must have taken you a long time to leapfrog both of the trucks to California and back

Actually Tom, you didn't miss it by much. At the time. I was short a driver and I had talked a friend with very little over the road experience into making the trip. We were both loaded with frozen chicken, for Safeway in LA. After unloading I sent him back to Banning to wait, and went to Salinas, loaded a straight load of lettuce for Alpharetta Ga. I got to Banning about midnight, woke him up, swapped trailers, sent him on his way, and went back toward Bakersfield to pick up a mixed load with several pickups. The odds at the time were that I would beat him back to Alpharetta. It didn't happen though. I had too many pickups, and he was in a hurry to get home. He also had his wife with him, which hampered his ability to trash around.

That's a good looking pair of Freightliners James.

Do you still run produce?

Paul Van Scott

No Paul I don't. I sold the last of my big rigs in 95, pulled a flat for a local Co. in Blairsville Ga. for about 8 months, then bought a 359 Pete from a company here in Blueridge. I gave too much for the truck, because it had a job to go with it. Pulled an end dump for about 4 years, at the same time rebuilding the truck from stem to stern. Dump trucking was pretty strong here at that time so I bought a T-800 heavy spec tractor and built a tandem dump. I spent $42,000 building it, ran it 6 years and sold it for $36,000. I wasn't going to do much at all, then I saw a 1973 RS700L on TruckPaper.com. I couldn't stand not having it, so I bought it over the phone. That's a story in it's self if anybody's interested.

The RS-700 sounds, to me, like a story that needs to be told.

Thanks James,

Paul VS

Good looking freightliners James. I always liked both those style freightliners, I always wanted one like the truck Rick Yemm drove in the 1st season of ice road truckers. Sounds like you done good on the T-800 though. I've heard the story about the Mack, but always good to hear it again in my opinion. I can set and listen to old truck stories, or new anytime. My uncle charles drove truck for almost 50 yrs. so he can tell some good stories. Have a good one fellars....

I like the one with the 2 piece windshield-some of the best looking trucks ever.I always liked the looks of the Freightliners in the '70s and '80s, cabovers too.

C'mon James we wanna hear that story

Where you at Bollwevil, I heard some of that story, but would like to hear the full one........ lol... Just messin with ya bud........but, seriously