. But there's the one that's out of sync. It's out of sync? And then you get close and you realize, oh, that's a cell phone turbine. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:It's not a it's not a wind turbine, it's a cell phone. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So no, it is um there were aliens and there were motherships.
SPEAKER_06:I told you. So what happened.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry. So, Melissa, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Uh, we just got to celebrate your 50th birthday in Salt Lake City's airport. We took it. But that was that was by a weird default. Uh actually, no, we spent the whole weekend in Medford, uh, Oregon.
SPEAKER_02:Trail.
SPEAKER_06:And trail. That's what I meant. Trail.
SPEAKER_02:Trail.
SPEAKER_06:Trail.
SPEAKER_02:Oregon.
SPEAKER_06:The Oregon Trail. Uh uh, with you. You picked out this really cool cabin. Yep. It was it was really beautiful. Uh, we had a fire.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I uh learned real quick that a wood-fired oven is extremely hot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this one had glass doors. It this is for warmth purposes, so they they are called a wood stove.
SPEAKER_06:Stove, that's it.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yours upstairs in this house is for ambiance, not to warm your home.
SPEAKER_06:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Big difference.
SPEAKER_06:Oh yeah. So yeah. Well, the door got me and it got me good. I uh I I I blistered quite nicely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And uh yesterday at Trader Joe's of all places, it decided to uh have a moment. To let go.
SPEAKER_02:That's okay.
SPEAKER_06:Which is just weird when you're walking through Trader Joe's and just all of a sudden you're like, why is my hand? Oh God.
SPEAKER_02:Um I don't know why that wood stove had a metal frame. I thought that was really odd. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So it was glass and then metal as opposed to the glass was about 16.
SPEAKER_02:Something that wasn't hot?
SPEAKER_06:The glass was about six.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Glass was about sixteen, seventeen hundred degrees.
SPEAKER_02:To be fair, he touched the door frame. Again, that's holding glass in, not the door handle. The door handle was a that has he resisted a little bit.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, the door handle was like 70 degrees. It was fine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But I touched the 5,000 degrees.
SPEAKER_06:So I opened both doors with the handles as one does. I fed the fire, and then I just grabbed the door like I was shutting a car door, and whoo-ha. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I will never.
SPEAKER_03:It didn't look very long.
SPEAKER_01:I missed that because I was out sewing logs. You were sewing logs.
SPEAKER_02:You were cutting logs for the fire.
SPEAKER_06:Yes. I uh yeah. So my sister uh was much younger when she learned the lesson. Uh so my sister was uh eight or nine.
SPEAKER_02:A lesson.
SPEAKER_06:She was eight or nine. She was uh out camping with my grandparents, and on the side of the uh motor home where the um refrigerator uh no sorry where the hot water uh heater is. With gas. With gas uh is a little radiator and it says hot. So of course my sister at seven years old, eight years old was like, I wonder how hot it is. And so uh they ended their camping trip early, she went home.
SPEAKER_02:And uh I'm glad we didn't have to end our incidentally.
SPEAKER_06:My grandfather uh painted the letters H O T in red. Um so if you see a Winnebago with red H O T letters, it's his. Uh and so I uh yeah, I I I grabbed those doors and man, it it lit me up. It hurt. But uh we had a great time outside of that. Uh I can't think of anything else that happened that possibly caused anyone harm or pain.
SPEAKER_02:Nope, we had about what, 17, 15, 16 of us? Yeah, about 22. I don't think it was 22.
SPEAKER_06:Well, according to the fire marshal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the fire marshal is a good one.
SPEAKER_02:It was it was a nice little gathering of friends and family. It was very nice. Um nice celebration. Oh, the hot tub was great. For some of you, you know, we've talked about it on the show, plus maybe some of you already know, but I've done a two-two every year since I turned 40. Again, I know we've talked about it here. Yes. Um, maybe even last year. And uh this year, this year is my last year. A lot of people think it's for whatever reasons. Oh, uh whatever reasons those are, but this is it.
SPEAKER_06:I'm being told we have a picture.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, for sure. We have a picture.
SPEAKER_06:How gorgeous. Oh my gosh, beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:I've dreamt of this outfit now for probably the last three or four years, and it came out pretty much how I pictured it to be over the top. Uh, it is my heaviest tutu by far. Um, people often ask me if I made the whole thing. I did not make the dress, and I did not make the train skirt portion. I mean, it you'd have to think of that as material, but all the tool that is on that train skirt. Yes, I did add all of that and make that.
SPEAKER_03:Except for the glitter that was left at the house. I know.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I mean, if you can you imagine if that glitter was actually on the skirt, it would have been 10 pounds heavier. Well, my confusion.
SPEAKER_02:It took its own suitcase all the way to work. It did.
SPEAKER_06:Mike, have you d uh it was it was it was wrapped in the case? It was wrapped. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02:It was wrapped, so no glitter in the suitcase.
SPEAKER_06:I I I was very confused when she said I've got tool. I was thinking, uh, you know, I'm a big home improvement fan, Tim the toolman Taylor, put the tool belt on. I thought there'd be hammers and saws and screwdrivers, and that was not what happened. No, it was a different kind of tool belt. It was yeah, it's beautiful though.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, 50 gold, go big, go home kind of thing. Yes. Again, it is my 11th tutu. I've done one every year for since I turned 40. Um I'm a boy mom. Kind of decided to take back some feminine, you know, ness and and show my boys that you can still be, you know, a girl who just wants to have some fun. And and um, so yeah, 11 years, 40 to 50, and and I'm only hanging it up because um they're really hard to get creative over. Um they each have to have something special to me. I just don't make one for a willy-nilly reason. And um they're expensive. This year's was well over 500 bucks, and I don't think people really know that about tool. Tool's expensive.
