SUMMER TRUCKING - TRIP THREE,
FLORIDA (Part One)

I'm a long haul trucker and I usually push pretty hard, trying to put on as many miles as possible. By the end of June I had been away from home thirty-five days. I had crossed the continent from East to West four times putting on some seventeen thousand miles.

I promised myself that when I went out next time I was going to take it easier and find some time for myself. When I got home in the early part of July my step-son had already left for the summer. The wife and I spent a week camping on the Sunshine Coast and then I put her on the plane to visit her mother for the summer.

My office is slightly under an hour from my home and I had arranged for them to have my tractor serviced and a trailer preloaded for July tenth.

After seeing Bin off at the airport I had a short nap and drove to the office. With their usual efficiency the company didn't have a load ready for me so I spent the afternoon putting my stuff in the tractor and then bobtailed (highway tractor with no trailer) into Vancouver where I started my summer of leisure with four days off in the Canadian South West.

I took the SkyTrain into town, walked the beaches around Stanley Park and took in a couple of movies. It wasn't until Tuesday that the company finally got me a load, where else, near their office.

I bobtailed back to the shop and picked up a trailer, drove five miles and took on a load of lumber.

Now normally I hate hauling woodpecker fuel (lumber) but this was not just ordinary lumber, it was unplanned two by tens treated with white paint to make it look decorative and was going all the way to a building supply in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the home of the infamous beach parties every year during High School spring break. As I had never been to Florida before I didn't complain that I was hauling lumber.

I loaded from eight AM till two PM. It started to rain just after I finished spreading the tarps. By the time I had them all tied down the lumber was dry but I was soaked.

As per instructions I had weighed the rig (tractor and trailer) before I started loading and then I weighed it again after I was loaded and tarped. I was about ten thousand pounds under what I was allowed to carry so I had lots of room to fuel and that's where I headed, the fuel stop.

I phoned the office and told them that I was under weight and that the customer had specified a full load. Dispatch asked if I had a full load and I said I had ten lifts which is what was on the way bill. Dispatch said, "Have a good trip". I wasn't going to argue, I really didn't feel like opening the tarps to add more woodpecker fuel.

I grabbed a shower and supper and drove the half mile to the border. Crossing the border at Sumas I went South to Seattle, Wash. and then East. At ten PM Wednesday I was about an hour North of Salt Lake City Utah.

I went a bit more South then turned East into Wyoming where I sat in my truck composing this on my new notebook (used) 386 AST Premium Exec. with two meg of ram, (I had ordered four more meg but it hadn't arrived before I left home but I don't think I need it.), forty Meg hard drive, I may try to get a bigger one. Next I have to figure out how to dial long distance with my callcard through a modem (14.4 external US Robotics).

I had to stop in Omaha, Nebraska and get a sensor changed on the transmission. It was sending wrong signals to the computer and my cruise control and speedometer wouldn't work correctly which wasn't a problem but with these new computerized engines it may have included another problem which would cause the motor to shut off and leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere.

The people at the International dealer where very friendly and helpful and had me back on the road within an hour.

I spent Friday night in Illinois and tried to call Bin but ATT said my card wasn't good for China so then they called B. C. Tel and told them someone was mucking with my card. I was able to call Prince George Friday from Illinois but Saturday I couldn't call Florida from Georgia.

I spent a frustrating weekend not being able to call anyone and finally had a fight with B. C. Tel. on Monday and got it straightened out. The problem was that I wasn't using the international number on the bottom of my card. As I have the national number memorized I didn't have the card with me so AT&T thought I had a stolen card.

Other than the small breakdown I had a rather boring trip across the U. S. and reached Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on July twentieth. I had lots of rain during the trip and rain all the way through Florida. I don't know why they call it the sunshine state.

Now that I think about it it was probably best that I couldn't phone ahead to my customer on Saturday. The unloading went smooth and probably wouldn't have otherwise. If I had phoned ahead the office would have been aware I was coming and would have checked the weights and been upset that I was ten thousand pounds light. As it was I simply pulled into the yard and the crew unloaded me without being aware that I could have brought them more.

Along most freeways they build fences back from the road to keep animals off the highway. For miles along the freeway in Florida it is swamp and you can see the top of the posts and one or two strands of the fence wire. I wonder who put the fence posts in the water and how he nailed the fence to them afterwards. Or did they staple the wire to the posts and then drive them down from a boat.

Crazy thoughts go through your head when you have nothing to do but hold a steering wheel straight for hour after hour.

The man in the computer store said to keep turning my computer off and on to totally drain the battery and maybe it would erase its short term memory so hopefully it would hold a charge for longer than 30 minutes. I did that while I was driving. About every five minutes I would reach down and turn it on or off, all day long. After which it wouldn't hold a charge at all.

