The Truckers Lair

Well I’m still sitting in Fort McMurray, Alberta waiting to get loaded.  It seems that because of the cold weather no one can get the machines started that are needed to load the crushed cars onto my step deck trailer.  Minus 28 degrees celcius this morning and minus 21 right now.  Have to leave the truck running and I shudder to think of my fuel bill by the time this one is said and done.  Might have to go to Edmonton to load in the morning, we’ll see.  Bye for now.

Right now as I speak it is minus 23 in Fort McMurray, Alberta.  I arrived today for tomorrow delivery of some steel tire rims for the big ore trucks.  The drive up from Grassland was good and the traffic was excellent.  I am assuming everyone was either in Edmonton already or it was too cold to venture out.  Anyone who has travelled hwy 63 knows that it is a dangerous drive as the average speed limit for most four wheelers is about 137 km per hour.  The posted speed is 110.  I always do 100 km to save fuel so usually I see some strange things indeed.  Below are some photos of my load tarped and after I removed the tarps.  Bye for now.

Almost forgot what it is like to drive in white out conditions.  Sitting in Grassland Alberta waiting for the snow storm to subside so I can deliver a load of steel tire rims for the big ore trucks used in the tar sands.  Drove through snow storm after snow storm all the way from Valemount, BC to my current position where it got too dangerous to drive anymore.  Saw a few rigs in the ditch but figured I’d better keep my eyes on the road instead of taking pics.  Talk to you later.

Still hauling pipe into northern Alberta to the oil sands projects. Back hauled some crushed cars last trip that leaked oil all over my rear end of my pete and had to wait out the scale as I didn’t want to take a chance of getting shut down for 72 hours because of environmental issues or contaminated brakes. Starting to get tired of these loads as they are very risky vs the amount of pay for hauling them. BC seems to frown on these types of loads and the scales and DOT seem to pull us over when they can to check everything out. The main scrap metal buyer is in Vancouver, so that is where they are selling them. I came close to deciding to sell my truck and try something else after seeing the oil all over my brake drums. Just paid a lot of money to have all my brakes done and had to pay another 100 bucks to see if my shoes were contaminated. They weren’t but I’m not sure if I can take anymore of this stress. Leaning towards going back to school and trying something else now that I have some money saved up. The good money in trucking isn’t worth the sacrifices that have to be made in my opinion. Bye for now.

Well it’s that time again. Got to mvi my truck and I knew I had a few things to fix, but didn’t expect what I got from Peterbilt today. It seems my fifth wheel needs replacing, my brakes need replacing, my exhaust needs replacing and I have an oil leak on the engine block side of my power steering pump. Oh well, what can you do? The truck has made me nothing but money for the last two years since I bought it and spending money on upkeep is why that is happening.

I’ve been hauling loads of pipe back and forth to the Alberta oil sands projects and crushed cars, bales of crushed steel back to BC. Some of the back hauls to BC have been ugly but at least they pay okay. Drove through some snow on the Coquihalla two nights ago. Bye for now.

Well things are picking up again (whew!). I have taken a load of pipe bends to Fort McMurray and then loaded some scrap metal for the ride home. After that I took another load of cell phone towers and equipment to Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. I then loaded some scrap steel bales for the ride home. Once again I messed up and ended up being heavy on my drives and had to wait for scales to close so I could get home to deliver. Wish I’d quit that as one day that mistake is going to cost me dearly. Always trying to get that extra few pounds for more pay. The weather has been just awesome for the past two weeks now. A little moisture in Fort McMurray where I had to load the scrap metal. It was a bit muddy there and I had to get pulled out with a cat. Also ran into a forest fire just outside 70 mile. It looks like it was a bad one as a lot of ground was burned and they were still putting out spot fires as I went by. Apparently the road was closed for a while before I got there. I took some pictures (see below). After unloading the scrap steel bales in the morning, I will be going back to the yard and hooking onto a preloaded trailer full of pipe bends for Christina Lake. Bye for now.

