Driver Dave Trucking in Canada

The Big Change

2011-10-16T09:42:00.001-03:00

Before we came to Canada. Canada was not a dream of ours like most others that move there, we had never even set foot in the country before. From the first time I went to Florida, I always wanted to live in America, but was told it was difficult, so never really looked into it. In the early days of Emma and I, we did look into moving to Australia. Like a lot of people do. I’m a qualified electrician, on paper, even though I never practiced it outside the Navy, which is what we was going to use, but because I had never worked on domestic electrics, I didn’t want to risk it so we shelved it. Then in November 2008, I’m driving my Woolworth’s truck to my next delivery, when a Canadian Expo was advertised on the radio. So I thought we would go and check it out. I left my CV with a couple of people, then in January. I got a call from Ayr Motor, to ask if I wanted to meet up with a English driver that worked for them, that was on vacation in the UK. We jumped at the chance, met with him, and from that we wanted to make the move. Had I been fast to get my paperwork over, I could have been in Canada in the February, the month after, but I owned a company, so needed to sell that off first. By the June I had moved, seeing how different life was in Canada. I adapt to anything, so the transition for me was easy. Emma and the kids joined me in the September. Now for Emma, I knew it was going to be a lot harder. She had never lived anywhere else, other than her home town. She was someone that was always on the go, visiting friends or family. So before any of us got to Canada, I knew it was going to be hard for her. When Emma and the kids arrived, I only got to spend four days with her, then I had to go back on the road. That really hit her hard, been in a strange country, not knowing anyone, and me at the other end of the country. After the first day on her own, she just wanted to pack her bags and go straight back to the UK. The culture shock and loneliness really hit her. It was hard on me too, not been able to be there for her, except on the other end of a phone, and I would be gone for two weeks before I could see her and the kids again. After a few days, she realised that we had spent way to much money on getting us over, and that it was silly to give up at the first hurdle. So she said she would stick it out till after Christmas and see how she felt then, but then a spanner was thrown into the works. Two weeks later from her landing. The house we was renting, sold. There is not really a rental market in Canadian towns for houses, only cities, so finding a place to rent suitable for us in Woodstock was hard, so we ended up renting an empty house that was up for sale. With it coming to the winter. The owners had moved back to British Columbia, and with heating cost been so high in the winter, they just wanted someone in there to look after the place till it sold. No sooner was our furniture in, it was sold. So we had two months to find a new place that Emma would like, which proved even more difficult. I call Emma a snob, because average is not good enough. No rentals where suitable, so we looked to buy. Now buying a house in Canada, is very quick, but we had to guarantee, we could be moved in in time. So we only looked at empty houses. This gave Emma something to do. Finding our beautiful home, kind of settled Emma down a bit.

The first winter was not bad at all. In Woodstock we only had snow from the end of November till the end of march, and in that time, I think it only snowed about ten times. So most of the time, the roads where clear and dry. Emma is not an out door person. So she would stay in most of the time. Her friends would come round and have play dates with her some days, and that was about it. Woodstock is a beautiful town with most things that you need. Not as much as we are used to though. The one thing they don’t really cater for is toddlers. There is a couple of parks, a mum and toddler group once a week and a leisure centre with a swimming pool in it, but one adult taking three kids, two been toddlers swimming, is not really practical, and parks in winter, fat chance. You would have to dig the swings out of the snow first. So winter was really boring for Emma. The kids where happy enough though. Having a massive long open space house, to play in, riding up and down the house in there cars etc. There would be about ten kids at times, when Emma had play dates round. Kids at one end of the house, and mums at the other, but that didn’t fill seven days a week with me been away for twelve days at a time. So winters where really hard on Emma. Summers where better for them. They would be out and about most days. Either round at friends, or at the parks, or even drive sixty miles to the nearest Town/city where there where more things to do with the kids. But a hundred and twenty mile round trip, just to take the kids to a indoor play structure, was a pain, but its what we had to do. Then this last winter started about mid November with the snow. Which stuck around till the end of May. Six months of snowing most days. Most of the snow storm days, Emma would wait for her friends husband to come round in his Pickup, with a snow plow fastened to the front, just to clear our drive, so she could get out of the garage. So this last winter hit Emma really hard. She got really depressed. Because I was never there, and I could not see this at first, as she wouldn’t tell me. It wasn’t till one time I was at home, we got a baby sitter so me and Emma could go out on our own for a change. We was going to go to the cinema which only had three screens, but when we got there, all three films where for kids. So we decided to go for something to eat. Normally we would go to the truck stop, like most people did, as it was the best food around. But we thought we would try somewhere new. When we got to one place, it was closing early, as there was no-one in. The place we ended up at, had the worst menu ever, everything fried as usual. We just had a snack and called it a night. It was at that point, I realised that Woodstock was not for us as a family. For me, I had never really seen Woodstock. On my two full days off, after working twelve days flat out, my first full day off I would not even get dressed. I would just relax and stay home, then the next day, it was cut the grass in the summer and clear the snow in the winter. Then the next day, I would be back on the road. Emma would just put up with it and not say anything. Once I had realised this and we sat down and had a real good think about our situation. We decided to put our lovely house on the market and move to a city where there was a lot more to do for Emma and the kids while I was away. The cities we looked at where between one and five hours away, from work. Which is nothing as a lot of our drivers live away from Woodstock. When it came to going home and going back to work. That was easy, as we had twenty, thirty trucks a day go past those cities, so you would just get a lift with one of those. We originally settled in Woodstock, because it was close to work. Sometimes I would come back to Woodstock to switch trailers and while I was there, the truck would need to be checked over and serviced etc too. So even though it would only be a couple of hours. It was a couple of hours I could spend with the family. Had we lived in the city. The nearest one is sixty miles away. Emma would have still come up to see me each time I popped back to Woodstock, but it would have been more of a pain driving all that way just to spend an hour or two together.

Anyway the house sold more or less straight away, which I was surprised and not surprised. Not surprised because it was a beautiful house in a well sort after location, priced for a quick sale. I was surprised though because most houses that come up for sale in my part of town, are normally on the market for months and years, because it’s only the well to do people that can afford to live there. There where houses still for sale today, that was on the market when we first moved to Canada, so im glad ours sold straight away. Now you are wondering where we have moved to. Well, after thinking more about our situation, after putting the house on the market. We thought that moving to the city for Emma and the kids to have more to do was still not enough. I would still be away all the time and my visa only allowed me to be a long haul trucker. I began to realise that I felt like a single dad, where I only got to see my family every other weekend, and that Emma was bringing up our kids as a single mum. It was no life for a young family. Had we got our permanent residency, I could do any job I wanted then, but we never got round to applying for it. Our paperwork was ready to go but it takes about nine months to come through and a lot of money for a family of five. So instead of moving to a city and waiting months so I can finally get a job to be home everyday. We decided we could not wait any longer and to do the only other option available to us. Move back to the UK. Back to dinky houses, crap pay, and everyone in a rush all the time. That is something that I never thought I would say again, but these last couple of years has made me realise that family comes before anything else. So if it meant moving back to what we left behind, regardless to what was in store, then that’s what we had to do.

We arrived back at the end of July. that’s why you have not heard from me in a while. We have been busy trying to get settled. I didn’t think the UK could get any worse, but it has. We arrived having no house, no jobs and no cars. Well we do have two houses, but one has tenants, and the other is in the middle of renovation. So they where out of the question. So five of us stayed in a two birth Caravan on my mothers drive for a couple of weeks. What fun Things started to fall into place. We found a house. We went back to needing and having two cars again. Then it was find a job. What a nightmare. This country is really going down the pan. I cant believe what crap pay companies our offering now days. Before we moved over to Canada, I was on reasonable money, but companies now are only willing to offer two and three pound an hour less. Its ridicules, but it’s the way things our now, so I have had to put up with it, to allow me to see the family a lot more. I joined an agency that I once worked for, just so I had got money coming in while I could find a permanent position. They did keep me flat out every week, but on crap pay, and it was one day I was starting at 1am then the next it was 3pm. So it was all over the place. Im more of a routine person, so I only put up with it for as long as I needed to. It took two months of sending my CV out to any company name I seen driving down the road. All the companies close to me either had no positions, not willing to pay me enough, or a hundred drivers would apply for one position. I only picked on the larger companies that I seen their trucks everyday. The company that I work for now, was the first one I had a driver assessment with. After the drive, they offered me the job on the spot. The pay is still not great but average. I also got my own truck after only a few days, but the down side is a one hundred mile round trip to work and back. Luckily when I bought my car, I anticipated having to travel, as I have always had to in the past. So instead of getting my usual big 4x4’s, I got a little eco car. My family did think it was funny me driving a little roller skate, but with the fuel cost and car tax prices here in the UK. It was the best thing to do. I do have two or three nights out a week also, which does help cut down my travel costs. That does mean I don’t get to see my family every day still, but loads more than I ever did in Canada. Had there been no nights out, it would have been another job offer I would have turned down, as the wage alone, was not worth the travel. The advantage of working for the agency when I first got back, was I could see the variety of work out there, and even though I came home every day, I still didn’t always see my family, because of the length of time I would have to work, or the times I would get in etc. so having some nights out is only like the times I would roll in at 10pm only to set off back out at 6am or something. So there isn’t that much difference really, except the UK could not care a monkeys about truck drivers. The facilities are absolute pants. That’s when you find some. There are no toilets in lay-bys. Truck stops, in less you know where they are, you would not find them. Showers are disgusting and you have to pay for them in places. You have to pay to park more than two hours, which is a fortune, and that’s only if your hours allows you to get to a truck stop/services in the first place, instead of some lay-by at the side of the road where everyone passes you at 80mph rocking the truck from side to side. Other truckers pinch your light lenses. Others will steel your fuel and what ever you have in the trailer. What joys of a UK trucker. I do so miss trucking in America, but its worth putting up with the crap of the UK, to be with my family again. Its just a pity I could not find a job same as my old one I had before we moved to Canada. I only worked about nine hours a day, home early afternoon four out of five days. One night out a week, and went to the same set places for good money. But those jobs are one in a million, so a fat chance of finding that again. A little part of me wished I never gave that up, but then we would have never moved to Canada.

So the North American adventure is over, and we are back to reality. Looking back, it feels like it was just a working holiday. A great time we got to experience. I got to see most of North America. The shaded part of the map, shows where I have been.

A lot of people don’t last two seconds over there as it is way different than what you are used to. We can say we made it and we gave it a real good go, but the job and family life just don’t go together. I was on an excellent wage. More than I have ever earned before in my working life, but what’s the point if I could not spend it with my family. Had the kids been teenagers, Woodstock would have been a much more suitable place to live. Had I had a job that allowed me to be home every night, again, things would have been a lot more suitable. Ayr Motor asked me when I will be coming back. I just said ‘Never’ trucking in North America is a single persons life, or where your partner rides round with you all the time. Its no life for a family, but everyone is different. Some might want to get away from the wife. So my advice to anyone thinking about making the move. Think hard and long. Do you want to be on the road seven days a week, working flat out every day. Do you want to provide well for your family, but not have time to enjoy it for yourself. If you are single, or all your kids have grown up and you and your partner want to go round with you, or even drive team. Then I would go for it, as it’s a great job. But if you are married with kids, its no life been apart all the time, but that’s up to you.

So there it is in a nut shell. We are back for good. No more plans to move anywhere in the world. There is so much to do and see on our doorstep. People take it all for granted, till its not there anymore. The UK certainly has its bad points and some good points, but so does Canada, they are just different good and bad. For instants entertainment, the UK wins hands down. For a quiet laid back life style, Canada wins all the way. Its just what you want out of life determines where its best for you. Kids in Canada cant start school till they are a year older than in the UK. So mine would have had to wait another year if we had stayed over there, but here they started in September. Which meant Emma could go back to work again, so it not all bad moving back here

Ayr Motor have asked me if I don’t mind still finding recruits for them. I have said yes, so the advert will stay on the blog, and I will help and advise anyone that still have questions. So you will still be able to get hold of me.

So this is it. Probably my last post. Thank you so much for all my loyal followers. It has been a pleasure, and I hope this blog from start to finish helps many others decided whether to make the leap or not. So from me, Emma and the kids, take care, and good luck in what ever you do. I leave you with a four part video of driving round Woodstock, and the interior of my truck, which reminds me of the space I no longer have. Have a nice Dayyyyy

Driving round Woodstock from Home to Ayr Motor and back

in 4 parts

What my truck looks like inside

Update Soon

2011-09-11T19:19:00.000-03:00

Hey people

Well im still here. Sorry I have not up dated you lately. I have been very very busy, making some big changes which I will tell you about very soon. I will be writing it so I need to find a few hours to bring you up to date. Till then, here are a few more video’s I have taken.

My Garden after cutting the glass

Trucking trough North Carolina

More North Carolina

In the hills of PA

The Great Lakes

2011-06-27T19:34:00.001-03:00

Trucking across Northern Ontario towards Winnipeg

Part 2 in Cape Breton Nova Scotia

I made a mistake on this clip. I said I went to Streetsboro, and Canton Ohio
That was the first week but it should have been St Paul and Owatonna, Minnesota

I would have had some pictures too, but the battery on my Blackberry that I use to take all my pictures finally gave up after over three years. So I may have to take my big camera out with me this time round. I was due out today, but the slip seater has been hanging it out abit and getting delays on loading bays, so he may get back late tonight, or early in the morning. Im down for a load to North Carolina, but that could change between now and then.

Total mile over 9.5 days 5750 miles

I have put a poll to vote on which way you like me blogging, either by Video, or Written so please take the time to vote and let me know what you think. Thanks in advance, till next time, Have a great Dayyyyyy

Texas Express

2011-06-14T14:27:00.000-03:00

On the Trans Canada in New Brunswick

Driving through Houston, Texas

Tornado clean up on going in Glade Spring, Virgina

I think thats taking it too far just to go fishing

They dont just have golf clubs here

A warm 37 today

Nova Scotia

Tornado season

2011-05-29T10:57:00.000-03:00

Trucking Down the east coast of New Brunswick

Coming into Dallas Texas

Compilation of clips I have taken

including a bit of tornado damage near Glade Spring, Virginia

The bit I managed to get once I realised what I was seeing

Total miles in 13 days 7550 miles

More of the tornado damage that I missed on video

alot of the damage had been cleaned up by this time

as it had been a couple of weeks since it came through

This was a truck stop it went straight through

Self storage units just ripped apart

Pump stations in the middle of Texas

Small town in Texas

Just one of many Ranches I passed along the way

Wish I could take advantage of the day time speed limit

I guess I will have to make do with the night speed limit

The truck stop i stayed at in down town Nashville, Tennesse

You can see the football stadium in the middle

There was about 10 of these RV's in convoy

Video Blogging

2011-05-17T21:36:00.000-03:00

A better way of blogging

Total Miles for both 6600miles

Shattered

2011-04-30T13:14:00.001-03:00

Heyyy, I need to go back to bed and catch up on a lot of sleep. I though my last trip out was busy. This time was just as busy in miles, like always, but in order to keep up the miles, I had to do long days every day, between fourteen and sixteen hour days, parking up after each day not before 1am and 4am each morning. It was all urgent short trips, which meant driving flat out for nine and eleven, even thirteen hours on the last day, then sit on two loading bays for hours (one for unloading and one for loading) before off to the next delivery point by the next day. I don’t mind short trips, as long as I get long ones in the mix too. Its because of the time it takes to unload and load that is the problem. If it only took 45mins each time, it would not be a problem, but that only happens one in ten times. Any longer than 45mins and im working for free. Normally it takes two hours or more for each load and off load, so then drive for nine hours on top of that makes your days thirteen plus hours. Having that every day soon catches up on you. Not only that, I usually get to my customers the night before, and sometimes, you may only be there a few hours before they are getting you up to back onto a bay so they can off load you. So your sleep gets broken up too. Its good if there are no red and green lights on the loading bays, as the only way you know they have finished is when they come and bash on the side of the cab to get you, so if you wanted to go back to sleep, you could, but if there are lights, you have to stay up and keep checking for the green light, then pull off the bay when they have done to go back to sleep, but that’s only if you still have any hours out of your ten you need to take off left. So this job can be really tiring most of the time, then other times it can be a breeze. The breeze loads are the ones where it takes three or four days to get there. The tiring ones only take one and two days.

Ayr Motor are what I would call and aggressive company. They don’t like it if you take your time, they expect you to be hard working, as we have that much work on all the time, they need you to get your deliveries off ASAP just so you can get onto the next. For every tractor we have on the road, including owner operators, we have two trailers, and most of them are full all the time. That’s over five hundred trailers. Not including the load of brand new ones we have just got. If drivers start slowing down and not getting deliveries off on time, it can cause a back log, which makes it hard for us to catch up. I work hard and fast anyway, as it makes my pay packets better, so in less I make a boob or something, they stay off my back, but this last month, I have felt a little like, the more I gave them, the more they expected from me, or maybe it was just the way the loads fell, you just never know, but at the end of the day, with the knowledge I have of some of the other trucking companies out there. Im so glad I work for Ayr, as it is much better having to bust a gut to get everywhere and having your reload waiting for you, than making your deliveries, then having to wait hours or even days for reloads like a lot of the other companies out there. One of the things some companies do to their drivers is make them reset their hours, (once they have reached 70hrs prematurely) by having 36hrs off, but they don’t get them home for that. They end up parked in a truck stop somewhere in North America instead of spending that time at home with their families. To me that is very wrong and im so glad Ayr Motor never do that. We have to send our hours in every day, so dispatch know what hours we have left, so they can give us loads we can cover and still get back for our home time within our hours. Don’t worry, he doesn’t do it for us, he just wants to make sure he can get another driver in the truck while we are off, so the truck is not sat about doing nothing. but what works for him, works in our favour too. the only times our trucks are allowed to stand is Christmas day and if we want to stay out more than fourteen days, Canadian driving laws require us to have a 24hr period off either before or immediately after the fourteenth day. So the way we fit it in is say we started that morning of the fourteenth day at 6am, maybe drive for eight hours till 2pm, then we would park up till 2pm the following day and set off again driving till when ever, therefore fitting in the 24hrs but not having a day off. Trust me though, if we are near Woodstock at the time, Joe would kick you out the truck for the 24hr just so he could get another driver in to do a quick load to somewhere and back in that time. I may have covered over 161,000 miles last year, but including all the miles other drivers did while I was off, my truck covered 250,000 miles, but Joe really only runs the trucks like most of the companies in the UK do. Like when I worked for Woolworth. I would use my truck in the day to do store deliveries, then the night shift would come in and use my truck to do the trunking runs, so again the trucks where always on the go. I do go on a bit don’t I? but what set me off, besides been tired was the other day when I was on my way back to Woodstock with a load. After ten hours driving I decided to stop at a truckstop three hours west of Woodstock, where when I pulled in, I noticed a truck from a company that one of my fellow bloggers work for. I usually take note just in case it is one of my fellow bloggers and I get to meet them. Anyway I went to sleep then set off the next morning back to Woodstock noticing that truck was still there not thinking anything of it. At Woodstock I went home for a few hours to have a shower and lunch with the family while my truck was been serviced. Then I was suppose to take a US load, but Joe changed it at the last second giving me a Canadian load, which meant I had to pass the same truck stop I had left that morning, over ten hours earlier to find the same truck still parked up. So it looked like he was either taking the 36hr reset, or waiting for a reload. Personally I wouldn’t put up with that crap. I guess its ok working for those companies that make you do that if you are single and it doesn’t matter where you take your time off, but not if you have family here and are missing out on spending that time with them. Anyway rant over now I can go relax ready for my next trip out on Sunday. The map is a little confusing this time as a lot of the time I had to go back the way I came so its best to follow the numbers to see where I went. So till next time, have a great day.

