I got my truck back !

Hi all, well checked out of the Sandman Hotel and went to H&R.
Saw Deb and was told I had to bobtail to High River (100mls) and pick up my trailer. All went sweet, helped a mate slide his axles as they had frozen solid then on my way by 2pm. As it was so late I could not clear meat inspection so dropped the trailer in the yard and went to Safeway as they are open all night and have wireless internet. In the morning I found out some trailers had been broken into and boxes had been stolen. Bear in mind 50 x 25kg of prime rib costs a fair whack.
Anyway, meat inspection was busy but I was cleared to go in about an hour so off I went to pick up my truck. From now on I shall call her 3929 which is my fleet number.
I got to Billings Montana about 1730, the picture above is the city from the main road that runs by the airport.
On the way though there was a few dramas. The snow in Alberta/Montana is very dry, almost like flourand it likes to get blown about. The pic above shows how visibility can be reduced instantly if the wind pics up or a truck clips some of the snow. I went from 65mph to 20mph in a matter of seconds as I was totally blinded.
At Billings the handover of the rental truck went smooth and I set off in 3929.
The comfort,space and gearbox seemed like heaven considering what I had been used to for the last 13 days, it was a pleasure to have her back.
Today,saturday 30th has been pretty uneventful really. Bought a few bits and pieces from Walmart and drove 805km. Parked at the Flying J Limon/Colorado which is a bit of a hole as the truck park is a dust bowl. Still, it has everything you want and good food.
Right, off for some tea now, its 1930 and going to check the menu for something different to eat.

Getting my truck back. Wahey !!!!!

Hi all, its been a few days since the last post but I haven't forgotten about you.
The drive up from the Grand Canyon was ok, I got to see a bit of Utah on monday morning and its quite nice, plenty of mountains and 6 lane highways once you hit Salt Lake City.
Haven't told you yet but when you load from the states you have to clear customs to bring the load into Canada. Its quite an easy process which involves a lot of copying and faxing to the broker who deals with the import. A barcode system is used and if all goes well you pull up to the checkpoint at the Canadian border, they scan the code,stamp your paperwork and off you go. Easy. The process is a little different if you are bringing meat/meat products or deravitives of meat.
So I arrived back in Canada monday at about 1100 and ran to the yard.
The load had been rebooked so the trailer was dropped and I was told the good news...My truck is fixed Hooray.
I need to get to Billings Montana so a load had to be found which will take me that way. Deb, my fleet manager sorted me out with a load to Booneville Arkansas but it doesnt load until tomorrow which is Wednesday ,so, here I am in the old faithful Sandman hotel.
H&R drivers get a discounted rate when we stop here, its roughly half price and costs $54 per night. As I didnt get finished till late afternoon I stayed at the hotel carpark and slept in the truck. When I woke up there was about 3" of snow on the ground and the temperature had plummeted to -12c. Its freezing !
As I write this blog Tuesday 27 2000hr the snow is gently falling again so god knows what it will be like in the morning. Its only a few days ago I was sweating in temps of 28c.
Ok, am going to post a few pointers for any lads coming over here in the near future in the side bar and then watch some TV.
Will keep you up to date while on my trip to Arkansas.

Grand Canyon National Park (click pic to supersize)

Today has been the best driving experience of my life. I have witnessed the most stunning landscapes that I have ever seen. Forget Europe as there is no comparison. Today I drove through the Grand Canyon National Park and it was just awesome
The first part of the drive was a gruelling climb that went on for what seemed like hours and brought me out at a place called Flagstaff. All the way up the climb is cactus and some of the greenest parts of the USA I have seen.
Once past Flagstaff the view opens out into a vast desert of dry grass but this soon gives way to red soil and rocks and then all of a sudden there it is, the most wonderful scenery. Huge ridges tower above the truck, on the ground below native Indians have set up home and every few miles they sell trinkets at small roadside shacks
The pics I have taken do not do the place justice, I cannot believe that I get paid to drive through places like this.
As I crossed into Utah it was dark so unfortunately there are no photos of that bit but in the moonlight it did look pretty impressive.
The trip today from Eloy Arizona to Richfield Utah will stay with me forever, of that I have no doubt.

