Trip 001

I'm going to start posting on this trip, I suppose it's about third in our quest to my successful Part Deux, but I didn't get pictures taken from the other ones and I was still trying to get things arranged and organized.

A bit of catch-up: I met up with my dad in the big city and left my car at a truck stop (now about a week and a half later, may or may not have been towed away to who knows where, I'll keep you updated) We are on our way to a place in Colorado called Calhan. Here's our pickup. 3

Before this we had a shipping container, 9 Air Compressors and a Gehl load that the obviously non farm raised dispatch lady described as "Little Tractors" which ended up being one Telescopic Handler, like this one.I still have yet to ask for any Trucker Wisdom, but today as we sat eating our lunch in the truck, we heard over the CB two guys talking about their lifes and where they were and where they came from. One guy was 45 and the other 55 and were talking about how they never listened to anyone growing up and this and that.

I kinda wandered back in my memory which is about only half as long as these guys'. But looked at some of the times I didn't listen to those around me. I started easily picking out the wise people in my life, I've had a lot. I started thinking about in a different life how things could have wound up. Nothing to spectacular, but no court. I listened in and took what I could from it, they were each on their 3rd marriage and reaffirmed to myself that I wanted to do it right the first time, whenever that is.

Shortly after we started loading the trailer. We backed up to a portable load ramp and started chaining and strapping down as fast as we could to keep up. We ended up leaving probably 2 hours later with 7 straps, 6 chains and some duck tape holding everything down.

On every load I continue to learn and feel more comfortable with what needs to be done, and each time I unintentionally take on one extra task that I didn't know before. I've learned that our trailer is a 53 foot Step Deck trailer. Which means it has one step and 2 levels in it (opposed to a 'double-drop' or 'low boy' that has 2 steps and 3 levels or flatbed with just one level). Some of the things I've learned, are how to correctly secure a straphook onto the trailer and wench it down, how to correctly fasten chains down, call in trip numbers and to release chain tighteners.

If you know how to do it, it may seem silly that I am proud to know how. But let's think, if I do any of them wrong, we could lose something of the trailer on the Interstate, I could lose a finger releasing a chain or if something gets messed up on an order, we may travel across a state and a half only to arrive and realize we got the wrong stuff!

Slowly my hands are remembering what physical work is like and even after a few days the smoothness is being transformed to dry rough patches. I hated having soft hands and glad they are leaving me for a more friendly replacement. 4 years in front of a computer will brainwash your hands from getting dirty and digging into to what needs to be done.

Anyway, just a quick one for now, I'll be posting nightly or whenever I feel the need from now on and will have a more detailed description of what's happening and more Trucker Wisdom.