Crash, Bang, Boom

So what's new? I can say I've had an interesting (and at times...frightening) couple of days.

Thursday morning I had a load to pick-up at a minerals plant. You know when you have someone basically spotting for you and giving you direction you rely heavily on them to insure you don't hit anything. At the minerals plant I had to back my trailer into a doorway of a large shed. As you can see from the picture of my side mirror from my view it was pitch black in there so I could see nothing of where I was going. I had no choice but to rely on the guy directing me. So he's waving at me to keep coming back and then all of a sudden I hear CRUNCH! Oh crap! I pulled forward and got out to look at what had happened. The top of my tractor had collided with the top of their doorway. His boss comes over and the first thing he says to me is "You know we're not responsible for that." Geez...thanks for the concern. Now the guy who you can see in the picture to the right was nice enough to tell me "You have no idea how often this happens." Hmmm...not surprised! So now the back edge of the top faring is cracked. I CAN say I'm grateful that the truck's owner didn't get upset with me over it....I was upset enough for both of us.

          

Now there was one highlight of this particular pick-up. When I went into the building to pick-up the bills of lading the girls who were in there were just ecstatic that that I was a female in the field. They said they've only ever seen one girl in there before and she never came back. One of the girls said they think it's fantastic to see it...it shows the guys that the gals can do it too. She also said their bog driver had stood in the window for a while watching me and told them "Well I'll be damned if she ain't tarping the hell out of that thing all by herself." LOL! Yes...I take pride in my determination.

The weather for sure has made things very interesting as well this week. I never really got much in the way of experience driving in snowy/icy conditions when I drove before so this is definitely a learning experience for me. I AM cautious...because I don't want to be one of the trucks seen in the middle of one of these accidents.

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013301210010

Yesterday I got "lucky" enough to get a load out of Franklin, OH picking up from Atlas. Let me tell you...if I never go there again I would not be disappointed. You have to back your trailer into a space that only has inches to spare on each side of your trailer. It took me about 20 minutes to finally get it into the space (after much cursing). Oh...and no thanks to the numerous other truckers sitting there watching me for their amusement. And as I was being loaded the snow came in. Oh joy...I was very glad that I did not have to tarp that load.

I called in that I had the load and was going home. I can say I am glad I made that choice since the roads got so nasty. So on my way home I got on I- 71N. Not long on the highway and traffic came to a full stop. I sat there for minimum of an hour due to an accident about 3 miles up the road that involved about 6 cars and a semi. Word on the CB is that there was a fatality as well. It is these type of instances that remind me that cautious is better than dead. Of course it's made even more difficult by the fact that my window washer fluid refuses to work so the windshield gets really bad making visibility very difficult at times.

Today I stopped by the truck to start it up because of the cold weather. Good thing I did! She didn't really WANT to start but I got her started. And then the air supply for the trailer brakes did not want to fill up. I was freaking out for a few minutes over that. After the tractor's air supply filled up, I tried pushing and pulling out the button for the trailer brakes and then it started to fill up. Phew! And I'm happy that Monday is going to be a little warmer. It's supposed to rain and for the truck that's good...it needs all the road salt washed off!

So that's it for this weeks exploits. It's time for me to do some work on my weekend job...web design. No rest for the wicked...er...I mean weary.