SPEAKER_06:And lastly, um my tool supplier has gone out of business in that situation.
SPEAKER_02:wins. So it just seems like a really good thing. And and I've always known at 50 I was gonna stop and just move on with life. It was it was a time, it was a thing. And uh for all of you out there and and and I know maybe some of our my Facebook friends and family don't watch this, but um if I inspire you, you should do something of your own. So a lot of people are like I can't believe you're ending. Really you're joking. You're kidding. We we live to see the next two two every year. Well you do something special and I'll follow you. Because that's what life's really about. And that's that was kind of my story. Just wanted to share. You don't have to just be stagnant and do nothing. Have fun with life.
SPEAKER_06:Well you've been saying for several years now that I've known you that this is the benchmark and and throughout the I think I've been very transparent about that. You have been very transparent about that. So it's uh it it was gorgeous and uh it I understand your friends like sure because I think I'm one of them. Uh it it's gonna be like oh we're not gonna see this anymore. But um we got eleven years to go back and look at the other ones. And I think are they all most at least are on Facebook, right?
SPEAKER_02:Most yeah yeah around this time of year they're they're typically on there um at least on my page if you're following me.
SPEAKER_06:You have to start doing the memories.
SPEAKER_02:I know memories this time whatever years ago. But yeah I know they've also something really special and um yeah yeah it's it's been quite a ride and and uh really enjoyed Oregon and and sporting that I'd like to maybe wear it one more time because again I I don't rewear these um I so I think maybe one more time somewhere here in Ohio before I sell it or part it out or do something with it. I've got I'm five deep they just hang in the the basement so I'm gonna I think somebody wants one.
SPEAKER_06:You have to take them on the triumph. On the triumph?
SPEAKER_01:Wear my dress on the the motorcycle we could just drape her her train over the box in the water supposed to be 80 this weekend that maybe that might work strapless dress.
SPEAKER_06:Oof even at 80 I don't I mean with a helmet on and he gets caught in the tire. I got I gotta just keep moving. The wind holds it up in the window.
SPEAKER_02:You gotta find that magic balance you slow down at seven miles an hour gets caught in the tire wait you'll have to redo your sensors for weight distribution because that sucker again adds about 25 pounds. I am not joking that is a super heavy heavy I thought it was going to be overweight in my suitcase putting it in the you did not show overweight or not overweight I'm sorry you didn't show heavy it it looked you you wore it gracefully. I did yeah well there was a lot of reinforcement I I do thank uh Vince Vince and Heather uh for their great ideas because there were a couple of nights I was having meltdowns. I thought I had the problem resolved and I'm like well we're pivoting to choice two choice three and I'm like something's got to give but it it required a lot of reinforcement to keep it up on my hips.
SPEAKER_06:It was interesting that uh before you uh or when you went to assemble it uh on you it's kind of and I say assemble it's like an if you've seen Iron Man it's it's kind of like that uh Vince and Heather were gone with you for at least two hours uh prior to the party and uh when I saw Vince uh driving the forklift in I was uh mildly concerned because I'm like I'm not sure there's enough ceiling height for the forklift but uh apparently there was unfortunately it stopped raining so we were actually able to do it outside without needing the extent oh okay we were hidden we couldn't see that the hard the hard part was getting that big RGN trailer in there yes to deliver the forklift way up in the hills that that driver was amazing what I didn't understand is why you got the RGN trailer from the Mid America truck show where it was just closing and opening and closing and opening and closing and opening the whole time do you not remember the mats? I remember Matt's yeah they had the RGN trailers in the end and they just open them and they close them again and they open them and they close again.
SPEAKER_02:I do remember that I don't remember that so here's a fun fact so I've done lights like last year was Aurora Borealis right Aurora Borealis and I ran star lights through my outfit that the dress actually like it had stars on.
SPEAKER_06:So I it looks really cool.
SPEAKER_02:I've done uh other LED lights through I I wound them through the ladies style tool. Oh I love you did that for the Blinkfest in Louisville I know yeah so this year I really really really wanted a bubble machine up underneath my skirt my skirt was already so heavy and I couldn't think about how to stick the bubble machine up in the skirt to blow bubbles but how cool would that have been to have a bubble machine blowing bubbles as you're walking that would have been a blast I still think it logistically figured out but it never executed but would it not just look like you're farting bubbles right unicorn I think it was like a little 19 it was like 1910 1920s cars like go bigger go bigger than the booty the cable guy calls those walking for it's funny I'm gonna get you wrap around to crop dusting again and on that note Jerry would we miss crop dusting that's hilarious.
SPEAKER_07:Oh it was a good time yeah it was a lot it was a good time yeah 50 hey everybody thank you so much for tuning in tonight if you are interested in high field trucking or anything that we do over here expediting uh please check us out at highfieldtrucking.com you can also give us a call at 833 highfield that's H Y F I E L D or 833 493 4353 option one for recruiting Monday through Friday 8 a.m to 5 p.m Eastern Standard Time if you have any questions comments about the show leave a comment down below or send us an email over at the outerbeltpodcast at gmail.com we'd love to hear your suggestions and we'll make sure we get right back to you make sure you hit that subscribe button and the thumbs up button really does help the algorithm and helps the channel to grow share this to all your friends and family and we welcome you back to the next episode.
SPEAKER_06:Absolutely and if you've got if you've got friends out there that are like we're not gonna ever join Highfield but they're looking for like an hour to kill driving down the road we might be it. We might be it might be it send it to them let them let them listen to us out because we do occasionally talk about trucking stuff. We we did today a little bit a little bit uh we like to uh chat with each other and and and keep this little family community going. Um so until we meet again stay safe make good decisions don't leave money on the table and keep those well as a turn. Good night till next time