Views From The Road

Believe it or not, I am enjoying some down time at the home base in Atlanta.

Turns out that my host's computer reads the card from my digital camera just fine, so I get to share with you some pictures from the road.

This first pic is of a roadrunner that walked by the passenger side window of the rig.  This is just a short distance from the industrial park in Laredo.  Roadrunners are about the size of a raven, which I wasn't really expecting.  They seem to forage all their food from the ground, hence the name.  I didn't get any pictures of them, but the cowbirds in Texas are prolific and they are pretty much a scavenger similar to seagulls.

My temporary teammate and I went to Laredo, TX.  It was my second trip there in six days. This time we had loaded some aluminum sheeting product from Fairmont, WV, and on the way there from Cumberland, MD we ran into the leading edge of that snow storm that caused all the power outages in Connecticut.

I took this pic sitting on the top rack (bunk) in the sleeper cab of the tractor.  My partner is driving.  We are headed south on I-35. This is a company truck that has been abused by some previous drivers.  It's a 2001 model Freightliner Colombia.  Notice the lovely color matching duct tape on the edge of the dash.  Not knowing how long I would be in this rig, I duct taped the mounting base for my Garmin Nuvi 465T on the dash.

I didn't see it as it was passing us, so I don't know exactly which model tank or armored artillery piece this is.  Maybe somebody out there knows?  We were almost to Little Rock, AR when I saw this.

We parked out at the farthest corner of the truck lot at Flying J, just north of Laredo, TX.  The lot probably holds about 150 rigs.  On the other side of the street just off the exit ramp is a Travel Centers of America or TA.  Why it's not TCA, I don't know.  But unless you are making a purchase of fuel or other stuff of more than $20, you have to pay to park in their lot.  It also holds about 150 rigs. 

To say that there are lots and lots of raccoons out there in the brush would be an understatement.  You have to start getting really close before they see you as a threat.

Beyond the tarmac, facing the setting sun and the Mexican border.  I am always fascinated by the various forms of plant life from region to region.  Believe it or not, as dry and desolate as most of southern Texas is, there is marsh and cattails not far from where I'm standing.  The indigenous rocks and pebbles on the farmroad are all smoothed from having spent time in a river bed.  Next time I'm there I'm going to take better close-ups of that.

There is beauty everywhere you look, if you are willing to look.

I met a husband and wife trucking team out walking their dog, "Diesel", near this spot.  They were having some time trying to get Diesel to behave.  I couldn't help myself.  I asked if I could show them some things.  They eagerly agreed.  In about ten minutes, I had Diesel walking properly at the heel position.  Ten minutes more and I had him sitting and staying.  Then I was dropping the leash and having him obey me on voice command.  This couple was stunned.  The husband offered to pay me something.  There is just something incredibly cool about doing something so well that you strike people with awe.  Yeah.  I can admit that.  And you know you feel the same way.  I explained how I did it and how they could do it and keep getting better results.  They both understood it and were grateful that somebody explained it so well.

I've heard the name "Sagebrush" but I'd never had a chance to look at it up close.  When I have the chance, I investigate as much as possible.  I picked some leaves off of this bush and crushed them in my fingers.  The smell of sage greeted my nose.  I tasted.  Something like a cross between sage and rosemary.  Interesting.  I might try to cook with some of this on the grill the next time I'm out there.  Any plants growing on the high ground that are designed (yes, I said "designed") to live more than a season, the perennials, have dense, narrow, waxy foliage, just perfect for desert conditions.  I don't know why, but there was no prickly pear in the area around the truck stop, or at least not close to where I was.

Don't know how long it will be before I get to blog again and share pictures, but now I will make it a point to take a lot more pictures and try to make this a lot more interesting.

We grilled ribeye steaks behind the truck and enjoyed our downtime while waiting on directions for a load going back east.  It's kind of a modern day version of being a cowboy on the open range.  Not many people could stand such a lifestyle.  Life as you know it in America would come to a screeching halt if trucking stopped.

Shalom, Y'all

Thanks for stopping by.  Your comments are welcome.

Over The Road - One Long Day

I left the Atlanta area on Sunday afternoon, October 2, 2011. Driving with a partner to evaluate my skills for the owner of the company, we headed to El Paso with a full 53' trailer in a Freightliner sleeper cab. This was the first time for both of us in this particular tractor. He had come back to work for this company after having been gone for a while.

