Thursday, April 30, 2009

Miserable weather.

Hi all, the weather is terrible and because of this its kept me from getting out and about. The sun hasn't shown itself since last weekend and the forecast for the Bank Holiday weekend doesn't look too promising.
Have seen most of my family and friends and have got some good nights out planned before I leave to return to Canada which isn't too far away and time is flying by.
Hopefully;weather permitting I will have some pics of the town by the next time I post.
Speak soon

Monday, April 27, 2009

Amsterdam, just made it in time.

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Hi all, we are all back from the trip to Amsterdam for Tom's 18th and nobody got left behind.
Tom's girlfriend; Naomi had an exam on the Friday we left and didn't finish it until 15.15 so it was a bit of a rush to make it to the port which is about 40 miles away in time for the latest check in at the ferry. Things went really well until we hit the Tyne Tunnel and roadworks there caused us some real problems and we ended up arriving at check in with 2 minutes to spare. Not to worry though as we had made it.
Friday night was spent in the bar enjoying the cabaret entertainment, the beer and the company of each other which was Tom, Naomi, Myself and my (ex) sister-in law Lyndsay who's birthday was on Friday the 24th.




The ferry docked the following morning around 09.30am local time and we filtered onto buses which would take us from the Port at Ijmuiden to Amsterdam; I was the one of course who was suffering because of the drink and I blame H&R for this and their zero alcohol policy !!! hahaha
The day was spent wandering around, admiring the views and doing the "must do when in Amsterdam" things. Tom was the only one in the group who participated and over-indulged in the local smoking establishments; it was funny to see him trying to behave normally when his head was in the clouds.
A visit to the sex shops pleased the girls however they were not impressed by the live sex shows; or at least the cleanliness of the cabins.
The buses picked us back up later in the afternoon and took us back to the ferry where all of us except Tom had a quick nap. Tom had decided to hit the bar straight away and ended up going to bed early due to over indulgence.
Overall it was a good weekend, its very expensive now as the Euro is on par with the British Pound but I think its one of the places you have to visit plus we celebrated two birthdays so all is good.



I have nothing planned really for the rest of my time whilst back home but as I said in a previous post I will make an effort to update the blog and try to put some interesting and different posts online.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Back home.

Hi all, had a great flight over and landed in Manchester yesterday morning, jumped on the train and was back home 2.5 hrs later.
Got a busy few days ahead as going to Amsterdam for Tom's 18th and will be leaving this afternoon from North Shields and jumping on the ferry which is affectionately known as "the love boat".
Hopefully the weather will pick up as its overcast and a little chilly this morning.
Will of course take plenty of pictures and more than likely will have them posted on Monday.
Have a good weekend everyone !!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Countdown to my holiday begins !!!

Hi all, well the last 4 or 5 days has really been a waste of time.
After the never ending trip from Mississauga to Delta I had my reset and then waited. Eventually I was given the Coca-Cola run to Kamloops British Columbia and when I arrived at the shipper they had no empty trailers so therefore I had to run back to Delta and pick up an empty. Sods law that while I was gone we had 3 trailers dropped off at Coca-Cola. Anyway I loaded, ran to Kamloops and was empty in 15mins.
As I had a late finish it meant I had to start late and ended up running to Osoyoos to do the milk round collection of apples bound for Calgary. Luckily I only had 3 collections and as it was a Saturday all of the shippers were waiting for me and I never really had any wasted time at any of them. Took my time running back and dropped the trailer in Calgary for it to be unloaded through the night. Picked up a loaded trailer at the yard and at the minute I am sat on the unloading dock at Medicine Hat Alberta hoping for an early delivery in the morning.
The pictures are from a place called Craigellachie British Columbia and although the visitors entrance is closed for the season I managed to clamber over the rocks to get these pictures; which thinking about it was a silly thing to do as I could of slipped on the moss,hurt myself and god knows how long it would of been before anyone had found me.
The pictures have been shot in HDR (High Dynamic Range) and tweaked a little, hope you like them !!



