 It can't be bought, it can't be sold. I'm actually not gonna do it. Just like for this, I'm sticking his tongue to you. Hey, Kleda's want one. Kleda. The other one right here, he's Kleda. I have worked with some amazing drivers over the years. And even though I will only be able to experience a small part of it, I want to better understand the challenges that are in dirt while living a life on the road. These remind me of beach chairs. It just... What's your antenna sticking straight out the wrong direction? It's pointed the right direction. That's not the right direction. Well, no, okay, like if you see, let's look at another truck. Okay, like this guy? Yeah, like they're straight. Okay, now see how he has those on his mirrors though? Well, those are patriotic. Does that one have one? No, no, they don't come with mounts there. It's an aftermarket thing, so you have to go out and buy it yourself. It's so weird. So, I don't... What's that for? The mount itself. Not like the antenna part. Oh, it's for the CV itself. Oh, because you have a CV in that makes it. You know, that's the first time that we've driven through security and they haven't come out and looked. They know... I mean, my truck sticks out. Because it's white? Because it's white. I've got the black grille. I have different style headlights. I also have that FloBalow kit for the aerodynamics. Yeah, so then there's wheel covers that go over, so it's... Because you want to try and make your truck as aerodynamic as possible because the better fuel comes. Yeah, yeah. And you want to look cool. Yeah, that's the main part. You want to look cool. It's like when you have a truck that... You know people lower their trucks and then put like the... What are they called? Body effects, ground effects. Oh, yeah, yeah, like the body kits or whatever to make them... Do people still do that? I feel like it's not very popular anymore. I think since the whole Fast and the Furious movement kind of died out. It's not a thing. No, but... I mean, I don't get fuel at QT a lot. No. But other places you get fuel, you get rewards though. Yeah. So... Like you can get free showers. You can get free showers, free coffee, you know, points to purchase things in stores and such and so on. So it makes more sense to get those points if you can. I mean company drivers, I think they're suggested to get it at night. Yeah, if you're close to a terminal with fuel, they're gonna... Your fuel solution is gonna say go to the yard. So like your fuel card wouldn't even be open to go somewhere else. Right. If you're a company. Okay. How many gallons would you get? How many gallons do the tanks hold? So on my truck, I've got a 220 gallon tank. So I can carry 240 gallons of fuel. That's crazy. So that's a penny or more. So it's like a couple bucks. So yeah, it's a couple bucks. I mean... Am I calculating that right? Yeah, yeah. I mean if it's a penny difference, you're looking at... You know, let's say just an average fill-up is about 200 gallons. So I mean you're looking at $2. So I mean if it's... If it starts... The price separations, if it starts to get more dramatic... Yeah. Then okay, then it'll make more sense to fuel it in the night yard. How many gallons do you have to buy? I'm getting into the details here. Why? How many gallons do you need to buy to get a free shower at, I don't know, gloves or whatever? 50 gallons. Only 50 gallons. Some places have upped it between either 60 or 75. But most like Pilot Flying J and Loves is 50 gallons. And how much does it usually cost to take a shower? Showers are between $12 and $15. That's crazy. Yeah. So like... So crazy. By getting fuel at QT, I won't be able to get a shower. But fuel at QT is cheaper than it would be at Loves, Pilot, Flying J, T8, Petro. Because they don't have any of those. Right. Do they give you... Do they give you stuff? No. You don't... There's no reward system with them at all. There's none. You just get good snacks. QT has good snacks. Yeah. I think. That's the main reason I stopped. You get those chicken... Those little chicken things on the roller-grill. The little like... Looks like a taquito. Yeah. And looks like spicy chicken. Yes. Yeah. Those are addicting. They're so good. MSG... There's reasons why it's addicting. Yes. Exactly. I'm assuming. So where do you run? Um... Like what does your route and home time look like? From here to El Paso, in fact... Or I'll go out to El Paso. I do a lot of Phoenix to Southern California and then I'll go up to Northern California. Yeah. Lots of freight in there, huh? There's tons of freight in Southern California. Which... Ridiculous. You know, you'll get a lot of guys talking about that they don't, you know... Traffic is bad. But for me, as an operator, I can live with the traffic because it pays really well. Yeah. Yeah. You're making money. So... And you can also try to maneuver your pickups and deliveries around traffic. Right? Is that fair? I know traffic is pretty crazy all the time there. They try to get the appointments set up. Yeah. So, I mean, sometimes you have to, you know, let's say you deliver down in Vernon, California. Or Long Beach area. Yeah. Yeah. 8 o'clock in the morning. Well, if you stay at the Fontana Yard, you're going to have to leave at about 5.30 in the morning to be able to get down there at 8. That's crazy. So it's best to just try to shut down. It's best to