You can just see the Deer on our drive in front of the house

They roam our land most evenings

Still alot of snow in Quebec, everywhere else is clear now

Leamington, Ontario

Bus Fire that shut the road on the other side for a long time

You will recognise this house from christmas and one other time.

They always go overboard for occasions.

This time easter

Border Crossing at Buffalo/Fort Erie

Cool Truck

Down town Pittsburg

The roads where very narrow and the only way out of the customer with a sleeper cab truck was down a one way road the wrong way.

My truck was too long to go any other way, so I was told

Floods

2011-04-15T23:10:00.000-03:00

Hey people. Well things are starting to warm up, melting the snow in most places, which is great. The only places that still had a lot of snow was when I was going over northern Ontario and Quebec.

These guys went a bit far with the garden Gnome

These guys live in the middle of Know where.

hence the helicopter instead of a car

Everywhere else had either the odd patch or none. Where we live its totally gone. Even the river is flowing now.

Down in the States, it was great to be able to walk around with no jacket on etc. I packed my shorts just in case, but didn’t bother with them this time round, even though while I was down in Missouri etc it was warm enough.

Well it has been crazy, busy this time round. Its always busy anyway, with no waiting around etc, but this time I needed a rocket powered truck. My first load was to Oxford, Pennsylvania, which had to be there the next day. Luckily I timed it right going through Manhattan, and New Jersey, so traffic didn’t slow me down. I got there the next morning as required. Got my reload from Hanover, PA after which I called at Aldi to get my lovely wife some British Chocolate and Haribo‘s. only place I know where to get them. Got to suck up some how. It’s the only Aldi I know that I can park my truck next to. I collect from Hanover regular, and Aldi is just round the corner, so if im loaded in the day, I try to call, time allowing. Then it was foot down to get to St Cesaire within receiving time the next day. When I got there, we had a couple of empty trailers in the yard, so they just got me to drop my trailer on a bay and hook to an empty. Normally that would have been great but this time, I had 10hrs to kill before my reload for Winnipeg would be ready at 1am. So I didn’t mind either way. I just took the empty and parked at my reload and waited. I had predicted I was going to Winnipeg AGAIN, because of the day I would be back in Canada near Montreal. That’s the day when single drivers take team loads out west with us having extra time over the weekend to get it there. At first dispatch asked me if I would take a Calgary load for delivery by midnight Sunday. I told them in so many words, they was nuts. That would have meant I had to drive for 13hrs a day at an average speed of 62mph for three days just to get it there on time. For two of the days, you are on back roads and you could not go that fast, as the speed limit on those is 56mph or less. As you go through many small towns. So legally it could not be done by a single driver. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like going out that way, is because of the slower speeds. I cant cover as many miles per hour so its like getting a pay cut with me been paid per mile. There are no four lane highways in northern Ontario just yet. Its all back road. They are building major highways up there, but they will take years to complete as there is over 1200 miles to cover between Ottawa and the Manitoba border, just to take the traffic off the back roads. So because I had pointed all this out, they gave me a Winnipeg load instead. Im the kind of person that when someone else is applying the pressure, it annoys me and I back off, because I don’t need someone telling me what I already know, but if im left to it, and provided its possible, I get the job done fast and efficiently. Because im that kind of person that likes to avoid pressure from others. Before I came to Canada, I owned my own company, and before that, when I did work for others, I worked in management, or worked up to management very quickly. That’s why I don’t mind doing this job, as its like been in middle management. You have others above you, but as long as you keep your department running smoothly, no one will bother you.

By the time the Winnipeg load was ready at 1am, I had had enough time off to allow me to drive up to 13hrs again, but if I can avoid driving at night, I will. Joe has said in the past, if its not really necessary to drive over night, not to do it. The Canadian roads are bad enough, never mind driving on them at night. They are pitch black, no street lighting, painted lines are a waist of space, as they have not mastered how to get the paint to reflect or stop rubbing out after five minutes yet. Plus there is a very good chance of getting some kind of wildlife as an hood ornament, as they roam the roads, and with it been dark you don’t see them till its too late. So with all that in mind, I went 15mins down the road, parked at the truck stop then set off in the morning. I had said to dispatch, because they was putting me through the pain of driving across Canada, I wanted a decent western US load from Winnipeg to make up for it. I was willing to stay out longer to do it too, but nope. I must be to fast for my own good because as im half way to Winnipeg, I get my reload. A rush load to East City, Missouri. 1049 miles away from Winnipeg. So from that point, accounting for the ten hours I had to have off each night. I only had two hours spare to get me there within receiving hours on the Monday, not including off loading time. Luckily I normally only stop for 15mins a day regardless of how many hours I drive, (plus my 10hrs or more at the end of the day of cause) so I managed to get there and be off loaded before the 2pm deadline. Despite the flooding in North Dakota for three miles of not been able to see the road if it was not for the road works bollards

Then it was off to Jefferson City, to reload leaving me no more hours to drive on once loaded, as I had already done nine hours to get me to East City then two to Jefferson City. So I stayed there over night. The following day I could only drive for three and half hours, because of all the above average hours I was having to do to get me to places on time, so that was a nice easy day. Then it was off back to Toronto the next day. From there it was back to Woodstock for my time off, covering in ten days and 47 minutes 5775 miles. (the truck records the time im in it )

Anyway its back on the road on Monday so till next time, Have a nice Dayyy

Ski Slops in northern New Brunswick still snowed over

Crossing the Border back in Canada.

Detroit on left, Windsor Ontario on right

TV series opportunity

2011-04-03T23:32:00.001-03:00

Hey people. So winter in Canada is still not willing to give up just yet.

Just before I went out last time. A TV Director from Dragonfly Film and Television Productions Ltd contacted me asking me if I was interested in been in a new TV series they will be filming this summer. Im still thinking about it, but they are looking for others too. Here are the details.

Dragonfly TV is currently looking for intrepid truck drivers to take part in an exciting new series entitled 'Worlds Toughest Truckers' (working title). The series will feature highly skilled truck drivers from around the world competing against each other in a competition of skill, pace and mental strength. They will be taking on trucking routes around the world which include some of the world's most infamous roads and hard to handle cargo. The series will be filmed between June and August and any professional truck drivers who believe they have the skill and strength to become the 'Worlds Toughest Trucker' should Contact truckers@dragonfly.tv

I got my truck back on the Monday and seen where I was going. I had the biggest smile on my face. We have several loads go there every week, but Its been exactly a year since I last went there, but finally I get this fantastic load, down to where the sun was hot, the Lone Star State

Texas. I was well happy, even though at first I thought my Air Conditioning was faulty. I didn’t care, I was willing to put up with no AC, just to be able to take this load. It takes four days at nine hours per day to get there. The first day was snow flurries most of the way, but by the third day it was really warm, so I decided to connect my AC back up and see if it would work, and luckily it worked fine. I had to disconnect it at the end of last summer. Some how it was making my engine fan come on and run all the time, which takes some power of the engine. With the weather cooling down, I was not worried. Im told all the AC parts have been replaced, before I got the truck, but it still not solved the problem, but turns out it behaves as long as the AC is turned on all the time. Well I got to Houston, mid afternoon their time on the Thursday, with temps in the region of 30 degrees C. it was great.

My new Temp Gauge

I switched trailers, then went straight down to my reload in Sugar Land, Texas. It was one of our big customers that normally have a 24hr operation, That way then they could load me on my off time. I get there at 5pm, im told to back onto a bay and they will come get me when finished. I watched TV for a few hours then dosed off. 2.30am I wake up, popped in the office to see if they have loaded me. I sleep like a brick, so I don’t normally notice. They tell me then, that they only load between 7am and 3pm. What a pain that was. I could have stopped at a truck stop all night, got up, fuelled and showered, then got there for 7am. Well I got to have a lay in, but that ment I had to stop in the day for fuel and my shower. I’d rather do that first thing before I set off for the day, so the only stop I normally make, is once for the bathroom and make my lunch time sandwiches, which takes 10mins then its straight back in the seat and off I go again. The only other reason I stop is to go grocery shopping about once a week. I usually go to a Walmart, or Target, but only ones I can see from the Highway, as I quickly look to see if there are any other Semi‘s in the parking lot. I know I can get mine in then.

Once loaded, it was back up to the Great White North. At one point about hundred miles south of Memphis, it only took fifteen minutes to go from 21 degrees down to 11 degrees, which then by the next day was down to minus again as I enter back into Canada. I off loaded and reloaded at the same place, then back to Woodstock I went. I was short on US driving hours but had plenty Canadian driving hours, so for the last couple of days before it was home time again, I just went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Waterville NS back to Halifax, to Belledune, NB, Inkerman, NB back to Woodstock, then Moncton, NB, Hartland NB then back to Woodstock and home, getting back Thursday afternoon. weather was that nice I got the BBQ out and friends came round.

Friday was just a lazy day, starting off like this,

snow mostly gone except for St Johns river behind our house is still frozen, but then in the evening it only took three hours to get like this.

Saturday morning, we ended up driving through snow just to get the car out of the garage. We was going down to Bangor, Maine to stay the night, which is just over 2hrs away. Lots of shopping malls but one day was not enough to get round. We had to be back for my eldest sons birthday party Sunday. It had warmed up again melting a lot of the snow.

Now its back on the road again Monday. Hopefully going somewhere really hot again. This time ive packed for it just in case. So till next time, Buy for nowww

The US Part

The Canadian Part

Both total 6150 miles over 11 days

This is the St Johns river an hour and half east of Woodstock

This is how much snow was left up the east cost of New Brunswick

before it started again Saturday

Houston, Texas

The 18 mile Bridge in Grosse Tete, Louisiana

A Bit of Colour Down south

Spring?

2011-03-20T01:01:00.003-03:00

Hey people. So what a great couple of weeks I have had with going to South Carolina a couple of times. On my last time off, we just did our usual shopping in the states and snow removal, which turned out I didn’t need to do as the Saturday and Sunday it rained constantly, slowly washing some of the snow away. This was the snow bank in front of our house at the side of the road, before it started to rain. Emma posing to give you an idea of size

I went back out on the Sunday. It rained all the way to the truck stop I normally stay at 572 miles away in Maybrook, New York. When I got there, they had had so much rain, combined with the melting of the snow, that it flooded the bathrooms and showers. I guess through the drains.

At first they would not let me use the bathroom, as they was still cleaning them up, but I had not stopped the full 9hr drive, so he let me, otherwise he would have had another flood on his hands.

My family that read my blog moaned at me, because I go into all the details of where I have been, but to them, without having a North American map in front of them are no wiser so I have said I will put maps up with my routes on that I have covered on each trip.

This was the map for my last Post 5900 miles

This was my first week on this trip 3600 miles

And this was my second, 3100 miles getting back early Friday morning

It has rained most of the two weeks, but I don’t care, its much better than the snow, which I did get at the end of my first week. I had parked up the night before at the customer in London Ontario, ready to off load in the morning. When I got up at 6am to back onto the bay, the truck was covered with several inches of snow. They was just trying to clear the yard too. It never stopped the four hour it took to off load me, then my reload was in St Mary Ontario, but that meant taking back roads, with very high winds as well as the snow.

As for driving on snow covered roads. I have been really lucky this year, as this was the first time snow really affected driving conditions for me since New Years Day. I have either been in front of snow storms, or arrived after the clean up. I guess I had to have one last taste of bad weather before spring really kicks in. Well I hope thats the last The wind was that strong, my trailer was been pushed sideways as im driving down the road. I couldn’t believe it. I had never had that before. It was not fun, just an extra gush of wind could have pushed my trailer into the ditch, and all I could think about is Joe wont believe me if the wind pushed the trailer in the ditch. I got to the road I wanted to find it blocked off by police. Apparently there was fifteen trucks and a bus all jack knifed further up the road, so I could not get to my reload. I was only due to take that to the yard then get a load for not my favourite place, Winnipeg, but luckily for me, I had been in intense pain all week with swollen gums, so I asked if it was ok to switch for a load going back to Woodstock so I could pop to the dentist and in minutes, my reload was changed. wicked, it was well worth the pain to not have to go to Winnipeg. I didn’t get back in time for the dentist, so A&E was good enough. Then it was straight back on the road, back to South Carolina, not so sunny this time. It rained most days this trip with plus temperatures, but I didn’t mind. Loads better than snowing and minus temps.

Anyways its back on the road on Monday, so till next time, Have a nice dayyyy

See how the trees shine?

This was the Morning after leaving the flooded truck stop

That was ice on the trees from the Ice Rain the night before

See how the trees bend over with the weight of the ice

One way of taking your Smart Car on Vacation

Pimp my Ride

Tennessee weather

This is Rural Hill, Tennessee, where none of the houses are small

This is Sonic, the new American Drive-ins that are popping up everywhere

you pull into a bay, order your food and get it delivered to your car

by people on Roller Skates like the olden days. Cool Hey

Had my Truck one year now

2011-03-02T22:31:00.000-04:00

Hay Nowww, as Howard Stern would say. Well I have had this truck one year now. Time does fly.

My truck came in on the Sunday night. The workshop shuts on a Sunday evening so I got my truck back late Monday morning. Eleven other trucks came in over night, so the workshop had a back log. My first load was down to Blanchester, Ohio. A couple of days drive. I arrived Tuesday night for Wednesday morning appointment. Once off loaded, I thought great dry floor in the trailer. Then I looked at the walls and roof. Lots of ice. My reload needed the trailer to be bone dry, so it was off to some truck place down a back street to try and get it thawed out. it’s a pain, because the hours it takes me sat there waiting, im not getting paid. I will be so glad for the spring to come. Once dried my reload was round the corner in Dayton, Ohio which I took to Toronto. I had to cross the border at Detroit, which is not the best crossing to go to. Once at Toronto, I went straight to my reload to be told there was no load. We was picking it up on behalf of one of our big customers and was taking it back to them in the states. I let dispatch know and they ask me to sit tight they would sort it. So I go and park in the corner of the yard and watched a bit of TV. Three hours later, a while after I remind them im still there, I get a message, ‘are they loading you yet’ so I throw fits because I knew nothing about this load. I go back in to find out the load is not ready till the next day. It turned out our customer was telling us there was a load, and the pick up place was telling us there wasn’t. six hours later, im loaded with a different US load, that a team was taking. I just needed to take it down to our yard. Then I was expected to take a load to Montreal. I could not stop as I needed to drop that in our yard then collect at midnight, for Winnipeg, again the one route I hate going, so I had another moan about sitting me all day then expecting me to drive all night, but I just got on with it and got to my collection in Montreal 30mins early. Hooked up, drove to the truck stop down the road, and stayed there till the morning. I think I have said before, but the main reason I don’t like going to Winnipeg is for 22hrs of the 24hrs of driving. You are on a single country road with a speed of 90kmph or less as you drive through many towns, so getting paid by the mile means im on less an hour, but the main reason is you have to take this northern road which goes through the coldest parts of Canada and quit often really bad weather to top it off. I would rather go to New Jersey ten times than one Winnipeg Winnipeg is the coldest part of southern Canada and for the longest too. The journey turned out to be not bad really, with clear roads and sunny skies, but was still really cold. Not has bad as my last trip over there though. I parked in Kapuskasing, Ontario one of the nights and this Ghost came through

It was a London bus. I couldn’t believe how small it looked against our trucks. In the UK, they look big, but not here.

I got to Winnipeg 12hrs early so I dropped it at our yard. I went to get my paperwork for my reload, to find a load going to Arizona. I was gutted. Normally I wait till I get to Winnipeg before I let Ayr know when I won't to be home, just in case there is a great load like that I can take, but this time I had already told them I wanted to be back Friday. I told them as I thought I would never get an excellent load out west. I have never been to any of the eleven States west of North Dakota, or Texas. Ive been to all the rest, so it would be a great change to finally go out west. I would have gladly postponed my time off just for a load out West no problem. Emma would have understood. Its been a year since I last went to Texas so I keep hoping for one of those too, as we go there prob most days, but I wont hold my breath. Anyway my reload took me to Farmington, Ohio. I then had to take my trailer again, to have it dried out so I could reload in Owatonna, Ohio. That load I have brought to Sherbrooke, Quebec. Which is where I am now, borrowing someone internet signal while I wait till the morning to off load. My reload is in Brossard, Quebec. Which I will be taking back to Woodstock, getting me back tomorrow night. I will then go back out either Sunday or Monday. Im not sure yet. Woodstock is expecting a bad snow storm Monday again. They have just had another two over last weekend, so I may go back out Sunday, to try and avoid it. So till next time. Have a great day.

Ski slops in the back ground

My lunch today

Freaky ice

This train drives straight through loads of front gardens

along this road.

