On the Road with Kurt Grote

hello everyone, i hope all of you have had a safe and profitable week!!!! i want to say thank you to all that has commented on last weeks website. it made me feel a lot better and i hope it made some of us think about the job we do. i am hoping that after the holiday’s things will settle down just a little bit so i can get in to more of a routine and get a little more work done on the web site. in the mean time those of you that are out there running through the christmas holiday i personally want to thank you for that!! while i am at home with my family and friends you are still out there doing your job. a big THANK YOU is in order. no matter if you are out there by choice or because of the economy let’s not forget the reason for the season. i know my family will be saying a prayer but also thank you. if you are out there running please be safe not only for you and your family but for all the other travelers as well. i know as well as you that it rest on your shoulders to keep them safe!! thank you once again for all that you do. have a very Merry Christmas and above all be safe!!!!  and i will see you next week.

1. hello everyone, i hope you all have had a safe and profitable week. this past week has been a trying one. I’m sure like a lot of you winter has been felt. as good as this cascadia handles in the wind, we have encountered a lot of snow and rain and of course sleet. there is only so much we can do. be it my truck your truck or anybody else’s truck. it doesn’t matter how many years or how few years you have been driving hazardous conditions are hazardous conditions. some call it luck others call it experience and others call it just plan good driving. which ever you call it the fact is, this job we do is very dangerous even in the best of conditions, no matter how good our trucks seem to be. which brings me to my point, i lost a good friend this week in an truck related accident. he and his wife had run team for a number of years, he had been driving for some 40 years. I’m not saying anything we all don’t all ready know but maybe as a reminder we are people with limitations. yes as people we can over come a lot but not with out a price. i will miss my friend, making fun of me for not passing my ham radio test, and looking forward to talking with we on the radio. teasing each other on some of the stupid things we have caught the other one doing, or just hearing from another driver what the other one did. just the way two friends can have an argument but still remain friends. the industry will also miss him for his dedication and professional attitude. he had that attitude on each and every load he hauled. i send his family my deepest sympathy. i know there is nothing i can say to make them feel any better. i hope that in his passing we all can learn and better ourselves as drivers. and by the way i will be more determined than ever to pass my ham radio test!! i will keep you all posted on my progress. but for now i will say be safe and profitable, i will see you all down the road.

hello everyone, i hope everyone had a nice and safe thanksgiving. my question to you is what did you do for thanksgiving? did you do the traditional holiday or something more modern? now my wife likes the traditional stuff, you know family, friends, etc. except for one thing i did get her to change her mind about, and  yep that’s right hanging Christmas lights. now keep in mind she usually asks me to do this after thanksgiving but in the middle of a winter storm with snow or ice and wind. now this year it was nice before thanksgiving, i got her to agree to it when the weather was nice. well we all know it don’t take a week to put up lights!!! so i drove us up to northern Nebraska for the holiday to see her folks and family. i just remember the last holiday i spent up there, it was ccccold -50 and snowing truck jelled up i could not keep the thing running. i thought i would have to spent the rest of the winter up there:) all in all we had a pretty good time!! we had good weather going up and coming back that made it even better. my father in-law loves his horses checkout the miniature horse. she is almost one year old her mother was killed almost a year ago, and my father in-law has raised her from a bottle. she follows he all around like a large dog,heck i think my rottie is bigger than she is. checkout some of my other pics. if you double click on them i think you might get them to enlarge. even though i was goofing off the guys at freightliner were hard at work taking care of my truck. we had some maintenance issues to take care of, like grease and some e.c.m. up dates to improve my fuel mileage. i think I’m one of those guys that’s a big pain. i have to know everything that goes on with my truck and they did not let me down they kept me informed every step of the way. i know that is refreshing to me knowing they are not afraid to call me good or bad at lease i know what is going on. i hope your holiday was as enjoyable as mine, if not i hope it was profitable for you.