Well Monday morning came and I managed to get off loaded first. Then it was off to my reload in Greenville, South Carolina, which was going back to Toronto. Gets to the collection and it took them five hours just to allocate me a bay, which turned out to be down the side of the building…..great, not. This building must have been designed by an English architect sat in Britain, basing sizes of the bays and yard for 50ft length English trucks, not 75ft American trucks. Good job all the trailers on the other bays where only like 40ft long or something like that as I would have been stuffed otherwise. That telegraph pole was right in my way, but a couple of shunts and I was on the bay. Not much room left though as you can see.
Another hour and half I was on my way. From Toronto I went to Dorval, Quebec. From there to Joliette, Quebec for a load I was taking to Woodstock. By this time it was snowing really hard again, but because temperatures are rising. It was that wet snow just like the UK. So I could not wiz along as fast. From the collection I had to go along a back road for a while till I got back to the highway, and the typical French drivers, as normal was going way to fast. One coming towards me at a bend just went straight into the ditch at the side of me. What an idiot. The snow was really bad till I got passed Quebec City then it calmed down. Well I drove out of it, put it that way. It did not stop there as the following day they shut the road off for a day it was that bad. I was down in New Jersey by this time. It rained all the 9hr’s down till I reached New Jersey, (the pot hole state) then it turned into really heavy snow. I got to the customer to find not much room to park for the night. The only way I could park without my nose sticking in the road, was to put my trailer 6inch from there wall. Now a tip for you people that don’t know. When you are going to park on snow, always park further forward at first to allow your tyres (tires) to cool down. Then move back into your parking space. As the heat from your tyres melts the snow, then when it freezes over night, you have ice under your tyres. I thought I had left them long enough to cool, buy time I got close enough to wall. WRONG. I woke up to find me totally snowed in and ice under the wheels. The business opened up, so I borrowed there snow shovel to dig the truck out. While doing that. One of our other trucks turned up with a part load for them so I said he may as well go first. He then got stuck also trying to get on the bay. He was another English dude that had been here a couple of years. The only way to get him out was put the chains on. He had never been shown, or me for that matter, but before I came over here, I did loads of research and one bit was watch a video of some dude demonstrating how to put snow chains on. So I got him chained up and onto the bay. I then chained mine up
And got me out. I could not do it any other way with been so close to there wall. I wanted to make sure if a snow plow came up the road, they did not take my front end off. I have see what they do to letter boxes lol
well it took them about eight hours to off load us both. Which should have only taken two. I gave them an hand in the end to speed things up.
This was New Jersey the following day.
My reload took me back to Toronto, where I was to pick up a new English driver, Adie, that was coming to work for us. I had to be there in the morning so I had to drive all night to get there in time to pick him up. He had landed to night before about three hours late, as the first attempt to land was aborted at the last second as the plane in front was sliding on the runway. So they diverted to Ottawa to refuel while they treated the runway then back to Toronto they went. He stayed in an hotel over night so I got chance to get some sleep before he checked out. Then off to Woodstock we went chatting all the way. We stopped at a truck stop after 10 hours driving. I was tired with driving all night the night before then only having a few hours sleep. We then got back to Woodstock Sunday lunch. I took him down to the Ayr Motor House where he will be staying like I did for his training. Then picked him up later for supper so Emma could meet him. Adie’s wife and kids will be following in a couple of months. Emma will have a new friend then. She is looking forward to that. His kids are the same age as my eldest too.
The following day I rang to see when I was out again. They said call lunch time. Then a couple of hours later, I gets a call. Someone has handed there notice in and Joe has given me his truck. Its all ready to go so get your things together and come down I’m on my way to Alabama. Yippee my own truck at last and some new states to visit too. So I rang the shop to find out what kind of truck number 800 was. An International Prostar, my favourite truck.
My assigned Truck
When I got to the shop they was giving it a good clean up for me. The old assigned driver was still there, and he said he had just put three months subscription on the satellite radio, wicked. All my wish list filled in one day.
I then hooked to my trailer and was just about to go when Seth, Joe’s son rang me. Could I go see him in his office. He asked me if I would team for a few days as they had got some on there days off and wanted to cover them. Because of what happened with my last truck. I did not want them to take it off me as fast as I got it and put a team in it if I said no, so said yes, but only for one trip to Winnipeg and back. I had to take a load to Oromocto NB where I would collect Ion (Jon as they call him) a Romanian. We switched in Oromocto for load going Moncton NB then switched for empty to take to Lameque NB which is as far east as you can go. We was in the middle of a bad snow storm by now, so driving was really bad. I was only doing 35mph and was loosing grip on the snow covered black ice all the time. We found a truck on its side in a ditch with its lights on so looked like it had just happened. We both waded through snow up to our waist to find no one in the truck, so we carried on. By time we reached the customer to find them closed for the night and got stuck in there yard in deep snow three times, I had had enough. I rang dispatch and said even if the customer had been open, I was parking up and going nowhere till morning. I should not have said yes to teaming, even just for a few days. I could have been half way to sunny Alabama by then. Knowing our place would have been more than a few days. I woke up to find Jon driving. Not without troubles. Jon got stuck a couple of times. Had to be pulled out on their yard. After we had been sent to the wrong address. It was a couple of miles up the road where we needed to be. When he got there. There was a couple of tractor units in a ditch. With the bad winds and snow. This ditch was totally filled in with snow and looked level with the road, so people did not know it was there. I then rang Seth and told him for my safety, I did not want to run team anymore. Teams have to run 24/7, and I get several satellite messages a day saying how bad the roads are at night out west. Which is where he wanted us to go. Least when I run single, I get to park up if it gets bad. I don’t think he was happy but sorted it out that we would pick up in Dorval and go off to Hearst, Ontario to switch with someone else for their load going east. So that’s where I’m at now, Dorval waiting for my collection at midnight. So I’m off and will keep you update next time. Hopefully still with my own truck.
In the UK they have American Limo's. in America they have English lol
Took this for my brother. bet you not see any like this before. i did not know whether to sit on them or stand at them lol
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