Just like this one. Fancy have to stop on your own drive

to check for a train coming.

they must be mad to live on that side of the road

Look in the back window, I guess he takes no prisoners

Transformers

Give us a lift mate

Sunny South

2011-02-20T23:26:00.000-04:00

Hey dudes and dudetts, its that time again. While I was off last time. I used a gift card I got from friends for Christmas and got myself a load of wood and built myself a work bench cupboard. Cool hey!

Now I have storage for all my power tools I have. I used to be an electrician in the Navy, so I managed to wire my basement so I can now use my UK 240v power tools which is great because I have a lot of them. My hobby in the UK was renovating properties, so now I have my work bench and can use all my power tools again, I can now start developing our basement. We have a massive walkout basement. The windows are set out so we can have another two large bedrooms, a third bathroom, a large storage room and most importantly, a fantastic cinema and games room. (man cave)

Well I went out on the Wednesday. I only had a couple of days off and I got a great load, firstly dropping in Pulaski, Virginia, These was in a showroom there all For Sale.

then onto Laurens, South Carolina. It was great to finally go far enough south to get away from the snow and into plus temperatures. From Virginia down I was able to walk around in just a tee shirt. I did get funny looks from the locals though it was still cold to them.

My reload was from Lexington, SC back up to Hamilton, Ontario. Then it was up to our yard in Toronto to switch for a load going to Lorains, Ohio, then reload in Canton, Ohio, going back to Toronto. I reloaded there taking it back to Woodstock. My bunk heater had packed up so I was having to leave my engine running 24/7 just to keep warm, so it took them a few hours to get me up and running again. Then it was off to Montreal. From there back to Moncton, New Brunswick, and then back to Woodstock. Because I got back really early Friday morning, I decided to count that as a day off, so its back on the road in the morning.

We have had so much snow this year in Woodstock, and it still keeps coming most of the time.

It did warm up the other day and rained, but that just turned the snow to rock ice. Its great to sledge on though as you just skim on the top of the snow, but trying to walk back up to the house, I just sank right in up to my body on every step. My kids been really small could just walk on top of the snow. They love been out in the snow. Hopefully it wont be long before we have the big thaw though. I cant wait

Anyways its my bed time, so till next time, have a nice Dayyy

His stacks are fatter than mine

Baseball stadium Buffalo, NY

Tax Return Season

2011-02-08T22:04:00.000-04:00

So its that time of year again, Tax season. Here the Tax year runs January through December and its not just self employed and companies that file taxes. There is a lot of things that you get tax breaks with here, so most people file a tax return to get a refund back from the tax you have been paying throughout the year. One of the main things a truck driver gets to claim back, is a meal allowance for every night you spend out on the road. So for 2010 I spent 256 nights out, of which I will be able to claim for my meals. Over that time, I got paid for 160,250 miles. I actually covered more miles than that, but you get paid for the miles the company says it should take you to get from A-B and not what you do. The reason I sometimes drive more miles is to save the company money in tolls and me some time. The main route I drive more miles is when I deliver down parts of eastern US, but its not always cost affective to go my way. Now most companies have a transponder fixed on their windshield, so when they come to toll roads, they just carry on through the fast lanes and don’t have to stop. The sensor picks up the transponder and charges the company credit card. So most of the time the drivers do not have a clue on what its costing the company in tolls, so they just drive through them all and don’t worry about it. With Ayr Motor, us drivers have to pay cash at each toll out of our own pocket first, so some drivers, rather than pay the toll may take a different route if its cost affective. It still costs the company, we just pay for them first then get it back in our wages, or we get an advance on our wages and use that to pay the tolls. If its cost affective, I always avoid tolls that I can, but the other reason I may go another way, is to save time. Because we get paid per mile, the slower you are driving, the less money you are earning per hour. So some of the places we go, the route I take is about 20 miles more, but because I don’t come across any cities on my way, travelling at 65mph all the way, I save myself about an hour and half in time, because I don’t have to slow down driving though New York and New Jersey, I also save the company about $100 in tolls, so for that reason Ayr never complain that I go that way. don’t forget, our trucks are satellite tracked, so they know where I am all the time.

So back to my last trip out. I got my truck back a day late again. They had a team in it again and the minimum team load will take them out to Winnipeg, probably then down to the States somewhere, then back to Toronto then back to Woodstock. So they don’t normally do that in the time I want off, so I don’t get the truck back in time making me loose out on money. A days pay for every day late. The company don’t loose out as the truck is always rolling, earning. So this time off, I’m only having two full days instead of three, to make up for lost wages.

I got my truck back in the afternoon. My first load was going to Trenton, New Jersey, Lovely…..Not. The load had to be there by 7am the next morning. I got there at 3am. Parked outside their gate. I then got up to move the truck onto the bay. Got off loaded pretty fast then I asked if it was ok to stay in the yard till I had finished my break and get the rest of my sleep, which they said yes it was ok. Not that dispatch where going to allow me to sleep. It does my head in when they don’t check old messages I send or the activity of the truck etc. Because I had moved the truck round the yard at my drop off, and it showed up on the satellite that I had. Each time I was dropping of to sleep, I would get a message, which goes off like an alarm clock. The more I ignored them with me not due to go for a few hours, the more messages they sent. I gave up in the end. Good job im really laid back, or I would have danced on some heads along time ago. Dispatch can be really annoying sometimes, like when three different people ask you the same question, and my pet hate is when they send you a message about ten hours after you park up for the night, asking if you are going to be rolling soon. I like my sleep and don’t rush in a morning to get going, but once im going, I don’t stop. Where as other divers may set off bang on 10hrs but then an hour down the road, they stop for a two hour breakfast, then lunch, then coffee. You get what I mean I may have an extra two hours rest, but I still get there before the other driver does. My reload was from Hanover, Pennsylvania. That went to St Cesaire, Quebec. I thought great. Hopefully from there I would get a load back to Woodstock getting me back Friday morning which is when some of the better warmer destination loads leave for delivery on the Monday like Florida…..yea right. I had to drop my empty in our Montreal yard and bobtail round to my midnight collection going to the one place I hate going, especially this time of year. Winnipeg, what a bummer. Luckily, even though the temps where between -20 and -30 degrees C, the roads where mainly clear. No ice roads. Going over there is the only time my jumper comes out my bag. it’s the coldest part of southern Canada. Personally I think you have to be nuts to live over there. Its funny when you see all the cars parked outside work places, all plugged into the electricity to keep them warm in the cold. Most cars are fitted with engine block heaters to keep the engines warm when they are parked outside for any length of time. We have one fitted to ours and an auto start so you can start the car by remote button to warm it up before going and getting in it, but we don’t really use our block heater as the car is always in the garage at night plus its not that cold this side of Canada anyway, but in Winnipeg they are essential if you want to be able to start your car after been parked up all day.

One of the common faults with the International trucks is there build quality. They let cold drafts in all over. Freightliners can be just as bad. Mine lets the cold in through my door handle. So when its -30 out side going out west, the draft is very cold coming through the door. This is how I keep my left arm warm.

If its really windy too and the wind comes from the right side of the truck, my door makes a real loud wind noise. Luckily I don’t come across that very often except on the prairies out west. It can get that windy on the prairies, on the way back from Calgary, there was a brand New house on its roof in the ditch at the side of the road. I would have took a picture but by the time I had come round from the shock, I had passed it. It looked like it had been blown off the back of a truck. One like this.

The wind was that bad at one point, I thought my CB aerials was going to snap off. Once I reached Winnipeg, I expected to go into the States from there, but nope, I get an urgent load to Calgary. The last time I went there was when I used to team in 09. The weather there can be 11 degrees one day then -20 the next. It had snowed the day before I arrived, so I had clear roads again, four lane highway all the way, so it was foot flat to the floor. As expected, my reload was back to Winnipeg. From there because I was short of US driving hours with using them up fast getting the Calgary load there on time, plus I had requested to be back on the Saturday for a party we had been invited to, so I expected my reload to bring me back across Canada so I could be home Saturday afternoon, which to my surprise I get a load to St Paul, Minnesota. Which meant the second I crossed the border into the States at Pembina, North Dakota, I had to park up till early hours the next day. Then set off at 2am local time to get to my delivery on time. The product I carried was stored outside covered in snow, so once I was off loaded, I was still left with an inch of ice and snow on the floor, walls and ceiling of the trailer. The worst part was my reload in Owatonna, Minnesota, needed a perfectly clean and very dry trailer, so it was round to a place to have it cleaned and dried out which took two and half hours. Then it was back to the pick up to wait hours to be loaded. It was midnight before I was done. A very long day, so I stayed in their yard till I could move in the morning. I had to call Joe that morning, he realised I was not going to be back on the Saturday when I wanted so he apologised for that. I thought that was nice of him. I took my load to Toronto, then switched for a load I brought back to Woodstock. I got back Sunday afternoon. I was aiming for lunch time, but trying to get out of bed after 7hrs following driving for 13hrs straight was not going to happen. it was a good job really. Emma went to the party on her own and was not in a fit state to come and get me any earlier than I got there. you cant find decent chauffeurs these days plus Woodstock was in the middle of a real bad snow storm again that morning, but by the time I got home, it had stopped and roads had been cleared. The truck stop I parked at that night before got a foot of snow in just a few hours. I knew it was going to be bad, as it just started as I was pulling in, and by the time I had fuelled, my tracks had already been covered.

Anyways its back on the road tomorrow, so till next time, laters people.

This is how high the snow is at the side of our house now.

Snow in Woodstock

Some houses in East Dundee, IL

A dude clearing the pathways

My windsheald was not clean when I took this.

When you see this amount of ice on the big rock faces,

You can see climbers using ice picks climbing the ice really high up

Like here

This guy is greedy

Trenton, New Jersey

Army Truck full of Ski-Doo's

This is an outdoor Drive in Cinema Screen just outside Winnipeg

The wind blowing the snow across the road at sunrise

Snow Snow and more Snow

2011-01-23T01:28:00.001-04:00

Hay people

So what’s going on? Well Monday came and my truck finally turned up at 10pm. Im sick of getting my truck back late at night and expected to get in it and go. 10pm was bad enough but the truck had to go through the workshop first, so it could have been midnight, so I rang dispatch and told them I was not bringing my babies out of bed at that time of night and I would be in at 6am. After getting my trailer scaled and balanced, it was off to Loudon, Tennessee again, same place as a couple of weeks ago that kept me waiting all morning before they got round to off loading me. It was great to actually leave the yard first thing in the morning instead of at night. It took two and half days to get there. Again they left me at least three hours before even getting round to me. I must have watched four episodes of Leverage before they got round to me. Then it was off to Rogersville, Tennessee for my reload. They only gave me seven pallets which was less than quarter of the trailer full, so I informed Joe, so they got me an extra load I could pick up on my way the following day in Charleston, West Virginia. I took both loads to our yard in Montreal, but before crossing the border I had been meaning to call at Walmart to pick up a chest freezer we have been needing for a while. We never had one before with not really having the room in the house when we lived in the UK, but here our house is four times the size of our old one in the UK so we have plenty of room for one. I could have got one in Canada, but it is so much cheaper to buy everything in the States and bring it across the border. that’s why when im at home we always cross into the states to fuel the car and get our weekly shopping etc. It saves us a lot of money. One of the advantages of living next to the border. The same chest freezer in Canada would have cost me an extra $80. Luckily our tractor units are massive inside, so I managed to get the chest freezer through the passenger door and up onto the top bunk where I strapped it in with the built in cargo net. Once at the Montreal yard, I switched for a load I needed to take back to Woodstock. On the way the following morning I called at one of the closed DOT Scales to check my weights. I knew my tractor was under weight because it has a digital gauge on the dash telling me so. Its only a guide though. They have been fitting analogue gauges to our trailers to give us an idea of the weight on the trailer wheels too but this one didn’t have one. If the trailer is loaded even and the trailer wheels are in the right place and one end is good, the other should be good to, so I was shocked to find my trailer was well over. So I went round the building to move my trailer wheels back a little to shift some of the weight forward. it’s a great feature to balance our load weight even across the truck without touching the load. Plus a lot of loading docks like you to move the wheels right to the rear of the trailer while backed onto a dock. It reduces the bounce of the trailer when the fork lifts drive on and off the back. Once adjusted, I went back round to re weigh finding still over, but this time, I had problems adjusting more. Only four pins hold the wheels in place and one of the rods that pull the pins in snapped, so I was stuffed, but while im scratching my head wondering how im going to hold the pin in and pull the truck forward at the same time. Toby, another British driver came and saved the day (thanks mate) and off we went chatting on the CB all the way back.

Toby

When I got back to Woodstock, Emma came to collect the freezer but it was too big for the car, so I had to borrow the workshop pickup to take it home. Once my truck was out of the shop and ready to go again. My reload was going Moncton NB, for a 4am delivery, then a second drop in St John NB then reload in Utopia NB for Philadelphia docks, Pennsylvania.

I had a little moan at dispatch for that. Which fell on deaf ears. I still had five days to fill before I was due home for my time off and going to Moncton, St John, Philadelphia, then back to Montreal then back to Woodstock, was only three and half days, so instead of messing about doing a short run to fill the time, I decided to come home early. Im glad I did really as yesterday we had a ridicules amount of snow fall in just a few hours. Im so glad we have a 4x4. Its fun driving in the thick snow when im in no rush to go anywhere in particular, but it’s a pain when in the truck with an urgent load. I was in Walmart for about twenty minutes. There was a few inches of snow covering the car when I came out. that’s how fast it was coming down. Luckily I had brought a brush to clean the car off before I could set off. The winter in North America as been a bad one this year. The only State in America not to have snow yet is Florida. The lower States that don’t normally have snow, got a little messed up when it snowed as they are not equipped for it same as the UK. Everywhere else cope really easy, like this morning here in Woodstock, after yesterdays bad storm, all the roads was cleared in no time, so everyone can get round as normal. Me and the kids was out in the snow on the sledges. The kids love it.

Luckily our friend came round to clear most of our drive with his pickup

with a plow on the front or i would have been all day clearing it.

I still had to do this bit though

and this

It was my youngest sons birthday party today. We had it at our local leisure centre. That was another reason why I needed to be back this weekend. I had to miss it last year, so I made sure I didn’t this year. The kids had a great time.

Well I have one more day off before its back on the road, hopefully going somewhere warm, yea right so till my next internet connection, have a great dayyyy.

Wytheville, West Virginia

You can't see them all but there was six plows staggered on the other side clearing the highway in one go

Thats how its done here

Just to give you an idea on what the showers are like in a typical big chain truck stop in the States

We have our own private bathroom with everything you need.

We get them free each time we fuel with 50 gal or more

plus they are cleaned after each person as used them too

Truck stops really do look after us here

Happy New Year Everybody

2011-01-07T21:59:00.000-04:00

Happy new year to everyone.

Well I did go out in someone else’s truck on the evening of 23rd. It was a team truck, same make as mine, but only four months old. Only one team member brought the truck to Woodstock and I had to take her with me to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where I was dropping her off to stay with family over the Christmas holidays. It was really bad weather going down with icy roads and snow etc. Normally I would have parked up for the night, but it was an urgent load plus Jan wanted to get home to her family so I took it easy with it been a light load so I didn’t lock the brakes up on the trailer all the time. Then the last hour or so of the journey, I could speed up as the roads were clear again. We got down there at 1130pm. I dropped the trailer, then dropped Jan off, then it was off to my reload in Pictou, Nova Scotia. I remember getting there at 315am, I asked how long it would take to load, and was told about an hour so I asked them to knock me up when it was ready, as I wanted to get straight back home with it been Christmas eve. Next thing I knew, was Emma ringing me waking me up at 9am throwing fits cos I was still in Nova Scotia I was loaded, still parked on the bay. It looked like they had tried to knock me up as the seal for the trailer was put on my door handle. I guess I was tired I got back that afternoon. Spent a lovely Christmas day with Emma, kids and friends, then my truck got back that night, so I went back out on the road on Boxing Day. My load went to Loudon, Tennessee. My reload was from Algood, Tennessee, going back to Toronto. I unloaded really quickly then set off to the yard, to drop the empty trailer, so I could bobtail over to my reload, which would be ready in about an hour, but as im on way to the yard, they call me and ask if I would mind doing them a favour and going to reload my trailerI already had. The customer wanted to load it by 6pm and I just had to drop it at the yard and go for my reload which was ready sometime after 6pm. I thought ok, that fills the gap, so off I went. Yeaaaaa Right. 10pm before im loaded. I dropped the trailer, got to my reload to find another one of our trucks had took my load, and his load was not ready for a couple of hours. I was not happy at all. Another 16hr day and not getting any extra pay for it. That’s the biggest down side to this job. Because you only get paid for the miles you do, and the customers don’t care how long they take to load you. One day you could drive for 8hr and earn $200 then the next day due to off loading and loading, you may end up doing 16hrs and only earn $150. it’s a pain, but you have to accept it if you want to do this job. Im a really laid back kind of guy, so normally I would not fuss, but this time it really spoilt my plans. This was the night before New Years Eve, so my plan was to pick up my load and drive for two and half hours out of Toronto leaving me ten and half hours to do New years Eve so I could be back to see the New Year in with my family and friends. Luckily in Canada, we are allowed to drive up to thirteen hours in one go, provided you have enough hours left, so because of the delays, the only way I could be back in time, was to take advantage of my waiting time, allowing me to be able to set off early enough in the morning and drive the thirteen hours to get back before midnight. I stopped for 10mins on the way and that’s it, getting me back by 10pm then it was party time. Emma had dropped our car off at the yard so I could get home without her leaving the party. Its funny seeing the New Year in here in Canada, as we have six time Zones. I could actually see the New Year in at Woodstock, then drive ten minutes down the road and cross the border into the US, and see the New Year in again on their Midnight. Cool hey! New Years Day I expected dispatch chasing me, but I heard nothing. I already had my paperwork so it was just a case of getting in my truck, hooking to my trailer and going. I was just about to pull out the yard just before mid day when one of the head mechanics knocked on my door and told me the truck needed to go to the dealer for some warranty work they had discovered that morning. So I took it up to the dealer where the on call mechanic had come in especially to fix it. Emma came to get me from there as it was going to take five hours to fix. Once back on the road that evening. My load was going to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Wicked somewhere warm Saying that though, the weather in North America has just been as whacked out as the UK. California as had unbelievable amounts of rain causing floods and mud slides. The Mid West have had a lot more snow than normal. Here in Woodstock, we have had a really mild winter so far. Last year once the snow arrived, it never left till the end of March. This year, its snowed then warmed up and melted it again or rain has washed it away. Christmas day I could see the grass again. When I took the Christmas Tree to the garden rubbish on New Years Day, I didn’t need my coat. mind you, I do sometimes walk around in just a T shirt at zero degrees anyway. It doesn’t feel cold when there is no wind. The temp in Fayetteville was in the twenties,

