Mountains

This post is a special guest appearance by Beth Jensen

Driving a semi up and down mountains is the most dangerous part of my job. Fortunately, you only needs to be aware of the dangers and make the necessary adjustments to avoid them. Then, the beauty of the mountainscapes can be enjoyed. Of course, the best way to enjoy them is while KC is driving and we have daylight.

Heading up a mountain is pretty easy. With a full load, the whole deal can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds. The only problem here is that our truck will likely go only 25 miles an hour with that much weight once momentum is lost. It's really not a problem and it's easier to look around. Add snow, however, and this can be a problem. My first time doing this was heading uphill in northern California on I-5 with my trainer. It wasn't snowing at the bottom and chains were not required. Well, it was snowing A LOT towards the top and the wheels started to spin. Having grown up on a hill, I knew what I needed to do...keep going. Unfortunately, about a quarter of a mile from the top, I let the RPMs get too high and the engine automatically shifted to the next gear (by the way our truck has an automatic transmission), causing a hesitation - then no more forward movement. My trainer got behind the wheel, but still no go. About five minutes later this contraption came up behind us. It looked like a tractor with HUGE wheels and two long vertical bars in the front. It simply pushed us up and over.

Now we're headed downhill with my trainer behind the wheel...OK by me! Downhill is the dangerous part, even without snow. Apparently brakes on the new trucks are much better than they used to be, but you still have to find a gear that's low enough where you don't have to brake, or at least not break very often. The brakes can overheat and lose air pressure if used too much and malfunction. The thought of using one of those runaway truck ramps is not appealing. I always wonder if I could keep the truck on the road and not hit someone in front of me and make it to the darn thing. I really don't understand why they are needed because trucks have Spring Breaks, a really clever devise.

You probably know that trucks have air brakes, so air pressure is used to make them work. The air pressure is always holding back the Spring Breaks, so if the air pressure fails, the Spring Breaks - which are mechanical - come on (no air to hold them back). I imagine it would be a rather violent stop, but I figure any stop at that point would be most welcome. I hope we never find out.

Now downhill in the snow just means go v-e-r-y slow, hopefully enough that you seldom need to break. With a steep grade and a full load I find I need to use the breaks often...a bit scary. Another thing to be careful of while heading down (you too) is to keep an eye out behind you for a vehicle who is having brake failure. 

This past winter (my third, KC's second) we put chains on the truck for the first time. Sometimes the DOT makes us put on chains before heading up a mountain. Or, we can sit at the bottom until the roads are clear and they're no longer required. This can cost us since we get paid by the mile. It was much easier than I thought it would be and we feel very "sure-footed” with them on. We don't go over 25 MPH or they can damage the tires. Truckers fondly refer to this practice as “slinging iron.”

The mountains out West are so beautiful. I think a lot has to do with their size. Many have towering pines, especially pretty with snow. Some have mountain lakes along the top ridges that look so clean and smooth. The feet of some mountains have canyons with streams running along the expressway, rushing around rocks and curved banks. I was able to enjoy the bright moon peeking in and out of the peaks while I drove the last two times it was full. And, I always try to stop at a rest area and get out to look at the stars with little or no light pollution. It's breathtaking, spiritual.

I enjoy all of the mountains, but my favorite "mountains" are still the ones in southwestern Pennsylvania - they will always feel like home.

Talkin' Truck - Part III: Rude Bob and Tin Lizzy

No kidding, the truck talks to us. Unfortunately, we talk back to it, or him or her - however you want to look at it.


We have two GPS systems on-board the truck - Tin Lizzy, a unit we bought ourselves, and Rude Bob (maybe) that was pre-installed in each truck we've had. I say "maybe" on Rude Bob because over time he has morphed, and now has a feminine voice that is actually very similar to Tin Lizzy's. That's not really surprising because both systems are driven by software made by the same company - Co-Pilot.

Rude Bob actually got his name when we were in the first of our three Freightliner Cascadias. The GPS system in the on-board unit worked pretty well in terms of showing us directions that actually worked most of the time. As with any of these systems, there would be times when we would get close to a destination and Bob would become confused and start issuing directions that made no sense at all. But, that wasn't how he got his name. You see, the old Bob units (up until this latest truck) didn't talk too much. About two or three times a week, especially right after you rebooted the unit, Bob would chime in with a vocal direction....

