Fucking Well Stop Frac-ing.

Minot: The red dot above Bismarck.

____Day 1: Generally, I don’t get on well with the workshop staff at companies where I drive. The arrogant know-alls with grubby paws never believe I know what’s wrong with my truck, never fix it straight away and blame every fault on driver abuse. But the lads at Flying Eagle are different; friendly and ready to do what you ask, when you ask. So when #31 is due a service; it’s done first thing Monday morning and I’m away from the yard by 11 o’clock. Getting in a full day of driving; south to Columbus, Nebraska, with a load of peat-moss.
____Day 2: Weatherford, Texas, is the destination; just west of Fort Worth. Another eleven hours at the wheel before I park over-night at the plant nursery, 200 yards from the busy Interstate 20. The droning of passing trucks competes with the whirring of the giant fans that circulate the air in the poly-tunnels.

Unloading between the poly-tunnels and the flower-pots.

____Day 3: Away to Tulsa, Oklahoma, after unloading and breakfast. An easy day of 550 kilometres as the reload is not scheduled until the Thursday, 8 am. Arriving at Tulsa’s Flying’J at three in the afternoon; the place is it’s usual crowded chaotic mess. I forsake the chance of some diesel when I spot a vacant parking spot. There are said to be a quarter of a million trucks looking for overnight parking, every night, in the US. There are over 300,000 parking spots available nationwide but not all the trucks are in the right place at the right time. It may seem a bit extreme; diving into a parking stall as if it was last one on earth, but I know Tulsa and I had the satisfaction of soon watching the endless circulating of an endless stream of un-accommodated trucks.

Strange paint on Kenworth mixer.

____Day 4: The Arrow Engine Company is a manufacturer and doesn’t have the same urgency as distribution warehouses when it comes to loading trailers. As I had four days in which to cover the 2000 miles to Edmonton, Alberta; I had no urgency either and was content to wander around the factory. Marvelling at the old-fashioned engineering that makes the everlasting donkey engines with their huge fly-wheels. Away just after noon, north to Vermillion, South Dakota.

Every oil well needs an on-site storage tank.

____Day 5: A day in the Dakotas; finishing at Minot. My first time in a year, after the devastating flood of 2011. The place is now at the heart of North Dakota’s oil and gas exploration. The Schatz Crossroads Truckstop is now inundated with pneumatic discharge bulk powder tankers on out-of-state plates. Frac-Sand carriers. The sand is used in an oil extracting process where a sand and water mixture is pumped at very high pressure into a very deep oil well. The highly pressurised mix eventually fractures the rock deep in the earth’s crust; releasing oil and gas that can be pumped to the surface. Little is known as to whether widespread “frac-ing” will pollute water supplies, cause earthquakes or trigger volcanic eruptions. The economy is happy to create jobs, the Government is happy with the supply non-Arab oil, the oil companies are happy to generate wealth for their share-holders. Little concern is being shown for the disintegration of the planet.
____Day 6: Back into Canada, through the border at North Portal, Saskatchewan, and more oil and gas exploration based at Estavan. Onto North Battleford for the night, with the skies full of geese; ever changing flying formations battling the strong north wind.

Tough old steel hauling International cabover.

____Day 7: The short run to the Flying’J on the east side of Edmonton. The trip started with two days of over 1000 kilometres; the following five have only racked up another 3000, that’s the way it goes.
____Day 8: Breakfast at Tim Horton’s with Mr. Ramsden; who I hadn’t seen since breakfast in Steinbach on the previous Monday. Then to the delivery address and the quaintly named company called “Above and Beyond.” Reload is from the other side of Edmonton; bagged cement for Winnipeg. Homeward  bound as far as Chamberlain.

Tough 6 x 8 Mack Mixer.

____Day 9: Stopping at the newly re-developed Esso service station at White City; I find the 3 foot x 10 foot “Truckstop” sign has now been replaced with a “No Truck Parking” sign and the threat of a $2,000 fine. The site, just east of Regina, now has a Tim Horton’s franchise but won’t be getting my patronage again. Cement delivered in Winnipeg; I’m back in the yard and on my way home by 4 o’clock.

