Steve's Trucking Big Canadian Adventure: March 2010

Monday 8th March, Got a call to go in to work at 10.00am, not sure on the destination, but had a pleasant surprise when I arrived, you got a load to Morehead, Kentucky. At last I thought I finally get to see somewhere different to the Triangle. I had to go load 42000lb of seed potatoes from a farm near Summerside on the Island. So after washing the truck and my pre trip checks I hooked up to my trailer and set off to load. At 2.30pm fully loaded I wished I had not bothered washing the truck

Loaded ready to leave for Kentucky.

So off we go I am really looking forward to this run as I did not have to be at the delivery point until Thursday morning, I can have a relaxing 1400 mile run and eat and sleep normally on the way there.

YEAH RIGHT.

I had not gone a mile down the road and disaster! A huge jolt and total power loss, what the ...............?

I coasted down the hill to a safe parking place and set about trying to find the problem, now the truck would turn over but not fire up. There is fuel in the tanks, no sign of any fluid leaks, under the hood everything looked ok, so standing there scratching my head her comes Greg and Mr Henson in another truck on route to load, so they stop and a phone call to the shop it seems to be a chaffed wire from the battery. Well after some yanking and tugging on wires the truck bursts back into life. Ok I thought, problem solved so I was advised to return to the shop and get the problem fixed. Now the shop is about Half hours drive, so I thought ok we might loose an hour but no major problem. Wrong again, I got half way back and cough cough splutter came to a grinding hault half way up Boneshaw Hill. So I jumped out the truck, off with the battery box cover and after muck yanking and tugging of the wires, nothing despite all best efforts, I gave up, called Blaine and was told sit tight and he would be there soon. So out with the warning triangles and sit and wait for help.

A sorry sight on Boneshaw Hill

Blaine arrives with a new connection wire for the truck and despite several attempts to breath life into the truck, no joy, oh well call for another truck to drag mine from under the trailer and call a wrecker to take mine back to the shop.

Pete wrecker hooking up to my truck

Reversing my Truck into the shop.

Now the time is 5.30pm and eveyones gone home its just me and Blaine, so he hooks the computer up to the truck and starts reading the fault codes but no joy nothing is making sense so after a lot of head scratching and checking of various patrs of the truck he finally locates the problem. Its a corroded wire in the wiring harness over the top of the engine block! So a quick snip here and a connector there and............ VROOM

We have life. So a few extra checks and replacing of the protective covering for the wires, we get the "your good to go" now its 7.30pm, Oh well we still got plenty of time to get there so as I'm hooking back up to my trailer, Frank one of the German drivers turns up and he is also delivering to the same place as me, so now I have company for the trip. So after hooking up to his trailer off we go finally some 8+ hours since I started this run and i'm not off the Island yet. So I decided I was going to run as far as Woodstock and Frank would go through to Bangor in Maine where I would catch up with him the following Morning for breakfast.

Well the following morning I'm up and into the USA via Houlton, Maine and a couple of hours later pull up next to Frank in Dysarts Trucksop in Bangor. After a very nice breakfast off we set south. Now during the run down we stopped a few times for groceries and coffee and food, and during the trip got to get to know Frank a lot better, and during our conversatons found out his surname translated means Lord, so for the remainder of the trip we will now refer to him as Lord Frank of Germany, he thought this was hilarious and will now stick for the future. We decided to stop the night at the Super 8 motel by the TA truckstop near Newburgh NY on the I84, why you may ask? Easy answer, free wi-fi from the Super 8 and a lot quieter than the TA. Next morning grabbed some fuel in the TA, a shower and A great breakfast buffet!

In beautiful sunshine we cross into Maryland and into some serious mountains with climbs upto 2000 feet

Amazing views across Maryland on one of the many climbs.

What goes up must come down!

Highway cut through the mountain

First time I've seen bears on warning signs over here.

Yabba Dabba Doo....................

So after a hard drive through the mountains we enter West Virginia

Now what I was enjoying the most beside the stunning countryside was watching the temperature gague going up and up and up the further west we were going.

Here was something I was totally un-prepared for,

These were just two of many dotted along the highway grazing, just feet from traffic!

You gotta love West Virginia, 70mph for trucks as well!

So on we go through West Virginia stopping for fuel and food at a Pilot then on towards Kentucky.

Entering the state of Kentucky Home of Burbon and some bloke's fried chicken!

So a little later we are parking at the Flying J for the night after a nice days drive some stunning scenery.

Next mornin after a lovely shower and a great breakfast buffet the biggest surprise todate of being in North America, Kentucky is one of the only states where its still legal to smoke indoors.... There is a GOD.

Well we only got another 50 mile to drive so off we go.

Coming off the highway at Morehead following Lord Frank of Germany

Journeys end and another little surprise is in store, not only is the address wrong, but when we finally find the delivery point, we are greeted with sorry guys we have not ordered these potatoes and were not expecting them today or here, you might have to go somewhere else with them. Well we see the funny side of this and go park the trucks while the guys go try and sort this out.

Journeys end time to let them have a rest

Lord Frank of Germany

Yours truly enjoying a bit of R&R

17 degrees a lovely warm day in Kentucky.

Well it took 2 hours but we got the ok to unload our spuds and Lord Frank gets a message to head up to Ohio to reload and I get a message, we are working on your re-load, translated this means we dont have anything yet! That was to be true for the next 4 hours!

At 3.30pm I get the message get on your way to Huntingdon West Virginia ASAP, collection details to follow!

On route the collection details arrive, collect a load of Carbon in 1000lb tote bags for Mississagua. Now Huntingdon is only 70 miles away so so at 5pm I'm on a loading dock and 20 mins later I have 20000lb of Carbon on board and after completing the paperwork I'm heading for Canada. The weather by now had turned to rain and heading out of Huntingdon I spotted this rainbow.