I was well impressed. Pity I didn’t have my shorts with me my reload was ten minutes down the road, which took me back up to the cold in Toronto. Then I had a load coming back to Woodstock. By the time I got there Wednesday night driving through some white out conditions, I had already done ten and half hours driving, but my reload had to be in Moncton, New Brunswick by 5.30am so the only way I could get it there in time was to continue on another two and half hours to get it there before 530am. Another thirteen hour day. I was down there by 2am. 430am they wake me to give me a loading bay number. 530am they wake me to back on the bay, then they keep waking me driving on to the trailer with the fork lift bouncing me up and down, then 830am they wake me to give me my paperwork back. I then parked up in the truck stop at the end of the street. Then 10am one of our drivers wake me up to see if I had any spare straps, so I gave up at that point about getting anymore sleep. just another typical day been a truck driver. My reload was in our yard in Moncton which was going to Illinois, but I just needed to bring it back to Woodstock. I was due home today anyway for my time off, so I didn’t see the point in going anywhere else, so I came home a day early. Im due back out on Monday, so till my next update. I will leave you with some pic’s of my travels. Buy for nowwwwww

I think they went over board

Merry Christmas every one

2010-12-23T00:54:00.000-04:00

Hay guys. So im back from another busy couple of weeks. I finally got ride of Scott and palmed him off onto a mate of mine. I did enjoy training Scott, as he is a really nice guy and fun too, but at the end of the day, I do prefer to be on my own, so I completed his training and this time out, I was back on my own. I was due out on the Tuesday, but the truck did not get back till late that night, so it was midnight gone before I got to the truck, I was not impressed having to drag my kids out of bed on a very cold night just to take me back to the truck, which was still not ready to go, as the workshop only have half the staff at night, and they was over run. It was 3.30am before I was able to set off. The delivery had to be made by 7am the following morning, over 700 miles away, so I had to drive for a couple of hours till early in the morning, so I could do the rest of the miles that night to get to my delivery in Oxford, Pennsylvania on time. My reload was from Kimberton, PA which I took back to Toronto and dropped it in our yard. With it been Christmas, we had a lot more loads going out west, so my reload was going to Winnipeg. I was not looking forward to that either. My driving hours where still a lot over night as once you start at night, it takes days to slowly bring you more into day time driving, and with the route going across Northern Ontario, where it can be really bad weather wise at night, I was expecting to not have much fun. How I did it I don’t know, but I managed to avoid snow storms for both weeks, except a little flurry on the last night on my way home. There was snow everywhere I went, but the roads was clear.

I was either ahead of the storms, or on the roads after they had been cleared. I missed some real bad storms, that shut roads off and ever border crossings for days.

It was really cold though. To give you an idea, one morning just before the sun came up, it was -34 degrees C, lovely.

The exhaust stacks show you how cold it was.

I made Winnipeg in really good time, then it was off to Harrisonville, Missouri, reloading in Lee Summit, Missouri, which was going back to Toronto. Because I was planned to go home on the Tuesday, it was limited to what loads I could do been so close to the weekend so after unloading I picked up my reload in the Toronto yard which was going Sherbrook, Quebec. Then I switched in Montreal for a load going to Moncton, New Brunswick, but I had to switch with an owner operator in St Leonard, New Brunswick. His load was going to Niagara Falls, but I just needed to drop it at our yard in Toronto. Then I switched for a load I needed to bring back to Woodstock, where I got back late Sunday night two days early than expected, only because I put some long hours in. So it was not much point me going out again, as I would not be able to go far, so home I came. Over 12 days I covered just under 6900 miles. I was expecting to be home till Boxing day, but they did ask if I would not mind doing just a trip to Nova Scotia and back or something like that. Which was suppose to be today, but I was in the dentist chair when they rang me so it maybe tomorrow now. I would not be in my own truck though as a team is in it till boxing day. Christmas day, is the only day of the year, when Joe lets any of his trucks stand not working, and because everyone wants the same time off and are going home before Christmas day, they will start and run out of spare drivers to keep the trucks running till Christmas Day, hence the reason they want me to take someone else’s truck for a day. So lets see what happens.

Anyway its time to wish all our friends, family, and followers a very Merry Christmas, and a great New Year, and I will be back soon to keep you up to date on what we have been up to.

What do you think to my new Computer Stand?

I made it myself for less than $10 and it fastens to the passenger seat base to stop it moving.

To buy somthing in a truck stop to do the same job would cost $249

You would not know I had the truck washed a couple of days before.

Some nice old cars for sale

I was counting the carriages on the train on the left with two containers on each.

I gave up at 60

One big Snowman

Not Fun Driving in the Snow

2010-12-06T14:14:00.000-04:00

Hay, still here, I have not fallen off the other side of the planet ..yet
. The only two places I thought I would get internet these passed couple of weeks, just would not give me a strong signal, and one of them I was really close to the building, so I could not understand it. I need to invest in a Wi-Fi booster.

Well I went out on the Saturday after having five days off. I should have had only three days as normal, but for some reason, the team that was in my truck was really slow, and did not get back till Saturday morning. By the time they had done loads to the truck in the shop, I did not leave till the evening again. This time all by myself. Scott was due to take his test on the Monday, so I expected to come back for him, but after my load to Virginia, my reload took me to Winnipeg. It was not fun over there with the bad weather. Im so glad I don’t live out that way. Our weather in the East is milder. I switched trailers in Winnipeg for an empty to reload an hour down the road. The back roads that is, where they where not clear and very icy. Having nothing in the trailer makes it hard work trying to stay on the road. Once loaded, it was going Chaska, Minnesota. From there my reload was two pickups in Minneapolis for Hartland, New Brunswick, which is only a few miles up the road from Woodstock. I had to cross back into Canada at the Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. I was not looking forward to that either. Its usually bad for snow there. I wanted to cross the border that night. It would have been about 1am, but by the time 11pm came around, I was in heavy snow and could not see the front of my truck, never mind the road. Lucky this back road I was on had rumble strips in the middle of the road, as well as on the shoulder, so I just drove on those so I knew where the road was. Luckily not long after, I came across a gas station that had room for me to park. So I stayed there hoping the following morning, things would be a little clearer. I was so glad I was not with Scott. Been on my own allowed me to park up for the night. Had Scott been with me, we would have been expected to move the first chance we got. that’s why I prefer to be on my own. If it gets bad, I can just park up till the morning. Teams are expected to carry on as they have loads with urgent deadlines. My mate driving team, told me, it took him 9hr to only cover 4hrs worth of driving, with the roads been really bad out west. that’s not good when your wage is based on the miles you drive and not the hours, so he was earning less than half his normal wage that day, not good. Its one of the things you have to accept, driving in North America, hold ups not only cost the company, it gives you a cut in your wages too. Anyway the following morning, although I could see with it been daylight. It was still snowing, with plenty on the ground. With it been my first time this winter parked in snow. I forgot when you open the door, you get a big lump of snow on the back of your head, one way of waking up You can see the snow now missing above the drivers door that hit me.

By the time I got to the border, the snow had stopped and the sun came out drying the roads, so it was foot down. There was about six diggers rushing around clearing the snow in the truck stop where I stopped for a shower. A bit over the top, but they was fast.

Once back in Woodstock on the Sunday after covering 4200 miles in seven and a bit days. I had to take Scott back out with me. Good job really as doing all those miles, left me short on driving hours. I was not please with Ayr as Scott had sat around all week waiting for me to get back after he finally passed his test. I expected him going out with someone else, with me been gone for a while. I was hoping I said I would take him on his US training but only till I was due back at the end of the week. Then he would be teaming up with my mate, another British dude. We did a load to Niagara Falls, then switched trailers in Toronto for a load back to Woodstock, where we switched for a load going to Oxford, Pennsylvania. On the way down, I remember thinking, while bouncing around in bed trying to get to sleep, on the bad New Jersey roads, ‘im so glad its my last few days teaming trying to sleep in a moving truck‘. I used to have no problems with it last year, but not any longer. Its much better parked up at night. We reloaded down the road in Pitman, New Jersey, going to our yard in Montreal. Then picked up in Joliette, Quebec, which we took back to Woodstock, getting back Thursday afternoon. While I have been off, we went and picked our real Christmas tree and put it up,

along with the lights for the outside of the house, during which time the tree fell down

Emma was not happy, a few pine needles and water everywhere. I cracked the base last year getting the old tree out. Turned out its not so stable now so its shopping for a new base today. Artificial trees are really expensive here. I could have a real tree every year for 15yrs for the same price as an artificial tree. I like real ones, but Emma doesn’t, so we will see what we get next year.

Its rained for days none stop here, and the UK has had all the snow. Nice exchange but then it snowed over night so back to normal. Storm days are a pain when you are on the road. In Woodstock, we may only have ten to fifteen snow storms through the winter, but because I cover such a huge area, I can be in a lot more storms then Woodstock gets. The snow does stick around for four months though. In other places it can come and go. Nova Scotia gets snow one day, and rain the next.

I go back out on Tuesday for a couple of weeks, which should time it right for a few days off plus Christmas Day off too before going out again on Boxing Day. So till my next internet connection, have a good dayyyy

I want to get one of these for our drive. They fasten to Garage and cover drive.

That way Emma would not have to clear the drive each time it snowed

The temp was -15 Degrees C which is why the windshield is iced up

Poshest plow I have ever seen

Chicago

Their Tube system runs in the middle of the highway

Goods are mainly transported by road, so when there is a traffic jam, this is what you see

This is Brookston, Indiana. There is a couple hundred of these windmills

This winter we are all suited and booted

couple of pics I took when I was off last, of the St John River behind our house

I was stood on the bridge you cross to woodstock

Freezing Rain

2010-11-17T23:36:00.001-04:00

Hay you guys..I think its about time I updated you again. I want to do it more often, but internet connection and spare time is very limited, especially having both at the same time.

Well what an eventful couple of weeks we have had. Emma got back late Friday night. I had a real great time off with the kids. I was due to go back on the road Saturday. Ayr rang me Friday morning to tell me my truck was in and to see what time Emma was landing, and with her getting in late they sent my truck to Montreal and back. I thought great, he will be back by lunch on Saturday as its only 14hr round trip. Yea right… 1030pm I got back in the truck. I was not happy, but I did get to spend some time with Emma before departing, so was not all bad. I did have a couple of hours sleep too so I could drive through the night. Scott was not with me as his family arrived in the country the same time as Emma got back, so was not expecting him back with me till later in the week, so he could get them settled in. He also took his test the same day his family arrived and failed. He did not even get to do the drive. It was a bit sus really, as the examiner, would not stop chatting away to him, putting him off, plus she took a personal call chatting away while he was doing his test. Not professional at all. The normal examiner is on medical leave so she is just a stand in. Heads need to roll I think. The test here is a couple of hours long. You have to un hook the trailer, hook back up. Then you have a pre-trip inspection. That should take 20mins checking everything on the tracker and trailer, including the engine, brakes, fittings etc and not just tyres, lights etc like you do in the UK. Once that is done, you check the brake system works correctly by doing what they call a Fan Down. The truck and trailer is chocked so you can release the brakes. Then you have to pump the brakes to cause the alarms to go off at the right time and make the safety valves operate, things like that. If you pass all them, then you go out on your actual drive. Scott failed on the Fan Down, so was unable to go on the drive. These trucks don’t have handbrakes like European trucks do. They have a Trailer Air Supply valve and a Parking Brake valve. Once they are released, it takes a couple of seconds for the brakes to release, hence the reason why you cant use them as an handbrake and only use them when the truck is parked up. What Scott failed on was what any other person would normally do. When you are going to release the brakes you just put your foot on the brake to stop the truck rolling off when you release the valves. That there is an instant fail as you are compounding the brakes. (so they say, well you would if you kept pressing the brake pedal, but not just one gentle push) I expected him to pass his test and spend a few days with his family, while I take a load down the States, then back to Toronto, then back to Woodstock to pick him up and take him on his US training crossing the borders etc. but because he failed, they was going to try and get him another test the following week. So they was going to keep me local for a couple of days, then pick him up on the Monday for a few more days training. That meant he only spent two days with his family before going back on the road. I just went to Nova Scotia and back, then to Moncton and back covering 1200 miles in two days, then I picked Scott up. They could not get him another test till the 23rd so we did a load to Montreal, then switched for one to Winnipeg. Before we got to Winnipeg, we get a message from Joe’s son asking if Scott had his passport with him as they needed me to take an urgent load into the States. With Scott still been on a learners permit. He is not allowed to drive in the States, so I had to do all the driving. I was so pleased to be back in the States. Its much better driving down there. Less boring, much more to see and driving at night is loads better. The roads are better, lit up more, and lots more going on to take your focus off just what you can see in your headlights. To give you an idea. The other night I was driving across Canada. In six hours I seen six cars pass me and that’s it. I cant even remember passing any towns. I was board out my brains, and that really makes you tired quicker. Anyway we took an empty trailer across the border to load in Perham, Minnesota. Then that load needed to be taken to Montreal. The down side was, the quickest way was 600 miles on a secondary highway going through town after town to the Border crossing at Sault St Marie, Ontario. That was the longest distance I had ever driven on none major highway in one go. I managed to make the border within my hours. On the way through Michigan I had to drive through an area where there was plenty of snow.

Then all of a sudden, within 3miles you could not tell it had snowed.

That’s how fast the weather can change.
Once back in Canada, Scott could take over again. He was bored not been able to drive.

From Montreal, we went to Toronto, then back to Woodstock, then Niagara Falls where we arrived 5hr to early in the night. Off loaded then took the empty trailer to one of our customers in Toronto. Our reload came through which was for a collection in 10hrs time. I throw fits at dispatch over the satellite for wanting to make us wait all that time. It so messes our sleep up. So straight away, they send a message to pickup a load and take it to Kingston, Ontario and switch with another truck, taking his load back to Toronto in time for our original load going to Calgary, Alberta. One the way, sometime after Winnipeg, I was really tired and did not want to get Scott up just yet so I pulled into a truck stop for a power nap. That was not enough, so I got Scott up to take over and I crawled into bed and was out like a light. Just over one hour later, Scott was repeatedly shouting my name in a panic, so I jumped up and quickly, opened the curtains to find us just coming to a stop in the passing lane behind a car and another truck, plus a truck in the slow lane pulling two 53 foot trailers travelling at about 2mph in the snow, up this slight incline. I asked what was up and he said he was not stopping. He said one minute it was raining, then the next it was snowing. He seen the truck pulling the two trailers appeared to be stopped in the slow lane, and the truck and car behind them pulled out to pass, so Scott tried to slow down so he didn’t catch them up and he said nothing happened. The truck just carried on going no matter what he tried. Luckily we did come to a stop. The trailer did slide to the side a little, but that was due to the way they lay the roads. They slope slightly from the middle to the side to allow drainage. Some places slope way to much. The left hand bends are the best. I feel like im on a motorbike leaning into the corner It does not feel the same going round a right hand bend though. As I looked into the mirror to check the trailer was ok, I notices half inch of clear ice on the back of the mirrors. What Scott didn’t realise as he had never come across it before, was the rain he was driving in, was called freezing rain. What happens is, the rain starts falling in warm air, then is passes through a thin layer of cold air, super cooling the droplets, but not long enough to turn them solid. Then when the droplets hit a cold object, it immediately turns to ice making conditions very dangerous. It can cause a lot of damage to property or anything really, if it rains long enough, as the ice just gets thicker and heavier every second. Things like power lines, trees etc just collapse under the weight of the ice.

As you can see, even the grass becomes thick ice. Anyway, we tried to set off again, but because we was going up hill the truck just spun on the spot with the roads been like glass. We could not roll back as that would have put the trailer in the median with it facing that way. So forward was the only way to go. I said "don’t worry least I get to show you how to put snow chains on". They had put me some chains back on the truck a few weeks ago when they fitted my new tyres.

We got chained up which got us moving again. When it levelled out , we took them off and carried on. These guys was not so lucky.

A couple of hours later, it was light and out of the snow and back to dry roads. We arrived 10hrs early and just dropped the trailer, our reload was back to Winnipeg, where again they give us another load to the States. Again urgent, needing to be in Spencer, Iowa by 7am. Because I was not expecting to go into the States again with Scott not been able to drive down there, when we switched on the way back to Winnipeg. I did not go to sleep straight away, as I planned us to stop a couple of hours down the road to get a shower. So I stayed up a little watching some TV. When we arrived at the truck stop. Our fuel card would not swipe in the machine so decided to fuel another hour down the road just outside Winnipeg instead, which meant I stayed up a little more, as that was the point we learned of the US load, so I needed to stay up to work out all my hours to make sure I could get there in the morning plus make it to the reload in Owatonna, Minnesota, within my 11hrs driving. By the time I had done all that, it was fuel, shower time. Then off to the Winnipeg yard to switch for the US load which had problems with its weights. It was at its max weight for the States but not balanced out, so we had to mess moving axels and fifth wheel etc. Luckily we had only put enough fuel in to get us to the Flying J in Sioux Fall, South Dakota. Had we filled the tanks, we would have been over weight. Fuel is loads cheaper in the States, so when im on my own, going to the states all the time, I tend to fuel in the States enough so I can go through Canada and back into the states without needing to fuel in Canada. Saving loads of money. Because of my hours I could not set off from the border till after midnight, but by the time I had sorted everything out with the trailer etc. I only had time for 4hrs sleep before getting back in the seat to drive the 11hrs to deliver and reload and get back to a truckstop down the road from the collection. (the joys of having the responsibility of training and making sure everything is legal on each load) Because I had gone out a couple of days before Scott. I was going to be on my 14th day while in the States, which meant, before I could get back across the Canadian border, I had to take 24hrs off, so it was either stay at the truck stop an extra 14hrs or set off after 10hrs off and get to the border. Then Scott would have to drive the seventeen plus hours from the border we crossed, back to Woodstock, including the two trailer switches we had on route, plus have an 8hr break within that time. So in the end, we would more or less get back to Woodstock about the same time, so seeing as the US truck stops are better than the Canadian ones, we decided to stay where we where, watch some TV, get a great nights sleep then have a massive meal in the restaurant before me driving the 11hrs to the border. Normally when im driving, I have a box of goodies at the side of me plus the sandwiches I make before I start to drive, so im nibbling all the time. After that massive meal, I was stuffed and never went in my box for six hours maybe that $10 meal was cheaper than nibbling on my goodies all day
Over the thirteen days Scott was with me, even though we had the odd delay like getting to places too early, having to wait till they open, or having to wait for pickup times, and only me able to drive while in the States both times, we still managed to cover 11600 miles, so was not bad, but could have been better had Scott been able to drive in the States. Anyway I should have been back on the road Thursday, but the truck is too far away to get back for then, so looks like been Friday now. So till next time, have a nice dayyyyyy

Just across the water is Canada. We normally pass this lake on the Canadian side

One of the towns in the States we went to

Home so soon

2010-10-27T01:23:00.002-03:00

Home once again, but this time a little sooner than planned. At the beginning of October, Emma was told her Nan only had a couple of weeks to live, so I warned Ayr that I could have to go home at anytime at the last minute to look after the kids while Emma could go back for the funeral. So when I took Scott out again on the 12th, Ayr very kindly kept us local, well at the most thirteen hours away. We basically was the Woodstock to Toronto express, we would take trailers going west and drop them at our Toronto yard and switch for trailers going east and drop them at Woodstock. One thing, it was great miles, as we was running 24/7, except a few times, we would have a collection at 1am in Toronto and we would arrive a few hours too early, so that slowed us down a little. We still managed to average over one thousand miles a day though.