____Overall Distance: 7177km.

Purple Peterbilt.

Spring Roads.

____Day 1: The mildest winter of my years in Canada has given way to Spring and the phenomenon of Spring Roads. Restrictions on the allowable axle weights of heavy trucks using secondary highways during the time of annual thaw. A time when heavy damage can occur when the ground under the roads changes from frozen to soft sponge. Manitoba has a lot of these roads, but also Minnesota and my route to Duluth has to be changed to go by via Grand Forks because of the restrictions on roads south of Rainy River.
____Day 2: First drop of eight is five crates of an exhibition stand delivered to a warehouse under the bridge that joins Minnesota to Wisconsin. Second drop, two crates to La Crosse; third, one crate to Cottage Grove; before heading to Milwaukee.
____Day 3: A delivery in the suburb of West Allis and then off to the suburban sprawl of Chicago for three drops. Seven of the 8 done but not enough time to get to the last; near St. Louis. A night at the TA, Troy, Illinois.

Essential jack-knife to get unloaded in limited space.

____Day 4: The tightest of delivery spots at Webster Groves, where the customer thinks that just because he is having a small consignment; then it will be delivered on a small truck. Having done the drops without any problem, it creates the problem that the reload hasn't been scheduled until Thursday afternoon. Twenty-seven hours to be filled and Mount Vernon selected to occupy my time.

Long wheel-based Kenworth T660 with driver's toy-box.

____Day 5: An endless selection of fast-food restaurants compete for my taste-bud attention, but I stay loyal to Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen; chicken and biscuits. Before heading east for 60 miles and a load of oil filters from the town of Albion. Then driving late into the evening; to Taylor, Missouri. Five days into the trip and the kilometre is still under 3,000.

Kenworth badged four-wheeler with European heritage.

____Day 6: From Taylor to Fargo, North Dakota; first day with over a thousand kays. Meeting up with Neal Trickett and Flying Eagle #39 for a meal together at the Petro Stopping Center. Discussing the merits of a very pretty waitress with a very squeaky and very irritating voice.
____Day 7: Back to the yard, just creeping up to an average of 600 km a day for the weeks work. Not the best paying trip of the year; but the $35 for each of the drops does help make it up.
____Overall Distance: 4175 Km.

Car-Transporter of the Week.

Hang Up and Drive.

____World's Best-Ever bumper sticker: Hang Up and Drive. There are now laws forbidding the use of hand-held cellphones whilst driving but this has not curtailed their use. Rush-hour on a Kansas City Interstate and a red pick-up truck comes steaming down the on-ramp with the drivers right hand slapped against the side of his face. He has no idea of the havoc that the next ten seconds of his conversation will cause. Luckily. my load of flax-seed was so tightly packed that it had no-where to go under extreme braking. It was also fortunate that all the other road-users had some where to go and could avoid the red menace.
____Something has to be done! And I believe it has to be the cellphone service providers that bring a stop to the chaos that their product is causing on our roads. Technology is available that could render a cellphone in-operable if it was travelling at more than 20 mph and not connected to a hands-free headset. I'm sure that electronic circuitry could be added to a SIM card that would link a GPS application to the off/on switch. The law is not working and something needs to be done; the cellphone companies are prosperous money-making enterprises and need to be held responsible for the situation.
____I'm not a great fan of texting; but I'm not anti-cellphone. It has brought about the biggest change to the road transport industry that I have seen during my career. Communication is everything and talking on a hands-free headset is no different from talking to a passenger in the vehicle. Long conversations with fellow drivers has become part of a driver's day and helps pass the time on long tedious sections road. The free service offered by most networks when calling a same-network number makes endless gossiping very popular. I confess to using the numbers on my speed-dial just because I'm bored; but all to often they are already all talking to each other.

Chrome Shop Mafia and the Son of Iowa 80.

