Layover in South Carolina

Well here I am again so soon.  Well I had a couple of days off after the last truck. So we ventured into the US again. It only takes 10mins from our house and we are in the US. We went to a place called Presque Isle, Maine. Its 45mins drive north in Maine. We hear about the place all the time on the radio. So we decided to see what’s there. Its nice to see all the places around you and to see what they offer. its cheaper to shop in the US so its nice to see what kind of shops they had. I was sorted with a great big DIY place.


I got into 856 on Thursday and had a load going to Toronto, which I thought was unusual. As I normally go south when I have a truck for a few days. Anyway, when the truck came out of the shop I got my paperwork, then bumped into Joe the owner outside. He wanted me to deliver by 1pm Friday. Which was very tight but said no problem. Went to find trailer, only to find it on the shunter waiting to go in the shop..lovely. Joe made the call and got it straight in. while waiting I gets the message, would I mind taking one of the drivers with me to Toronto. He was going home. With no hours spare to drive. Sure no problem. Eventually trailer was ready and off we went. Soon after leaving, Seth, Joes son got me to ring him. He told me about my reload to Spartanburg, South Carolina, which meant I could not be late for my delivery, to get to the border to meet four other trucks I was crossing with on time. Three of us Ayr Motor, and two flat beds from another company. We all had to cross at the same time in a convoy. Now I was going to be late, so the only way I was going to get it there on time was drive the full thirteen hours in one go. Luckily the other driver stayed up front with me chatting all the way. We got in Toronto by 5am. I just dropped the trailer, hit the pillow, and was out like a light. 1230pm I gets the alarm call by phone to get me up so I was not late getting to the border. Gets to the border and met up with the other drivers to find out we could not cross for another two hours, so off for food it was. Once we crossed the border, I hammered down and left the rest behind getting down here first this afternoon, two days early. Three out of the four followed a few hours later. Normally that’s not a problem. We either get to be off loaded early or we drop the trailer and collect an empty and on we go. Not this time. Its an unusual load for one of our biggest customers. So we all have to sit at this truck stop till Monday morning before we can off load. Pain in the ass, but least its great weather so im off to top the tan up so bye for now.

View over West Virginia

You get a few of these in West Virginia with all the mountains.

Road Closures

What another eventful week I have had. I got in 878 on the 9th, again in the evening. I was doing the same route I did a few weeks ago. Firstly to Laurens, South Carolina. Normally you would take just under two and half days to do it in, to keep your hours to a reasonable level, so you do not run out before the end of the week, but it can be done in two days, if you drive for eleven hours a day. I was setting off at 7pm on the 9th and had to be there by 8am on the 11th. So the plan was to drive till 6am, have ten hours off, set off at 4pm and get there for 3am. Great…..Not. Eastern US was in for another bad storm like they had the week before. By the time I had reached Pennsylvania. The snow had started and was getting real bad. I had reached my truck stop by 6am and thought by the time I get up they will have cleared the roads and off again I would go. Not…..I woke at 1:30pm to find out all the major highways 30 miles south of my location had been closed, due to bad accidents or too many people getting stuck etc. the I-81 that I needed, goes through West Virginia, and Virginia. Not flat country at all. Lots of mountains to climb.

With the three storms I have had through there, they should make it compulsory for big trucks to carry chains in winter, just like they do in British Columbia. Then maybe they wouldn’t be getting stuck on the hills and blocking the roads off.