"IN .3 MILES, TAKE RAMP TO I-95 NORTH," Bob would yell in a voice that was slightly garbled, edgy and often difficult to understand.

"Bob," I would respond, "we're in Iowa. We're not within 1,000 miles of I-95."

He really was rude and his vocal directions were seldom anywhere near being accurate, but at least he had some minor entertainment value. Things went on that way through a few trucks and then, in our last truck, Bob morphed into a disembodied voice that could have been either male/or female. The new voice was even more difficult to understand, still too loud for the occasion, and no more accurate than before. We grew confused about our faithful friend.

Then, we moved into this truck, and the morph was complete. The voice is distinctly female, and generally pretty accurate, even if the look of the unit itself is the same as always. He/she does, however, try to take us through small towns when that is the shortest route. It may be the shortest way as the crow flies, but in a 70-foot rig, it's not always the best idea to take the shortest route. So, last night we decided to admit that Bob was cross-dressing (Beth thinks there has been a sex change procedure), and in the spirit of Political Correctness, we are now referring to Bob as "Lola, L-O-L-A Lola - La La La Lo-la," and we've started using "she" instead of "he." Even if he/she is "different," we want her to be well-adjusted.


Lizzy and Lola - the UN-identical Twin GPSs

Tin Lizzy is the GPS unit we bought at a Pilot truck stop in Missouri, just north of Kansas City. She's actually the second GPS we bought (or at least Beth bought). Beth had another unit (Zorma nee Christine), a very nice Garmin Nuvi, when I joined her. Zorma was the best (and most expensive by $200.00), but we managed to fry her back in September by leaving her in a hot tractor while we took five days of home time. She became dead. So, we had to buy a replacement unit, in part because we just couldn't completely trust Rude Bob. 

Lizzy is a PC Miler, and really pretty dependable. She is supposed to be truck friendly, and for the most part she leads us on roads designed for truck travel, and warns us when we're in areas that are not appropriate for hazardous material loads. She got her name because when you have the volume turned up all the way, she sounds like listening to a radio from a 1964 Ford Falcon Futura after the speaker has been blown out - very fuzzy and, well, tinny. She doesn't accept as many end addresses as Zorma, and she doesn't have as many bells and whistles, but she gets the job done. 


So now we have un-identical twin GPS units. Since the software is the same in both devices, and the voices are extraordinarily similar (although Lola often has the voice inflection of a Valley Girl), we get this weird effect. Lola is about 1/4 to 1/3 of a second behind Lizzy, which makes for entertaining and sometimes irritating voice directions...

"In .3 In miles .3 miles, take ramp take to ramp to I-95 I-95 north north." And, lo and behold, we were at the time actually .3 miles away from I-95.

Actually, the whole point here is that our dueling GPS units not only get us where are going most of the time, but they are also a somewhat amusing part of this weird adventure. Throw in a Rand-McNally truckers' atlas, and the instructions that come through dispatch from the actual customer, and pretty much the only time we get lost is due to operator failure. If we're careful, and we pay attention as we are supposed to do, then yes, we can usually get there from here. 

Still, every once in a while the system breaks down and we find ourselves backing this thing out of some strange situations......

Painted Canyon, North Dakota - November 4, 2009 - Daybreak

As you've probably figured out by now, dawn is my favorite time of day out here on the road. 

At the risk of being trite, dawn is a wonderful time for a sense of renewal, and yet it can also be a time of tremendous foreboding and devastation. On one hand, dawn is a time of increasing daylight, dew, birds and animals coming to life again - a new beginning. And, on the other hand, most of the great military battles throughout history have been waged at dawn, including D-Day and day three at Gettysburg. Dawn is also the perfect time to experience the game of golf in its purest form (just ask the Dawn Patrol*), yet firing squads like to pull the trigger as dawn as well. Some might say, in many instances, there isn't much difference between the two activities. Take your pick, both situations inspire great awe. 

Sunsets have a grandeur all their own, but they are a time of winding down, a time of peace and reflection, a door closing so that another may open the next day. As for me over the past fourteen plus months, I've seen some amazing sunrises - from L.A. to Auburn, Maine. I've tried to write about some of them; others defy description that would do them justice. I've said it before, but it is worth repeating - every state has its own personality, and so does every sunrise - even if you're in the same place two or three days in a row.