Emma’ s Nan lasted a little longer than expected, but Emma had to fly out early hours Friday morning, so we got back Wednesday afternoon, so I could become house husband till Emma got back. It was Nan’s funeral today. Rest in peace Nan, you will be missed.

Emma would always joke that I had the easy side to our relationship just driving a truck, while she took care of our three lovely kids. I would always say, I would do her a swap anytime, and now that im here looking after our lovely kids, I have told Emma when she gets back, Im staying at home and Emma is going to drive the truck You housewives have it easy Been ex military and having excellent organisation skills, makes looking after the kids as easy as a walk in the park What make it better though is most of Emma’s friends have offered to cook meals for me. Even the ones I’ve not really met yet

With it been Halloween coming up. The kids helped me decorate the pumpkins.

Canadians and Americans really go to town at this time of year, so Emma has decorated the house to join in. We could not do it last year, as we moved into this house on Halloween night. Even the adults get dressed up for Halloween, having parties etc Emma and the kids will be going to one on Saturday. I’m back to doing some proper work again that day, so no fun for me

Parts of Canada have already had Snow. Last year been my first winter, I was looking forward to it, just to know what its like. This year..... please keep me down anywhere south of South Carolina, Texas etc where they don’t get snow I wish

Anyway its time for bed or my eldest will never make the school bus in the morning, but if I am late, I have everything already laid out for him. I don’t want to break Fridays record, waking up ten minutes before the bus arrived and still got him on it with time to spare, having had some breakfast too. Well I did only get back into bed an hour before, after taking Emma the two and half hour round trip to the airport. So I did have an excuse.

Not much colour left in the trees now at the bottom of the garden

Still a little colour here before the snow hit it this week.

Training

2010-10-10T10:25:00.000-03:00

Here I am Back again.
Well what a couple of long weeks I have just had. Remember I said in the last post, one of the new English dudes was been trained in my truck while I was off. Well they asked me once I got back in the truck if I would continue with his training. In the past when they have asked me to train people, I have reluctantly said yes but managed to get out of it. Im a non smoker, and most people smoke here so I never want to ever train a smoker. It would be a nightmare. I prefer to be on my own anyway, but this time I said yes as I had gotten to know the driver over the time he had been waiting to come over, which was a long time. Luckily Scott knew driving these trucks are nothing like what he was used to. It does not matter whether you have one year or thirty years experience of European driving, only a little of that is going to help you drive these American trucks. It is a total different style of driving. Personally I think the less experience you have the better, as there is nothing worse than trying to teach an old dog new tricks. It just does not wash with some people. Firstly the trucks are one and half times longer than a European truck. They have drum breaks so you have to use your gears more to slow you down, but the worst part is the gearbox is a crash box, so that makes things more difficult. You have to double clutch and time the speed of the truck to the right revs of the engine to time it just right to select each gear without grinding the gears. If you really miss time it, the gearbox will just not let you select that gear then the truck is not under control. Even North American truck drivers get it wrong sometimes. It really does take some doing to learn it. Another problem is we all have an autopilot, a bit like walking, we just do it automatic without thinking about it. Well most of us drive like that too. So sometimes if you are not fully concentrating on what you are doing, you drift back into that old autopilot and next thing you know, you have not turned wide enough to allow for the extra 25 feet of truck, and you are dragging your trailer up onto the curb and over someones toes. Remember when you was learning to drive for the first time? That was bad enough. Now add driving on the other side of the road, in another country in something bigger than you have ever driven before, with lack of road signs and technology that went out of fashion 40 years ago in Europe. It does not make it an easy task.

The worst part about been a trainer at first is the lack of sleep. Ayr don’t know the difference between training and teaming. Training you have to sit with the driver to teach them everything, but Ayr just see two names in the truck which means they give you loads that have to keep the truck running day and night to get them there on time. They are greedy like that, an opportunity to get a lot more loads done in half the time. The first week was the hardest. I would sit with him for as long as I was satisfied he would be ok for a couple of hours while I got some sleep, then I would take over to drive all night. I would do the night shift because he had enough to concentrate on as it was, never mind adding avoiding the wild life on the roads at night. We did great miles the first six days though. To say Scott was only learning, We did 6400 miles running across Canada. We ran from Woodstock as far as Calgary, Alberta, and back. Just to give you an idea of Ayr forgetting I am suppose to be training Scott. When we got to Winnipeg they gave us a reload to Nashville, Tennessee, now because Scott as not taken his driving test yet, he is not allowed to drive in the States, so I had to kindly remind dispatch that fact. The second week we went out as far as Edmonton, Alberta, but this time we was getting a lot of delays like 12 hours in the shop finally getting the truck totally back to A1 plus getting to places too early in the night before they opened in the morning. By the second week, Scott was not grinding the gears as much, but I think that was down to not having much teeth left to grind. All together over the 13 days we managed to do 12600 miles, which was not bad at all considering all the delays we had. We are off for three days now, then I have offered to take Scott with me again so he gets student, trainer continuation. I must be mad
anything to get him through his test fast so I can get rid of him

Remember me picking up a new English driver in Toronto in February? Well he has been teaming since he has been here with a few team mates in there assigned trucks. Then last week, he was given his own assigned truck, and made a full time trainer now, so he his really doing well also. I would not want his job when the snow comes

Anyway till next time, Have a nice day, im going to catch up on sleep now

North Battleford, Saskatchewan

A little tight in this yard

Welcome to the Prairies (Boringgggg)

2010-09-25T22:53:00.001-03:00

Hay people

So whats going on? Well I made my two deliveries in South Carolina, then made my collection in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for St Laurent, Quebec. I dropped the trailer at the customer, then had to collect an empty from the yard in Dorval so I could load in Joliette, Quebec. I had to take that load to Woodstock where I switched for a trailer going to the same place in St John, New Brunswick, but was more urgent than the one I had. I dropped that at the customer and collected an empty from one of our customers to load at one of their other plants in Utopia, New Brunswick. That load was going to the docks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Nightmare.

By the time I was loaded and faxed the paperwork to get customs clearance to cross the border, I had done sixteen hours, so had to wait till the morning before I could cross the border. My hours allowed me to get one hour from the customer, parked up on one of the service plazas on the New Jersey turnpike. I managed to time it right, down to Manhattan and crossed the George Washington Bridge with no delays, so was pleased about that. While on the road, I only get internet when I stop at any of the Flying J truck stops, but at the moment they are not offering the best discount on fuel, so I have to go to where we do get the best price and make do with no internet. I did not realise the MegaBus buses that are here like the ones in the UK have internet on them, so passengers can log on. I found out while parked in that service plaza, two park near by for a short while, so I borrowed their internet till they drove off again.

When I got to the docks the following morning. As I did not have a dockside pass, I had to pay a $50 escort fee just to be escorted to the loading bay 100yrds directly in front of me and back out once unloaded. Im in the wrong job
My reload was from Hanover, Pennsylvania which I was taking back to Woodstock. I recently discovered an Aldi round the corner from that collection, so I call there for some shopping each time I go there now. Have to stock up on Haribo’s
only place you can get them I think. When I got back to Woodstock on Thursday afternoon. I had done 6400 miles over twelve days, so it was home time again. First thing I did was get a great big steak on the BBQ when I got home. Some drivers carry a BBQ round with them in the trucks. Ill stick with the microwave while on the road.

We are still getting temps of 20 degrees in Woodstock, but is cool over night. Im still in shorts all the time, but back to trainers instead of flip flops now. Parts of Northern Canada have had some snow though, so its on its way again. Not looking forward to it.

Anyways im off till Monday when I go back out. Hopefully with my transmission in tacked, as one of the English trainees is been trained in my truck while im off
so till next time, laters people.

Leaves are changing now

10mins before this was took, it was sunny and 34 degrees in Hanover, PA

This is a place called Paradise, PA

Trenton, New Jersey

St John New Brunswick

Just some of the reasons why New Brunswick is one of the most attractive Province’s in Canada

If you guys ever want to tour North America, rent one of these

Remember those properties on the 1000 Islands?

This dude was sailing straight through them.

Party Time

2010-09-16T21:52:00.000-03:00

Hay thought I would give you a quick update.

Because I had had to go abit mad with my hours, by the Sunday I had no more US hours left, so they kept me in Canada for four days going back and forth to Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario. I did 2600 miles in four days then I got back early on the Wednesday. Thursday as usual, even though I had a million and one things to do round the house, I did not get dresses and just relaxed. Garden can wait.
on the Friday we went away for a couple of days down to Moncton with four other couples that have become close friends. We stayed in a nice hotel and had a party in our room that night. The guests below us was not happy. Management had to tell us off three times.
I blame all the kids running around between the rooms
the weather was pants the two days, but that did not stop the fun, we just went to places in side.

Then Sunday it was back on the road for me. First to Atglen, Pennsylvania, reloaded in Hanover, Pennsylvania back to Woodstock, then a two drop in South Carolina which is where I am now sat in 30 degrees, an hour from my first drop which I will do in the morning. So there you go, like I said a very quick update, so till next time, Laters peeps.

Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia

One of the many 60's Diners you see about

Going through Pennsylvania

There was alot of Amish peeps on scooters round here

The Cranes here are not slow.

I was doing 65mph and this dude came passed me

Happy Labour Day

2010-09-04T23:27:00.001-03:00

Back again. Emma and the kids have been here one year now. Feels alot longer than that.
Well I went out on Sunday as expected. My truck came in over night. Was serviced and everything. I rang at 8am and they said yep its all ready to go. I thought wicked, I finally get to go out early for a change, yea right. By the time I was ready, kit in the car and down to the shop. My truck was back in the shop. Not impressed. The mechanics decided to spend another $4000 on it and put more new bits on to try and cure the warning lights keep coming on. These Prostars have a common fault with the exhaust filter. Its something fitted to make the trucks more eco friendly, but always cause problems. They cost $8000 to replace, but don’t last five mins. They must have spent $6000 so far just to minimizes the problem. The truck runs great, but only because they have made these changers. Joe hates brake downs as that causes delays with loads, that’s why he highly maintains the trucks all the time.

Anyway my load was going to Uhrichville, Ohio. Got there the night before so was off loaded in the morning really quick. My reload was half an hour down the road in Canton, Ohio. I was loaded in 45mins which was fantastic. I had never had such a fast off load and reload all the time I have lived here. Normally delivery days puts hours onto your day, not this time. I was back across the border and to our Toronto yard the same day. I switched for a trailer I needed to take to Woodstock. I got there last thing at night and they wanted to work on the truck over night again, so I went home for the night. It had been 34 degrees in the day in Woodstock. At 8pm it was still 30 degrees then 1130pm when I went to bed it was still 26 degrees. A day cab brought my load up from Nova Scotia for me and arrived at 7am so I got there bright and early as Joe don’t like loads hanging around. The load was going to Scranton, Pennsylvania, but still not cleared at customs, so they gave me a choice to either take a load to New Jersey, or wait 2hr to get customs clearance. The answer was a no brainer. Ill Wait New Jersey is such a pain. So Joe gave me $10 to go and get my breakfast at the truck stop while I wait. Excellent. Once cleared I set off and got there after 10.5hrs driving. Off loaded in the morning. Then down to Hanover, Pennsylvania for my reload. I have been there many times and never noticed they had a Aldi there. They are all over the US but none in Canada. I will have to try and remember for next time and go shopping for the bargins. I got there at 3pm to be told my load would not be ready till 2am, bummer, but it was not too bad. I had been doing over my average hours each day so needed to slow down anyways, so I was not worried. Then a bit later, I gets the message to collect a different load from the same place, that was ready. So I got out of there and drove till 11pm last night. Then dropped the load at our Montreal yard this afternoon switching for a load I needed to take to our Toronto yard where I will collect a load going back to Woodstock. I wont get there till Monday though. Which is labour day. The last bank holiday of the summer. In the past seven days I have done 3800 miles so far, which is normal for me.

There was a tornado heading for the south of New Brunswick today. Emma said it was raining hard but no wind so all ok. It should have passed by the time I get there hopefully. I have had enough of the wind myself today. Its not funny when you only have a really light load on.

Anyway that puts you all up to date till next time have a nice dayyy.

This is the view I see inside the truck when I wake up

As you can see I was still in bed

This is from my feet end

Even though we are still having hot weather,

the trees are telling us its nearly over again

This dude means serious fishing business

This old dude in the red Convertible was only going 40mph holding everyone up

Work Work Work

2010-08-28T03:17:00.001-03:00

Hay
So I had a good time off last time, well if you can call it that, if im not in the truck working im at home working. While I was trying to cut the four foot grass down. One of my neighbours is a truck driver. Him and his wife drive team. They have a nice house at the end of our road, and he came passed and stopped to introduce him self. They are on the road for between three to six weeks at a time, so I had never met him, but he knew I worked for Ayr. He did too when he first came over five years ago. They are both German, but he has really lost his accent. He had bought a sickle bar mower, (hedge trimmer on wheels) a couple of days before, as he has a lot of land round his house plus another plot elsewhere and wanted to trim it down. He seen the state of my garden so offered to lend me the mower. It was great, what would have took me weeks to do, only took about five hours. I could have done with it another hour, but was dark by then, but it was really great to finally see some kind of lawn forming. Still a lot to do, but im getting there. Its not easy though in temperatures in the thirties. We may get cold winters, but the summers really do make up for it. Temps have been between 26-33 degrees on a daily basis. 20 degrees over night, and 26 here feels a lot warmer then 26 in the UK. We don’t get much rain except in spring. When it does its not cold, as its not normally windy like you get in the UK. The nights have started to cool a little now with rain over night some nights, but still nice and warm in the day.

The day before I went back on the road, we went down to the beach with the kids. It’s a provincial park with a massive lake and beach.

They have life guards like on Bay Watch. it’s a nice place just under an hour away, which here in Canada is like just popping down the road. We had great time. The water was really warm too. It was the first time for me, but Emma and the kids had been a few times.

I then went on the road on the Saturday. Because a team had been in my truck while I was off. They got in early hours, so I expected to be able to get in my truck nice and early for a change after it had been though the shop. After the usual few phone calls to keep me up to date to when the truck will be ready to go. I turn up to find, they are still having problems getting it sorted. Time was ticking so to save Emma keep taking me to and from the yard, I stayed with the truck and took it to the dealer down the road for some warranty work. I finally got on the road at 730pm which is such a pain as that means I end up driving half the night again to get to my deliveries on time. I was taking a load with two drops in South Carolina. I got them both delivered on the Monday. My reload had three pickups to make the one load which I had never had to do multi pickups before. I arrived at my first in South Carolina at 6pm Local time to find the last two dudes getting in their pickups and going home. So that had been a short day for me as I had not set off till late morning. I got attacked by fire ants on my feet, as this time of year I permanently only wear shorts and flip flops. The following morning, when they got in. I find out they don’t have all my pallets I needed. One was on another truck coming in, so by the time I had got loaded and got to my other two pickups in North Carolina, my last one had to wait for me. I then ended up driving into the night again. One so I didn’t loose out on pay, and two to get my delivery done on time just south of Montreal, Quebec.

This job is not a 9 to 5 job. Some days I can be working fourteen and sixteen hours a day, just so I cover my goal of 550 miles a day. If I get held up on delivery days spending six hours on loading bays. Im not getting paid till the wheels are turning. So I still end up driving those miles on top of all that waiting time, just so I don’t loose out. If I don’t manage to do the 550miles that day, the following days I have to make up for lost time and do more. So this job is easy in some ways and not in others. I think that’s why a lot of immigrants end up going back home, because it is nothing like what they are used to and are not willing to adapt. To me, while im away from my family, it don’t make much difference if im driving for thirteen hours a day. I may as well earn as much as I can while im out and about, as long as I get my daily sleep, im fine. Sleep is when you can fit it in also. One day you could be getting in bed at midnight. The following day you could be getting in the drivers seat to start your day at midnight. Its all about when you need to be where you are going that dictates your days.

My reload from Montreal, was going to the states, but I just needed to get it to our yard in Toronto. I then picked up a load going back to Woodstock. Once back, because the truck still had warning lights coming on, I was in the shop for another six hours, again setting off in the evening with a load going to North Carolina, but I could only go for another three hours as US law only allows for a 14hr working day. What was worst, was the route I had to take. When ever I go that way, I normally avoid all the cities and go Via Scranton, Pennsylvania. Its about 40 miles longer, but is a couple of hours faster than the short route which I had to take. Plus so much cheaper in tolls. The way I had to go, you hit traffic at Connecticut, and it stays with you all the way through New York, Manhattan, and New Jersey. You then get a break before hitting it again in Baltimore and Washington DC. Its just like been on the M25 on permanent rush hour, round Washington DC. Just to top things off, my reload was near Richmond, Virginia, going to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, but they wanted me to take it to Woodstock, which meant going right back the way I came, nightmare. By the time I was loaded, my 14hrs was up again, so I decided to set off early hours in the morning to try and avoid the traffic at Washington DC. I don’t mind so much driving at night in the states, because there are always people on the road, and lights too. Setting off early didn’t work though. 5am at Washington DC I hit a traffic jam.