____Day 1: " What have I done now?" is my normal reaction when I get an incoming call from a stranger who knows my name. Just south of the border; but no need to worry. It's Ann, a nice lady from the Pilot/Flying'J Challenge Magazine, phoning to say that I have won a Garmin Sat-Nav. Winning the quarterly prize in the Garmin Gallery Photograph Competition. It puts me in a much better mood, after I had spent an awful long time trying to get the trailer axles slid into a legal position. A load of flax seed, as far as Sapp Bros at Percival on the Iowa/Missouri border.

Junction 4, Interstate 44, Joplin, Missouri.

____Day 2: An early start that gets me down to the animal food plant at Neosho before Midday. Unloaded and despatched to Topeka for a ten o'clock loading appointment, the next day. Plenty of time to go along to Junction 4 on Interstate 44 and visit the Chrome Shop Mafia. The place to go if you have a truck customising project, a long shopping list and plenty of cash. Not a place with much for the average trucker looking to add a couple of shiny bits to a company truck. But just a short walk to somewhere with plenty of bling; Joplin's Petro Truckstop and the new Supertruck Showroom. Similar in style to the Worlds Greatest Truckstop, Iowa 80. Two hours of wandering about before heading north to the TA at Beko Junction; where it rained all night.

Inside Supertuck Showroom at Petro Truckstop, Joplin.

____Day 3: Coffee cup lids, from back to front and from floor to ceiling, all going to Winnipeg. US Highway 75, north to Interstate 29 and as far as Watertown for a night at Stone's. A night of free beer; as a short wiry guy from Arizona, with long beard and longer hair, insists on buying all the rounds, all the time, for everybody. Straight out of ZZ Top; he holds court, plays the harmonica and has us all in stitches with his endless story telling. At $2.25 a bottle and only four in the audience; it didn't cost him a fortune. The others called him "Zee-Zee." I resisted the temptation to call him "Zed-Zed."

Strange abandoned state of the art truckstop on US Highway 75, Kansas.

____Day 4: Up and away, later than intended, it doesn't matter as I'm only returning for a 36 hour log re-set and doing nothing in particular. The new girl friend is out of town; spending the Easter weekend at her mother's. Mustn't grumble; at my age, I'm lucky to pull something that's young enough to still have living parents. I pop into the Flying'J at Fargo to pick-up the sat-nav prize; getting back to the yard at two in the afternoon.
____Overall Distance: 3310 km.

Car Transporter of the Week.

Winchester.

____Day 1: A heavy load of flour to go 2700 kilometres and be delivered by the third afternoon. So, to Portage in Wisconsin and 1100 kays out of the way by the end of the first day.
____Day 2: Another four figure addition to the speedo, to the TA at Hebron in Ohio. Making the most of a strong tailwind and the flat terrain of the Mid-West. Compacting the working-day, to give an early start after the 10 hour daily rest.

Cab-over Peterbilt on flatdeck work, pictured at Portage, Wisconsin.

____Day 3: A day short on mileage but big on hills. The Rocky Mountains may have spectacular scenery and greater altitudes, but the Appalachians are more demanding to drive. An endless multitude of short sharp climbs and descents; with the National Freeway, Interstate 68, being a true test of a drivers ability with the Eaton Fuller 13 speed, constant-mesh transmission. Lightening-fast, clutch-less gear changes are needed to keep the Cummins humming on the undulating highway that starts at the eastern edge of Ohio and stretches to the Atlantic coastal plain at Baltimore. Busy traffic on the Interstate 95 also slows the last leg of the trip, but it's a good quick delivery at the bakery in Aberdeen; which gives me enough time to do the 200 kilometres towards the re-load.

Rail King, shunting rail-cars at Aberdeen, Maryland. Can I have a go?