try and shut down at the customer? Yeah. Yeah. Some places you can. Other places you can't. When I worked in operations, I worked with the customers in Southern California. And I remember all of them would be like, yeah, you can shut down. And then I'd get calls from the driver saying, there's no place to shut down. You can't shut down there. And I'd call the customer and be like, why did you tell me you could shut down there? There's no place to shut down. You jerk. Because they know that it's going to be easier if you can shut down in the dock or whatever. Do you have a favorite customer down in Southern Cal? I'm not going to say do you have an unfavorite customer. I don't mind them all. I mean, they're all giving me what I need. They're all giving me the freight. Are there some companies that are known for being more friendly or more driver-centric? Like, they care about you. They have snacks for you. Maybe they even offer a bathroom. I know that's unheard of. Some places are getting better, especially in Southern California, where they'll offer a restroom for drivers, at least. I think it's crazy that that wasn't a thing. No, it definitely wasn't a thing. And there's still places out there that don't offer a restroom for drivers at all. Because in their mind, you hear the phrase truck driver and it's almost like you close your eyes and you think truck driver and you're stereotypically going to think of a dirty grungy person and everything. And that's not the case. Well, I don't want to say any more, but I mean, not the case at all. Look, this guy's learning how to fuel up, too. I'm just kidding. Where are my cards? I'm going to go recruit some drivers. What do you have to do? So what I do is I keep track of all my fuel and everything. So of course, there's an app for that. There's an app. So this app is through Let's Truck, where I just type in my mileage, my fuel, how much fuel I put on, and then whether it's a full fill-up or a partial fill-up. So today I'm probably... Does it help you track your MPGs? Yes. Because if you look on here, let's see. So right now, I'll tell you that my 30-day average in my truck is 7.9 miles per gallon. And then I'm only spending... It only cost me 38 cents a mile to drive this truck. Do you put in your cost? Yeah. And then how many gallons you put in all that and it calculates it? Yeah, and it calculates all that and everything. That's cool. 81 fuel-ups this month? No, no, no. Since I've got the truck and everything, I can go back and look at my older truck and I had 520 fuel-ups. Wow, a new truck. Yeah, I used to be refrigerated. That's why Chris knows you. Yeah, that's it. So, all right, let's add some fuel here. Where's my gloves? Oh, they conveniently clashed with my shirt. Just enough. Just enough. Look at that, this is fun. Let's go meet people. Do you talk to people when you fuel up? Not typically. No. So this is my driver ID. With my ID? Yeah. And we'll sit here and ask you 100 million questions. That's just for the... So, I don't need to fill up. Tell me what you love about being a driver. What makes you super prideful about your career? To me, it feels like you're helping others, I guess. Because you're delivering freight. You're delivering freight. Granted, today I'm going to deliver bubble wrap for Amazon. So if you order something on Amazon and there's bubble wrap in that packaging, I help to make that possible. The ones that they inflate themselves? Yeah. They don't use traditional bubble wrap. They use those big bubbles. Let's say you get your small package in a manila envelope and it's in bubble wrap. Okay. It's like the white Amazon bubble wrap. Oh, I must be ordering their own stuff. Or maybe just too large of an item. Yeah, that's true. I do, yeah. That's really cool. I mean, I feel like you're helping out others. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't mention that the money was good, too. I mean, because you think about why you do a certain job and you do it to support your family. Yeah, exactly. Your wife is your family. Yeah, my wife is my family. Your daughter. My wife, my daughter. My super snoring bulldog. Oh my gosh. Why is that yours? I was like, where is he going? But yeah, they're really my why and kind of what drives me. Yeah. What led you into trucking? Like what you were doing before and then what path you took to get into trucking and to decide to get your CD on and all that. Because I was actually stocking shelves at a grocery store at nighttime. I was... How far back are we going here? Let's see, I started driving in 2000. My driving career started in 2011. Okay. So 2010, 2009, those two years I went from moving cars around at a car dealership to selling gym memberships to then stocking shelves at a grocery store, which I had done previous years to that. And then I wanted to get into something where there's a career where I can do something that has longevity. Yeah. I mean, granted, I don't have that much education background. I don't have my associates at all. But so my thought to myself was what's the best job that I can do without my associates or any type of degree. The most money I can make without, yeah. So and I got, I said, you know what, why not truck driving? I got student loans. Oh gosh, yeah. If you're watching this, don't ever get student loans. So bad. Horrible thing to do. They charge so much more at schools. Like