I ran into Chicago-based owner-operator Carlos Alizondo last spring at the Mid America Trucking Show. Alizondo’s trucked for more than 30 years, and in that span, he's just about done it all. He's hauled in Iraq, providing logistical support to Uncle Sam during the second Iraq War, and he's pulled flatbeds and reefers throughout the lower 48.
And yet you may be taken aback by the well-traveled gentleman's answer to the question of just where to find the best food in his city of big shoulders: "Home."
Despite having plied his craft halfway around the world, in a very real sense his trucking career has come full circle.
"I've decided that containers are the way to go right now;" he said, "because I make the same money I did running over the road, and I'm home often. I love pulling these containers out of Chicago. I run Harvey, Bensenville, Schiller Park, Elwood, Illinois. They've expanded those container ports a lot.".
Alizondo hauls in this well-appointed, well-kept 1998 Pete, with a
A veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Alizondo maintains that the container scene out of Chicago has improved dramatically since the 1980s.
"When my dad started, the rates were absolutely terrible,” he said. “Back then we had junk trucks. We were running Whites and old White Freightliners. Everything was paid for. They only bought [them] for two or three thousand dollars. They were running recaps, barely keeping them running, making say, two, three, four, five hundred a day!"