Then the following morning I needed to set off at 1230am to get back to Woodstock for the load to get to its destination on time. A team was taking my truck again while im off. Well back to the garden again, but I have fitted in getting the BBQ out a couple of times. It is great sitting on the deck, taking in that great view we have on a beautiful evening.

Deer in the back garden

Remember I mentioned how expensive in tolls going the short route is. Well going down and back up, avoiding some of the tolls it cost me $251.00 if I had gone my way avoiding all the cities, It would have only cost me $46, But my way was not practical this time as I would have had to do over 200 miles longer round trip

Im due back on the road on Sunday, so till next time. Here are a few more pics of my travels.

Spotted this black cab in Manhattan

with the New York licence plate under the UK one

These removal dudes always have massive condos on the tractor

I see this sometimes, cars towing Two trailers

These where just some pic's of the Parade that went through

Woodstock the other week

Even Golf carts here are like sports cars.

This was the Fair we went to after the Parade

Mud racers

Home so soon

2010-08-11T01:05:00.000-03:00

Thanks guys for all the nice comments. I really do like doing the blog, especially when I know so many of you enjoy reading it. So normal service resumed .

Well im currently sat at home having a few days off early. I got back to Woodstock from Mississippi on Sunday afternoon. My reload was going to Montreal. A two drop to stores. All of a sudden we are getting loads of these loads. I did the same last week too before going to Memphis. That was the first time since last year that I had to deliver to stores. The one good thing about them, they are a lot faster to off load you, even if they cant speak English. That bit does my head in, but don’t get me started on the French Canadians.

I had already done 9hrs on the Sunday, so I set of early hours Monday morning as I had a seven hour drive to be there by 1pm. Two hours up the road I hear a noise from the truck, thinking it was an air leak I stop to find the air system was ok so set off again to start to loose power. Our trucks are very well maintained, every single time you go to Woodstock, the truck has to go through the shop. Mine had just been through the night before so was a bit shocked at this. I could still drive it so took it into International, a further hour along my route. International Prostar’s have a common fault with there exhaust system. Plus these modern computer systems on vehicles are great. They can tell you what is happening to the engine at anyone time. Turns out my exhaust was at fault which in turn closed safety valves to reduce power on the engine to save it. Eight hours later I was out of International and on way to deliver. I only did one store then switched trailers at our yard there for one back to Woodstock as Joe wanted his own mechanics to replace some of the exhaust. When you go to dealers to have the truck worked on. Only one person works on it and they charge $120 per hr. our shop normally have a few guys on it at the same time, so you get less down time. With me having to come back to Woodstock a few days early. It was a waist of time sending me back out as I would not be able to go far as I wanted to be back by the end of the week anyway, so they asked me if I wanted to go home and go back out after the weekend. really good loads go out Fridays, for Monday delivery so we will see what happens.

On one of the last trips I did, I went to the Worlds Largest Truck Stop in Iowa. The truckstop can hold 800 trucks, boasts the Iowa 80 Kitchen, it’s new 300-seat restaurant with a 50-ft. salad bar, one-of-a-kind Truckers Warehouse Store, 24 private showers, Dolby Surround Sound® movie theater, Driver’s Den, Game Room, Embroidery Centre , Barber, Dentist, TA Service Centre, Truckomat, CAT Scale, Fuel Center, Wendy’s Restaurant and Dairy Queen in the Food Court and a Blimpie located in the Fuel Centre.

Here is a few pictures

Check out the licence plate

Im here.

2010-08-07T00:18:00.000-03:00

Hay people

So I guess you have been wondering where I have been….still here working hard and doing great miles as usual. Thanks for the emails guys.

The reason I have not updated the blog in a while was, when I was home just after my last post. Someone, that does not even know me, or even met me, decided to make nasty comments about me personally on another public website. They had been listening to someone that thinks they know everything and is always right. You know the type, but they are far from it. Plus they tried to tell me how I should do my blog. I had to put them very straight about that too. My blog is to keep my family and friends up to date on what I‘m up to, giving them an insight to a life as a long haul truck driver through my eyes and experiences. It is not an information website about the ins and outs of Ayr Motor. I only reference them because I work there and nothing else. If my blog helps others learn about what its like to work and live in Canada as a long haul truck driver, well im really pleased that I can help, but im sure not for one second do they think things will be the same as my experiences. We all have are own experiences, you only have to read the other blogs I follow to see that. My friends and family will tell anyone I’m as honest as they come even more so that I tell it as it is and don’t sugar coat anything. I have been the same with this blog, but I only put things down if I experience it. If you guys have read the blog from day one, you will see it has not always been easy working for Ayr. They are an hard company to work for if you don’t adapt to their way, but as soon as you work their way and really hard, they will look after you. At the end of the day, the more you earn, the more Ayr do to, but enough about them. Like I said, this blog is about me and not Ayr. I put some about my family, but Emma has her own way of letting our family and friends know what we are up to, well what she is up to, I’m never there

After the nasty comments made about me, I got all disheartened and wondered why I bother. This blog takes me hours to do, with thinking what to write, well trying to remember what I have been up to, sifting through the hundreds of pictures I take and putting some up for you to see etc. several of you have emailed me wondering where I am, and one of them really stuck out. This guy was in Canada on vacation all the way from Australia. He was going to be going through Montreal and Quebec and would have liked to go and have a chat with Ayr, but it would have been the weekend when he would have arrived. Not realising someone would have been there, he wanted to drive that extra six and half hours anyway, just to show his other half where I, Driver Dave lived. How nice was that? This and the other emails made me realise, I have a lot more followers out there than nasty people, so thanks to you guys, im going to carry on with the blog. Sorry I have not updated in a while. It just did my head in when I try to help people as much as I can and some just want to put me down. Anyway im back and will update you regular again.

I have been working really hard as usual. My last time out, I was out for nearly three weeks. With it been vacation season, a lot of drivers are off, so people like me ended up staying out longer and a lot of the teams have been temporally split up, just so no truck is sat in the yard doing nothing. Joe would never allow a truck to sit in the yard not earning. that’s why he put spare drivers in them when people like me are off, just so the truck never stops. This trip I went out on the 2nd. I had a good two and half days off before hand. On the Sunday, Woodstock had their summer parade. It must have been two miles long. Straight after that we popped into town and while I was in a shop, Emma heard on the radio about a summer fair in Presque Isle, Maine. So we got our passports, crossed the border and went up there. It was a big fair along with shows like truck mud racing, Tractor rides, petting Zoo and tiger show. we all had a good time. I took loads of pictures but on Emma’s camera, so will add some on the next post. When I got back in the truck on the 2nd, I didn’t go straight into the states like I normally do I took a load to Quebec, then picked up for Ontario where I then picked up for Memphis, Tennessee, I thought of you Auntie pam on my way past.

then my reload was from Batesville, Mississippi, which is going to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, but I’m taking it to Woodstock so I can switch for another load going somewhere else. Not sure where yet as I’m still two days away. So till next time I will leave you with a few picture out of the hundreds I have took. Have a great day.

The Temp out side while I was driving today at 5.34pm.

Stepping out of a cab of 19 degrees into 37 degrees really hits you

Nashville, Tennessee

Because of the hot weather I bought a fan to keep me cool.

Everyone else just leaves there engines running all night with air con on.

I like to save money and Engine wear.

Their vacation did not have a good start. R.V. trailer on it roof

The longest queue to cross the border from Canada to Michigan I have every been in.

It only normally takes me two mins to cross.

Prescott, Ontario

One of the U.S. Aircraft carriers at the large Navel Base at Virginia Beach

Tunnel Virginia Beach

With the hot weather the states have alot of Thunder Storms

Queue's at the Toll Booths

one of the towns in Pennsylvania

I guess they have been for sale a long long time

Same old

2010-07-05T22:39:00.001-03:00

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.

Back in Canada

2010-06-22T01:31:00.000-03:00

Well it was great seeing the family back in the UK, but it was a massive rush all the time to get and see everybody. We stayed at my brothers so a big thank you once again for having us. Now stop been such a tight ass and get your backside’s over here next year. No is not an option. That goes for the rest of you too. You will all be pleased you did. There was a lot we wanted to do while over there and just could not fit it in. we needed a month to do that. There was only one day where we kind of had time to ourselves, where we took the kids to Drayton Manor Park. They had a great time.

We set off back to the airport early Sunday morning. Landed in Toronto, then drove the 13 hours back home. We was travelling for 28hrs solid. The kids did really well. We was still in the airport and not off the plane five mins when I rang work to see where my truck was. Emma was not pleased. She thought I couldn’t wait to get back to work. Well two weeks solid with her is enough to drive anybody back to work lol. Only kidding baby xxx. I had to check if my truck was on schedule to be back in Woodstock the following day ready for me. Its not like other companies where you get to take your truck home and park it up while you are off. While they are stood, the trucks are not earning. That’s why Joe puts spare drivers in while you are off, to make sure the truck is earning him money 364 days a year. (they get Christmas day off lol). So they asked me to call the minute I was off the plane, both for them to see I was back and to give me an approx time I will be getting the truck back. It turned out it was 7 hours ahead of us. So by the time we got back home, I had time to chuck all the cases out of the car and put all my gear back in and straight to the truck. When I booked the time off, they moaned because I had not given them enough notice and made me feel that I needed to be back in the truck the second I stepped off the plane, so I did not think it through and said I would go out the day we was back, which was my birthday too. What I should have said was I would take my birthday off so we could recoup and go out the following day, but I did not realise it was my birthday at the time. Seeing as we have had to celebrate everyone else’s birthday on a different day when I have been off. Its not going to hurt to do mine when I get home next. Thank you for all the cards everyone gave me. I will be opening them when I get back. On the way back to work my truck was parked at the truck wash down the road, so I picked it up and took it back to the shop. It was a mess inside. Joe collard me thinking it was partly my mess as he was the one that personally took it to the truck wash. I pointed out that the truck is immaculate at all times when I have it. I cant stand messy trucks. So the team that was in it while I was away, where going to get an ear bashing. After cleaning it out again. I had to sit about waiting for my load to arrive in the yard. Over six hours later it turned up. Emma was not happy I had rushed around to get there early in the morning then sat around all day waiting when I could have been at home waiting. This had never happened before. Longest I have ever had to wait in the yard was about an hour. It turned out I was so glad I had waited all that time, otherwise I would have made it to my delivery in Anderson, South Carolina, the night they had a massive scary storm. Hailstone’s where as big as a quarter, (10 pence piece) massive trees where just ripped out of the ground and landing on several houses.

I was that shocked the following morning when I got there in clear blue sky’s with temperatures in the nineties, I missed a load of pictures I should have took. The clean up was already well on the way. So at first I though it was just a tree chopping crew going round with loads of debris on the roads, then I started to notice trees on top of houses ripped clean out of the ground etc. it was bizarre. The lady at my drop said the wind was that strong it nearly took roofs off the houses. Lot of people lost power and allsorts. They was warned it could happen again that night. My reload was in Florence, South Carolina so was hoping to get loaded and get the hell out but when I arrived, there was ten trucks plus four on bays in front of me waiting to be loaded. Been in a queue meant I could not go to sleep either while I waited, as we kept on having to move forward each time a truck went to load, just to allow others turning up behind us to get in the queue. Seven and a half hours later at 3am I was loaded. That broke my record for loading time. Ayr is going to charge them extra so hopefully I will get a bit extra too. Luckily no second storm. I was well tired by then so just parked up outside and got a few hours sleep before setting off to Toronto. Once dropped I picked up another load and took that back to the yard. Then bobtailed down towards my reload which was a 1am pickup. I did a bit of shopping in Walmart and Ikea. By time I had done shopping at midnight. (Ikea had a massive sale on so they was open late.) I had an hour sleep then went for my paperwork to be told come back at 5am so back to bed I went. 5am hooked up and set off to Winnipeg. At Winnipeg I expected to go to the US, but nope, my reload was back to Toronto. So that’s where I’m off to now. It is a very picturest route, so it’s nice to do from time to time, but I still prefer driving in the US.

Anyways bed time for me till next time, have a nice day.

look at these next two pics and tell me which is the UK and which is Toronto

Both are very highly populated thats why I guess alot of UK people go to live in or around Toronto.

The top one of the two is Toronto, the road gives it away.

Inmates cleaning North Carolina's Highways

My new hobby....Butterfly collection

When I first fitted the flag

6 Days later. I guess they are as good as the team, won't last till the end lol

New Drivers starting Delay

2010-06-16T01:16:00.001-03:00

Hay people. This is just a quick note to all the drivers applying to work for Ayr Motor. Some of you have not heard anything for a while and are thinking that they are not interested. Firstly if Ralph did get back to you for the rest of your paperwork, you now have your foot in the door. What is holding things up is the LMO’s. a lot of you have applied so they are going to take you on in the order you got all your paperwork in. the government are really taking there time issuing the LMO’s at the moment. So the ones in the front of the queue are still waiting for theirs. That means the rest of you are having to wait even longer. it’s a pain, but its out of Ralph’s control. So just sit tight for now. Ralph will be in touch with each of you when its your turn. It did take six months from start to arriving over here for me, but some of that was me taking two months to get all my paperwork in. so don’t worry, you will get here in the end.

I will tell you more about the vacation next time. Sleep time for me as I will be delivering in South Carolina later today. Bye for now.

Check out what’s new on my truck

I dont like Football but I just had to get them

First Canniversary

2010-06-09T16:13:00.001-03:00

So what a funny trip I have had this time. Normally everything just flows one load after another. Not this time. something must have jinxed me. I took a few wrong turns and some how everything looks really funny, and everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road.

Weather is nothing new

Dam it, how the hell did I end up in the UK….yep you read it right. Don’t worry, we are only on vacation. I could not post it before as we was surprising some of the family. We only booked it a couple of weeks before we came out. That’s why I think I was jinxed for the last couple of weeks with going back to bad luck UK. well for me anyways. Like I said, nothing flowed right when I went out last time. I went out on the Holiday Monday late afternoon. So by the time I was getting to my deliveries and collections, there would be no one to load me, I would have to wait till the morning. So I was doing some short days at first. As the days went on I managed to put some extra hours in when I could and catch up on mile. One of the reloads got me back to Woodstock five days early. Because I had been delayed the day before I thought I would do them a favour and do thirteen hours straight to get the load to the yard the same night. While I was fuelling on the way back I got a message, saying when I was back in Woodstock they was going to put a team in my truck. So I had a go at them on the phone, for taking me out of the truck five days early for my vacation. I understood why. They had a team available and they wanted to get as much time in my truck as they could while I was off. It was the fact that they did not ask me or explain why. I had to figure it out for my self. They did give me a brand new Freightliner Cascadia, just a week old to use till it was time to catch the plane though. So over the eight and half days in both trucks, I managed to do 4800miles.

My Son hiding in one of the truck cupboards

Still a place for my pop

Once back home we then had a thirteen hour drive to the airport the following day. We used to get direct flights to and from Fredericton but they stopped it last year. Now we have to fly from either Halifax, Nova Scotia, five hours away or Toronto, Ontario thirteen hours away, or take an internal flight to either airport which cost a fortune. With Emma never seeing anywhere other than New Brunswick, we decided to fly from Toronto. With the kids it was best to set off at supper time so they could watch a few movies on the laptop before going to sleep and sleeping all night. Emma drove for the first six hours. Longest she has ever done in one stint, and I drove for the rest. Not that I got any sleep before hand. We arrived at 7am so had all day to shop around, before getting on the plane.

Since we have been in the UK, it has been one rush around after another. Trying to visit all the family as much as we can. Not having time to ourselves, but thats ok, we don't come often. It is really great to see our family and friends, but as for the UK. We now know moving to Canada is the right move. Its just a pity our friends and family didn’t come with us, then life would have been perfect. When Emma first came over to Canada. We was not the sensible people that normally visit somewhere before deciding to move there. Neither of us had ever been to Canada before. So it was a shot in the dark. We did as much research as we could on the internet though. For me it was easy. I had lived away from my home town before, and I adapt really easy. Emma on the other hand, had lived in the same town all her life, so moving to Canada was a big shock. At first she just wanted to come back to the UK, then over time she as adjusted to the way of life over there. It has took some doing, she improved more these last few months where she has met more and more friends etc. Coming back to the UK on vacation, was partly to see if we had made the right decision moving to Canada. There are many things we miss about the UK, mainly family and friends, but if we was to make a list of the good and bad points on both countries. Canada would win no problem. When you live in the UK. Its just a way of life that you are used to. You don’t know any different, till you go and live elsewhere. Canada is such a laid back place. Nobody rushes around, people just drive at the speed limits, no traffic on the roads, a very easy relaxing place. They are in no rush to do anything. The only queue you see is at Tim Horton’s. (I think they cant work a kettle) Once you have lived like that for a year, then when you go back to the UK, you realise what a rat race it is to live in the UK. Everyone flying about as though there is no tomorrow. Cars speeding around, loads of traffic on the roads, queues everywhere you go like shops, supermarkets etc. Emma said when we drove to Toronto. We arrived the start of rush hour. It was the first traffic jam she had seen since we lived in Canada. When we lived in the UK, I’m a really laid back person, but I was a workaholic. I had three businesses to run so worked 18hrs a day seven days a week. I had time for nothing. Just trying to give my family a good way of life, even though I had no time to spend with them. Even been back now, all I hear from other people is they have no time to do this, that and the other. Its just not the way to live. The recession was finishing me off, so moving to Canada, was cutting my losses and starting afresh. So glad we did. I have never been so relaxed in my life than I am now living and working in Canada. Even though I’m out for two weeks at a time, then only have two or three days off. I have spent more quality time with Emma and the kids than I ever had the chance all the time we was in the UK. While I’m out on the road. Sometimes Emma gets bored though, but that is mainly because things are so much more apart in Canada and she feels like she might get lost, but after the drive she did to the airport. I think she will start and venture out abit further now as there are not that many roads to go on anyway. To give you an idea. Driving in the UK between the two furthest parts, mainly Land’s End to John O’ Groats changing from one road to the next, is more or less the same distance from Woodstock NB, to the airport in Toronto. Other than a couple of road changes in Montreal. It is one road all the way. So its so much quicker and easier to drive in Canada than the UK, so I think she will be better now.