So off back towards the mountains in West Virginia, then up through Pennsylvania and into New York state, skirting Lake Eire crossing at Fort Eire adnd onwards towards Toronto. I was empty by 1.30pm and sent my message saying I was empty. A couple of hours later my re-load came through, head to Loblaws at Cambridge there is a loaded trailer for Moncton New Brunswick, Tidy thought this trip is getting better, so I arrived at Loblaws and thats when the wheels of this trip fell off, went to see Maria in the cross dock and was told " sorry Steve half the produce has not arrived yet, it will be sometime tomorrow before its loaded"

Well at least I got a good nights sleep!

19 hours later I am checking out at security for a 6am delivery on Monday, this is now Saturday afternoon and after leaving and heading towards Toronto and straight into this.

You can do nothing but have patience!

Parked up for the night at the Flying J in Montreal and had a very nice run on Sunday Parking up in Salisbury NB an hour later than I had planned as I forgot the clocks went forward an hour early hours Sunday morning!
I meet up with Dallas in Salisbury and spent the evening drinking coffee and putting the world to rights.
I get a message asking me to tip another trailer whilst i'm in Moncton Monday morning, ok I'm not happy about doing other peoples work, but I'm a team player and agree to do this. Dallas then says I'm going solo to Moncton I'll pick up the trailer and put it on a bay for you. You come down later with yours then take the other trailer back to PEI when its empty. He is a top man, and an excellent cook as we had dinner with him and his wife Monday night, first home cooked meal I have had since I got here.

Anyway 4am Monday my cell phone rings, its Dallas, "you better get over here there is a problem with this trailer" what nobody told me was that the trailer is for the freezer warehouse and you can't drop it. So I dressed grabbed a Timmys and head off to Moncton 15 mins away. I dropped my trailer on a bay hook up to the other trailer and off to the freezer warehouse on the other end of the industrial estate. 6am I am allocated a bay, 7am I am empty, 10.30am I get my bills and can leave!!!
So I am then asked due to a vehicle breakdown can I put another trailer on a door and then drop it back to the City Cross Dock pick up my original trailer and fetch it back to PEI, like I said I'm a team player so off I go to find the other trailer only to spend half an hour looking for a trailer that has dissapeared of the face of the earth. A message to the office to that effect, I go hook back up to my original trailer and at 1pm am pulling up back at the yard. All in all a great trip except for the Loblaws farce, but thats part of trucking here in North America, so I'm now just waiting for a call to let me know when I'm going back out.

These photo's are for my Nephew - Moggsy. He is a big fan of Mack the truck in the film Cars and I could not pass up the chance of a few shots, so thanks to the driver for waiting while I took them. Had this been a Uk truck and driver chances are he would have told me to P**S Off, get a life then run me over!

On a more positive note I got the ok to buy my car and have been to insure it today and hope I can collect it on Wednesday 17th before I ship out.

Russell left for Goshen again tonight poor sod, another trip to those Evil Twins.

It was a very boring month in terms of destinations this month, Goshen - Goshen - Goshen! 3 weeks on the trott. It felt as if I was being punished having to do this but at least the wheels are turning. After unloading there it was straight down to New Jersey loading fruit for Toronto. The only event of any note was the second trip to Goshen, having tipped there I get a message to head to Pennsylvania to collect a load of Mushrooms for Montreal, so i decided to head for New York City then turn off for New Jersey. Well I set off and not realising how tired I was I was driving along and before I knew it I had passed my exit, Now being tired I was not thinking straight and decided to take another way to Jersey. BIG Mistake. I should have back tracked but carried on regardless well things go from bad to worse, I found my way to the Cross Bronx Expressway then turned onto the wrong ramp and headed straight into the Bronx, this place was never designed for big rigs, so not being able to turn around I carry on into Queens and eventually end up at the last exit for the Midtown Tunnel for Manhattan. Its a 12' 1" headroom and the Truck is 13' 6" so I threw a big U-turn at this intersection and stopped on the on Ramp to try and find my bearings. I eventually found where I went wrong and kicked myself for the soft mistake I made. You dont realise how much fatigue catches up with you and how it effects your judgement in these situations. well this little excursion cost me over 2 hours and eventually cost me the backload as I could not make it to my shippers before they closed, so that resulted in stopping In Carneys Point for the weekend, which was great cos I managed to catch up on some sleep.
So now I have to call dispatch Monday at 8.30 to see what they have for me, My buddy Russell gets the honour of going to Goshen this week and leaves Sunday Night (today)

Its now starting to thaw in most places I go and the Northumberland straight which seperates PEI from Mainland Canada Is now thawing at a rate of knots and its making a nice change to see grass and water around the place instead of snow. Now with any luck I might get a change of destination monday so I will have more to write about in my next Post.

One highlight this week was my first night out in Charlottetown to see a friend playing with his band, so me, Russ and Dave who just arrived from the UK jumped in a cab and headed for what we hoped would be a good night out, we were not dissapointed, the band were fantastic, the company was great and 1 or 2 pints of Coors light were consumed.

March is going to be a busy month now our House is on the Market back in the UK, i have been to see various people about mortgages, houses etc, etc. Its very difficult to arrange these meetings when you don't know when you will be back on the Island and due to work volumes the company want to turn you straight around with another run. I dont like turning work down but I also don't like facing the prospect of living out of the truck 24/7 if I don't sort out some housing as its only 3 weeks before Russells family arrive here.
The people I am dealing with are fantastic, they are trying to organise things based on the information I have given them while I'm off the Island and all communication is done via e-mail. So for now its back to the house hunting and I hope to have more to tell you next week. In the meantime here are some photos I took on my travels in February.