Another one of my favorite sunrises was the day I happened to be in western North Dakota at exactly the right time. Painted Canyon is one of those magical places that exist in this country, and very few people even know it's there. The canyon sits astride I-94 and is largely in North Dakota - it leaks slightly into Montana, but only for a few miles. I took a bunch of photos at daybreak that morning, but only the two on the left were clear enough to be worth showing here (and even they are not all that great). The other three were taken earlier in the year on the day that we actually discovered the place. 

Beth was driving that day; early in the day but not dawn. I was sleeping at the time. We were heading east across Montana and into North Dakota when she started looking for a place to make a pit stop. Then, all of a sudden, there it was - Painted Canyon - in all of its glory on a sunny morning in June. And, to make things even better, there was a rest area/viewing area right in the middle of the canyon, so she pulled off the road. When she stopped the truck, she said to me, "K.C., wake up. You gotta see this."

Geologically, the Canyon is a remarkable place. The terrain is actually comprised of relatively soft materials, so it is subject to somewhat more rapid erosion by the wind and the extraordinarily severe weather patterns that exist in that part of the country. Think about it, in the summer western North Dakota can be warm, sunny and altogether pleasant. In the winter, severe and lingering ice and snow storms come through on short notice and temperatures can go for days without ever rising to zero. The vegetation that dares to exist there is low, generally ugly and very determined.

What all of this has created is a vast canyon of colored layers, mounds and nodules and valleys that go off in all directions with no seeming pattern; low ridges and slopes scarred with gullies carved by rainwater and melting ice and snow. And, as I said, the whole area is very soft by geological standards, so in a few hundred or maybe a thousand years, the whole place will look very different. My guess is that it will still be a visual feast, but what you can see today will be gone forever. It really gives you a sense of "just passing through..."

Now, add to that visual the sun breaking the horizon at a far distant eastern point, and the canyon below gradually coming into focus. In the span of 15 minutes, it goes from completely dark down below you to one of the most inspiring vistas anywhere in the country. So, if you ever get the chance to drive across I-80 in North Dakota, time it so that it's daylight when you get to the western edge, and check out the rest area just before you get to Montana. Better yet, time it so that it's daybreak, and bring a camera.

* For those of you who are unaware, the Dawn Patrol is a group of four individuals (and, sometimes an occasional fill-in) who, after nearly 50 years of playing early morning golf together, still believe that the best thing one can do on a day off is to get up before the sun and be standing on tee number one at the very moment when there is just enough light to see where the first shot lands.

Talkin' Truck - Part II - Good Ole Number 6

On January 16th, we were seated in our sixth truck in just over 14 months. You'd think by now our company would have realized we're hard on these things, but they keep giving us more.

Our move from the first to the second truck doesn't really count. Number One was an '07 Volvo that Beth had been driving with her partner for six months and then by herself for another three months before I joined her. It had nearly 300,000 miles on it when I arrived, so in November 2008, after our first week together, they gave us a brand new vehicle. They like teams to drive the newer equipment because we can literally run the truck 22 hours a day when we're very busy, and they want us in the trucks that are still under warranty. (Hmmmm, maybe there's more to it than that.)

Truck Number Two was an '09 Freightliner Cascadia (Condo Class), and had eight miles on it when we got it. It didn't have quite as much room in it as the Volvo, but it was brand new, had some cool new bells and whistles, and a bit more power. We were pretty comfortable in it and in just over three months we put 45,000 miles on it. Then, in late February of '09, in southern Virginia in the middle of the night, Beth smacked a deer - maybe two - we're not entirely sure. The hit caved in the radiator, and by the time we got out to look at the damage, all of the fluids had run out onto the ground. Fortunately we were only a couple of miles from a major truck stop, so we limped in. They put us up in a motel in Kingsville, TN, for two days before deciding it was going to take a couple of weeks to fix the truck. So, instead of making us wait for the repair, they gave us truck Number Three.