Idle Air

Here is a better picture of how Idle Air fits to the window. A plastic template is provided which fits your truck. You basically wind your window down, pop the template in place and wind the window up securing the template then fit the flexible hose. I couldn't get hold of anyone who had it fitted so I could get a pic from the inside of the cab.
H&R trucks are fitted with a small generator (Tripac) which not only monitors the charge of the truck batteries but also provides aircon, night heating plus a mains electrical supply. As far as I am aware the tripac does not come under anti-idling laws.

Breakdown...Again !!!

Thought it was too good to be true. 1159 miles of easy empty running across Texas, New Mexico and into Arizona, nice warm temps then bang, it all goes a little bit wrong.
I find out that I have 5 collections in Nogales Arizona, luckily enough they are all within a stones throw of each other and it took about 5hrs to get them all on. I then had to use the weighbridge and found out I was 3500lbs heavy on the arse end so after a bit of jiggling the axles about (will explain when I have more time) and 2 more weighs I finally get myself legal.
I have talked about the satellite in previous posts and I really missed it today. The idea is we send a message when we arrive at the customer, when we are loaded and with what. I would of had to do this 5 times and then I would of sent a final load call which would summarize the total loading plan which dispatch can check to make sure there has been no blunders. I had to use the phone and it was a nightmare.
So, finally loaded I set off,me and my load of waremelons,greenbeans,courgettes and cucumbers. I pulled in for fuel at Eloy and saw the whole truck and trailer was covered in oil with a massive pool underneath the engine. I had to call the rental company who were superb and had a mechanic with me within 20mins. One of the oil filters had slightly loosened itself and sprayed its mess everywhere. It was promptly fixed at a Petro service centre and I was free to go.
I am now sat at a truckstop waiting for the morning so I can get a decision on who is going to pay for the truck to be washed. Total cost of callout,oil and filters was $311. The bulk of that was labour at $203 so its no different to the UK when it comes to being ripped off by garages.
My camera has ran out of battery life so not a lot of pics to be had lately. Its a shame as came past some signposts in New Mexico saying I was in a USAF test area, signs warning me that "dust storms exist" and a few telling me not to pick up hitchhikers as there were prisons nearby.
I did manage to get a few though and I have posted them for you to see.
Looks like its that time again so will love ya and leave ya.

Empty all the way to Tucson Arizona and beyond

Hi, its true. 1050 miles empty and probably more as the word is that I am loading in California. So its easy running at 70mph until my time runs out, which happened sooner than expected.
Now to be honest I don't really understand the hours you can work over here. I was under the impression that I could work 70hr in 7 days but I am in the USA and I was wrong. Over here its 70hr in 8 days so there is me thinking I could claw back time and all I was left with was 3.5hr to work with today. Its not so bad tomorrow as I can claim back 12.75 but I was looking forward to blasting on today.
At the minute I am at the flying j at Pesco Texas and struggling to keep an internet connection. The weather has been great the last few days and has been touching 80f which is nice.
Today I pulled off the highway and ate at one of the places that most people would tend to drive past in favour of a Bigmac. It was called Pappas BBQ and is about 45 mins west of Pecos on the I-20. From the outside it looked nothing special but the carpark told a different story. It was heaving and the truck parking which can hold about 10 had half a dozen rigs in there.
Once inside its a family ran affair, you select which meat you would fancy, select 2 sides and then pay. I chose a small plate of roast brisket of beef. The portions are measured by weight and small means half a pound of meat. With it I had mixed beans and the best potato salad I have ever had. Included also in the price is what I can only describe as a taste sensation...cornbread ! Then you can visit the condiments counter for pickles,chillies and the like. With a glass of the coke the price was $9. Its one place I would recommend and I will be going back.
So its been a lazy day for me, I should of made the effort to clean the Kenworth out a little but its not my truck and its not my mess.
Tomorrow brings a new day, I should hit El Paso in about 4hrs and be in Tucson 4hrs roughly after that so its an early night for me.
Its 1845 here, the truckstop is filling up and its all-u-can-eat buffet for tea.
I hopefully should have some more news and pics tomorrow.

Delivery to Tyler Texas - Done !