Friday, April 17, 2009

Britians Got talent.....Susan Boyle

This post is mainly for the people who are not in the UK. Most countries now have their equivalent of Britians Got Talent so I am sure you are familiar with the programme and the format.
The following link is from youtube and shows Susan's performance on the show.
Its not what you might expect and when I watched, the clip has already been viewed almost 24,000,000 times

Click HERE to watch Susan give her all.

Just for fun....houses for sale in Iowa

Due to the amount of time I spend in Iowa I had a look on the internet at some realtors (estate agent) sites, not with an intent to buy but more out of curiosity.
I selected 4 homes, two from west Iowa (Sioux City) and two from the east (Waterloo).
Each house would suit me down to the ground and I have picked an easily affordable place and a mortgage needed place.
I have no idea what the area is like surrounding each property, like I said its just for fun and all prices are in US Dollars.

Sioux City...$92,500

Waterloo....$92,000
Sioux City....$45,000
Waterloo....$40,000

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Is this H&R's new yard ?



Went out for a meal tonight and this is the sight I came back to. The gas station is a very busy place and its a regular stop for drivers as it has a Subway, a Burger King and is only a few miles from our yard. Looks like work might still be a bit quiet judging by the number of trucks in here considering that there are 3 trucks which cannot be seen in the picture.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Ten Mile Hill to Golden

The following video is from the Ten Mile Hill brake check area running into Golden. I believe that this stretch although not difficult to drive is one of the more demanding stretches of highway I regularly use. Particular attention needs to be paid to the rockface on your side of the road and the massive drop on the other as well as watching out for trucks over shooting and cutting corners.
As the video would of taken forever to watch it has been accelerated and because of that the sound has screwed up a little, sorry about that but video editing is not my thing.
I hope you enjoy it !!

ps. The camera is sat on the dash, resting on a cigarette packet and some nonslip matting.

The never ending journey.




Hi, have just finished the trip across from Mississauga Ontario to Delta British Columbia and I never thought it was going to end. Done get me wrong, the mileage is superb but its such a tedious route that its comparable with having teeth pulled.
Left on the morning of the the 10th and after 830km pulled over at Kapuskasing and called it a night. Finally lost the will to carry on at Dryden on the 11th after 947km. The roads are in a terrible state, potholes and tramlines are the order of the day and it makes driving a chore. Once again I had had enough after 927km on the 12th and parked at Regina in Sasketchewan. From there it was another punt to Kananaski where I parked at the new casino and had a meal which was very reasonably priced.
The last leg of the trip was from there to the yard at Delta where the trailer was dropped and I started a reset as I only had a few hours available for the next few days.

Total distance for the one way trip is calculated by Google maps at 4408km, TomTom says its 4430km and my logbook totals at 4451 which I would expect to be a little higher as it takes into account going off route for fuel.
To put the trip into easier terms for people back home the mileage covered is equivalent to a trip from Darlington - Rome - Darlington or 7 trips from London to Glasgow.

The weather has been great and today in Delta British Columbia its almost 60f and the sun is shining. Ontario is doing its best to fight off the winter and is slowly winning the battle although when I came through some snow had been dumped the day before but the roads were clear.

Dont know what lies in store for me next but I cant go anywhere until tomorrow when my reset will be finished.
I havn't mentioned yet but I am going home for a holiday in a weeks time and will be in the UK for the 23rd. Its been almost 7 months since I was last home and I am looking forward to having a few weeks off although I plan to make the most of it and not sit around doing nothing. Last time I went home the blog took a bit of a backseat but this time I will post on a more regular basis as I have readers who may be interested in what good old Darlington and the surrounding area has to offer.
Thats about all for now, will post again soon.

Reesors siding incident.

Along with the Terry Fox memorial this is another monument that I have driven past and never really taken the time to check out. Situated near Hearst Ontario the monument stands just by the side of the road. The snow is still pretty bad there and when I stopped it hadn't been cleared so the picture was taken from the highway.