Number Three was an '09 "Pete," as Peterbilts are known in the industry. The Pete already had 47,000 miles on it and it was one noisy truck - very powerful, but very noisy. Between the engine noise filtering into the cab, and the shrill whistle that was produced from the driver's side mirror at speeds above about 50mph, the machine was not nearly as much fun to drive, and it was also a step down in terms of interior room and storage space. It took me almost a week before I figured out where the whistle was coming from, and another couple of days to figure out that putting a strip of Scotch Tape all the way around the outside of the mirror would solve the problem. If I hadn't found and cured the whistle, it surely would have rendered us mentally unstable. 

We had that truck for about three and a half months when the company decided it was going to use the '09 Petes for their lease program - which was fine with us because two days before we moved into a new truck the air conditioning went out in the Pete in southern Georgia, and we were already looking for a place to get it fixed. Timing is everything. So they took it away from us in mid-June after about 55,000 miles, and gave us Number Four.

Number Four was an '09 International with 28 miles on it when we started. It too was another step down in interior space and storage, but it was a nice compromise on the engine. It wasn't quite as powerful as the Pete, but had more guts than the others. I liked the truck a lot; it was perhaps my favorite so far. Beth, however, perfers the trucks with more space. It was pretty user-friendly, like the Cascadias, and it also had curtains that went around the inside front of the tractor (see photo above) by the side windows and windshield, which provided a great deal more private room when they were closed. And, it had a driver's seat that swiveled to face the passenger seat. So, when we would get stuck overnight somewhere, we could get pretty comfortable.


Unfortunately for the International, one night in June last year, while Beth was backing into a parking spot at a truck stop in upstate NY, we were viciously and deliberately attacked by a four foot high yellow cement pole. It was merciless; no pity, no heart, no soul. And, once again, they decided it was going to take a couple of weeks to fix the truck. Soooo, we rented a car and drove home.  At the end of home time, we were sent to pick up Number Five in New Jersey.

Number Five was another '09 Cascadia. It already had just over 150,000 miles, and was something of a mis-adventure from the very beginning. We picked it up at a Freightliner service place in New Jersey, drove it over to where our old truck was and moved from Number Four into Number five in the body shop of a Mack/Frieghtliner/Volvo repair place. Then, they asked us to do a "truck recovery." That happens when somebody leaves a truck out in the middle of nowhere and just quits (or maybe dies or wins the lottery or something), and they ask a team to split up for a couple of days to bring the truck back to a terminal. So, I jumped into good ole Number Five and Beth drove the recovered truck (an '08 Pete that had seen better days) for two days until we connected again at Springfield, Ohio.


My first night in Number Five was also my first night solo - a weird experience onto itself. They sent me to a suburb of Baltimore to a Seagrams facility. So far so good. I picked up a trailer loaded with over forty-thousand pounds of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, which is something like 5,000 gallons. I figured if I hijacked my own truck, I (along with several dozen of my closest friends) could stay stupid drunk for the next 62 years. However, as I was getting ready to leave the place, I realized I had locked the only key to my new tractor inside - on a Friday night at 11 o'clock. My guess is that I cost the company about $150 dollars that night just to get back into my vehicle. 

It went downhill from there. That truck never seem to fit us very well, and it had some issues. The steering wheel was crooked, and the windshield had been replaced badly at some point. The cupboard doors didn't work right, the gas gauge worked when it felt like it, and it too managed to find a deer in its headlights in southern Oregon, only this time with me driving. There were three deer on the road; two of them got away. The hit took a chunk out of the grill, badly damage the whole right side of the bumper and snapped the right side hood lock. After we picked up a crack in the windshield in a completely unrelated incident, the tractor was looking pretty "ghetto." When we finally got out of the truck for the last time two weeks ago, I think both Beth and I and the truck breathed a sigh of relief.


You know, I never really bonded with that truck. 

So, now we are into Good Ole Number 6. An '09 Cascadia (again), with only a couple of minor issues. So far we like this truck a lot - much like the first Cascadia we had. We've had it now just over a week, and it's in the shop getting a few minor things done while we have a couple of days off. Six trucks in just over 14 months, that's a little over 2 months per truck. The guy that trained me had been with the company just over 5 years and he was on his second truck.

There's a pattern here somewhere - I'm just not quite sure how to read it. One of these days we'll actually get to keep a truck long enough for it to get old. It's bound to happen - I just keep thinking about what that great philosopher, Yogi Berra, had to say ...  "Things that can't possibly go on forever usually don't."