The snow was coming down hard, and even the plows gave up on the closed roads. I stayed up till about 1130pm when the snow stopped, hoping they would open, but the radio still said closed. So off to bed I went. Least the closure got me off the night shift. 530am I woke to find an up dated message on the radio saying still closed, but I decided to go anyway. Hardly anyone on the road, but cleared so managed to drive away from the snow and get to my delivery only 12 hours late. Last time I was in South Carolina, a few weeks ago, it was 20 degrees. It was only 2 degrees this time. Once I had got my collection and back to Hamilton, Ontario. I was only 3 hours late. So had caught time up really well. My reload was going Nova Scotia, but I was just taking it to Woodstock, half expecting to be getting out, even though I was a day early, but the assigned driver did not want to go out till today so they had to find me something to do. So while the truck and trailer was been serviced. With it been Valentines day. I decided to take the wife and kids out to diner…..to Murrys Truck Stop. You may laugh but not just truckers go to truck stop restaurants. Most have great food for good value. Murrys truck stop is the best restaurant in Woodstock. Its always packed jam full and not with truckers either. For the five of us, it only cost $35 plus tip so great value. Then back to the truck to take the load I already had onto Moncton. Two and half hours down the road, to our drop yard there. Then this morning after been woken up by snow falling off the roof of the truck, I had to wait for my trailer to be brought up from Nova Scotia. I then took it back to Woodstock. So back home for the night.

To say I had the big delay. In the five and half days I had the truck, I still managed to do 3400 miles, so not bad at all. I think I’m out again tomorrow so will see what we get up to next time. Till then have a nice dayyyyy.

See all the Deer. There was loads all along this road for miles in West Virginia. Glad they was on the side and not on the road.

Been after this pic for weeks. Those gate posts are 6' tall and Just poke out the snow. Guess they don't use that driveway.

all these just parked at side of road when they shut it

he was having a bad day

nice car. can tell that was in South Carolina...No snow tyres

The Night Shift

The cheapest way to communicate in North America is using 10-4 phones. We have been wanting them for months. What they are is a normal cell phone, but also they turn into one to one walky talkies. Great invention. For $15 on top of your talk package. You get to use the 10-4 feature as much as you like for no extra cost. So I can be in California and Emma can be at home in New Brunswick, and we can talk all day if we wanted for no extra charge. When we was in the shop getting them. I was saying maybe this is a bad mistake, letting Emma be able to get hold of me 24/7 lol

Well I got into 840 at 9pm on Wednesday night. My load was going to Lawrenceville, Virginia again which is 1071 miles, the way they like us to go, and I needed to be there 7am Friday morning. The only way to do it, was doing the night shift. So I set off and managed to get to Milldale in Connecticut by 6am for my well earned rest, then set off again, arriving at 3am ready for my 7am drop, thinking there was going to be a massive queue of trucks waiting to unload. Luckily there was just one and he was collecting so I got off loaded straight away when they came in a 7am. They had already given me my reload in Suffolk, Virginia going back to Quebec. But as normal the trailer needed to be clean and very dry. Now the product I took down, is stored outside and was covered in snow. So the trailer was all wet inside again like last time. So off to wal-mart again for kitty litter to dry it out. Last time I was down there, it was lovely and sunny. Not this time, it was cold and a storm was on its way. Kitty litter gets rid of the excess water, but never dries it completely. So I was going to leave doors open for a while as I was still officially on break till after lunch. Then just as I had finished sweeping the trailer. It started to snow. So I had to shut the doors and hope it would dry in time for my pickup. Then I went back to sleep. When I woke, they had changed my reload to pickup in Hopewell, Virginia, instead going back to Ontario, and the car park was covered in snow, that wet slushy stuff like in the UK. I thought I went south to get away from the snow, not to follow me down lol.

Anyway I gets to my collection. Sits there for 2hour, waiting to load then at 5pm I finally get onto the bay only to be told my trailer was still to damp. Seven hours and still no dryer than when I left it. Lucky they had those diesel heaters. So I asked if I could put one of those in the back and put the shutter down. Another four and half hours later. It is still not dry, but was getting there so they decided to load me anyway. All this time I was not allowed in my cab. I had to sit in this drivers lounge. I was shattered by the time I set off at 10pm. The weather had gone from bad snow to hard rain, washing the snow away. I drove for an hour up to the truck stop for fuel and was going to have an hours sleep so I could drive all night again, but when I laid down, I was not tired, so decided to carry on driving. The rain started to turn to snow again. Buy the time I was half hour up the road. It was coming down fast and I had passed all the truck stops near me. The next one was 100 miles away. What a bummer. All I could do was keep going. If I was in Canada. It would not have been a problem as there would not have been much traffic on the road, and what traffic there was would know how to drive. Not in Virginia, and Maryland. They have not got a clue. They are not used to this amount of snow at once. Up to 42” dropped that night. On some of the un plowed roads. The snow was that high, my front Bumper was pushing through the snow, but I had to keep going to get to that truck stop.