All done, load delivered a day and a half late which isnt bad considering the hold ups.
Left Wichita Falls and drove 4hr to Tyler which involved tackling Dallas. I have never been to Dallas before and was a bit apprehensive as I needed to make the delivery time and couldn't afford to lose any time so out came the Tomtom and the address was programmed in. I have to say that the route it took me was not the one I would of taken but it went seamlessly considering the screen looked like a young child had gone mad with a crayon on a freshly painted wall. 232 miles covered in 4 hours.
Since I have been in the rental truck a few things have come to my attention, the big one being not having satellite communication. I need to call dispatch at least 3 times a day, I cannot request directions and if I break down again I am in big trouble as I don't have a cell phone. I have to write everything down and hope I don't lose the scrap of paper. The pain in the backside satellite is a godsend !
Anyway, I have my reload instructions through and will post where I am going when I get it confirmed tomorrow. When told, my response was "What, you do realise I am on the east side of Texas". Dispatch simply replied "yes, head towards ????????? and call in enroute tomorrow afternoon."
So thats it for now, parked up at Flying J in Tye Texas and off to bed.
Till next time........

Breakdown

How bad can things get ?
Already running a day late for my delivery in Texas due to the shipper, I set off on my travels and did the customs thing and cleared the meat inspection -so far so good.
After parking at Great Falls I set off nice and early and was having a good run, until....... "Check Engine" warning light comes on and all power disappears from the truck. So there I am sat just south of Eddies Corner Truckstop. I gave the truck a minute to sort itself out then turned the key. Nothing except the sound of the reverse buzzers going off which was strange considering I was going forward at 60mph when this happened. I tried again but nothing. A quick message to the breakdown people led to me having to walk up to the truckstop to ring Penske who are the people H&R lease the trucks from. This all happened at 0930am. I was told that a tow truck would be with me in 2hrs. The 2hrs passed and at 3.30pm a recovery truck and a bobtail unit arrived. Apparently its not allowed for a wrecker to tow a semi so hence the other unit.
We left at about 6pm and arrived in Billings at about 8.30. The driver of the wrecker had disconnected the batteries so I had to book into a hotel for the night. I was quoted $76 for the night and rang H&R to authorize a T-Check which is basically a travellers cheque. I was told to ring back in an hour as there was a problem with the computers. So I rang back, got the authorization and trotted off to the hotel to be told by a different receptionist that they didn't accept T-Checks and the bill for the night would be $86. I was gutted but paid cash for the room and still have to sort the T-Check out.
I arrived back at freightliner this morning and the truck hadn't been touched so it was pack a bag with everything I thought I might need as I was getting a rental truck to finish the trip.
I ended up with a right banger of a Kenworth, 750000 miles on the clock and as dirty as a texan whore. The saving grace for the truck is that its limited to 70mph so with the extra speed the time I have to spend in it will be shorter. I miss comforts of my Freightliner.
So thats me, on my way to Texas, running a day and a bit late and having the fillings shook from my teeth.
All in a days work eh ?

Waiting for empty trailer

Sat in Calgary at the minute in the Flying j truckstop waiting for an empty trailer so I can load for Texas. Not keen on sitting about but at least I can get a shower and they have Internet access here. Today I bought a George Foreman grill for the truck and it got christened with a big fat steak. The trucks are fitted with a sort of small generator which not only charges the batteries but provides aircon,night heating and mains voltage into the truck. Long gone are the days of buying a 12 or 24v Tv for £200. A quick trip to Walmart will get you a 15" flatscreen for £100 and I think one of them will be my next purchase.
My last trip was from Edmonton-Alberta to the yard in Delta-British Columbia which involves driving through the Rockies. All in all its a good trip but winter is starting to raise its ugly head and the snow and sub-zero temperatures are well on there way.
I dropped the trailer in Delta and picked up a loaded one to come back to Edmonton with. This was dropped in the Yard at Edmonton and another loaded trailer was picked up which I brought to Calgary. Have done hardly any miles today which is a waste but the Texas trip should make up for that.
Once I work out how to add pictures to the blog I will post some as the Rockies are a magnificent sight and the whole purpose of this blog is to share stuff with you.
Well its 10pm here so time for bed I think.
Until next time,

8 weeks on and things are great

Hi all,
please bear with me until I get the hang of using this website thingymajig.
Well its been 8 weeks to the day that I left sunny Darlo and flew into Calgary and so far so good.
I did the training that I needed to do and have been out on my own and let loose on the public. God help North America.
I work for H&R Transport who are based in Lethbridge which is in southern Alberta and drive trucks in both Canada and the USA.
Hopefully I will be able to keep this site updated and give you an insight into my life over here.
I hope you enjoy reading my posts and looking at the photos that I take on my travels