2009

I've actually started some sort of retrospective of 2009 several times already. After all, it was my first full year on the truck with Beth, and my plan was to list a bunch of the crazy things that I saw and grumble about the "off year" I had health-wise, and basically bitch about '09 being a good year to put behind us all. And, I may still do that at some point this month.

Then, I got to thinking that really isn't what 2009 was all about. 2009 was the year that the forty-eight Continental United States became my office (actually forty-seven states - I still haven't been to South Dakota), and despite a few health issues, what I'll really remember are things like:

• Driving through the middle of downtown Milford, Massachusetts when the Christmas/New Year lights were still up, several inches of snow still blanketing everything, and feeling like I had driven into a Currier & Ives painting
• Crossing the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey into upper Manhattan at three o'clock in the morning and looking off to the right to see The City under full moonlight
• Driving along and listening to an African-American being sworn in as President of the United States
• Having a death-grip on the steering wheel as I drove between Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming, above the 8,000-ft. level in a blowing snowstorm, and still thinking it was strikingly beautiful in dangerous sort of way
  
• Sitting on a clear Sunday morning at a rest area on I-5 in Northern California and watching the sun rise above Mount Shasta
• Watching rain fall on the Mojave Desert
• Sitting at a truck stop in El Paso and looking out across the Rio Grande River at Mountains in Mexico
• Crossing the Mississippi River at a dozen or more different locations - from St. Paul to Southern Louisiana - and being awed by its power each time
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Blowing a few dollars at a casino in Miami and one in Tacoma
• Driving through Manchester, NH, less than 24-hours after a 14-in snowfall, and begin amazed at how smoothly traffic was moving
• Looking down at the thermometer on the truck while passing through Rockford, IL, and seeing the readout at -24 degrees
• Pulling a 70-ft. long tractor-trailer rig right out onto the pier at the Hampton Naval Yard, and feeling very small sitting within 50 yards of the USS George H. W. Bush Aircraft Carrier
• Driving through eastern Missouri and Arkansas and seeing mile after mile of an extraordinarily beautiful and incredibly destructive ice storm
  
• Stumbling onto Painted Canyon in North Dakota - I never knew it was there and I can't wait to see it again 
• Once again sitting at waters' edge on Sugden Lake on the 4th of July watching fireworks with family and friends I've had for life
  

• Listening to the Tigers play important baseball games late in September
• Tracking alongside the Columbia River Gorge for over 75 miles as it forms a spectacular border between Washington and Oregon

• Traveling east on I-70 through the canyons of Utah thinking it may well be the most awe-inspiring stretch of road in America 
  
• Waking up most every morning wondering what I was going to get to see or do that day for the very first time
  

All things considered, 2009 was a good year now that I think about it.  If 2010 even comes close, I'll be a pretty lucky guy.

Size Matters

I used to think this was a really big country. I used to think Denver was close to the West coast. I used to think the Appalachians were real mountains, and I used to think that all orange moose were only about 6-7 feet tall at the shoulders. I'm not so sure any more. All this back and forth, North and South, has changed my perception some, and we all know that perception is reality - everything else is mere illusion.

For example, I used to think Texas was big, and I'm still pretty convinced about that. If you drive from Houston to Los Angeles, the half way point is El Paso. And, if you drive from Dallas to Denver, the half way point is Amarillo, and you still have another hour or so left to drive in Texas after that. On the other hand, at one point Rhode Island is only 25 miles wide; that's about Detroit to Ann Arbor - three, maybe four exits on the interstate.

Then there's Montana. If you drive across the state on I-90 and I-94, it's just over 700 miles, which is pretty close to the same as Detroit to Atlanta - only without so many people and fast food restaurants along the way.  However, Montana has other issues - Clinton, Montana holds the Testicle Festival every fall (no shit, you can look it up on the Internet, although I wouldn't recommend it), but I don't think anyone really lives there - it's all just smoke and mirrors.

The lesson here so far is: Texas is big with lots of people and Montana is big and is inhabited almost entirely by cardboard cut-outs and buffalo. I'm pretty sure the buffalo are real, though.

