An Epic Journey

Dee age 6 months, with her new coat :)

Beautiful sunset over Nebraska

We were almost back from Ontario when an injector went down on our truck #3552. So as soon as we arrived in Halifax we took the truck to Ryder for repair, it was friday and they told us it wouldn't be ready till late Monday, cool a weekend off. We headed back to the office to let dispatch know before we booked into a motel.
When dispatch say something like " do you mind or can you just" its time to get out quick lol, only joking dispatch. We were asked if we would take truck #3558 to New Brunswick for a load going to Nebraska, we couldn,t wait for our truck as it had to be collected on Monday morning. The trip would take approx a week and then we would be back for own truck, " sure no problem". or that's what we thought.

Rod checking the wide load

We arrived at the collection address and realised it was a wide load, cool extra pay but not so cool we haven't got any wide load signs or flags etc that are required when you move wide loads. A phone call to dispatch and problem resolved, they will send a courier with all neccessary equipment to us. We continued loading, fastened it down, still no courier. After many phonecalls and 2 deliveries from 2 different couriers we still haven't got the right stuff!! Its now too late to get the rest as everywhere is shut, so we can't move until morning. I'm glad we'd got some grocery shopping earlier, chilli and rice for supper yum.
The next morning we collected the signs etc and headed to Ontario we were crossing the border into America via Sarnia in Ontario.

You realise after a couple of days what you miss about your own truck, we have an invertor in 3552 which converts the battery power into electricity. There isn't one in 3558 which means no tv or dvd player, no fridge and worst of all no PS3 which we'd just got back from Sony after being repaired, never mind Rod it's only for a week, hehe.

As we entered Nebraska, Rod said the clutch was slipping, but we'll be ok.
We delivered to a Power Station in Hastings, Nebraska, on Friday lunch time, contacted dispatch and were told to make our way to Tucson, Arizona. We were 1200 miles away and the clutch was getting worse :( The collection was booked for Tuesday morning, so if we can get there do the collection we'll worry about the clutch later.We drove through Colorado, which was beautiful, watching tumbleweed blow across the highway, into New Mexico and then Arizona seeing signs that warned of Dust Storms and zero visibility, this was November and we had left snow in Nova Scotia and minus temperatures.:)

Rod has already posted some photos from Tombstone Arizona, we had an amazing afternoon there, it's somewhere we had never even dreamed of visiting.

We phoned the company we were collecting from to see if the collection would be ready on Monday, but no joy they had a crane booked for Tuesday. The lady who answered the phone was originally from London,England we had driven across Canada through America to meet up with a cockney, lol.
We started back on Tuesday afternoon, driving through places like Amarillo, Tulsa, all the places we'd heard about. Part of the journey was along Route 66, or the highway ran alongside the old Route 66, not the mode of transport we had envisiged using to travel this route but what the heck we were getting paid for doing it, how cool is that.

As we approached a place called Dillon the fan belt tensioner siezed up, this meant we couldn't stop the engine or it wouldn't start again! we headed for the nearest truck stop and phoned dispatch. No problem somebody will be with you in approx an hour. Two hours later we get a call to say the repair truck has broken down, as we say in England "it doesn't rain it pours",lol. Eventually he arrived fixed the truck and we were ready to leave the next morning. The clutch is still slipping, I didn't know a gear box could make some many noises. Suddenly it crunched and grinded, ok it's time to do something about the clutch. Another phone call to dispatch, we were given directions to the nearest Ryder,in Indianopolis which luckily was only a few miles away.
Now truck #3558 is poorly and won't be repaired for a few days, but they'll lend us a truck until ours is ready!!

Ok Rod this is the third truck don't break it!!

Cacti in Tucson, although we didn't see any rattlesnakes or road runners

We continued our journey back to Canada, the load was going to Labrador but we were only taking it to St Germaine, Quebec then we were turning straight round with another load to Nebraska as we had to return the hire truck to Indianapolis.

We stopped at 145 truckstop, which is about 25 kms from our destination, on Saturday evening, twelve days after leaving Halifax with the first load. We noticed a Clarke truck with a load of Artic Cats parked there but when we left early on Monday morning we hadn't seen the driver once, very strange!

Arrived in St Germaine dropped the trailer and were about to leave, when the phone rings, its dispatch, " can we go to 145 truckstop and collect the Clarke truck and bring it to St Germaine?" Sure we replied.

Rod left with instructions where to find the keys, guess what the keys weren't there. Another phone call to dispatch and Rod was sent to buy a new key from the International dealers in St Germaine, approx 3 hours later he arrived with the abondoned truck.

Now it was the famous, there's been a change of plan, lol.

Can we deliver the arctic cats to New Brunswick, so off we went to New Brunswick, two deliveries, the first one was in Edmunston. Nobody told us is that the delivery was approx 4 days late, not too bad, but they had missed a big Artic Cat event and the shop owner was not a happy chappy. So when the tyre came off his fork lift truck the air was blue, at this point both me and Rod got in the truck and made a cup of tea, hehe.

The second delivery was uneventful, what a relief lol.

We then headed for St Laurent to swap trailers with the load for Nebraska.

To be continued at the next truckstop...