It Just Keeps on Going
When I got back to the yard after dropping off the screening plant I had to hook onto a trailer loaded with a steel container bound for Gilbralter Mines by McLeese Lake. Only being a six hour drive I figured this would be a good trip after what I’d just been through this was a blessing. I made it too McLeese Lake and went to bed for the night. I got up in the morning and headed up the mountain to the mine. At the Gate, I signed in and took an orientation for safety and then discovered that no one knew where the load was to go. Because there was no details on the paper work we broke the seal and looked inside the container. No one could figure out what we were even looking at. Finally someone showed up and determined that it was a kevlar box liner and harness for one of the big Uke ore trucks. Still no one knew where to take it. Meanwhile three hours had passed. I called my dispatch and he called his contacts and finally a person in charge showed up to take me further up the mountain to a crane that was putting together a huge shovel for digging out the ore from the ground. Once up there, I found out that they were just going to unload the container from the trailer and not empty it. I phoned dispatch and was told that no one was to unload the container from the trailer as the container had to be returned back to the docks by Monday morning or someone would have to pay the 200 dollars a day late fees. It seems that the mine had sent their crane operator home earlier that morning and didn’t want to pay the contractor rates to use the crane mentioned previously to unload the container as it was determined to probably take 4 hours to unload (meanwhile I’d been there already six hours). I waited for three more hours while the powers that be came up with a plan on what to do with this container and finally I was told by my dispatch that I was going to take it to Quesnel about an hour up the highway from McLeese Lake. At that point I didn’t care as long as I got it off. At the gate, the security guard wouldn’t let me leave as he had orders to not let my truck and trailer go loaded. He made a phone call and confirmed that I could leave (hooray). Got to Quesnel and unloaded inside a building with an overhead crane which only took two more hours. Finally got home the next day in time to take my truck in for its semi annual MVI. It passed with flying colors, the best news I’d had in a while. Bye for now.