This is the site of one of the bloodiest clashes in Canadian labour history. In January 1963, a contract dispute led to a strike by members of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers' Union who cut pulpwood for the paper mill in Kapuskasing. They tried to shut down the mill by blockading pulpwood shipments from independent contractors. Just after midnight on February 11, over 400 strikers arrived at Reesor Siding to dump logs stockpiled by a local woodcutters' cooperative. As they approached the woodpiles, 20 armed woodcutters began shooting. Three of the strikers were killed, another eight wounded. The tragedy prompted the provincial government to intervene and settle the strike by arbitration.


Thursday, April 9, 2009

Playing the waiting game in Mississauga Ontario

Taken in Indiana I think..its not where I am eating tonight

Left you on my way to Iowa with a stop in Minnesota thrown in for good measure. Arrived at the customer about 7pm for a delivery at 9.30 the following morning and tried my luck at getting offloaded. If I was prepared to park on a "no parking" street until they "possibly" would call me sometime through the night then I "might" be offloaded. After about 2 seconds debating whether it was worth it I said my goodbye's and left to find some parking. Arrived back the next morning, backed onto a door and 2hrs later i was free to head on down to Mason City Iowa.
No problems either at this customer, was an hour early, backed straight onto a door and was leaving almost exactly at the time I was due to deliver. Things seemed to be going well so I waited for my next load.
It was a miracle, sent my empty call and within minutes I had a preplan to load out of Illinois. Accepted that and headed for some food. Had the load assignment when I returned so booted it to Wenona Illinois.
Parked for the night near the collection and ran in at 8am the follwing morning. Dropped my empty and picked up a loaded trailer, to be honest I couldnt believe how well things were going.
There was no big rush to get this load to Toronto so I took my time, had plenty of time off, did a bit of shopping and dropped the trailer this morning (thursday) at the yard in Mississauga.
Thats it folks. If nothing happens to change things then its a big steak for tea from the Steakhouse right next door to the truckstop. Lovely

This is nice to see, people involved in the crash giving each other a hug.

Some pics from the last few weeks.

Crazy cloud patterns in Michigan Somebodies back yard at Sweetgrass Think this is Saskatchewan
In the Rockies, is that water or ice on the road ?
Thought I had lost my cable for the old Sony Camera and had no means of getting the pictures from it as I dont have a card adapter so I can use it in the laptop. But its turned up in exactly the place I left it which is where its always kept, guess I was looking too hard.
Things have been going well lately and I will bring you up to date soon.

Bye for now.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Nothing new..enroute to Mason City Iowa.

The weather in Sasketchewan yesterdayFrom last week, taken at Broadus MontanaA sign of possible things to come, flooded median in Manitoba


Hi. The trailer was ready for me to collect out of the Calgary yard so after having a reset which cleared my hours I set off on my way and headed east as the load is crossing the border at Pembina Nth Dakota. There is plenty of time to reach the customer and I should arrive tomorrow afternoon (monday) for a 9am delivery the following morning at my first drop which is Fridley Minnesota, then its off to Mason City Iowa for 15.30hr.
Nothing eventful has happened, I did notice how ignorant some H&R drivers are and will not wave even when overtaking, mind you..the speed one of the trucks came past me yesterday I would of been suprised if he had dared take his eyes off the road.
The weather has been glorious, sunny and either blue skies or fantastic cloud formations. The radio tells me its a different story as I head south into Nth Dakota and there is heavy snow along with freezing conditions and strong winds...I mean c'mon..its April !!

Friday, April 3, 2009

A quick catch-up

Bonjour. Well my last post went down like a lead balloon, not one comment, email, nothing. I had that post planned for weeks and it sank faster than a sinking thing. Happy Aprils fools day.
So, lets move on. Ran to Sioux City Iowa and was unloaded. Left there the following morning and ran 500 miles or so empty to Little Chute Wisconsin where I loaded pizza the same night. Hit some bad weather around North Dakota which eased up. Cleared customs at Portal North Dakota and ran into Calgary where I dropped the trailer last night. Have been planned for a load back south which should be ready tomorrow morning and is bound for....I am sure you dont need 3 guesses....Iowa !!