Steady At The Wheel

Holton Pearson joins us for Episode 49. For anyone that has been listening since the beginning you are familiar with our Father who we call Rooster. He has been on a few episodes. Episode 20 was one of the episodes we had with Rooster as well as Billy Jack. (Episode 20 is one of our must listen episodes by the way!) Holton is Billy Jack's oldest son. He has been hauling livestok with Jaxon for a number of years. We sat down thinking it would be good to have Holton on for an episode as the parallels between Jaxon and Holton are much like Rooster and Billy Jack's trucking years. We found out quickly that Holton needs more than one episode and will definatley be back soon.

Hey Everybody! Thanksgiving found Jaxon and Luke same place same and same time. It was a long time coming. We dusted off the mics and headphones and hit record. This episode is a bit of wandering here and there working out the kinks....getting back on the horse.

Things are busier than usual. Jazon is trying a first time solo venture on the mic for this episode. Jaxon catches up on events, his maintenance philosophy, and shares a trucking story.

TF5...This episode is about Jaxon's WW West Youtube channel release "Big Papa Got a Job" Rooster and Jaxon planted some oats this year. First time growing something outside of hay making vegetation. Overall, it could be consideres a success. This episode goes behind the scenes talking about the growing and harvesting of the oats.

Jaxon swung in on his way to pick up a load of cows headed to from Montana to Utah. We start off talking about a recent auction snafu and Jaxon having his eyes opened to the rules of the auction yard in Iowa. Quick update on Luke's efforts to find out more info on the trucker caught with cocaine in her trailer. We present the idea of having a sponsored segment that features Jaxon's rants about people's pets. Taylor Swift's truckers get a mention. Episode finishes up answering a few listener questions leading to some discussion about newer requirements in obtaining a CDL and the state of Montana capitulating to the feds in these rules.

Trucker's Friend #4 is a chat with Jaxon about his most recent YouTube video "Nascar Hauler Saved by a Good Mechanic" This video is about a Nascar haul to New Hampshire where there were some mechanical issues in the middle of the night. After multiple phone calls to 24 hour mechanics who actually don't provide assistance 24 hours, a young gun mechanic saved the day.

Well, we have been doing this a year...Thanks for being here. In this episode Luke talks a bit about a recent goat run he made to ID and some mechanical problems he faced, particularly tire blow out on trailer and trouble finding someone to sell him new tires. The Yellow Trucking situation is touched on. The highlight is a story Luke brought in from the Jail of cocaine being found in a female trucker's trailer. Did she know it was there? Maybe, maybe not....but her situation is something anyone pulling vans should know about.

We have been all over the place, but nowhere close to even record over the phone. Jaxon got his last NASCAR trip of the season in, haying like crazy, and family reunion. Currently Jaxon is on tour with his band "The Sightliners". Luke has been down south in the heat of Arizona continuing his education and currently in Idaho picking up a load of Kiko goats. We will talk about it all soon, but it has been impossible to get together. Branson Anderson is a friend of Jaxon's who is talented Singer/songwriter as well as a CDL holding truck driver. Jaxon and Branson take a break from the music playing to have a conversation. Both of us will be back soon.

Trucker's Friend #3 is a discussion about the video "A Wild West Hay Day" posted to Jaxon's Wild Wild West Youtube channel. The last couple years Jaxon had videos of the drought conditions at the ranch and the stresses in trying to feed cattle with nothing growing to cut for hay. This year moisture was plentiful. The video we discuss in this episode is footage of the haying process currently underway. We cover a range of topics that were touched on in this video and of course deal with the elephant in the room...Jaxon's man bun...

This episode starts off talking about past and present irrigation situations. Luke has been irrigating with wheel lines the past little bit and Jaxon recounts his past experiences with them. The conversation moves into some fender bender type scenarios with vehicles and equiptment. Of course noone around here has ever had these kind of problems, just heard about other people experiencing them! The episode wraps up with Luke correctiong some of Jaxon's long held belief in family legends and the cognitive disonace Jaxon experiences when he hears that he is probably not related to Abraham Lincoln.

TF2 episode is a behind the scene discussion of Jaxon's Wild Wild West Youtube Channel video titled Needing the spirit of Dale Earnhardt to push us home!" The video was filmed on the nonstop trip from Sonoma CA to Mooresville NC, almost a 3,000 mile trip.

Update: We are going to start doing podcast episode release on Thursdays. Our editing timeframe makes it touch to record on weekends and then have an episode ready for Wednesday. So, be on the lookout for Thursday releases of the Steady at the Wheel episodes. Jaxon is on the road with NASCAR in New Hampshire. This episode gets into the rise and fall of driver demand and some potentail mistakes owner operators may have made when buisiness was booming. Electronic logs get some attention with a recent news story of a bus hitting a parked truck whose driver had run out of hours.

The Trucker's Friend is an addition to the podcast that we are going to be doing. Jaxon has a YouTube channel, "Wild Wild West",that he releases videos/episodes on regularly. The Trucker's Friend will be a behind the scenes discussion of sorts on the videos he releases. The Trucker's Friend is not taking the place of our regular Steady at the Wheel episodes, but instead something extra to provide a bit of seasoning to the Wild Wild West Channel. So, if you watch Jaxon's channel and want a bit more context and discussion about these videos, check out the Trucker's Friend episodes. Lastly, we do not currently have an editor for The Trucker's Friend. Please be patient with the audio quality as we get this portion of Steady at the Wheel on its feet and are able to have it edited for a higher quality listening experience.

We are better be careful or weekly releases are going to be a habit again! Jaxon recounts the highlights of the benefit auction he was traveling to last week. Some states are discouraged at the fuel tax revenue coming in due to increased electric vehicles and fuel efficiency. A recent news article and some of the proposals to increase revenue for the states on this subject is discussed. The episode wraps up with Jaxon talking about his recent purchase of a Kenworth T600 semi. Check out his YouTube channel "Wild Wild West" where he documents the event.

Back to back weeks! It has been awhile, but we have made it work to record back to back weeks. Hopefully we are on track for weekly releases. We start off talking about haying and end up in a fairly lengthy chat about our experiences with skunks.

This episode recorded at the Treasure State Truck Show in Great Falls, MT

Rooster sits in for a little additional commentary as Jaxon updates on his health and family addition.

Jaxon and Luke sit down after a day of branding calves.

This episode is a collection of random conversation.

This week we have a guest joining us, Dale Sand. Dale grew up in the same community as we did. He spent a good chunk of his adult life working for the irrigation district that manages the water used in keeping crops growing here. You have heard us talk about irrigating when we were young. Dale is one of the ones who kept the water flowing. We wanted him on as a guest to talk trucking as he has moved on from the irrigation district and is driving truck, cattle hauling a big part of what he does. We didn't get to far into his trucking experience as the irrigation district backstory kept us involved. It was a good chat having Dale on and we will have him on again to get into his trucking.