Ripon ca

I got into Ripon at 6.30pm and flew straight round to save on foods to stock up on a few goodies, 4 tins of heinz beans, 4 tins of spagetti and 2 tins of ambrosia custard. Then i dashed over to the flying j to get a parking spot before they all went, i was lucky as there was only 3 spaces left. So i got parked, did my paperwork, went over for a shower and something to eat. I'll run to my drop in the morning, it's only 15mins away, and hopefully i'll get a load tomorrow to get me back into Lethbridge.

Next trip

So thats the end of another week off. We've got lots done, seen lots of houses and done plenty of shopping. I found out yesterday that the truck was still in the shop and they we're only half way down the list, so i've been offered another truck. This trip i am going to Modesto Calafornia, and Barbara's staying in Lethbridge so she can keep some appointments she's got.

Update

We did the switch in Winnipeg, and the trailer we got was full of paper cups for a midnight delivery in Delta. After the Delta tip, we got a load from Richmond to Calgary with 3 drops on it. We did those then parked at the flying j in Calgary. The next morning, while doing my inspection, i noticed there was hardly any coolant in it, so i topped it up. Strange as it was ok the previous day. There was no sign of a leakage, so i carried on and did my walk around. Thats when i saw the nice red puddle under the tripack. So after a bit of digging about, i found that one of the hoses that runs coolant between the engine and the tripack, had rubbed through, and the fluid was running along the inside of the insulation to the lowest point and dripping. So i turned of the taps, and isolated the tripack. I mentioned it to dispatch, and said i was off to penske to get more coolant. While in penske, we got a message saying as your off tomorrow, and cant use your tripack, do you want to finish early. So we said yes, to right. We got a message straight back telling us to bobtail to High River and pick up a trailer to bring straight back to the yard. When we got into High River the trailer was actually ready, thats a first! So we got finished about 4pm saturday evening. Result. We are staying with our friends in Lethbridge for the week, and will no doubt be spending a couple days looking at houses.

Good news

Just had a message through saying we've been routed to Winnipeg to do a switch so we can get back for our time off. The only problem now is we're still waiting for this load to clear customs. Apparantly British Columbia is a bit funny about bringing in apples. I have just sent H&R a message and told them whats happening, so hopefully they might have more luck than me.

A few pics of Rogers Pass

Car port on Rogers

Avalanche tunnel after a controlled avalanche

Rest area

Barbara's view of the pass

Sorry for the lack of posts, when we've had time we've had no internet, and vice versa. So we set off with the load to Toronto and got as far as Nipigon when we got a message to do a change over in Long Lac. We did that and the load we got was for delivery in the Vancouver area, with not much spare time. So we ran hard to get there, then took a reset in Delta. The next load we got was for Edmonton, we got to Kamloops and stopped for a shower. When we got back in the truck we had a message to do a change over, but the driver wouldn't be there for another 6 hours! Anyway we got the trailer, tipped the load and picked up a loaded trailer for Calgary. After tipping Calgary we got a load for Oregon, which we've tipped. Then they sent us into Washington for apples, which we loaded this morning. These are for delivery in Toronto, but we've got days off booked in 7 days time, so hopefully we'll be dropping this trailer in Lethbridge and getting something a bit shorter.

Got up this morning and had a shower and breakfast then phoned the meat plant. The load is not ready yet. Turns out they have 150 domestic loads to do today, so it's a 50/50 chance wether we get ours or not. We have to check out of the room in an hour, so i think we'll have a drive down there and see whats happening.

New Years Day

Happy new year. We got our first dispatch of the year first thing this morning, a meat load with two drops on in Toronto. So we grabbed an m/t trailer from the Calgary yard and ran down to Brooks. We checked the m/t in, dropped it and went back into security to get the loaded one. The woman in the gaurd shack looked everywhere for the paperwork but there was no sign of it. Turns out that 50 domestic loads were shown as loaded by the meat plant, when they wern't. So the H&R skeleton staff thought the loads were ready to travel. No problem to me, i wasn't really fused about doing much today anyway, plus i got very well paid to pick an m/t up, run it two hours and drop it. So we ran to the shell garage in Brooks and parked up. I tuned the tv in and got 1 channel, put the computer on, no internet. We then decided to go to smitty's for some food. We missed them by five minutes. So i walked over to the travel lodge and checked us in for the night, we've got good internet now, a lovely warm room with comfy beds and 100's of channels of rubbish on the tv. When i've finished on here i'll be going to soak in the bath, then lay in bed and watch tv. Oh and i almost forgot, yesterday we went to see Avatar. What a brilliant film, if you get chance go see it.