Saturday, February 2, 2019

Left at sunrise this morning.  Had a good day on the road today except my back was acting up again, what else is new.  Oh well.  Drove all the way to my delivery location in Austin, Texas.  There is plenty of room to park here until Monday morning when I can deliver the machine.

Friday, February 1, 2019

Left at about 8:30 CST.  Was nice to sleep in.  Good day on the road.  Haven't put one of these in the blog lately so here is another one.

Two miles before I was going to stop for the night I got pulled over for a "random permit check".  When you are in a truck you have no rights.  They do not need probable cause to stop you.  They can stop you anytime they feel like it, they don't need a reason. Everything was fine so I continued on to the truck stop in Malvern, Arkansas.  Nice "mom & pop" truck stop here with a good restaurant.

Thursday, January 31, 2019

As soon as my 10 hours was up I was on the road.  Drove to Decatur, Illinois and loaded a Caterpillar 815K Compactor that is going to Austin, Texas.

Left there and drove to the TA truck stop in Troy, Illinois.  That is right next to St. Louis.  Can't go through St. Louis until 9 am tomorrow morning so I can sleep in.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Left this morning a half hour before sunrise.  It was -3 degrees this morning when I left.  About 50 miles east of Kansis City my left headlight bulb blew.  It also started snowing. The Interstate highways were fine but when I got off the Interstate on the back roads that led up to the power plant where I was delivering the excavator, the roads were not as good.  In a car, not too bad, but in a big truck that is wide and weighs 129,000 pounds, not so good.  Below is a brief time lapse video of the back road.

Here is another brief time lapse video of me arriving at the delivery site. It starts off as I clear security and then I follow the pick up truck back in to where I was to unload.

It didn't stop snowing until I was ready to leave.  After I delivered the Excavator I drove back to the Petro truck stop in Oak Grove, Missouri for the night.  Then it started snowing agin.  Didn't snow much.  Just enough to make it slippery.  Here is my view for the night.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Got up early this morning and went back for my trailer.  The bad weather they were predicting did not happen.  All it did was rain although this morning there were snow flurries.  Pulled out of there right at a half hour before sunrise.  Stopped at the scale again to make sure my weight was ok, fortunately it was.  Continued on toward Kansas City, Missouri.  That's where I will deliver this thing.  About a half hour before I stopped for the night it started snowing hard.  Stopped for the night at the Petro truck stop in Effingham, Illinois.  Here are some pictures I took after I stopped.

 

Monday, January 28, 2019

This morning I went in to load.  Was there at 6:30.  Got loaded and was out of there at 8 am.  Things were going so smoothly, I just knew something would go wrong. I was right.  I stopped at the scale at a Pilot about 48 miles away.  It was the closest scale that I could stop at - because of my permit.  I was WAY overweight. I sat there for an hour while the "desk jockys" figured out what to do. They decided that I had to take it back.  So I drove back and unloaded the machine.  The office wanted an empty weight on my truck and trailer so I drove back to the TA truck stop.  That was 38 miles away.  I scaled up and then had lunch.  Here is the machine:

Then they decided to take the boom off so It would fit on my truck.  I drove back.  They had just finished removing the boom when I got there.  I reloaded the machine and secured it to the trailer.  By now it was getting late so I dropped my trailer there and will return in the morning to get it.  Then I drove bobtail back to the TA truck stop for the night. Drove 230 miles today to go nowhere. So far the weather has not been bad.  It started raining late this afternoon.  Hopefully it won't be as bad as they said it would.  The saga continues...

Sunday, January 27, 2019

We got more snow this time, enough to plow.  There were two pick up truck plows and a wheel loader plow.  I don't think I have ever seen a worse job of plowing.  They were terrible!!

Didn't get much sleep last night.  Don't know why but I just couldn't sleep. So at 2:30 am EST I decided to just go.  The snow had stopped in Gary, Indiana.  I did not take the toll road over toward Cleveland.  Instead I took US-30 all the way across.  In Indiana, the roads were not cleared very well even though there were plows everywhere.  I caught up with the snow in Ohio.  Ohio roads were cleared very well.  By the time I got to the TA truck stop in Seville, Ohio it was snowing hard.  Got about 4 inches. Unbelievable as it seems, the plows clearing this parking lot were not any better!!  Even the staff inside said that they do a lousy job.  It was a lot warmer too, in the 20's.  I checked into the shop and got the trailer tires replaced that I couldn't get done yesterday.  After that I parked for the rest of the day.  I load in the morning about 35 miles from here just outside of Cleveland.  Big snow storm supposed to come in tomorrow.  Hope I can load and get moving before it arrives.  We shall see!!!