Cars and trucks where stuck everywhere. I managed to snake round them and carry on. One truck looked like he had given up and tried to pull over to the edge of the road and park on the shoulder, only to go to far over and end up leaning over half in the ditch. He just left his lights and flashers on, closed his curtains, and went to sleep.

This plow had spun out and got stuck

In winter they line the roads with these three foot sticks so the plow dudes know where the edge of the road is. I just kept them at equal distance from me on each side, but sometimes the snow was just to deep to see them. So it was hard going. I tried to pull one truck out of the ditch, as a couple of guys that had stopped had got chains in their pickup, I just could not get traction though, so had to leave him where he was. The snow plow dudes where not that good either in Maryland. I had never seen as many plows in one place. I must have had ten around me at one point, and all they could do is follow each other in the same line. What a waist of time that was. 6am I finally reached the truck stop. Six hours to drive 120miles I was not impressed. The truck stop was chocker. Trucks even parked on the fuel island and went to sleep there. I found one spot right at the back. It looked like someone had just pulled out with the fresh tracks, so I tried to reverse in…. not a chance. I could not get a grip. So I turned round and just drove in nose first. Bad mistake. When I got up at 130pm, the snow was still coming down hard and my truck snowed in. not a single truck in the truck stop had moved, as most of the roads was shut anyway, due to accidents or just blockages as trucks had attempted to get up hills and lost traction and blocked the roads off etc.

Most truck drivers leave there engines running when they are asleep. you can tell in the picture which have engines running as there is no snow under the front of the truck.

In the new ones I don’t bother, I just use the bunk heaters to keep warm. So un known to me the snow covering the front of the truck had turned to ice underneath, so when I finally decide to attempt some more driving, as I reverse out. The ice did not want to let the front bumper go and pulls half my licence plate bracket off and cracks the bumper. I was not happy. Luckily I had taken the picture to show you guys how deep the snow was,

so I emailed it to Emma and got her to print it off to prove how I did it. I took some unclear back roads at first to avoid the road closures.

The further north I got. The snow got less and less till I got back into Canada then Toronto was clear thank god.

sometimes trucks have to stop at these places just before a large decent to check breaks.

I switched my trailer at Brampton for one bound for Woodstock, and carried on till 5am again, mainly to make sure I could do the last part of the trip in one more day getting me back at 4am this morning. Not without a lot more snow though. The US storm had decided I had not seen enough and followed me up. It started from Montreal and never stopped all the 7 hours from there. Roads was bad again with it been over night driving, but was so much easier to drive on, with no traffic around me and been the dry stuff so managed to scoot along at 55mph most of the time. By the time I had got back, I had covered 2700 miles in the four and half days. Not my usual standard, but not bad to say I had delay after delay.

Well I’m out again tomorrow. I was nearly out again tonight, but the driver decided to carry on. So lets see what I get up to. Have fun till next time.

Two Birthdays & Three Trucks

Hay people. Me again, bunged up with a cold, but will get to that later.

Well I have been in 3 trucks since my last post and lots have been going on. So here goes.