____Day 4: "Winchester" can bring to mind the English cathedral city or the repeating rifle; but to me "Winchester" is always the private drinking club where Arthur Daley and Terry used to drink, in the programme: "Minder." Drink is the reload from Winchester, but fruit drink; the tiny cartons with the bendy straw stuck to the side that kids get in their lunch boxes. Like the flour millers of Manitoba, the fruit drink manufacturers of Virginia, know just how much product they can put on a truck and still stay legal. The rig is loaded to just below the 80,000 lbs limit. Another slog through the Appalachian Mountain chain, before I make the bad choice of Highway 250. North-west out of Wheeling, West Virginia, along a steep, narrow and twisting two-lane camel track before coming out at Amish farmland in Ohio. A photo opportunity to add more pictures to the folder named: " Blurred Black Buggies."

Mount Eaton, Ohio, home to many Amish.

____Day 5: Valparaiso, Indiana, was a good resulting destination and  another four-figure kilometre count took me through to the small Minnesota Truckstop at Rothsay. The trip continued it's pattern of eat-sleep-drive and not much else.

Two heavy loads but all the scales were closed on this trip.

____Day 6: Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight. The last five-hundred kilometres in less than 5 hours, getting back to the yard  just before Midday on Sunday. A non-stop trip and not my preferred way of doing things; but good mileage and good pay should not be moaned about.
____Overall Distance: 5557 km.

Car Transporter.

Charlotte.

____Day 1: After a 10 day break; I'm back to work with all the snow gone. The hottest March days ever recorded in South-east Manitoba; since records began. A hot load too, 1650 miles to be delivered within three days. Only enough time to dump all my stuff back in the truck before 11 hours driving down to Portage, near Madison, Wisconsin.
____Day 2: A body lying on the Interstate 39 and my first reaction is to look for the motorbike. But it's in a road-works area and is a highway worker. No ambulance or police are yet in attendance; it looks fatal, as everyone is standing well back in a state of shock. Illinois has a 14 year prison sentence for drivers who hit highway workers. I'm in a sombre mood for the rest of the day as I head to London in Kentucky; thinking of two families that have had their lives ruined by the incident.

Long and low Peterbilt 359 with rear window in sleeper.

____Day 3: For me, in real-life, the spectre of death rarely rears it's head and never before on consecutive days. But, just outside of Knoxville, there is an SUV hard up against the concrete wall of the Interstate median. The driver is slumped sideways and motionless: "heart-attack" is the general consensus on the CB. Again, the emergency services have yet to arrive and would-be rescuers find themselves locked out of the vehicle by the automatic central locking system. I bet modern car designers never considered "Death at the Wheel" when they invented that little gadget. Onto Charlotte, North Carolina, for the delivery of the flour; again reflecting on events as I drive Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River valley. Budding leaves and the blossom of Spring in the Smoky Mountains that form the border between Tennessee and the Carolinas.

Unloading loose potatoes from a box van.

____Day 4: It's called "Touch Screen" for a reason; otherwise it would be known as "Thump me until I shatter Screen." Flying Eagle #31 did 5,500 kilometres in the hands of another driver whilst I was away. But the guy badly mis-judged his tender touch of the GPS screen; disabling the sat-nav, the radio and a host of other electronic devices. Most annoying when I come to plot my course to the reload, in Ochlocknee, Georgia. I have come to rely on the GPS to give me an arrival time and the distance to the customer. The four hundred mile dead-head seems to take forever as I cross South Carolina  to the South-west corner of Georgia. Kitty-litter loaded and homeward bound, but only to the top-side of Atlanta before the day's driving hours run out.

Loading cat-litter at a dusty plant in southern Georgia.

____Day 5: A day of heavy thunder showers, as the warm Spring weather piles the clouds high into the sky; but it saves on screenwash as the first bugs of the year appear. The average kilometre count for the trip goes up over a thousand as a full 11 hours at the wheel clocks up over 1100km. But at Wayland, Iowa, I am still more than one day away from home.

Dredging for sand on the Ohio River.

