Ice Road Trucking Part 2

Turns out I was pretty close on the miles and time I needed under the weather conditions.  Here's a picture I took around 6:39 AM still in my 10 hour of off duty time.  It was around 330 miles and I got there around 9:30 PM over 5 hours early.    Saw about 6 big trucks like mine above off road in woods and upside down.  I'm not posting these but first video show why it took so many hours to go just few miles.  Video 1  Road Conditions Video

Video 2 is me getting unloaded at dock while front end loader removes snow.   Delivery Site

Video 3 is the next day.  Next Day

After a couple of hours of sleep I discovered my Cabin Heater was not working.  I also noticed my power supply was not working so the computer was out too!!  Oh No it's going to be below O and no computer!!  How will I see new pictures of my grandson Mason?  Got a back up power supply going and Video 4 shows preparations made for the night.  Try not to sweat Trucker

Ice Road Trucking

Things are looking a little dicey out here so I thought I record a video for my grandson [Mason}and post it just in case.

Guess feeling nervous about things is part of trucking.  Weather is not a thing that upsets me though.  Take a AP news report last week I heard traveling across the south.  The reporter was excited and reported that the Gov was requiring big trucks (80,000 lbs) to get 10% better fuel economy by a future date.  To me the reporter seemed happy great leader has made this happen.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvF2_KvOmj0
Anyway I get upset thinking about the reporter thinking it's happened.  If Cummins, Caterpillar, Detriot, Mercedes, Volvo and International Harvester just to name a few could build a engine that could do that it would make more than a third of my new truck payment!!!

They're trying to add 17 cents to the fuel tax on top of the 20 cents increased in cost this week in fuel.  Just the tax alone is a 75.00 dollar a week increase tax to me so looks like that 95 % gets tax cut  ... well guess I finally made the 5% group!!!!!

New Grandson

Today my Grandson got to come home from the hospital.  Here's a picture of:  Mason Nathaniel Chambers.

Trucking The Back 48 ( Part 2 )

My last post had to do with Al Hoots a Hitchhiker I picked up at a rest area in Alabama.  I'm being loaded right now  with a load of turkey from Cargill fixing to head to Shelbyville, In.  Al loved turkey of course.  I hated to see Al go, after all how many trucker out here have an Owl traveling with them.    You might be thinking that me coming along did a lot for Al Hoots but really it seems to me to be the other way around.  Sometimes the stress out here involved in the Trucking Industry is hard to deal with.  It's very easy to be consumed with thoughts  of money lost, time lost, equipment failure, or just getting screwed in general.  Which at the time I came upon Al was at a high level.
So I'm grateful that Al Hoots took my mind off of getting screwed and onto if he makes it or not.  I have his or hers, (hoot knows), picture which if you see the pic in my last post is a very beautiful Owl. 

While I'm on the stress and beautiful things subject my daughter, Stephanie, is in the hospital waiting hopefully for baby Mason to arrive.  This is her third try at being a mother.  Just want Mason to know his granddad is out here on the road praying for him and his mother.  I know everything will be fine soon it's just really hard waiting and being away from home.

So until my next post which will be about being a grand father here's a pic of a truck I passed the other day with a strange sign or placard on the back if you can read it in the pic. (Click on pic to enlarge)

Trucking The Back 48

Couple of winters back I was leaving an rest area on I-40 in Alabama.  As I was gearing up I saw something laying in the middle of the entrance ramp ahead of me.  Coming up on it and over I saw it was a bird, and a flicker of it's wings, as my 18 wheeler passed over.  There had been several days of below freezing weather very unusual for the state.  By the time I got my rig to a stop and off the shoulder I was a few 100 yards down the road.  I let the air out of my brakes and started the walk back to see what it was and it's condition.  Coming up on it I noticed it appeared to be a baby owl.  I picked it up and it seemed to pass out in my hands.  I returned to the cab carrying it with both hand and laid it in the seat next to mine.

Later that day I tried dropping drops of water down it's throat but it remained in a coma state.  I knew one leg was broken by sight.  I was shocked the next morning when I saw it had come too.  At the next truck stop I got a subway made of turkey and tried feeding it.  Boy that hit the spot it loved turkey.

It traveled across the country with me for a couple of weeks and then it started flying around the cab and into the windows on the opposite side.  You know that owls are smart thing is way over rated.

So I knew I had to let it go.  At a rest area in Alabama not far from were I picked it up.  The look on the trucker's face next to me when I opened my window and released it out of my hands was something to see.