Anyway I have rambled on wayyyy too much. Conclusion is, exactly one year to the day. Canada is a great move, So now I will shut up till we get back next week. So till then, bye for now.

Some of the places I drove through on my last trip.

One of the many yard sales you see

Our Wedding Anniversary

2010-05-24T02:56:00.002-03:00

When I left Fort Chiswell. I thought about stopping for the day without delivering it till the following morning, but because I was already a day behind, I decided to do a couple of extra hours and get my delivery made and get to my collection. I could get loaded while on my off time then. My reload was going to Nova Scotia, but again I was only bringing it to Woodstock.

It seems to be the norm at the moment to drop in Toronto and get a load back to the yard as most of the US runs are mainly coming out of Woodstock or Winnipeg. Most of the work coming out of Toronto is mainly Canada runs only. They let the Canada Only drivers take all those. We used to have loads of loads out of Toronto going to the US, but one of our biggest customers shut several of there Canadian plants down only leaving a few in Canada and the rest in the US, due to the recession, but it did not affect our work load. that’s where Ayr Motor was recession smart. We just adapted and took on other work to fill the gap. One of the ways was to take on more team work. We now run twice as many teams as we ever have. that’s one of the reasons why we are getting bigger by the day and trying to take on as many drivers as we can in order to expand.

Once I got to Woodstock and the truck through the shop, I then got a load to Avondale, Pennsylvania. With a reload from Hanover, Pennsylvania to St Damase, Quebec.

Not fun reversing onto a bay on a residential street

Then a reload from Joliette, Quebec, which was going to Nova Scotia, but again I was just dropping it off at Woodstock. I got back on the Thursday afternoon only been out for nine and half days covering 5100 miles this time, which is not bad but could have done better. I got held up at the Hanover pickup. Most of our loads the trailer needs to be totally clean and dry, but some of our loads are outside products. They tend to get the trailer wet and dirty. It then takes a couple of hours to clean and dry the floor as much as you can a wood floor. Its never totally dry though. So you have to wait till it is. It was raining that day which slowed it down even more. With the load I had. The trailer had to be extra dry or it would have ruined the load. By the time it was dry, my 14 hour window was over. So had to set off the next day. that’s one of the down sides to carrying multi loads.

While at home. It was mine and Emma’s wedding anniversary. So we got a baby sitter and went out on the Friday. On the Saturday I finally started on the land. Where the ground was not disturbed when the house was built. We have some grass, only about 20% of the land. It was well over grow. It took me eight hours and still not done. My next major purchase is going to have to be a ride on mower. I was shattered.

Some of the grass I still have to cut

Some of the grass I cut

I planned on doing more today. But we was invited to a friends cottage down the road. They are a retired English couple from Yorkshire, who have been here 30 plus years and still have the Yorkshire accent. They have an house a few streets behind us, but they also have a river front cottage 10mins down the road. They have all the Canadian toys like speed boat, sail boat, quad bike. Even a badminton court on the back garden.

My eldest on the back of the bike going down to the boat dock

View From the water up to the cottage

So we had some fun playing down there. It was hard work with the kids not staying away from the water, but its something they need to learn to be around. And like other Canadian hospitality, we get to use their property even when our friends are not around. After leaving there, we went over to D&Q for supper. With the weather been 28 degrees I wanted some ice-cream. D&Q do the best throughout North America. I have always asked for the biggest portion in the UK. So I asked for a large, (which was not the biggest) when they brought it to the table, WOW how much. It came in a cup, the same size of a large drink at McDonalds. I could not move once I finished it.

Anyway my truck has shut down for the night only six and half hours away, so I’m defiantly out sometime today (Holiday Monday) a nice bonus for that. So I wonder where I’m off to next. Till next time, Bye for now.

This was at a Truck Stop. There was six of us at one point

I had fun trying to get over the George Washington Bridge

Fun at the Circus

2010-05-13T23:19:00.000-03:00

Well my reload was not quiet to Woodstock. I had a load to St Cesaire, Quebec then reload from Granby to Montreal. Then Montreal to Woodstock. I got back on Friday night, doing 6600 miles in 12 days, usual average.

St Cesaire, Quebec

On the Saturday morning, I went to a safety meeting. They have one every 2-4 weeks and if you are at home, you are suppose to attend. I like going to them, as after nearly a year here, I still do not know everything.

Once I was back we decided to cross the border and go to Presque Isle, Maine. Its so handy only been 10mins from the US Border. Then 45 mins up to Presque where they had their annual circus. We had some great fun. The Americans sure know how to put on a good Circus. They had white tigers that did tricks just like dogs, all the trapezes artists etc. then they had these two bendy girls that both got into this little tiny clear box. It was amazing. The box was square and only came up to just above the first girls knee, so less than 2 foot sq. She bent herself in such a way and got in and filled this box. Then her sister got inside with her both entangled together. I have never seen anything like it.

My youngest son cant get enough juice. They was selling the traditional American snow cones. So I got 3 for me, Emma and eldest son. And kiddie juice bottles for the two young one’s. next thing I know, my youngest son is helping himself to my snow cone which set me off in hysterics because he got himself it such away as to stop me taking the cup and straw from him. The more I tried to get some, the more he drank. Tears was running down my face with laughter. I finally managed to get a sip, but before I could swallow he muscled in again causing me to burst out laughing and I sprayed everyone in from of me. Luckily not one person turned around. I just could not see for laughing. He has this really cute grin when he is up to no good. It was so funny.

The Sunday and Monday, we just relaxed. My truck came in Monday night, so I expected to go out that night with a load going to Evans, Georgia, but he got in about 11pm so by time it would have come out of the shop I would have been no better off, so I set off early Tuesday just before Joe go in. with Georgia been just above Florida, it was going to take two and half days to get there and as usual it sat a day or two in the yard. They wanted it the next day, so we rearranged delivery appointment to this morning. I had to set off at 5am from the exact truck stop im sat at now in Fort Chiswell, Virginia, just to get there on time. It was still dark then, but warm enough to walk round in a ‘T’ shirt, but when I arrived at the drop and jumped out the truck. I nearly jumped straight back in again. The heat just hit me, and I did not have the Air con on at that. It was so hot. Instant sweat. I was off loaded straight away, then my reload was one hour down the road in Lexington, South Carolina. I switched trailers there then set off up to Ontario. I stopped here at Fort Chiswell because North of here on the I77 and I79. There are no good truck stops for a long time so it was best I did an extra hour to get back here today, so tomorrow I can get to another good truck stop when I finish for the day. so till next time, have a great day.

First time I seen one of these coming towards me I thought it was going backwards.
The front is on the left if you did not know.

Sunny Florida

2010-05-05T22:50:00.000-03:00

Hay people. Well I got to Tampa, Florida on the Monday afternoon, 3 days early.

It was beautiful weather all the way down. Nothing below 28 degrees. Even in Woodstock it was lovely, about 25 degrees. Glad we don’t live in Alberta, they are still having snow. Because I was going to be early for delivery, they had to make me another appointment. They did not come back to me and let me know what it was knowing I would go straight to my delivery anyway to try and get it off loaded early. I was there by 3pm my time, but the guy was not helpful at all. He told me they would not touch me till 8pm and to come back then, even though there was no other trucks there and empty bays. This spoiled my plans. I was planning to get off loaded, my reload was in Orlando the following morning. So I was going to go into the one of the water parks for the rest of the day. Well it was 32 degrees. I was well gutted. Instead I went shopping in Tampa, plus had the best all you can each seafood buffet at one of the shopping malls. Normally I cook all my food in the truck to save money. Sandwiches for while im driving in the day, so I don’t have to stop then cook at night once parked up, but when I seen this Chinese place, I just had to treat myself. Four servings and a bowl of ice cream later, I was well stuffed. I then went to get off loaded, then straight to Orlando I went. I knew they was open 24hrs with it been one of our biggest customers, so managed to get loaded that night instead. It was dark on the way up there. I wanted to take loads of pics for you guys while driving through Orlando, but my phone does not take good pics on the move at night. I did manage to pass the hotel we had stayed at before. It was great been in Orlando again. Emma wants us to hire an RV and drive down for a vacation. There is a couple of places I want to stay in South Carolina on the way down too.

This is one of the places, called South of the Border

My load is going to Ruthven, Ontario, which is just over the border from Detroit. From there im guessing my reload will be taking me back to Woodstock as im due back for the weekend. So I will let you know what adventures I will be up to next time. Till then, have a great day.

one of the main streets in Tampa

Start of the Palm Trees at the South Carolina, Georgia Border

These RV's get bigger. Must be going Golfing in Florida.

You see alot of golfers with their own golf karts.

Even at the golf course in Woodstock. you see loads of Golf karts parked at peoples houses around the course.

This Limo was going into New York City

Trust me to get to Atlanta, Georgia in rush hour

Some of the town houses in Cincinnati

These Ex Cop cars are the most popular pimped up car you see around the US

My best destination yet

2010-05-01T00:18:00.000-03:00

Well I managed to get back on the Thursday night, a day early than I thought, due to driving for 11 hours on the Wednesday and 13 hours on the Thursday. I had a great three days off. I promised Emma I would take her to Bangor, Maine. So on the Saturday, we took the two hour drive down there. Its only one road all the way there, so Emma drove down. We was told it was one of the better places to go shopping. I drive through there all the time, but never stopped there before. It reminded us of the shopping malls in Orlando, Florida. We spent all day there and got back about midnight. We bought a proper American BBQ Grill. Not a massive one, but one a lot bigger than the ones you normally get in the UK. I will be setting that up when I get home next. The massive one will be the next step up lol

My truck got back Sunday night, so Monday morning I was back on the road. My first trip was to Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Very Posh place

My reload was in Ohio which was going back to Toronto.

This is Cincinnati

Then it was a reload going to Moncton, NB, but I was just taking it back to Woodstock. There was still snow around in Quebec.

I was kind of glad to go back to Woodstock as my AC belt and fan belts started to look like they needed changing. So when I got back Thursday night, I had them changed along with the service. I went home for the night, so they did not disturb me while working on the truck. I then came in this morning to find it still in the shop, waiting for me to take it round to the dealer, as my exhaust muffler was cracked and needed changing under warranty. When I got back. I went to see dispatch to find out where I was going to. I was well chuffed. I rang Emma and said ‘can you tell me what the weather is going to be like on Monday in Tampa, Florida‘. lol. I cant repeat what she said. So that’s where I’m off to.

Anyway I have wanted to do a post for a while about essential things you need when you are a long haul truck driver, and it is coming to a point when some of you new guys will be coming over and will need this info. Ralph did tell me the first ones, but I cant remember as I have a tendency to shut off when people introduce them selves or I get told names etc. sorry guys, Ralph will tell you soon.

There are several things you need, but three things you cannot do without is a truck specific GPS, Laptop and satellite radio.

North America is a very large place, 9,365,000 sq miles to be exact. There are hundreds of radio stations throughout, but they are only local stations. By the time you have driven 10mins down the road, you have to find another radio station because the one you was listening to is already out of range. Satellite radio works the same a satellite TV. It works all over North America. You can listen to the same station whether you are in New Brunswick, or in California. The only down side is like TV, you have to subscribe. For your money, you get over 130 stations covering every kind of music there is. a lot of the stations do not have adverts, so its just music music music. Then there are entertainment stations like Howard Sterns chat shows or Comedy stations, travel, weather, and sports. So what ever your taste, they have it covered. You can either buy the ones you stick to the windshield or you can be lucky like me and have it built into the truck.

With you been new to the country. You are not going to know your way around, and in this game time equals money, so the quicker you get to one place the faster you can get to the next. That’s where a GPS comes in. These days its no good just getting a normal car GPS, because they are not going to put you on the right roads. You will end up going down a wrong road to find a low bridge or weight restriction, and your are not going to be able to turn round. It is bad enough trying to turn round 50ft of European truck never mind 75ft of American truck. The police will end up coming out to block the road off, then you will get, not just one ticket, but as many as they can throw at you, costing more than it would getting the right equipment in the first place. Truck specific GPS’s have been around a couple of years now. I had one when I was in the UK, so when I moved here I did my research. My first one was a PC Miller. That was pants. Stay well clear, they still mess you up. Then I got to try the Garman Nuvi 465, which is a great one, except it is only truck specific in the US. In November the Cobra 7700 Pro and the Rand McNally TND 500 both came out at the same time. I Sold my PC Miller and straight away got the Cobra 7700 Pro. It has the exact same software as the one I owned in the UK so trusted it straight away. It uses vehicle height, width and limits along with national and state truck restrictions to provide the best route possible. Truck-Specific Points of Interest which includes all major travel centers (truck stops) with detailed amenity information such as food options, internet access, shower availability, etc. Commercial Vehicle Service & Support Information quickly find towing companies, repair shops, truck-friendly motels and emergency services. Camera and Driving Hazard Protection will avoid costly tickets with speed and red light cameras location alerts as well as speed traps and dangerous intersection notifications. So you can see they are an essential piece of kit. I could not do without mine. Even when I know where im going, I still have it on. I can give accurate eta’s and when its coming to the end of my driving hours, I can just ask it where and what are the truck stops along my route, so I just pick one and it takes me straight to it. Out of all the GPS’s on the market. The Cobra is the only one that will allow you to put the Canadian postal code in to set your destination address. You don’t even have to get the road exact as it will give you all the roads with the letters that you have typed in, even if you start to type the middle word first.

Im currently at the truck stop at the top of the list

Last of all, is a laptop. I have a program called ‘streets and trips’ on the laptop which I use to have a look at my over all routes. I mainly find my destination and see which way the GPS is going to get me there etc. I also use the laptop for internet access, plus watching TV that I have downloaded when ever I get chance.
That’s my tips to you. Well its time for bed as I have sunny Florida to get too so I will update you soon.

Sorry Sir you cant park that there, lol

Sweet home Alabama

2010-04-19T21:17:00.000-03:00

Hay guys, so I guess you have been wondering what I have been up to. Well I made it to Houston on time luckily. I had to drive from midnight the last couple of nights to get there on time. I dropped my trailer and picked up one of our empties. I then had to go to Silsbee, Texas which was just over 100 miles east of Houston. When I got there. I backed onto the bay. A few mins later, one of the loaders came and knocked on the truck door and told me they could not load the trailer because they could see a tiny little bit of daylight coming through one of the top front corners. They said I was not allowed to fix it as they wanted a receipt to show it was properly done. I was gutted as I had a choice of two trailers where I got this one from, and trust me to pick the one with a little hole in. anyway my place arranged for me to go 20 miles down the road, to have it repaired. It took them 2mins as it was just one rivet that had popped out. They even knew the company that I was picking up from, as they do it all the time. Anyway I then went back and got loaded, then went to the truck stop down the road as I was then out of hours that day. The following day, instead of taking the load to Ontario where it was destine. I had to take it back to Houston, drop it outside the place I had dropped the day before and pick up the other empty. One of our other drivers was making another delivery there later that day so he was going to take that load to Ontario. I then took that empty to Orange, Texas to collect there. That load was going to Nova Scotia, but I was just taking it to Woodstock. Because I had run hard down to Houston. I was running out of hours too fast so after my collection I decided to have the rest of the day off. Well it was 27 degrees. At midnight it was still 20 degrees. Just like been on holiday in Florida, walking around in T shirt and things. The following morning I gets three messages, two from dispatch wanting to know why I’m still in Orange and one from Joe asking me to call him. They are all just way to busy to just look at my hours to see why I had not moved. They would have realised then, but I had to explain it to Joe anyway. He was ok about it just said lets get a move on then now. So off I went, my hours back inline again so I would not run out before getting back to Woodstock. Then on the Saturday, my second day on the return journey, Seth, Joe’s son sent me a message asking me if I would switch trailers in Pennsylvania on the Sunday for one going to Moody, Alabama. Wicked, I get to stay south in the sun. To me that’s the way it should always be if you are a US driver. I’m sure I have mentioned before, but you can drive for more hours in Canada. So we can do 3500miles in the US a week and get paid the same as doing 4000miles in Canada. Your daily average hours should be 8.75hrs in the US and 10hrs in Canada so you never run out of hours. To me if you are a US driver, It is unfair in the middle of your two weeks out, they give you a load going across Canada. Because you would then probably be going into the US after, so you really have to stick to the 8.75 hours or you will run out of hours early, which makes you short on your daily pay with you getting paid per mile, as that would mean I would be about 80miles less a day while I’m doing loads in Canada. That’s a really long way of saying a US drivers should just do US loads all the time. You take a reload back to Canada then just pick another US load up and go straight back down again. It does not always work out like that though, but you know what I mean. I explained it a bit more this time, as some of you that have applied to come and work for us will not be long before your on your way. So you need to know these things. Anyway I made the switch yesterday and I’m currently sat in Knoxville, Tennessee waiting to set off again in the morning to make my delivery tomorrow. My reload is picking up at the same place. I just need to swap trailers for one going back to Ontario. From there I’m sure I will be going to Woodstock and going home for some time off. I should be home Friday privided there is no delays. That will mean over the 13 days I will have covered 6900miles which is average for me in the US. so have a great week and I will update you when I’m back on the road.

These roads our raised due to the fact for 28 miles we are driving through Marsh land.

Bikes and trikes out and about

Thats not suppose to happen

Best Cab over i have seen so far, and its from Canada

Thats the most RV's I have seen in one truck stop

The Amish people on their way back to their farms after church

Its not fair, His condo is bigger than mine.

I want that jacked up car. I used to own the standard version back in the UK as you can see below in the next picture.

These was both my cars in the UK. One of the reasons why I like living here as I love American Cars

A convertible Sebring and Ford Excursion

Texas here i come

2010-04-12T19:34:00.000-03:00

Hay people.