I had gone to the shop to pick up the tractor and trailer. We discovered that the air conditioning wasn't working by the time we reached Louisiana. Oh crap! We have to cross the desert of Texas without any cool air. Man, did we sweat.

Along Interstate 20 is lots of evidence of a hurting economy. There was an entire town that is now a ghost town. Ironically the official interstate highway sign, the kelly green with white reflective lettering, looks like it is only a few years old at most. But the remains of the town, all the shops, restaurants, business and homes crowded slam up against I-20, are so obviously abandoned and broken down. In other spots, there are some surviving places with some scant activity, but I've never seen so many abandoned places.

When I was 19, in 1979 I made the trek across the U.S. in a Ryder truck with a roommate who had a connection for a job in California. We left Lakeland, FL and took I-75 up to I-10 and took it all the way to Santa Monica, CA. I don't recall seeing any abandoned buildings during that trip. We only drove ten hours a day, during the day. We were not under any time restraints, so we took advantage of it, eating fairly nice meals each night, showering and watching TV in air conditioned comfort of motel rooms.

The over-the-road trucker's life is hard. I can see why there is a demand for it, even in this economy. I think that team driving is even harder. When you are by yourself, the truck comes to a stop and you can sleep on a bed that isn't shaking and jerking. You can walk around at the truck stop and maybe watch a little TV or exercise. When you are team driving, you do your exhausting ten hours of driving and then switch off with the other driver. Then you just hope that there isn't too much damage or bad road construction while your partner is driving, so that you can get to sleep. You also have to be very confident in the skill and judgment of your partner. Kinda hard to sleep if your constantly worried about whether or not your partner is going to get you killed.

When we got to El Paso, it was later than the typical receiving hours, so we had to bribe the dock manager with $20 to unload us anyway. We had another "hot" load to pick up that was bound for Harrisburg, PA that we wanted to go pick up as soon as possible. Time is money.

But it turns out that our dispatcher/owner-of-the-company didn't give us the right location. We went to the location that we were given, only to be told that they couldn't possibly load us until after 8:am the next morning. So we went to the PETRO station to get a tire changed out on the trailer and an oil change and service, as well as getting the A/C working again. The condenser had a pinhole leak at the top. They wanted an enormous amount of money for a new one, plus all the work to change it out. I can't really blame the owner for not wanting to spend that kind of money, especially since he had plenty of experience with a better and cheaper servicer back east. We went and got a can of leak-stop/leak detector and put that in and ran it a while. It seemed to make a difference immediately. Then we got a large can of the R-134 refrigerant and put that in the next morning before leaving. Thank you, G-d! We had nice, cold, blessed air for the return trip.

We got back to the warehouse that refused us the night before and we talked to the dock master. He didn't have authorization for us yet. He would come out and get us when it came through. Our dispatcher couldn't understand why this was, considering this was a "hot" load, meaning that someone wanted this load at the other end, yesterday. My partner called to get the name and number of the other broker to find out the scoop. We were at the wrong warehouse. The place waiting to load us was six miles away at the El Paso International Airport. We boogied on over there to find them anxiously waiting for us and that they would have been happy to have immediately loaded us the previous night before we headed to the PETRO for service. We could have been on the road twelve hours earlier. We were not very happy at all. Misinformation had just cost us a bunch of money. I learned a valuable lesson. I should have asked questions until the answers made sense. If it was a "hot" load, why wasn't somebody breathing down the neck of the dock master to get the truck loaded? They were. At the right location. We should have called our dispatcher back that afternoon and asked him to call the other broker and either find out the right info and call us back, or better yet, we should have just asked for their name and number and talked to them directly. That's what I will do in the future.

One of the most amazing sights along I-20 through Texas is the area from around Midland to where I-20 merges into I-10. Windmills. Yep. They are enormous. At least I think so. You can go check out the specifications at this site. These suckers stand over 100 meters in height. That's more than a football field on end. A single blade is about 55 meters long. The generators are in the nacelles behind the hub of the blades and they produce about 2,300 killowatts at 690 volts.

It isn't just that these things are so big, it's how many of them there are. For over forty miles, we saw hundreds and hundreds of these things. Hundreds of square miles of them. Many stood atop mesas in the distance. Some of them came right up close to I-20. I just know I couldn't come close to counting them all. I suppose it would be interesting to go to Google Earth and try to count them all.