____Day 6: It must be tempting for a family man to put in a big day and get home to their loved-ones and not have to spend another night in the truck, just a couple of hours from home. But, with the border crossing from the US into Canada, it can be risky to break the 11 hour driving rule. Having no reason to get back, I set my sights on Fargo and the Northstar Truck Wash; which is a good move as nobody else is sad enough to want their truck washed at eight o'clock on a Saturday evening. Straight in and out in 20 minutes.
____Day 7: Sub-zero temperatures back in Canada, but the roads are bare and dry. It's nice to get the rig back to the yard looking clean and tidy. All parked-up and finished by 10.30, Sunday morning.
____Overall Distance: 6313 km.

Trailer-load of mature trees going somewhere for re-planting.

Annie Oakley Memorial Highway.

____Day 1: Heavy snow on the Friday still hadn't been cleared by the time I gingerly crept out of the yard and pointed the truck towards the border on Saturday morning. With just 9000 lbs of steel cabinets to help give me traction, it was tricky road conditions all the way to Fargo, North Dakota. Snow flurries in Minnesota and Wisconsin accompanied me to Black River Falls as I headed east on Interstate 94; for a change.

Heading West on Highway 23 towards Morris, Manitoba.

____Day 2: A very noisy fridge motor, parked inches from my sleeper window, woke me up at three o'clock in the morning. I got up, got dressed and got out to ask the driver to move. If I had known that he had two pitbull terriers in the cab, I wouldn't have bothered. You cannot reason with that sort of moron. But I did have the satisfaction of seeing the dogs go berserk in the cab, everytime I knocked on his door. Which I did at regular intervals until the police arrived and asked me to stop annoying the animals. But I had the last laugh when the cops told him to move; after I said he threatened to set the dogs on me. I spent the whole day driving to Solon, Ohio, thinking about the encounter and what sort of driver calls the police for back-up when he has two pitbulls.
____Day 3: Heavy lake-effect snow on Sunday evening had prompted me to park overnight at the customers premises and avoid the chaotic morning rush hour. Unloaded and away by nine o'clock; heading to nearby Tallmadge for the first pick-up of an LTL [Less than Truck Load]. A second-hand John Deere tractor, from London, was next; followed by two fork-lifts from Fort Recovery. All was going well until I found a puncture in a trailer tyre. When is this run of tyre problems going to end?
____Day 4: The Travelcentre of America at Eaton couldn't repair the tyre so I had to buy a part-used replacement; before doing the fourth pick-up at Greenville and heading north on Highway 127 for the fifth at South Bend, Indiana. Driving on the Annie Oakley Memorial Highway through the hunting territory of a young fatherless girl who fed her family with game brought down by her skillful shooting. A once in a lifetime chance to visit the grave of my mother's biggest hero. To pay my respects to the champion marks-woman, the adopted daughter of Chief Sitting Bull and the star of the World-wide touring: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Annie Oakley Gravesite, just South of the Village of North Star in Ohio.

____Day 5: Getting to the Petro Truckstop at Portage gave me a good chance of getting the load back to the yard. 1100 kilometres is a long day at the wheel but I knew that it would be longer because of the second-hand JD tractor. All exported, used vehicles with an internal combustion engine have to be presented to both US and Canadian Customs for inspection. The serial number is then checked against a database of stolen equipment; my green-machine had been bought on E-Bay but, thankfully, checked out OK.
____Overall Distance: 4251 km.

Something Special, fine old Areodyne out in all weathers.

Glider Kits : Resources Versus Emissions.

____ The "Glider Kit" is a small niche market in the North American transport industry that supplies new trucks without an engine, a transmission and sometimes, drive axles. The latest additions to the Flying Eagle fleet are two such beasts; Freightliner Coronados from Fitzgerald Glider Kits of Crossville, Tennessee. New trucks but with reconditioned 1998 Detroit Diesel 12.7 litre engines and rebuilt Eaton 13-speed gearboxes.