Well when I got back to Woodstock on the Thursday. Instead of carrying on, I went home. The other driver I had to pick up in Toronto, I was so glad to get him out of my truck when we got back. He never shut up moaning from start to finish. He seamed to be one of these people that no matter what you do, you cannot please him. He kept stopping as well, which made us run behind time with a very urgent load. On the Friday morning while I was off, work phoned me up to apologise for having to put up with him. They must have read my mind knowing what he is like lol I just said, the next time they want me to pick a driver up, that no looser’s are allowed lol.

I had a great couple of days off. On the Saturday, we all went down to Fredericton to take the kids to a in door play place, but ended up in the shopping mall instead. They have a little play gym in there also, so they had fun on that for a while. We can not walk past a kids ride without the kids going on every single one. Luckily they are not bothered if they are moving or not. lol So they had loads of fun in the mall. Then it was off to McDonalds where they have another kids play gym so again we stayed in there for a while. Then it was the usual one hours drive back home.

My truck came back early again. Late Saturday night in fact. So Sunday morning I got back in the truck to have a great load going to Houston, Texas. A four days drive, but again the trailer sat in the yard for a day leaving me three days to get there, so I maybe late. They had not fixed the air-con when we got back last week as the truck have to go after a quick greasing. So before I hooked up, I got them to fix it, as I knew the weather is 27+ down there. Im sat in Wytheville, Virginia at the moment, just over half way. Im going to be setting off early hours in the morning, then the same on delivery day, so with the 2hr time difference and me setting off early, I may get there more or less on time. I will let you know.

My route im taking

Great to see some Colour on the trees again

No Air-con

2010-04-06T22:30:00.001-03:00

We had a great Friday and Saturday after my son got back from school. We went down to Fredericton to Toys r Us for him to pick his own birthday presents, then onto a themed restaurant for our diner. Even though he came home from school with a note from his teacher saying he had only written eight words in half an hour due to chatting all the time. Nothing new there lol kids are great at his age. He is so honest. It is hard to tell him off when he drops himself in it lol Has we was celebrating his birthday a week early with me going back out on the road, I let him off.

My truck came back to Woodstock a day early, so I went out on the Sunday. My first trip was straight down to Laurens, South Carolina. One I had done many times before, and has usual, only two days to do over 1300 miles again. Ayr do it all the time. We are so busy with work. Lots of trailers sit around waiting to be delivered in all our yards due to the fact we do not have enough trucks to cover the work we have. I’m told we have 256 trucks on the road, including owner operators, and going on 400 trailers. Most of them are full at any one time, so some have to wait to be delivered. Its great for us drivers for miles, as we never have to wait for reloads. We are kept rolling all the time, but sometimes it can be a push to get there on time. Like my load got picked up on the Friday. Sat in our yard till Sunday evening when I got my truck back. For delivery Tuesday morning. I had to drive throughout Sunday and Monday night to get there on time. Luckily it was just a drop and switch, so it didn’t matter that I got there at 3am. I had max-ed my hours out so had to park up at this crappy truck stop just across the road from my drop. I only like stopping at the big chain truck stops. They are nice and clean and the drivers get well looked after. Little crappy ones are not normally open 24hr and the showers, well you need another shower after you have used them. So I try to stay clear, but your hours don’t always let you get to the big ones, so I just have to make do. Dispatch then woke me up early sending me a question over the satellite. One that I had already answered without been asked before going to sleep. So I sent a sarcastic message back a couple of hours later, when I finally got up to go for my reload. I’m very laid back so don’t rush. I don’t bother with an alarm in less I really have to I just wake up naturally, you get the best rest then. My reload was an hour down the road in Lexington, SC going back to Ontario. The weather was red hot, about 25 degrees. Emma said it was the same in Woodstock. All the kids ended up with red faces while they was playing outside, even though they had sun cream on. I put the air con on for the first time this year to find it blowing warm, so I had to drive with the windows open all day to keep cool. It was a pain as I had to turn the stereo up so I could still listen to Howard Stern. Brilliant guy, the five hours he is on each day, I could not tell you where I had been driving, I’m that engrossed lol listening to his show is one reason why I can drive for hours without stopping. The air con is the first thing I need to be sorted when I get back to Woodstock. My load was another drop and switch for an empty then they wanted me to go to the Mississauga yard for my reload, But I was already running out of hours fast, so I got a day cab to meet me with my reload, and I drove straight back into the states to Falconer, New York. It was only just over 2hrs away so I went straight there arriving early hours again. The customer woke me for the paperwork, off loaded me then I went shopping in Walmart, which was right near my reload, 5mins down the road. With me been so close to the border, I had to wait for my load to clear customs before I could cross back into Canada. That took a couple of hours but it was not a problem. It gave my hours chance to catch up again. My delivery point was near Niagara Falls. I have been past many times but never have time to call in, plus Emma would kill me if I went without her lol. Once off loaded. I had to take my empty to one of our big customers and then bobtail down the road for my next loaded trailer. That was going over to Winnipeg. It was nice going along the 17 again. It had been five months since I had been along that road, where all those lakes are. We are not allowed to take that route in the winter, as it is really bad. At Winnipeg, I then swapped for a load going to Plano, Illinois. My hours would not let me get there the night before like I normally do. So this morning, I had to set off at 3am local time. On the way down it rained so hard, I’m surprised I still had paint on the truck. Saved me washing it lol. The lightning just made it like daylight each time it went off. After I made the delivery, the day started to get hotter as it went on. By the time I had made my collection in Mount Morris, Illinois, it was 25 degrees outside and 35 in the truck. I should be back Friday, so will get the air-con fixed then. I’m delivering in Toronto tomorrow. Then I’m picking a driver up and taking him over to Woodstock, which should get us there Thursday morning. I’m told I will probably be going to Nova Scotia or something till Friday. Emma wants me back for then so she can go party again. lol She deserves the brake though. Anyway my cab has cooled to 28 so I think I better get some sleep. Bye for now.

The last of the ice floating down the St John river behind our house

These are fields flooding the roads now the snow has melted

same here

That little hut is found at alot of houses. It is for the kids to stand in, in Winter while waiting for the school bus. they come in all shapes and sizes. this was Thunder Bay where they have real bad weather.

One of the lakes on the 17

I was suprised to see this. Mind you it was near Winnipeg and it is still only making 10 degrees in day, and freezing over night.

nice sunset on the 17

They want $3500 for this. I missed out on a pic of some old Muscle cars for sale Like Dodge Chargers etc.

Biker weather again

Mix Up

2010-03-26T13:37:00.000-03:00

Well I got to my delivery a couple of hours early the following morning, so had to wait till my appointment time. Once off loaded, my reload was 40 miles down the road in Lebanon, Tennessee. Got there only for them to take 4hr to load me. Which meant I was out of hours by the time I was done. Luckily there was a little truck stop at the end of the drive so I stayed there. I needed to weigh the truck but could not do it in my off duty time, so planed to do it when I got up about 2am only to find them closed. What a bummer. So I took a chance and went to the Flying J in Franklin, Kentucky. I knew I would be ok for overall weight, and the weight on my drive wheels as the truck tells me. So I was pretty sure I was safe. The load was going to Toronto. I planed on stopping in London, Ontario, but that was only an hour and half from our yard so dispatch wanted me to carry on. I then had to wait up for someone to fix my satellite GPS on the truck as it kept going wrong and dispatch would know I was moving because they can see how fast the truck is going all the time, but did not know where I was. The guy finally turned up at 9pm, I had been up since 2am. So was well tired. My reload was going back to Woodstock. I was not looking forward to that. That night they had shut the 20 off due to a bad accident in the snow in Quebec. They had a real bad storm. I got a message, once I got back did I want to go home. I had already told them, I didn’t want to go home till the 31st as I wanted to be home for my sons birthday, so said no I will continue on. When I got back yesterday, they wanted me to go to West Virginia for delivery today. I had the hours but when Joe asked me what hours I had left, he miss understood what I meant. So he thought I had not got the hours. Anyway with the mix up. I said I would go home. The fleet manager was not happy as Joe was screaming at him to get someone to get in my truck to take the load, while im off. Least I will know how to explain it to him next time, so there is no mix up. The pain is I will now miss my son’s birthday even though Joe did say he will try and get me back to see him. Instead we are going to do something while I’m off. So I better get dressed as he is due home from school soon, so till next time, have a nice day.

This was Ontario nice and sunny, then...

2hr later in Quebec

lots of snow again

They have these Sandwich vans here too, but in Quebec they are permanently fastened up to those sheds to make snack shops at rest area’s

That train to the right was a mile long

Oooops

Thats what you call an RV trailer

Shadow of my truck on a tanker as we pass

Snow....Again

2010-03-21T17:17:00.001-03:00

Well I had my 24hr off and set off about 2am, getting to the yard to drop my trailer then they gave me another to deliver in Winnipeg. Wow it was cold in Winnipeg, still in the minus and Emma told me it was +15 degrees in Woodstock. I do remember watching the temps in each province last winter before we came out and Winnipeg was the coldest throughout, except northern Canada of course. Once I was empty it was down to Carman, MB to reload going straight back to Le Vergne, Tennessee. Because I have to preserve my hours now so I never run out. It meant I had to do three over nights again, so I have been setting off at midnight local time then sleeping late afternoon till time to set off again. Yesterday I got to Sioux Falls again. They had got flood watch in South Dakota. The fields was flooding with the melting snow and over flowing into the roads.

Sun rise over South Dakota

Today I drove nine hours straight to Warrenton, Missouri. Where I am now, Then tonight I will drive to the customer for delivery in the morning. I got a bit of a shock by the time I reached just before Kansas City. They had had a lot of snow. Luckily the roads was clear but black ice in places. At first I kept looking at the snow thinking was it there the other day. Driving at night in the US or Canada is not easy as 98% of roads do not have street lights or cats eyes in the road etc. The painted lines do not reflect either so all you can see is what your lights show. So at first I was not sure if I was just seeing what was left or fresh, till I got to the city where the streets had lights. Wind was bad too. I was having to steer into the wind just to go straight. I soon slowed down when I went down this hill where the roads started to be wet and this bridge was just black ice. I was half hour away from here before I had passed all the snow. I thought I had seen the last of it, but nope. There was more cars in the ditch, I lost count after about 40. Anyways time I was asleep again so will leave you with a few more pics.

That one is not going to be easy to get out. some while it was really dark was on their side.

Two cars here

Hospital Trip

2010-03-18T20:52:00.001-03:00

Well the logs never got moved. The ground is really soft with the frost melting out of the ground so I would have needed wellies (Canadians don’t recognise that word lol) not sure if mine made it to Canada or not. We are having unusual nice weather, even though it was only about 7 degrees, which without wind is nice and warm, on the Friday we decided to take the kids to the park. We was there a while having a great time till my eldest tripped on some plastic stepping stones, bashing his chin, splitting it open, and the more he cried the bigger the split got. So off to hospital we went. He his a very bright boy and knew exactly what was coming. He was not going to let it happen either. He kept getting up asking the doctor what he was going to do. The doctor turn out to be one of our neighbours. As he would not keep still. They ended up wrapping him up like a baby and holding him down so they could put four stitches in him. He put up a fight but was ok once they had finished. He got a great big banana split from Dairy Queen out of it and he polished it off too. Now we will have matching scares. I was about 12-13 when I did mine though.

My truck did not get back till Saturday afternoon, so it was tea time before I was getting back in. I managed to have my inverter fitted so I could put my Microwave in the truck and start and save a lot of money on food while im on the road. Next thing will be a fridge. It is real easy to spend $150 a week on food and I only have two meals a day just to save some money. So I’m already saving loads on food. It his tempting though every time I go into a truck stop to have a buffet meal or a big fat 18” pizza, but so far I have been good and cooked what I had in the truck. Sometimes its not easy parking a big truck in a supermarket car park though, but its not unusual to see either.

Anyway my first load was to Chicago, which was just over 1300 miles, but I had to be there by 6am Monday morning. So as always it was the night shift for two nights getting there on time. Now I have my own truck I cant do like I did when I was slip seating and max out my hours each day. So I do not run out of hours early, I should only average 8.75 hours a day in the States. Canada you can do more. Because I only had two nights to get there I had to do the US maximum of 11 hours each night to get there, so already I was running out of hours. My reload I expected to go back to Canada, but I had to do a switch at a customers and take a load down to La Vergne, Tennessee. Excellent I so prefer driving in the states. My reload was in Batesville, Mississippi which was four hours away but in the direction I need to go as it was going to Winnipeg. Luckily I had three days to get it there and I was still doing the night shift, I was still doing to many hours just to get me to the truck stops I wanted to stop at. So by the time I reach Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I only had 19 hours left to do over three days, and I knew my reload was going to bring me right back into the States, which would mean I would run out of hours. Well I was due to arrive tonight, a day early, so I let dispatch know, I was taking 24hrs off and setting off tonight and get there early in the morning. They could see it made sense, so that’s where I am now, but should get some sleep before I set off so I’m off, till next time, night night.

Entry and exit ramps here are like going round a roundabout. They all have speed limits on everyone of them. If you don’t follow that and go to fast. This is what happens. It was one thing they drilled into me when I was training, as i never slowed down enough at first

This women met the side of a van

He had a rottweiler dog in that truck. No one was going to nick his truck lol. I don’t know how people can take pets with them. The trucks must smell well nice. ..Not lol I notice women are the worst for it. I pulled at the side of this women’s truck the other day. She had the biggest fluffy cat sat on the dash I have ever seen. Cat litter trays in an house is bad enough but in a truck Wow I just could not do it. lol

Un-Marked Cop car

I think this was a Baseball Stadium in Kansas City

Somewhere in Missouri

Thats World of Fun in Kansas City

Long Loading Days

2010-03-10T17:41:00.000-04:00

Well got off loaded Monday morning then it was off to Albion, Michigan which was just under an hour south. This meant I had to cross at Detroit. It is not easy to cross there as you have to go through the city more or less to get to it, and its all messed up. Yet it’s the busiest port crossing in Canada, letting over 6000 trucks a day cross.

This is me crossing the Ambassador Bridge from the US on the left to Canada on the right of the picture.

Once across the border, my load was going to Ottawa, Capital of Canada, but I was just dropping it at our yard in Toronto and switching for an empty to go to another part of the city to load. The only down side to running single is you have to wait to be loaded and unloaded. Teams just drop and switch trailers saving hours upon hours. Canadians and Americans are just so laid back. They don’t worry about how long they take. Sometimes it can be only an hour, other times it can be six hours. Its ok for them, they get paid by the hour. Me I get a loading fee, but I can earn loads more driving than loading. So the longer I’m unloading/loading, the more I’m out of pocket. This is why now I have my own truck, I would like really long runs. As the less actual delivery days I have, the more miles I can do. Delivery days are always long days, that’s if you try and do your average daily miles too. Like this time, my off loading in the morning took 3+ hours and my reloading at night took 3hrs. Then to do at least 500miles a day, that takes eight and half hours. So delivery day I end up doing my maximum working day of 16hrs, just to do as many miles as I can.

When I pulled off the bay, I jokingly made a sarcy comment, “Wow, the three hours it took you to load me, I would have expected to have a trailer full to the brim.” It was only 25% full. I then drove till the early hours leaving me 10.5 hours left to get back to Woodstock the following day, which got me back late last night. This meant I had no more US hours left, so decided to come home for a couple of days to reset my hours. Then I will be back out on Friday, hopefully with the truck left as clean inside and out as I left it. The outside of the truck was Black,

Joe would have not been happy seeing it this morning in that state. So I took it to the truck wash early hours this morning. It took him an hour to do it. Then into the shop for maintenance.

We have had great weather these last couple of weeks, still only reaching 4-8 degrees but the snow has gone except the odd patch. Which is great except for one reason. I now have to find time to landscape my land as it still looks like a building site, all 5058 square meters of it.

Guess I better get dressed and get started by stacking the logs I just chucked out of the truck, so off I go till next time. Have a nice dayyyy

This is Montreal. All the housing estates in the cities are no Different here as back in the UK.

All the houses are packed in like sardines

No more Ice here either

Back running single again.

2010-03-07T22:53:00.000-04:00

Well I made the collection and off to Hearst we went 660 miles away. Gets there and sent the message, ETA on the other truck. Gets one back, carry on to Winnipeg. I was not impressed. I don’t think they had intentions of switching us, even when an eastbound team pulled in at the side of us, so off to Winnipeg we went. Luckily after we left New Brunswick, the weather was clear skies and dry roads all the way to Winnipeg, except a couple of flurries near Longlac. We then switched for a load going to Plano, Illinois, which is near Chicago. We stopped at Fargo, North Dakota to fuel and shower etc. when I got back to the truck, we had a message to switch in St Cloud, Minnesota, for an urgent load going back to Toronto. That was good as we was going to be 12hr’s early for Plano anyways. Then from Toronto, we got a load back to Woodstock to drop Ion off as promised. We got back about 4am. It was great to finally get my truck back to myself. we did do some excellent miles though. 1200miles a day, so was not a bad week really.

I was not expecting a reload till the morning, but when I handed my paperwork in for the trailer I just brought, he gave me my reload straight away. Great I could get straight off as the night shift in the shop had just gone home and the day shift was not due in till 6am. So could skip that and go. That was till I scaled the load to find it was only a few pounds short of 80,000lb which is the max you can take into the states. Canada you can carry more, so the trailer wheels was not in the right place to balance the load, neither was the fifth wheel. It took nearly an hour to find the right balance for the drive wheels and the trailer wheels, but the only way it would do that was to have 100lb to heavy on the front wheels. My fuel tanks where only half full at that, so I had to keep running the tanks down to nothing before just filling them less than half full to keep the weight down. Had I been here before I would have known there was no scales to cross once I got in the states as a thousand miles of the route was through Canada anyway. The other two hours was in the states, so all that hassle I had, I could have just left the trailer alone. Anyway that brings me to where I am now. Lansing, Michigan, waiting for the morning to off load. So time for bed. Till next time, have a nice day.

Notice the snow is starting to melt in most places, gone in others.

This is Ontario, the snow has already gone here. hopefully its that last we see of it, but i won't hold my breath. its too early yet.

Must be getting warm, the first splat on my windshield this year

These are the new trikes they have here. No point having two wheels, your not allowed to filter down traffic here anyway.

Finally….YES

2010-03-02T23:43:00.000-04:00

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

Layover in South Carolina

2010-02-20T22:09:00.001-04:00

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.