There are a number of states that have really big features even if they don't have a whole lot else going on - Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming come to mind. It's hard to drive through these states and not be thoroughly whelmed by the real mountains, mesas and buttes that seem to go on forever. In terms of sheer rugged beauty it's very difficult to top these three states. Also, there is a very large amount of nothing in Oregon.

Then, so as not to be remiss, there is California, which is not really so much a state as it is a foreign country. They play by their own set of rules out there, which they make up as they go along, and then they wonder why the rest of the country doesn't understand them or feel their pain. It really is a beautiful state, it's just that it's also very bizarre. And, it's farther from Los Angeles to San Francisco than it is from Cleveland to Chicago (in more ways than can be measured by miles alone).

By the way, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Denver is no where near the West coast, even though you have to drive west from St. Louis nearly forever just to get there. It takes longer to drive from Denver to Seattle than it does to drive from Boston to Columbus. 

So, I guess the bottom line here is that this is still a pretty big country, it's just not big everywhere - it's all relative. And, size really does matter, unless you're Rhode Island.

You Can't Get There From Here

You have to go somewhere else first.

As you might well imagine, in a 65-70-ft long rig, there are simply some things you cannot do and places you cannot go. That's the number one drawback in driving one of these things, and I believe the single largest source of stress we encounter. It's pretty hard to come to grips with simply missing a driveway into a truck stop or a customer's receiving yard, and having to actually drive three or four miles or more through unfamiliar areas just to get back to where you needed to be. Better yet, have some Einstein locate a Seven-Up bottling facility right next to a residential area so that if you miss the turn you actually have to drive down a street with overhanging branches and signs telling you that children are playing and trucks are not allowed, and the stress sets in pretty quickly.


Portland almost did me in one day last summer. An exit off of I-5 split at the top of the ramp and I guessed wrong. So instead of going left into what was a pretty typical industrial area, I went right across the river and into downtown Portland. The turnaround at the far end of the bridge was closed for construction and my adventure began. Finally, about eight miles later I woke Beth up so she could help me back across a traffic lane in a strip mall so I could begin to retrace my steps. Then, when we finally did get to the railroad drop yard the dude at the guard shack was pretty rude to me. Little did he know how much I would have enjoyed feeding him a knuckle sandwich.

We have a Rand McNally trucker's road map, complete with laminated pages and spiral binding. We also have two GPS systems on board - one built into the truck (known as Rude Bob*) and one that we bought ourselves (Tin Lizzy*). We also usually get final local directions sent to us over SATCOM (satellite communications - fancy schmancy), and still sometimes we find ourselves backing several hundred yards off of a bridge that's closed, in the dark, that had somehow seemed to be a good idea only a few minutes before. Once in a while we just kind of average all four sources of directions together and hope for the best.


You'd also be amazed at just how many drivers of small vehicles do not understand the limitations, and the brute force, of big trucks. Most of the time other drivers' indifference to what big trucks can and cannot do is harmless - other times it can get a little scary. You really do have to change your attitude when you drive one of these things. Use patience, use your turn signals, and back off a bit - it becomes habit; either that or it becomes road rage, and in a truck this size you simply cannot let yourself go there.


I do have to admit that a lot of the time people in other vehicles are pretty decent about things. If you are in heavy traffic and you put your turn signal on, a spot or a lane magically opens up (I think this is referred to as self preservation on the part of the little cars). And, if you're moving slower than people around you would like, they are more often than not pretty understanding. Still, there is the butt head that has to get in front of you, and then slow down just enough to be irritating, or the jerk that hangs on your back bumper, in the blind spot (you know he's there but you can't see him) until there is just enough room to pass. It's tempting to think about how momentarily satisfying it would be to flatten one of the jerks, but the end result would be incredibly devastating. 

Think about it - it's pretty close to 70 feet long bumper-to-bumper, depending upon where you have the fifth wheel set, something like nine feet wide, and generally around 13' 6" high. Ours is governed at 65mph, but there are a lot of others that can go a lot faster. And, when you fill the trailer up to the legal limit, it can weight up to 80,000 pounds. I don't understand all the formulas involving mass times velocity, etc., but I do know that the deer I hit last Thursday evening in Southern Oregon had a real bad day.

(* Rude Bob and Tin Lizzy deserve their own explanation at some later time - stay tuned - film at 11)