____ The big advantage of such vehicles is that they do not need to comply with the high-tech and complicated emission regulations that burden all new trucks. Exhaust-gas- regeneration and Diesel-exhaust- fluid-treatment, the technically flawed solutions to curbing exhaust pollution, are not required. The trucks have the reliable, economical Series 60 engine from Detroit, producing a very adequate 500 horse-power.

____Everything on the engine is either new or rebuilt, starter, alternator, compresser, fuel pump, ecm, etc. Environmentalists might say that the trucks are driving through a loop-hole to avoid costly breakdowns with no concern to the pollution they cause.  However, recycling of an old engine is saving the planet from the pollution given out at a steel-making plant.
____There are two sides to every story when it comes to enviromental matters. At $115,000 each, you get a lot of truck for your money and there are two Welsh blokes driving around with big smiles on their faces. The Coronado is the luxury, top of the range truck from Freightliner and comes with two beds in the "Condo" sleeper. Check-out the Fitzgerald Glider Kit website for more information.

Up In Smoke.

____Day 1: "I don't do drugs; so why are they wasting my time by sending me for a pee-test?" Is my and most other drivers reaction when ordered to take a random drugs test. The US government insists that all Canadian cross-border carriers carry out tests on their drivers and it's something that all companies insist that their drivers sign-up to. I signed the paper, so at midday on Friday; I have to grab a coffee and go hacking off into Winnipeg to give a urine sample. Annoying because I had been in the city all morning; waiting for my trailer to be loaded with material destined for Mexico. Eventually away from the yard at two o'clock and down to Vermillion for the night.

Stretched Studio-Sleeper on Long Wheelbase Kenworth.

____Day 2: Eagle Pass, Texas, on Monday morning is the aim and to vary the route, this week, I run Highway 75 through the state of Kansas. Not as good as the nearby and parallel 169 but with a good TA at Beto Junction. A truckstop in the middle of no-where but worth stopping because of the first-rate service. In rural areas, staff tend to stay longer at the same job because of limited choice; but experienced staff do a better job and this shows at Beto Junction. Highway 75 through Tulsa and south to Stringtown's Choctaw Nation Casino with their big parking lot.

Fixins and Texas Trash ?????     No idea.  Next time I'll ask.

____Day 3: It's great to drive new roads; but using the same roads every week also has advantages. You can memorize details of places that might be worth stopping at. Such as the Up In Smoke BBQ, just south of Hillsboro on Interstate 35. Bar-B-Que restaurants are the Texas equivalent to the British Fish and Chip Shop; food for the common man, and like the Chippie, if it's a good'un there will be a queue but it will be worth the wait. Up In Smoke is cafeteria style, tray-self-service with paper plates and plastic knifes and forks, but the food is good and portions are generous. A Sunday lunch of ribs, potato salad and coleslaw set me up for the long haul across to the Mexican border at Eagle Pass.

Typical Cross-Border Mexican Shunter.

____Day 4: Backed onto an unloading bay overnight; it was 10 o'clock before they started transshipping my stuff onto a nearby Mexican trailer. Dropping a half-full mug of coffee prompted some much needed cab cleaning. But mostly I sat in the warm sunshine, watching two enormous Mexican flags billowing in the breeze and listening to the drone of old Mexican trucks as they came across the Rio Grande. There were no reload instructions ready for me when I was finally empty at two o'clock; but eventually came the order to run to Denton.

A Marmon.

____Day 5: Denton, Texas, birthplace of #31 at the vast Peterbilt Assembly Plant; but I'm loading at a nearby industrial park so only get to look over the fence. Replacement teeth for digger buckets; heavy little pallet-boxes that I am very grateful to have loaded when gale-force winds and lashing rain buffet the rig as I head through Kansas in the evening.

Legendary Kansas Thunderstorm.

____Day 6: From Salina across country to Murdock, Nebraska, and another collection of organic pet food destined for Alberta. Organic food for pets; although I suppose all pets are organic. Finally, to fill the trailer, six pallets of roller-shutters from nearby Omaha. Then just as it's getting dark, southbound trucks on Interstate 29 are coming along covered in snow. From Sioux Falls, the road is hard-packed snow and ice; the winter-storm has passed but driving is not easy. By Watertown, I have had enough for the day and the lure of a Michelob Ultra is too hard to resist.

