____It’s been two weeks since I fired up the laptop such has been the turmoil caused by new floors and bathroom refurbishment in the apartment. Apologies to MRM for the late replies. I think the four-way flashers on the shoulder on the hill is just a voluntary thing. The murals are from Vancouver Island, the animals on the tunnel are over the motorway under the St. Lawrence Seaway and the hole in the rock is the Wilson Arch in Utah. I hiked up there once, hoping to get a photo of the truck framed by the arch but the ground on the other side fell away too sharply. Might be possible with a drone. This next trip is from April 2017 when driving for Ruby Trucklines.
____There is something about an old truck driver that becomes a fork-lift driver. Things are effortless whenever I have had the good fortune to have one of these guys load my trailer. In and out of the Vassar peat-moss packing plant before my allotted appointment time. Down to the Coop fuel station and cafe at South Junction to wait for customs formalities to be completed before trundling into Minnesota at Roseau and down to Bemidji where I cross the Mississippi River for the first time. I will be running along-side America’s major waterway right to the delivery address at Modeste in Louisiana. From St. Paul, Minnesota, south to St. Louis in Missouri; along the route known as the Avenue of the Saints and then Interstate 55 to where the Saints Go Marching In: New Orleans.
____ Baton Rouge on a Friday morning, just a few miles from the plant nursery beside the Big River. Within a mile of my overnight parking at a convenient truckstop; I get caught on a 25 ton limit bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway. I show the local delivery address on my invoices and tell the police officer that I didn’t see the signs until it was too late. Luckily for me, the signs only went up overnight as the bridge had been inspected and restricted just that week; first day was a warning day and no tickets were being issued. Half an hour later, I was stuck in the mud while trying to turn round at the nursery. Four inches of rain had fell in the previous 48 hours. as a last resort, I throw on the snow-chains for the first time in 2017 and first time in Louisiana. On bad days, these things happen in threes; bang. I slip on the muddy step of the truck and gash my knee. The gripping tread on the truck steps has worn smooth after eighteen years of climbing in and out.
____ Out of Louisiana, westbound on Interstate 10, through rice fields and swamps with Popeyes Chicken on sale at every other exit. To Waller, Texas, for a trailer change at the air-conditioner factory and a load of mini-splits. Back to Canada with deliveries at Wetaskiwin in Alberta and Vancouver city-centre. North from the new green spring to the brown grasslands, still thawing from the Winter. Early-morning snow at Casper but other-wise easy-going with just 12,000 lbs of cargo. To the first drop by Tuesday afternoon. Then the bad news.
____ Vancouver cannot take delivery until Monday morning. No chance of dropping off the goods anywhere else; so a slow trip over the Rockies after the first eight days of the trip yielded 6400 kilometres. A weekend at Delta, which has a Tim Hortons, the Petro-Pass Fuel card-lock and the Tidewaters pub. Sunday is a day of public transport: bus, tram and Skytrain. I go into town to check-out the delivery address; a church on Google Maps, a few blocks from Stanley Park in a high-class residential area with a Starbucks on every corner. My first “Church” delivery in over forty years of transport industry involvement.
____ But the old Presbyterian church has gone and in it’s place a modern complex is being erected. Underground parking, church and community hall on the ground floor, affordable apartments above and rising high into the city skyline. Original thinking for an over-crowded, high-priced metropolis but not much thought given to the delivery of building products. Best plan is to get into the city at daybreak, jack-knife into the back-alley beside the church and hope no truck wants to deliver to the nearby strip-mall. Ten pallets later and every new apartment has their a/c unit before I battle city traffic back to Delta for the reload. Rolls of conveyor belt rubber in huge rolls quickly loaded and secured. Out of town by noon, loaded for Winnipeg and time to make up for the lost time with fourteen hour driving shifts available.