what did you pay $8,000? It would have been like, yeah, it was about $9,000. Yeah. Financially speaking, yeah, you don't need to tell me, obviously. But like how much of an increase, like percentage wise or like two times the amount, whatever, do you see now where you're at compared to where you started? Like not the first couple of months, but when you were like a new experienced driver. Quite the increase. You mean in being a lease operator? Yeah, like three times. When people ask me, I explain it to them this way. Okay, there's days, I'll have weeks where a company driver will make more money than I do. But that could be because of breakdown or because of home time. Different factors can do that. Then there are weeks. As an owner operator that I will make two, maybe three times as much as I did as a company driver. But you'll take hold of that. I'll take hold of that. So it's... It's worth it, right? It is worth it. But doing this you have to be have a little bit of common sense and be kind of smart about it. Yeah. Because you can't just come out here and hammer the pedal down Okay, you... This truck is yours. It's a tool. You need to make sure your truck is properly maintained. You need to do maintenance to prevent any breakdowns at all. Yeah. And you have a maintenance fund for that, right? Yeah. And I got lucky with this truck because this truck is still under a freight-liner warranty. It's about 2,000 miles. That's cool. So... I got really lucky with this truck. Yeah. And... Good old cold trans. Yeah, good old cold trans. And you've got to be smart about it because your number one expense in this business is fuel. Yeah. So you keep your... The less your foot is down, What about advice for somebody getting into the industry or that's new in the industry? Don't be closed-minded. Come in with an open mind about this. Because this is... Is it a job? Yes. But it's also a lifestyle. Yeah. Okay. What was the biggest adjustment that you saw in yourself? Being away. My now-wife and I... We were pretty new when I got into this. And... So that was... That was a big adjustment. And it's not only an adjustment on my part, but an adjustment on her part as well. Yeah. Your dogs. Your child. Like, it's an adjustment to everybody, but your family that doesn't get to see you. Yeah, it was a big adjustment just for... And as long as you have someone in your corner that's willing to adjust and adapt with you, then this... This is easy. So, I mean... What do you guys do now that help with that? Like, you were talking about face-timing with your daughter. Oh, yeah. We get to face-timing all the time. Is that like your secret to making it not as bad? Yeah. Because, like, she'll go to the park with Grandma or something like that and Grandma'll send me a video of her swinging in the swing or something. And as much as I'm home, I haven't taken her to the park to go swing on the swings or go down the slide or stuff like that. So you're missing that first time. Yeah. I missed her first steps. It just happened a couple weeks ago. But they were caught on camera. Yeah. I don't see that. But... See the joy in her face. Yeah. But now, she gets older and everything and seeing the joy in her face, like, when I come home, it's really neat. I mean, it just... Whoa. All right, we are gonna try and work our way in here where people don't like us too much. But we're small enough. I'll smile at them. These are my goats. This is my dream come true. It's like it's dying when it turns off. The term back of the day would be called desoling down. Desoling down. So when was the last time you fed the goats, sir? Oh, my gosh, it's been a while. I'm surprised she didn't come with her on treats all the time. I feel...what else should we get? Want to put your fries number in? Okay. Hey, Tiffany. There's a Starbucks over there. Do you think we can pick them up? Okay. I need a knife. You already have one in your mouth, you fat-head. Do you want another one? Just like for this pet. I think a lot of these babies... Look at this one sticking his tongue through the wall. Hey, clean this one. This. This one right here, please. How are you gonna do this? He's like, hey, Tiffany, please, let me eat it. Hey, aggressive. Hey, this one's such a nerd. I love it. I feel like they don't know what to do if it's too... When they get too thick. I need to feed me more of those delicious cats. That little one looks like a cow right there. A cow goat. How are the miles at night? They're really good right now. They're like the dad. There's one down there that looks really old. This dude has a serious beard dang going on. Oh, you're cool, bro. Do you like country? I was born country. Let's see. Do you ever forget that you have a loaded trailer? No. No, because you can feel it? Yeah. With this load being as light as it is, so do you know who Chris Tableton is? Yeah, of course. I love him. I said I thought about trying to put this song on my channel, but I still can't get it right. The sound? Not the lyrics, but just the... I feel like I messed up somewhere in the melody and everything. When you sing it? Yeah. Are you trying to be a country star? Really? I almost went out and tried to try it out for the voice this year. Shut up. The voice, my transportation. It wouldn't work out with my schedule. I don't think you can deliver a load, hit up a bar to sing. It's more precious than gold.