Well I got into that truck the following day, at 4am as the load needed to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia by 10am and it is a five and half hour drive. On the way down, an owner operator with Ayr came flying past me and I was doing 65mph. So much for all trucks been restricted. When I arrived at the drop, he was there already on the bay. When I took the paperwork in they said I was to back on the same bay when he had been unloaded. Two hours and three episodes of Smallville later, he was done and I backed onto the bay. Another two more hours and three more episodes of Smallville and I was done, so I pulled off the bay and got out to shut the trailer doors. As I’m shutting the first, the wind fetched it out my hands and it bashed up against the side of the trailer and three of four hinges brake, so I quickly grab the door hoping to close it before the last one broke. The wind was still pushing it as it slowly twists towards me with the last hinge bending. Im stood there trying to hold it up, arms stretched up. These two Canadian drivers say looks like you need an hand, then just waltz over. Typical Canadians, really laid back, no rush as I struggle to hold this door.
Anyway we get them both shut and luckily the repair shop was just round the corner. Another four hours later and six more episodes of Smallville (they know how to hang the job out too) and im finally on my way. I made my collection and back to Woodstock for half a day off for my sons birthday outing. Just time to have a shower then off to play we go. We all went to a place in Fredericton. It was a bowling ally with kids play structure and arcade games. We all had a great time. The bowling was not like I’m used to. The ball was the size of a bowling green ball, and the pins like sticks. (I know Canada is 30 years behind, but I thought they would have had at least proper 10 pin bowls) lol.
We never got round to bowling though, too much fun on the rest.

I went back on the road the following day. And my first drop was in Lawrenceville, Virginia. It rained all the first day down. Not the normal rain either. Some of the time it was the really hard fast stuff you get over here. The first time I experienced it, I wondered what was going on. It comes that hard and fast you just can not see anything in front of you. The wipers on full blast is just a waist of time. You may as well turn them off, you would only see the same….NOTHING. I never seen anything like it in the UK. The pictures I took don’t make it look that bad as they only show you a split second, but when your there, its bad.

The following day was lovely weather again. The temp reached 20 again. (I do love driving south in the winter) lol
I got to my delivery that night, first in the queue for off loading in the morning. After been unloaded and trailer cleaned and dried. Off I set to my collection which was not till the afternoon, but when I was half way there, I get a new reload, ready straight away, just down the road in North Carolina. Great no hanging around, yea right. When I get there along with several other trucks, and give them my pick No. I’m told another truck is just been loaded with that. A phone call later I get a new pick up No. but still waited hours to load. We was all parked at the opposite end of the building to the docks and this dude came knocking on my door on this little golf kart, and said to make my way to be loaded. Now you would think because I’m English, Americans would understand what you said….WRONG. I may as well talk Chinese sometimes, they would understand me just as well, 1x No.12 2x No.15 lol.
I said the bays near the train lines, “eh” the bays near the train tracks, “eh” The RAIL ROAD…“arrrr yesss” he said. OMG it is soooo hard sometimes talking to them. If you don’t pronouns words the way they do, some look at you gone out. Like going to subway and asking for tomato. You have to say Tom-a-da. You say garage, you have to say G-rrrrage its funny watching their face look puzzled. Then you have to think what you have said then repeat it like they would say it, just so they understand you. I have to do it all the time.
I did not like backing on there bay either. You had to stop on the rail crossing to back in the gate, on to the bay. That made me very nervous.

