My Typical Run

Okay folks, just to give you European and Brit based drivers an idea of times and distances that we do over here as North American Highway drivers, I have broken down my last trip. This is pretty typical of what we do and I have also super-imposed an image of Europe over the states so you can see the differences.

I left Lethbridge last Tuesday morning to do what I thought would be a standard 5 1/2 day trip down into Iowa, quick delivery and backload then back up to Canada to reset ready for the next trip. Now I want to point out at this point that I am totally out of sync for my dedicated day of leaving on a Friday so I am quite happy to stretch this one out. What I mean by that is if they send me further away for my backload or if they send me up to Toronto I'm okay with it.

Righty ho then………..

The story starts Monday afternoon, the day before I get back in the truck, I normally phone in about 13:00 to see where I am going the next day and check on delivery and collection times. This week I am told I am going to Beef Produ
cts Incorporated in Waterloo which is a "drop & wait" meaning I take the trailer in, leave it there, and go round to the J and wait. I like that run coz while you are waiting there's plenty of time to clean out the truck, grab a shower and a proper meal and chill out for a while.

Tuesday morning, Jan & I get up, Jan gets Luke ready for school and takes him, meanwhile I start packing for the trip. Most of my work clothes stay in the truck and only my laundry comes home with me.

So clothes packed, food packed, computer and cameras packed its breakfast time, typical Lomanovskis Canadian breakfast of Canadian bacon and cheese on a croissant and coffee. Jan comes back just as breakfast is cooked so we eat and throw all my gear in the car.

The drive into Lethbridge is about 30 mins so Jan drops me off and goes off shopping. I stow all my gear, pre-trip 3045 and log on to the satellite, the messages don’t come thru till you log on for the day. Once I'm happy with the truck and if nothing has come thru the satellite I take a walk into the office, grab the official keys off the hook (I have my own spare set), check the mail, check the licensing box to see if 3045 has any post then go upstairs to the dispatchers to see what's happening.

I am told that the load is still up at Cargill's in High River so I grab an empty trailer and scoot off up there, trouble is though, once I have crossed the border, meat inspection closes at 16:30 so I'm not going to make it. I plan to get the load, cross the border and park up on the meat inspection door s I can be first in the queue in the morning.

Soooooooo………………….

I grab the load (passed Kev & Lisa on the way up) and get down to the border, I got one extra little job to do this time, my I94 Visa waiver runs out in a couple of days so I need to go into immigration to renew that. The border guard keeps my passport and manifest so I don’t run off and I proceed thru the x-ray scanner and park up. I walk up to immigration and wait patiently to be sorted out, in the mean time another border guard managed to offend an Israeli man who had out stayed his welcome anyway. With that done I'm good for another 3 months and I toddle off to "Agri" to book the meat load thru. It was the same female officer in the other building so there must be a secret passage somewhere or a teleporter or something. Anyway she signs where she's supposed to sign and stamps where she's supposed to stamp and I smile, thank her very much, didn’t ask her if she had a teleporter then made my way back down to 3045 who was waiting patiently in the lot.

That little lot done I gunned the engine and we swiftly scooted the half mile or so round to meat inspection and pulled the curtains.

During the night the weather had turned nasty, a lot of roads were emergency traffic only and the road I wanted (needed) to take was closed. Anyway cleared meat inspection, drove down to Shelby and fuelled up, I spoke to another driver to told me that Highway 2 was now open so I happily drove off east. The roads started off okay but soon deteriorated and it was a hard slog to get to the Flying J at Beach North Dakota. That’s where I filmed the pickle thing, yuk!!

I sent a message to dispatch informing them about being out of sync and a run up to Toronto would put me right, hint, hint !

Next morning I started to pace my self for the delivery, I had nearly 2 full days before delivery so I planned 2 nice easy days, half an hour later I had a message asking me to get the load into Waterloo as soon as possible, pick up a trailer waiting for me and get it South to Ottumwa in southern Iowa.

Well that changed my plans a little so we drove as far as we could and ended up in a small rest area in Minnesota and the next morning finished the journey and dropped the trailer at BPI, this was after waiting over an hour for an asshole of a QA inspector to come out and check the seal, all he had to do was walk out of his office and walk 30 yards. Anyway he turned up and I was at my sarcastic best as usual so I hope I spoiled the Karma of his day.

Okay dropped the trailer and the one I picked up had a flat and half a dozen bald spots, oh yes and one axle was frozen solid which I promptly fixed with my trusty hammer. I phoned the shop and told then to get the "flat tire fixing guy" to meet me at the J, my plan was to get a shower while he was fixing it. Well that plan didn’t work out coz I had to drive to them, it was only a few blocks but it meant the shower had to wait. Anyway they changed the tire and I went back round to the J and had my shower.

I drove down to Ottumwa dropped the trailer at their wash-down and went to collect my load, its not a bad place they have all the facilities (except adequate parking) so I scaled off and waited for my paperwork, eventually a guy in white coveralls and a hard hat came over and waved a seal at me. Once I was sealed I headed North. Normally I would stop somewhere and do all the copying and faxing but this place does it all for you so I drove as far as I could and pulled over in a rest stop.

Next day drove to the Flying J at Sioux Falls and next morning fuelled up at the Pilot and headed west for the Flying J and Rapid City, from there drove to the Flying J at Butte Montana where I had a nice steak and baked potato supper. Next day drove to Moses Lake in Washington State and parked up there at a place called Ernie's Truck stop, its not a bad place but I've seen better.

Somehow I've managed to switch from driving days to driving nights but its not a problem as I am pushing hard and time is running short, the problem now is that I am running out of hours on my recap (weekly cycle) and I have to start planning hours carefully so I can make the deliveries on time. Had a message off Rick, one of the American dispatchers saying "Great run, well done, thanks" which was nice, he obviously knows what I'm up against here.

It was now the night before the deliveries in Vancouver and I was still in Moses Lake Washington so I needed one last big push. I left about 21:00 (Mountain Time)got over to Seattle and up thru the border at Surrey.

Now meat loads going down into the States have to be inspected by USDA at special facilities just over the border. Meat loads coming into Canada also have to be inspected but the Canadians do it slightly differently, once you have crossed the border coming North you go into the Brokers office which will be somewhere in the complex, he gives you a report called an MCAP and this tells you whether you have been selected for inspection or if it’s a "Skip", skipped loads just go on to delivery as normal. Loads to be inspected are sent to particular facilities where they are inspected then you go and deliver them.

Anyway I had one skip and one inspect so I delivered one load, drove down to the inspecting facility actually in Vancouver its self and a City driver took the trailer off me as there was no way I had the hours to get it to Chilliwack.

I bobtailed over to the Delta yard (15 mins) with 30 mins to spare and that’s where I am now.

I have taken 10 hours rest and I was expecting a load of coke-cola to get me back to Calgary, trouble is I am sill short of hours on the recap so I will have to do it it 2 shifts.

Now I have been told that the load wont be ready till tomorrow so I am planning to do a reset here in the yard and if I leave tomorrow afternoon I can get back to Calgary in one shift, it takes about 12 1/2 to 13 hours to get back then I just need a run down to Lethbridge for a few days off.

Well that’s my trip and that’s what I do as a North American Highway Driver, over the last week or so I have seen extremes of weather both hot and cold, met some great people (and a few assholes) travelled through 7 states and 2 provinces, I've been tired, exhausted, exhilarated, happy, sad, completely pissed off, confused, frustrated, proud and a mixture of all other emotions which I don’t think there are names for.

I've learnt some stuff, had some laughs and best of all been paid for it.

I guess that’s it, for better or worse, this is my "Trucking Life"………………………..