Sunny days

Here again. Well I got into 890 on the Saturday, my favourite type of truck, International Prostar, same as the one I had, 833. It is assigned to a German dude that dresses like a cowboy permanently. His floor mat was well warn. Must have been made by his spurs. Nice truck though, he looks after it, even carpeted it throughout.

Anyway my first trip was a two drop. I don’t get many of those. First was a place called Independence, Virginia. The second was Laurens, South Carolina. On the second day, it rained all the way down. After seven hours solid driving, I had to stop for 15mins and have a walk round. It takes it out of you a lot more driving in the rain. When I set off again. By the time I got to Independence, the rain had slowed down. I parked up at the customer ready to off load the following morning. When I got up. It was dry and the sun was coming up. As I was doing the pre-trip on the truck. I noticed the air-con belt hanging down snapped. One of the pulleys was seized plus I did not have a spare anyway. It was no biggy though, it was still winter. Yea right. By the time I had set off down to my second drop I stopped at the Flying J in South Carolina to fuel and have my shower, and it was well warm.

This is what the temp was when I got back to the truck. 35 degrees 'C'. that’s because the censor was on the roof and I was parked pointing the sun. I was walking round in a T shirt. Well nice to get away from the snow for a few days. Once I was driving again it did go down to 21 degrees but still well nice, except no air-con, remember! what a bummer. When I got my last drop done it was off to Lexington SC for my collection which was going back to Hamilton, Ontario, back to the cold. It was not bad really. Just in the plus figures. Roads nice and dry etc. then my reload from Ontario was going back to Woodstock. It had not really snowed for ages. Then I kept getting fleet messages over the satellite says to take it easy in New Brunswick as they had bad snow. So was expecting the worst, but the roads where totally clear and dry all the way back…till 45 miles north off Woodstock. Then you could tell there had been a little snow as only one lane was clear. So I thought. Then when I pulled off the highway at Woodstock, I was met by totally covered roads and a foot of snow in the yard again. It had all melted before I left. Well where high traffic went anyway. The cars in the car park was totally covered again. For the first time I wished I had snow boots or wellies Well I got out the truck last night. So 5 days in the truck covering 3100 miles. Doing that kind of miles seams not far at all, till last time I was off. I had my favourite TV channel on, property developing and first time buyers etc. Property developing was my hobby back in the UK. Anyway there was one of the English property search programs on and this couple was wanting to move from Richmond in London to somewhere in Europe. She said it was 900 miles away. I had never really thought about how close places like Italy was to drive. 3100 miles would mean I could drive from my home town in the Uk to Milan, Italy, back to my home town then back to Milan and still not covered those miles. So when you think of it like that, it is far.

Anyway im back in a truck in the morning, only for 24hr though as its my youngest sons 3rd birthday next week. So I have asked for Saturday off to take him out for the day. So till next time, have a nice dayyyyy

This road in red on the GPS was in South Carolina.

very windy 5% down grade road. You can't see the bit on the bottom that joins the left one to the right one. Look in the bottom left hand corner of the GPS for my speed. That was as fast as i dare go.

This is how high up the side of this mountain that windy road was.

It did get straighter

Back in snowy Canada

Another Truck

Well I managed to get into another truck on the 7th. It is such a pain ringing up several times a day checking to see if the truck im suppose to be going in is getting any closer to Woodstock. I was doing that from the following day on the 5th. They lined me up for 3 at first, then which ever got to Woodstock first I would take. Two got turned round before getting to Woodstock. The one im in now, did get to Woodstock the night before, but the driver needed to go to Moncton for some reason. So they gave him a load to take with him. So I got the truck the following day. This time till the 15th. So was not too bad waiting but the other bad side to slip seating, is I never get to plan things with the family, because I never know what days im having off. I could say im taking a couple of days off, but I have too many off as it is. Not by choice either. Just waiting for that next truck coming in. so they better give me a truck very soon. Five new trucks turned up the other day. I know only teams theses days get the new trucks, but hopefully I will get one of there older trucks. I wont hold my breath.

Anyway enough of the whinge bagging and lets tell you what I have been up to.

My first trip was to Ottawa, Capital of Canada. Not that you would expect it to be. You would expect Toronto to have that gig with it been the biggest most populated city in Canada. Well my delivery was more or less down town, and Ottawa is not designed for highway trucks with 53' trailers. I had fun. What made it worst, was the snow banks on the sides of the roads making the streets even narrower, but nothing I could not handle.

Down Town Ottawa

Then my collection was from the Canada's finest. There base was the size of a small town. Again not built for big rigs and they are even worst at plowing there own base. I could not find the building I wanted. So I asked this dude in a sidewalk plow. He offered to lead the way in his little buggy. It was so funny, he just darted off going down this road and round this really tight bend, not thinking if I was able to go round them with my trailer. So I sat waiting for him to finally look in his mirror and see I was not following him. When he did eventually come back and took me a different way. I still had to drag my trailer through big snow banks to get round the tiny corners. The building I wanted was on the base, but 6km away from where I was. Like I said, a very big base. Most of the way was on un-cleared dirt track. Ice road truckers, eat your heart out.