I was taking a pic of the Cream car with fat wheels on

but I was too slow, but you can see the rail crossing I had to stop on

Soon as I was loaded. Off to our yard near Montreal I went. Again two days drive back. I was crossing the border at the 1000 islands again, this happened to me last time. I would be getting really close to the border and it would be snowing really hard, lots of snow on the ground, then as you get to the top of this hill and go over the other side. The snow just instantly stops and there is none to be seen, not even on the ground. Its like driving into another world, but I notice weather is like that here. One second its massive snow storms or rain. Next its clear blue skies and sunny. Still could be minus 15 though, but you know what I mean. I dropped my trailer the second night then got an empty and went straight for my collection in Joliette, Quebec. They wanted me to drop it at Woodstock by 1pm the following day, so once loaded I drove for as long as my hours would let me, then drove the rest the following day. During this trip I had asked for a couple of days off as it was my wife’s birthday on the Sunday, so I could take her out on the Saturday or something. The message I got back was, we have more trucks coming back than I have drivers to fill them. Meaning NO. so I said her birthday was on the Sunday so see what you can do. When I got back to Woodstock, I went into the office to see what the plan was. I was to get into my next truck that night and be back Sunday. Well least they did what they could to keep them and me happy. So I went home for a few hours before getting into the truck that night. It had rained the day before so most of the snow had been washed away. I could actually see most of my land again. Short lived though as I pull in the garage, it started to snow again. I had started to get a really bad cold. Well Emma and all the kids had already had the same for a couple of days. We must have got it from the Bowling place, as thinking back, that was the first place I had been to with no hand sanitizer dispensers. It seams to be the norm here in Canada since the swine flu thing. Where ever you go to public places. There is always these hand sanitizer dispensers either on the walls or on free standing stands for you to help yourself to when ever you enter these places like shopping malls and supermarkets service areas etc. even when the kids go to school or play groups. They have to wash their hands when they first get there. It was only a couple of weeks ago I was thinking, none of the kids had had a single sniffle since they lived here in Canada, one of the coldest countries in the world. Back in the UK they would have a runny nose from the start of winter till spring, every year. But not here, well till last week after the Bowling place. They have all shook it off again now though. Next time we go there we will take our own sanitizer. I think my cold reached its peak that afternoon as I needed to go to bed for a couple of hours. I got to my truck at midnight to find it still in the shop been worked on. 2am I rolled out and straight into the truckstop next door. The snow had really kicked up a gear and was already 6” on the roads again, so thought waist of time driving in that as hopefully the roads will have been cleared by time I get up…. Yea right. Still coming strong, roads cleared but covered again, I set off. By the time I get to Quebec, the winds was high causing whiteout conditions, which is worst than the densest fog you have ever seen.

I could only just see the blind spot mirrors you see in most of my photos on the front of the truck some of the time. Two trucks must have gone into the ditch at the same time.

 Another truck warned me over the CB just before I could see them, then a car a couple of miles further down the road must have run straight into the back of a snow plow in the fast lane as they only travel at 20mph, and they would not have seen him clearing that lane till it was too late.

Conditions improved by time I had reached Montreal. Still minus 16 though, so the bill boards said. Another driver asked me over the CB what the weather was like behind me. When I told him, he sounded well chuffed…NOT lol. I dropped my trailer in Montreal, and the shunter driver pulled at the passenger side of me to get the paperwork. Like an idiot, I got out the truck without my coat on. OMG with the wind chill factor it must have been minus 30. My nose hairs instantly froze up, and my ears nearly dropped off the side of my head. Luckily I had put a jumper on for the first time since I moved to Canada. Only because the older International’s get a draft through the door trim and it was making my arm cold. So this time I thought I would put a jumper on. (for you North Americans, Sweater) lol
I soon jumped back in the truck for my coat and hat. Not my normal hat either. My big one finally came out.

I then picked up an empty and off back to Joliette, PQ for my reload again. This time I took it to our Brampton yard, Ontario. I was due to be there the following lunch, but my reload, going back to Woodstock, was not till 7pm, (which I was not pleased about, because by the time I would have got home, Emma’s birthday would have been over and done with). I stopped off at the Flying J for my shower and buffet Lunch just to kill a bit of time. Just to show you how expensive Canada is compared to the US. That buffet in Canada cost me $12.42 including taxes. In the US and the Flying J the same, it costs $9.39 including taxes. My GPS in Canada cost $620.37. In the US it costs $471.45 both with taxes. That’s just a couple of examples. Even when you take into account the exchange rate, it still makes Canada, a more expensive place to be than the States, for like for like products. I’m rambling again. Anyway as I get back into the truck, I get a message over the satellite, telling me my trailer is loaded and has been taken to our yard for me. Great, but im still two and half hours away. So foot down and on my way. So I managed to get back mid afternoon on her birthday so we managed to salvage some of the day and go out. Today was lazy, don’t get dressed day, and tomorrow…..well today now, as it as taken me hours to type this, I will be phoning up to see when I’m out again, so till next time, night night, I’m off to bed, and time for you to wake up now I’ve finished rambling.

Ski-Doo tracks down the icy St Johns River