Yes it's been a while since I posted. I've been running hard and I'm really tired and ready for a break.  I just got back this morning from another Oklahoma run - I've had 2 of those and a brownsville run - where there were no empty trailers and i was going to have to wait 3 days for one to come up..  which I wasn't opposed to by my manager called and said no, come back empty handed.  

I did get to spend New Year's Eve at home but went to work the next morning. It wasn't an entire day off, it wss just - get back from one run and then head out again the next day.  We didn't do our normal fireworks show for it rained literally the entire day - I had left Brownsville that morning and it rained starting south of Corpus Christi and continued to rain all the way back up. It didn't stop until the next day. It was also our version of cold, down in the 30's.  

 This is why I want out of trucking. It's non-stop. If we're busy, we don't get time off unless we need a 34 hour reset.  They don't care about your personal life or quality of life. It's much more hours than most normal jobs.  It isn't 40 hours a week, it's 12 to 14 hours a day.  Right now, there are several drivers on Christmas vacation. They are owner-operators and they don't have to work, per their contracts.   

I got a reprieve today.  When I pulled into the yard, another driver I haven't seen in a while - quite a while actually - pulled in with a trailer I brought back in 2 days earlier. I was perplexed. That trailer was there yesterday morning, how did this driver go up to Barnsdall before me but loading after me? Or what happened? 

He answered the question.  He had gone to the plant to load today, the plant shut down the ethylene rack. There is a leak in the underground line somewhere - yes ethylene leak - they wouldn't load him.  The first 2 trucks they loaded off a rail car that was sitting there that they had already filled before the leak occurred.  Why is this a good thing? Because it will allegedly be at least 2 days before they fix it.  Maybe longer.  Probably not, tho, high priority will be given to getting it up and getting the rack going again. 

Still, I might at least get 2 days off. And there were a number of tractors sitting in the yard, presumably the ones that don't have drivers on vacation will go out first.  I'm really ready for a break here.  It just fuels the fires within me to get this business up and going.  I need to get that land. I don't really want to go into debt for it, but there isn't going to be another auction for probably another 2 months and even then, I have to wait at least 6 months before I can do anything with it. I'm telling you, I'm tired of trucking. I'm tired of endless driving. Yes it pays quite well but enough is enough.  I want a normal life and trucking is definitely not a normal life by any stretch of the imagination.

If you talk to people that have been in trucking for decades, they are highly likely going to tell you the same thing. They're tired of driving but they don't know how to do anything else that makes them that much money. Sure, there are some that still love it throughout their careers, but a lot of them get burned out on it.  Away from home all the time.  Living in a small box.  Having to take showers in a truck stop where all kinds of other people have been in there and if you see some of the people coming out of them, you can understand why people don't like using them.  Eating food that isn't healthy, having few options to find food that is healthy.  It's like truck stops want drivers to become obese, overweight, unhealthy, high blood pressure and diabetes stricken people. Only recently have I seen some Love's start bringing in fresh salads. 

Some of the local drivers like their jobs - because usually that means home at decent hours and a couple days off every week, much like everyone else.  I quit my local job because of the cut in hours and the subsequent cut in pay.  Couldn't live off of that and wasn't going to give them the privilege of having a highly experienced driver around at less than beginner's wages.  That really irked me.  Truckers are expendable, we are numbers on someone's computer screen. All of this is why a high percentage of new drivers going into the field of trucking quit before their first year is up.  Sure, I made 90k last year. 

How did I make it? Being out on the road all the time.  

I'm just motivated and now I have lots of promises of help.  I'll need it.  I won't be able to just quit my job.  I'll have to see the property filled up with trailers and brining in stable, monthly income before I'll quit.  Maria will help run the place. Taylor will do the accounting - she's been wanting to do that ever since i started talking about it years ago. James will help with any repairs.  Their two friends were actually talking about living on the property and helping me run it.  That's for pay, of course, so I'm not sure how that would work out.  One of their friends say they have a friend that already helps run an RV park and would be willing to help me out. For pay, of course, but this is all what I needed to hear before I could venture out into this journey of attempting to build an income on my own without slaving my life away for large corporations.  

The question really boils down to how to go about it.  Cash out the 401k, use it as upfront money for a much larger loan and go that route?  Use the 401k and buy property out right for cash and then take out a smaller loan to do the rest of what's needed?  Wait until the next auction and hopefully get some acreage that way, only taking out a small loan to pay for it and keep the 401k intact?  There's a lot of options here.  The question of cashing out a 401k is whether I will be able to replace it and then some - rather quickly.  

What I'm really looking at is simply having business to supplement my retirement.  I know I won't have enough to retire by the time I'm anywhere in my 60's.  I might get 401k's up to 200k into my 60's, but no one would tell you that's enough to retire on even with SS checks every month.  I understand people can live a "simple" lifestyle - where you are basically living bare minimum, but is that what anyone wants when they are in their golden years?  To have to live in what amounts to nothing more than abject poverty?  

These are the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head concerning retirement for some time now. Getting something set up now will eventually pay off, have a constant income, will leave me set for life. It doesn't have to be confined to an RV park, but that is the cheapest thing that I can come up with for a rental property right now.  

On another note, several properties that went for sale at the tax lien sale auction are already for sale on the internet. Talking about some seriously jacked up prices.  I mean, I understand they want to make a profit off of it, but wow! And how do they sell the property without having had waited the 6 month time period? I don't understand how that works and I'm going to be asking at the tax office tomorrow. I have to go down there and pay up registrations for trailers, perhaps they have insight on sales of these properties before they even officially own them. There must be a lot more to this story that I don't know about.  

So, it's Sunday afternoon. No work tomorrow - tho there's plenty to do and I'll be going at it all day long.  Been wanting to clean up the back yard for some time.  Would like the address to the 33 acres and see what it looks like, it really is right off the interstate, maybe a mile or so.  Perfect location, I think. Close to town but not in town.  But that represents debt.  I don't have 88k even if I cashed out that old 401k, it's not that much money.  The thing 33 acres would do is to open up other opportunities to do other things. Small herd of cattle. Mobile home park.  Truck parking? They charge a fortune for truck parking, if I had some acreage to set aside for that I could just charge $5 per night and still make a good chunk of change every month.  

I know about truck parking - I deal with it all the time. But especially major Interstate corridors, where drivers have to shut down somewhere for 10 hours and sometimes - a lot of times - finding a spot can be incredibly difficult.  But, drivers balk at the idea of spending $18 for one night to park a truck. Most of them don't do anything but park, watch tv in their truck and leave the next morning.  The price is outrageous and I can see renting a bulldozer, clearing out 5 acres of land, having rock put down and get with the program.  See? There's lots you can do with land besides traditional farming. I'm not a farmer, I don't think I could do that. Those people know a lot more than most people think, a lot of expertise needed to run even a small farm.  That's mostly generational stuff.  

Without putting in a truckstop or anything but garbage cans and maybe some portajohns, that is low maintenance and low labor cost.  Minimum wage job - work from 4 to midnight.  That's when they all come in - starting around 4 and actually long before midnight, but you want to optimize your income. For i can tell ya, even at pay parking spaces? Truckers will park there and not pay if they can get away with it.  

Anyway, I have the ideas I just have to figure out how to get this going. Even mom offered to loan me money.  I really don't want to get into loans with family members but it was a nice gesture.  

Well that's enough for this one.