The down side of setting off late in the day and getting to truck stops late at night, is you can never find any spaces left, so then you have to keep going till you find one. In the states even though there are over six thousand truck stops, not including rest area’s, can still be difficult. In Canada, there are only approx two hundred and seventy. Which you would expect to be worse, but the odds are about the same, but instead of been ten mins apart like in the states, they can be an hour, two or more apart. that’s one reason why you see a lot of trucks parked at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere or on the shoulder of exit/entry ramps of highways. My last post was done on a side street in Thunder Bay, Ontario, because it was only a small truck stop where I was with no space and I got there really late. The following morning, I pulled into the truck stop to fuel and have my shower, when I see a Penner truck pull in to fuel. Which turned out to be Dave Cordwell. http://thecaldwellsincanada.blogspot.com We had a quick chat, was nice to meet you Dave, shame we was both rushing off and did not have more time. I try to watch out for all the bloggers I follow, but its hard in less you have something on your truck that makes you stand out, like Dave had. I did have the England flags on mine, but there was nothing left of them by the time I reached Toronto, so I took them off again. I was surprised to see so many England flags on cars in Toronto the first week, along with loads of other country flags. Toronto is very multi cultured. After England lost, i have not seen one since.
My reload in Toronto, I just took to the yard where I expected to get a more urgent load back to Woodstock, to find out in the morning I was continuing on to Woodstock with the load I had collected the night before. As I had plenty of hours left and was going home when I got back, I drove the 13hrs straight again, getting home Thursday night doing 6300 miles over the eleven days.
Friday morning the kids got me up by jumping on me as usual.
My eldest was on his last day at school before the ten weeks holidays. Yep ten weeks. Kids get loads more time off here. I had a look at the grass I had cut before we went on vacation. Well you would have thought I had not ever touched it. It was back to two foot high,
so those three days I was off became very busy one’s. I managed to cut the grass, build the trampoline for the kids, build my birthday prez, the BBQ then the patio set we got in the UK, finally built that too among other things around the house. On the Sunday Ralph asked me to take an English guy that’s starting with us on a practice drive. He worked in Canada before, so already had his licence, but had only really ever driven auto trucks. All ours are manual ten speed crash boxes, so we had some fun in a day cab for a couple of hours. It wont take you long Kelvin to pick it up. Just remember to leave some teeth for the next driver.
Don’t worry, us English dudes have all been the same with us been used to modern equipment.
I was told my truck would be in late that night and I could go out Monday morning. When I got up to go they had sent it down to Moncton and Prince Edward Island to deliver. So by the time it got back and through the shop. I was leaving at 8pm Monday night. Again by the time I wanted to stop at 3am, there was no room so had to carry on till I found a spot in a rest area. I was on my way to Indiana, Pennsylvania. The collection was right down town and a pig to get to.
Their Baseball stadium
My reload was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, back to Whitby, Ontario. From there my reload back to Woodstock. I thought great. I will be back Friday morning which is when most of the good loads leave for delivery on Monday somewhere in the states. Yea right. I was half way back when I gets a message to meet up with another driver. He was having a problem with his truck. They wanted me to take his load back to Niagara Falls, and he was to take my load to Woodstock so the shop could sort it for him. He had one of the old 9900’s. I say old, a 2007. Joe does not keep trucks older than three years old. They have close to a million miles on them by then, so he trades them in for new ones. We don’t have many more 9900’s left now. He is replacing them every week.
My reload was from Brantford, ON back to the Toronto Yard, then as I expected. A midnight collection for Winnipeg again. Bummer. Its 1276 miles of lovely scenery,
but over 1000 miles of that is on single country roads at 55mph and less, and you have to drive through a load of small towns too.
Plus with the kids off school now, there are a lot more traffic on the roads, usually campers and RV’s etc, usually driving slow with them not been in a rush to get anywhere, and because we get paid per mile. That’s less miles done each day. I finally got to Winnipeg today, with a reload for Dakota City, Nebraska. The load max’ed out all my axels for the US. I did have to spend half hour balancing the weight though. Lucky I only had half tanks of fuel, otherwise I would have been over weight on the front. I made it to Fargo, North Dakota which is where I am now. So glad to be back in the states where I can just drive flat out all day. Anyways I will watch a little TV before getting my head down as I have an early start in the morning. So till next time, have a nice dayyyyy.
Thats more like it 75mph
Austin Powers
One of the great Lakes that separates some of Canada and the US
it was warm that day.