Early Morning Scene at Stone's Truckstop, Watertown, SD.

____Day 7: Breakfast-time is busy at Stone's truckstop, a full parking lot holds many oversize loads that were forced off the interstate at 4 o'clock the previous afternoon during white-out conditions. Wind-turbine blades heading south, farm and construction equipment Canada-bound; all with permits that forbid travel in adverse weather conditions. They are still sitting it out when I decide to leave; it's still tricky with not much sign of tarmac. But I'm going home and even slow and steady will get my there tonight.
____Overall Distance: 5768 km.

Old White plugged-in at Murdock, Nebraska.

Houston : Whitney and the City.

____Day 1: The usual Friday afternoon visit to the peat-moss mine at Elma; then south, over the border, to Stone's Truckstop at Watertown, South Dakota. On the last leg of the journey, a silver Pontiac Trans-Am comes cruising alongside. Interior light blazing; with the driver stroking the inner-thigh of her red-satin clad right leg. I look away in disgust; glancing at the speedometer where the trip-counter is showing 666.6 km. The little devil !
____Day 2: Breakfast is accompanied with television pictures of Whitney Houston's funeral from her hometown of Newark, New Jersey. The City of Houston, Texas, is my destination for a Monday morning delivery in the western suburb of Richmond. But I don't get far without this year's run of tyre problems continuing with a puncture. It's only a four minute drive from the fuel-stop at Sioux Falls' Flying'J to the service centre at the nearby Pilot; but it's four hours later when I can have it fixed. Continuing to Cherryvale in Kansas and a mid-night finish.

Smart Service Centre but very slow.

____Day 3: A full day's driving, through Tulsa, through Dallas, down to the customer's premises. Dry roads, warm weather, light traffic but an uncomfortable ride.  The same load in the same direction with the same truck as every week; so it must be the trailer. A Wabash instead of the normal Great Dane and a different suspension set-up. A single shock-absorber on each axle might save weight and save money but gives a very choppy ride and a pain in the back for the driver.

Single-shocker set -up on Wabash trailer.

____Day 4: President's Day national holiday, but the plant nursery work-force are in at 8 o'clock and I'm up at the West Houston Flying'J for breakfast before nine. However, a lot of companies are  not working and reloads are hard to find. Then just before noon, I get instructions for a load of plastic granules; going to Winnipeg from Orange, the last town on Interstate 10 before the Louisiana/Texas state border. Loaded before four, then north on US Highways 96, 59 and 71. Winding roads up into Arkansas and a night at Mena.

The popular Peterbilt 379 custom look with deep windshield visor.

____Day 5: The warm weather of the southern States continues until the evening; 1000 kilometres to the north. A night at Vermillion's Caribou Coffee Fuel Stop at Mile-marker 26 on Interstate 29. Truck #31 on Interstate 29; but it could have been Truck #31 on Interstate 31 if the coin-toss had gone the other way. Even -numbered Interstates run West to East; numbers rising from South to North. Odd-numbered Interstates run from South to North with the road numbers counting-up as one heads eastwards. During the construction of 29, it was still undecided if it was going to be 29 or 31.

Most Iowa farms have old trucks working as grain-haulers.

____Day 6: The homeward run is broken up by the  collection of some tractor parts from Grand Forks, North Dakota. Which nearly slips my mind; just like I forgot to put Grand Forks on the map. At only 75 miles south of the border, it delays my arrival back at the yard; when I have to wait two hours for the customs papers to be filed. Back in Manitoba, eight inches of snow have fallen; the biggest covering of the Winter.
____Overall Distance: 5560 km.

Big-sleeper Coronado has radio ham aerial on left-side mirror-arm.

US Highway 75, seamless join onto Interstate 45, southbound through Dallas.