If it was not for the trees, i would not have known where the road was.

Well that load I just needed to take it back to Woodstock, after I got him to take half of the load back off and spread it out to the back of the trailer instead of putting the full 48000lb's just on the front half of the trailer, making me way to heavy on my drive wheels. Luckily I had a gauge in the truck telling me I was too heavy. Otherwise that would have been a very big fine for me when I crossed over the scales. When I got back it was straight down to York, Pennsylvania. I did half the journey on the Saturday, which only left me 368 miles on the Sunday to do ready for Monday morning delivery. Now my goal for daily driving is 575 miles a day, just so I get over 4000 miles a week. So when I was half way down I got the message that they would unload me as soon as I got there so I could get my reload that night, instead of waiting till the following day. I thought great, I could bet my miles in, Then Joe sent me the message I could not load till 10pm. What a bummer. On top of that, experience should have told me it was not going to happen at 10pm either, but I had hope. Yea right, 6am before I left there. That went back to Montreal and from there I picked a load going to Moncton New Brunswick, calling at Woodstock on the way past just so they could service the trailer. When I dropped that off they asked if I had any more hours left and because of the short day the other day, I could afford to max my daily hours and do the full 13hrs so off to Shippagan, NB I went. Shippagan is as far North East you can go in NB other than a couple of little islands pass there. Now this load was going to Arizona, which is next to California. 3120 miles away. I was gutted I could not take it as it would have taken 5.5 days just to get it there and the assigned driver wanted his truck back in 2 days, so I just had to meet up with a day cab in Cornwall, Ontario and do a switch. His trailer needed to go back to Woodstock and he took mine to Toronto, where a truck will pick it up and take it to Arizona. Anyway I got back on the 14th spending 8 days in that truck covering 4600 miles. Im due out again on the 16th for a week, so will update you again when I get back. Have a great day.

I need one of these so i can tow the kids behind

see how high the snow is against this house, Half way up the side door.

See how high this snow pile is against this Factory, with the trucks behind

That is snow dancing on over the road in the breeze. Its really nice to watch.

Q at the scale house

The place is called 1000 Islands. each little Island has a property on it

New Brunswick as i was on my way home at sunset

Happy New Year

Happy new year to one and all. Hope you all had a great Christmas and better new year.

Well I went out on the road boxing day morning. With a nice trip away from the snow again, this time to North Carolina. I must have been delivering in a really posh part of North Carolina. All the houses was in gated communities, one after another. Notice also, no snow. It was the warmest place I have ever been on Christmas week. It was 12 degrees C

Then my collection was in South Carolina, which was actually only 36 miles away. It was even warmer there. That was going back to Toronto. When I got there. I had to pick u a brand new driver that was coming to work for us. He is 70 year old. He was an owner operator then sold his truck a few weeks ago ready to retire, but was so bored. So when his mate rang him that works for Ayr and asked him if he wanted to team up he jumped at the chance. So I had to take him to Woodstock for his orientation, as my reload was going that way. I was back early morning on the 30th covering 2400 miles over the four days. Then on the 31st I got into another truck. This time a brand new one. Only been on the road a few weeks. Only teams get to keep new trucks, so I was only in it till today, Monday when a team was going to take it over. This time I covered 2700 miles in the four days. I only stayed in Canada between Toronto and Nova Scotia though. I had a lot of snow to put up with aswell. On Saturday I had to cut my day short as the snow on the roads was really bad. The snow flakes where the size of golf balls. They predicted 26 inch of snow over a 24hr period. But here in NB. That dropped in just a couple of hours. I was following a line of cars at one point, but even with all our tyre tracks, there was still six inch of snow in our lane. They came to an hill and started to slow to a stop. I had the lightest load on ever so could not afford to stop as I would not have the weight to give me grip if I stopped. So I pulled into the none used lane to try and get passed them. It was that deep it just brought the truck to a sudden halt. I got out and sank in to the snow. Luckily a plow came passed me doing the lane I was in, so I manged to reverse back into that lane and set off again. The next truck stop I came to I called it a day, but only planed to have my minimum hours off then set off again. Turned out it was a good call. It was raining when I woke at 3am, so the roads was all clear, which allowed me to make my delivery on time.
Anyway I'm planed out again tomorrow. So here are a few more pic's for you.
 

See how high that snow pile is compared to the car

Toronto New Years Day.

Montreal New Years Day. Typical French. Just do not know when to take a day off.

That is not snow on the screen. It is Ice. Having to stop every few mins to break it off the wipers is not fun.

A couple of casualties

Recognize this? They have them here too

All the white you see beyond that house should be water.