Winters not quite finished.

Seeing as its a leap year and today is the 29th February 2012, mother nature has no regard for things such as this.  She is not quite finished dumping the white stuff on us, although I can't really complain as its been a very mild winter here on the Island.

I have also been very lucky that the storms here on the east coast and across to Toronto, I have managed to avoid, this is more down to luck than judgement.

These are just a few photos of what we had Yesterday the 28th February 2012.

This was taken at 10am

See how the wind has shaped the snow on the car.

The drifts got a lot bigger as the day went on.

Our drive is under there somewhere

A Quiet February.

In general its been a very quiet month in terms of miles, and also nothing really noteworthy to write about.  A quick 3 day trip to Toronto and back both Ian Newman and myself, Tissue/diaper products up to Irving Tissue in North York then 2 LTL loads back to Dieppe. A nice quick 2000 miles.

Then last week I get a dispatch to Westborough Massachusetts, 2am delivery with a load of Burger King Fries.  Tipped that off and then run empty to Jersey City, New Jersey.  An hour after leaving Westborough and not long after crossing the state line into Connecticut I ran in to a real bad snow storm, now normally this would not bother me, however there were a few factors that I had to take into consideration,

1. I was empty
2. The rate and volume of snow falling
3. Lack of snow plows
4. The local natives who have as much skill in driving in snow as my Basset Hound!
5. My load did not have to be in Toronto until 14.30 the next day.

So next rest area I pulled off and had a very nice 3 hour snooze! 

Just as well for 10 miles down the road the I95 both directions had been closed due to a Semi which had lost control in the snow and had jack-knifed across the interstate.

Thanks to my exceptional navigation skills (I was talking to local drivers on the c.b.) I managed to avoid the delays by taking to the side roads and thus avoiding further delays.

From there it was business as usual, the weekly battle to cross the Bronx, into New Jersey, then a nice 500 mile drive to Toronto, stopping for the night at the Flying J at New Milford, Pennsylvania.

The following day:- 

A very rare thing in Midland circles for us loadhaul triangle drivers, within a few Min's of tipping, A PRE-PLAN!  Yes dear friends, there was a load ready to roll east sitting at Brampton Terminal with my name on it.  So within an hour of leaving my delivery point I was heading out of the gate towards home.  So instead of a Monday arrival I was home and in my own bed Sunday night after dropping a loaded trailer off to our Charlottetown Terminal.

An Englishman, Welshman & A German go to New Jersey.

Tuesday 8th February, I get a call to take a load of fries to a regular customer in Linden/Elizabeth, New Jersey.  I had been talking to my buddy Ian Newman (englishman) that day and he was also going to the same place and as it happens another one of our buddies Klaus (the German) was also going there as well. So we all meet at Cavendish Farms who produce potatoe products which are shipped all over the world.  So next time you tuck into your fries at Burger King or Wendy's you may be eating PEI spuds!  After a lot of mucking about trying to find our trailers we were ready for the off. Its about a 16 hour drive door to door.

Klaus had the first delivery appointment of 11.30 eastern time on Thursday night, Ian was booked for 6am the following morning and my appointment was for 9am.  We decided to all get there together and see if they would take it early. We decided to stop at Dysarts Truckstop in Bangor Maine for the night, then off to Walmart in Newport, Maine the following morning to stock up with groceries, we drove through to Milford City in Connecticut for Fuel and the final 2 hour push through New York and a very quiet Cross Bronx Expressway, on to the New Jersey Turnpike and eventually to Preferred Freezers at Linden NJ.

We arrived about 7.30pm and after parking the trucks we wandered to the receiving office gave them our bills and cell numbers and they said they would call when they wanted us and would TRY! to get us unloaded early. Well that turned out to be a dream as Klaus was kept to his appointment time as was Ian and so was I, gutted as these people at Preffered are not the quickest. I got on a door at 9am and pulled off at 1300!

Railroad runs through the middle of the delivery site.

After the delivery's, Klaus gets a reload out of Tropicana in Jersey City, 10 mins away, Ian gets a load of melons from Vineland NJ and I get a load of plums from The Port Of Wilmington in Delaware. All loads bound for the Greater Toronto Area. Ian's load is booked for midnight and mine for 1am, only one small problem, its about 8.5 hours drive to Toronto and we did ot finish loading until 7pm!!!!

So Ian and I arranged to meet at the Allentown Plaza north of Philidelphia and stayed there the night.  We set off about 06.30 the next morning and headed north, roads were quiet dry and empty.
We arrived at the border and I get a message to take my load to our terminal in Brampton as the customer does not want it until the following day - sweet, Ian however has to deliver his and gets messed about for over 3 hours. 

Well I stay in Brampton for 16 hours until Ian knocks on the door, "check your messages I just got a load", sure enough, BEEP, and there is a LTL to PEI, trailers ready and so is Ians,  We both have to call in to the Dieppe NB terminal and leave our trailers there and the following day we arrive drop trailers and are allocated an empty trailer each to take back to Cavendish Farms on PEI.

Build up of snow on one of the trailers at the Dieppe Terminal after the storm the day before.

Me on left & Ian's on the right after hooking on to empty trailers at our Brentwood Yard in Moncton, bound for PEI.

So after dropping our empty trailers at Cavendish Farms I headed the 11km home and Ian the slightly longer trek to Charlottetown.  2559 miles and 5.5days and a lot of needless wasted time, had things gone to plan would have been home after 4.5 days. Never mind eh?

   

California Continued Again

As we left off in the last post I was just about to cross the state line into New Mexico.

One of the things that stands out is the way the land changes from flat desert to hilly green areas so quickly. The other thing to remember is that unless you have the correct permits you will have to stop at the scale as you cross the state line and pay to cross the state. as I was going from one side to the other I had to pay $60.00.    So with that all out of the way it was onward to Arizona.

Day 6 and we finally reach California. Now when you think of California you think of Hollywood, LA and its beaches, movie stars, fruit, wine and Money.  Now as you have seen on entering each state the signs have been colourful and informative. So I would have expected something special and was greeted to California with this!

Whoop De Frikkin Do. What a total dissapointment.