First Snows of Winter.

____Day 1: The Madisonville mushroom compost making plant needs more peat-moss; so it's southbound on Interstate 29 all the way to Rockport, Missouri.
____Day 2: Another 11 hours at the wheel; Kansas, Oklahoma, into Texas; after a new route variation. Left turn onto Oklahoma State Highway 88 at Oologah; through to Big Cabin via Claremore on Route 66. Staying the night at Corsicana, after crossing Dallas after dark and after rush-hour.

379 Peterbilt in the mirror : as indicated by the licence plate.

____Day 3: Empty of peat-moss and south on Interstate 45 to Houston. Twenty tons of ceramic powder for the Albertan oil industry; loaded from an old-time, dirty and dusty factory in 90 degree heat as news of Manitoba's snow-fall comes over the phone. Not that I'm going that way; it's a load direct to Alberta. Back north for another night at Corsicana.

Set-back steer axle and still a long wheel-base on this cabover.

____Day 4: There are two ways to do the longer triangle trips; one is to do as many hours as possible as quickly as possible before putting in the required log-hours reset. The other is to limit the working day so that a driver can plod on endlessly without a reset. The magic figure for this is an average 10 hours per day; which will get me home without a 36 hour enforced break. Friday's ten get me from Corsicana to Lamar, Colorado, following one of the United States few diagonal roads: Highway 287.

Cottonfield harvest in Texas.

____Day 5: A sign on the Interstate 70 says that snow-chains are required for travel west of Denver and it's only the first week of October. Mine are in the storage shed at Niverville and not in the storage locker on the truck but luckily I don't need them for northbound Interstate 25. It snows on the way out of Colorado, into Wyoming, at Cheyenne; but the roads are bare and dry by the time I stop for the evening at Casper.

Cloud-making factory working well.

____Day 6: Wyoming becomes Montana as the ups and downs bring me to Billings before trying the cross country short-cut to Great Falls. Finally the Summer road-works have finished and the surface is back to blacktop. To the Town Pump, at Shelby for the night.

Snow on the hillsides of Wyoming.

____Day 7: Thanks-Giving Day in Canada; the turkey basting holiday, one month of the ahead of the US. Just a border crossing and a few hundred kilometres to Blackfalds; an easy day with breaks at Lethbridge and Calgary.

House move by wide-mirrored Argosy.

____Day 8: Reversing, in the dark, onto an eight foot wide ramp, in the rain, across a muddy yard is not easily done before coffee and a face-wash; but the guys at oil-patch construction company were keen so it would be impolite not to oblige. Down at the insulation making factory at Innisfail, the staff were also helpful and ignored my 1500 hours booking time and had the trailer loaded by noon. Then it was the Trans-Canada Highway to Moose Jaw and the prospect of a quick tip in Brandon and home for tea on the following day.

October and the Canola Harvest continues in Alberta.

____Day 9: The building supplies company doesn't have the manpower to start unloading the fibre glass insulation until the afternoon. Then it is a slow, one by one, process of hand-balling of the bales to the back of the trailer. Empty at four o'clock, but it's not "empty back to the yard." Two pick-ups from honey farms, one just outside Brandon, the other at Oak Lake; 40 miles west. The honey farmers work late and I am loaded with 58 drums by 7 o'clock. Just enough time to get home.
____Overall Distance: 7720 Km.

Brewery of Budweiser in northern Colorado.