Working.
Jan 30, 2015 22:26:25 GMT -5
Post by rah on Jan 30, 2015 22:26:25 GMT -5
It really hasn’t been that bad so are this winter from my former cold weather/alpine soldier turned truck driver perspective. Plenty of winter weather and sustained cold but not sustained bitter cold. After over 3,600 miles of driving in the last 6 days with two deliveries in Ayre, MA (About 25 mi NW of the Boston commons), I’m tired. But it could have been much worse. I got out of MA three hours before they shut down the Turnpike at midnight Monday. But at my pickup in Albany, NY the next morning the winter weather caught up with me. Tough 50 miles or so getting out of there. I was thankful that the NWS was wrong about the track (It went further east than they predicted) and a little off on the timing this time (It tracked north slower than predicted)
. Second trip out I delivered in Ayre at 13:00 Thursday. To pick up my back haul I had to drive closer to into the Boston beast than I like in a big truck and had some dicey times getting around some of those tight ramps because they hadn’t plowed them wide enough for a big truck with a 53′ trailer. Berms of snow on each side of where the plows passed were 5′ in some places. Passed by Walton’s Pond on my way from Ayre to Rockland for that pickup. Generally the further east one goes the less respect and courtesy a big truck gets but on Thursday I got plenty. I think some of those following really liked the fact that my trailer was crushing the snow back some on the ramps.
My pretty new Red Freight Liner looks neither red nor new now. Covered in white streams and blotches from the treated roads. The truck now knows the NY and MA turnpikes well enough that if I drive it much more I should be able to put it on autopilot and climb into the sleeper while going down the road. I moved into that new truck weekend before last when it had 76 miles on it. Now it has over 7,600. Another 190,000 and it’ll be broken in. Already trashed the original wimpy factory supplied windshield wipers and put on new heavy duty winter ones on Wed. One good winter storm will trash regular wipers on a big truck despite the fact that when the hawk comes out and the snow is a flying I run the defrost heat and fan at 100% and crack my drivers side window to keep from getting heat exhaustion.
All in all a good week. Thanked for the effort getting two loads of new soda pop cans through to the Pepsi products bottler in Ayre. I mean, after all, it would be a disaster if the good people of MA had to endure a shortage of Pepsi products with the SB coming up. Wouldn’t it? Certainly worth a 62 hour work week. Right?
. Second trip out I delivered in Ayre at 13:00 Thursday. To pick up my back haul I had to drive closer to into the Boston beast than I like in a big truck and had some dicey times getting around some of those tight ramps because they hadn’t plowed them wide enough for a big truck with a 53′ trailer. Berms of snow on each side of where the plows passed were 5′ in some places. Passed by Walton’s Pond on my way from Ayre to Rockland for that pickup. Generally the further east one goes the less respect and courtesy a big truck gets but on Thursday I got plenty. I think some of those following really liked the fact that my trailer was crushing the snow back some on the ramps.
My pretty new Red Freight Liner looks neither red nor new now. Covered in white streams and blotches from the treated roads. The truck now knows the NY and MA turnpikes well enough that if I drive it much more I should be able to put it on autopilot and climb into the sleeper while going down the road. I moved into that new truck weekend before last when it had 76 miles on it. Now it has over 7,600. Another 190,000 and it’ll be broken in. Already trashed the original wimpy factory supplied windshield wipers and put on new heavy duty winter ones on Wed. One good winter storm will trash regular wipers on a big truck despite the fact that when the hawk comes out and the snow is a flying I run the defrost heat and fan at 100% and crack my drivers side window to keep from getting heat exhaustion.
All in all a good week. Thanked for the effort getting two loads of new soda pop cans through to the Pepsi products bottler in Ayre. I mean, after all, it would be a disaster if the good people of MA had to endure a shortage of Pepsi products with the SB coming up. Wouldn’t it? Certainly worth a 62 hour work week. Right?