Truck accident outside of Fort St. John

Pine Pass between Chetwynd and Prince George, BC

Sunset between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, BC

Spent most of the afternoon yesterday waiting to load a 53′ van with military equipment to be delivered to Vernon for the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. Nothing serious just some pallets. The drive went smooth and I camped out overnight at Kamloops before heading to Vernon first thing in the morning. I got lost trying to find the place of course without the proper directions which is the norm it seems in this business, but got rescued by a sargent who let me in a locked gate to unload. They were pretty quick in unloading me so along with one of the other drivers we headed back towards Kamloops. Along the way we stopped for breakfast at a place called the “Whispering Pines”. The food was awesome. Homemade bread, homemade blueberry jelly, excellent hashbrowns and a great atmosphere! I reccomend this place to anyone travelling on hwy 97 between Kamloops and Vernon. Arrived back in Aldergrove and proceeded to get a room so I can watch my Canucks play hockey tonight! Go Nucks!!! Bye for now.

Well after spending the Easter weekend in Fort St. John because of no back haul, I finally got a load of lumber in Quesnel. Mind you the forklift operator was a bit of an idiot. He loaded me with 2x10s and then the super came and told him they were supposed to be 2×4’s so he had to take them all off and reload the trailer. Even then he couldn’t count and placed the wrong amount of 12′ 2×4’s on the trailer and had to take two bundles of those off. A painful experience to say the least. Oh well I’m back in Aldergrove waiting to load some military stuff to haul to Kelowna on Thursday. bye for now.

Took a load of pipe bends to Foster Creek, Alberta similar to last winter when I was up there.  Along the way the temperatures flucuated from minus 8 to minus 35 degrees celcius.  Took some pictures while driving through Jasper National Park with the crisp air making everything seem so clear (other than my dirty windshield).  Got to Foster Creek and the temp dipped to minus 35 but at least it was sunny.  Unloaded and headed back to Edmonton to load some fertilizer for the trip home.  Ran into a snow storm between Edson and Jasper on the way back.  West of the Fraser River Crossing I came across a serious accident between two four wheelers.  Story is one of them crossed the center line and got hit by an oncoming car.  There was fatalities, but I was allowed through before they shut the road down to do their investigation.  You hate to see this sort of thing, but speed was definately a factor in this accident.  The rest of the drive went without incident until I got to the Coquihalla Hwy between Merritt and Hope.  After stopping at the rest area above the “smasher” hill, I started down the hill in 4th gear taking my time as the road was a sheet of ice.  Using my jake brake and brakes sparingly I found that it didn’t matter much as I started to jack knife a couple of times due to compression from my rear wheels.  I finally decided to put my foot into it and hold on.  Luckily I had moved a lot of my weight onto front wheels for this reason so I was able to turn when I had to.  On the way down I looked over the other side of the road and it was a nightmare.  There was trucks and fourwheelers spun out everywhere on the hill.  It looked like a traffic jam during rush hour traffic in Vancouver.  They were backed up all the way down to the Box Canyon chain up area and tow trucks were constantly pulling rigs up the hill.  Boy was I glad I was heading south instead of heading north for a change.  Bye for now.

Since my last post I’ve driven through some wicked snow storms that others weren’t so fortunate to make it through.  Most of the time this is due to speed or following too close.  But once in a while you get into a white out with blowing snow and you cannot see 10 feet in front of you.  Two tractors that ended up in the median on the trans Canada hwy in Chilliwack did so because they just drove off the road figuring they were on track when they weren’t.  No fault of theirs, just bad luck.  Luckily they were going dead slow so there was minimal damage or none at all and a tow was all that was needed.  Then outside of Blue River a truck took a corner too fast and laid his trailer on its side.  On my way back from Edmonton I saw a tractor with a load of lumber overturned in Jasper National Park and when queried by another driver over the radio he replied that a gust of wind suddenly blew sand and snow accross the road and he lost visibility for a brief moment and by the time he got it back he was already over the fog line and off of the road.  He managed to keep his truck upright, but the trailer flipped over.  In another incident, I was travelling between Valemount, BC and Blue River, BC when I came accross a 5 truck accident where following too close and speed were the main factors.  By the time I had got there most of the trucks were in the pullout except two and one trailer.  The orange truck had swerved to avoid hitting a lumber truck and went into the ditch.  The other trucks coming the opposite way, rear ended each other trying to stop.  One jack knifed up against the snow bank trying to avoid the mess.  Luckily for me I only had to wait for 45 minutes while they pulled the orange truck back onto the road.  By the time I got to Clearwater, BC it had cleared up and the sun had come out.  Dropping down into Merritt, BC off of the Coquihalla Hwy I took a picture of the fog bank covering Merritt.  I later drove into it which was an erie feeling to say the least.  Bye for now.