My last outing, with this company, first trip, I unloaded near Atlanta and then I went South to load. This trip I spent Saturday night South of Atlanta so the trip was very similar.

Before I unloaded in Atlanta I spent the night in Cartersville where I took a taxi to the movie. I saw a place where I could have parked close to the movie and saved the cab fare. After the movie I walked back to my truck. A long walk through a black neighbourhood, no streetlights, as well as most of the residents were coloured. It was a beautiful night and I needed the exercise.

This trip was almost a repeat. In Ft. Lauderdale I took a taxi to the movie, saw a large dirt area where I could have parked my rig. Walked back to my truck after the show, again through a coloured neighbourhood.

After I unloaded I wanted to take a look at the famous strip and I drove through but there was no place to park. I got a seventy-six dollar ticket for turning left on a red light. I turned into a one way street but because of a divider I didn't notice I was on a two way street. So I got out of there and forgot about the swim. It was raining anyway.

Would you believe that when I got home my ticket was waiting for me. I had sent them a form to put the seventy-six dollars on my charge card but they say the officer put the amount incorrectly and they want seventy-eight dollars. Nowhere on the ticket does it say seventy-eight dollars and they went to all the trouble of sending me a letter in a foreign country to collect two dollars. I sent the whole thing back to the Governor of the State of Florida and told him to ask the cop for the extra two dollars he's the one who put the wrong amount on the ticket.

I did get to see part of the beach and a couple of bikinis but there were not many people as it was early in the day and cloudy. I did get to see the Atlantic Ocean as far as the eye can see.

It turned out that not many people were swimming because of an infestation of larger stinging jellyfish this year.

I spent Monday night in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere waiting for dispatch to find me a load somewhere. The Seminole Truck Stop is a small place but is so popular it doesn't have enough parking for all the trucks. It has two parking lots, one paved and one unpavedand trucks also park along the service road but many are turned away.

The amenities include an outdoor barbecue, tables, two bars, and a big screen TV all under separate thatched roofs with big fans to blow away the mosquitos. The lovely lawn area is complete with a bantam rooster and his harem of hens and a big peacock that comes around and pecks at your leg begging for food.

I sat back and had a lovely meal of alligator tails and wine while we listened to the gators splashing in the swamp and watched the big fire on TV, one of the Caribbean cruise ships was on fire only a few miles East of us.

One of the drivers at our table owns a large ranch in Northern Florida and found a lone calf in the middle of his field. No cattle in that pasture. No mother cow was ever found. They fed it on a bottle and it is healthy. None of his neighbours have that type of cattle.

One of the other drivers was from El Salvador and now lives in Chilliwack, B. C. and drives for a company out of Surrey so we talked about back home.

I had left my computer on charge and when I got back in the truck it was just about melting. The windows were all closed, the air conditioning was off, and the computer and charger were under a pillow. The computer and the power supply were so hot I couldn't put my hand on either one. I unplugged and uncovered everything and opened the windows. Later when I turned it on it worked fine. The overheating may have helped because now it seems to charge good and I get an hour or more out of a charge.

Tuesday morning there were some four thousand empty trucks sitting in Southern Florida looking for a load North. Like most of them I left Florida empty. Going North the freeway was just an endless line of empties going North and an endless stream of loads going South. All the rest areas and truck stops were plugged with rigs.

Southern Florida uses a lot of products from all over North America, especially in the summer because of the tourists and the cruise ships. Florida produces very little for export to other areas.

I told the dispatcher that he should send me to Miami and maybe I could get a load of illegal Cuban immigrants but he said I would have to hide them under my tarps and they would probably smother.

My previous dispatcher had said the same thing when I suggested a load of wet backs to get me home from Nogales. I hate going anywhere empty. I get paid by percentage of the load. If there is no load I am driving for free and, being of Scottish decent, that goes against the grain.

I had a rather boring drive from Florida to Alabama. In the North East corner of the state I wound down a long, narrow road North East of Huntsville to a cedar mill that makes a thin chip board from cedar. It is used for lining clothes closets to keep moths out.

I got there late in the day but persuaded the shipper, who was just heading out the driveway, to load me. It was well after dark by the time I finished tarping.

I went North East through Chattanooga and spent the night at a rest area in Tennessee. I prefer to stop at rest areas rather than truck stops as it takes less time to get in and out. Plus I feel embarrassed to use truck stops if I am not purchasing anything from them.

The next day I phoned Montreal and told them that I couldn't get there early on Friday and they said it was no good to them late Friday, which is what I was hoping they would say so I arranged to unload first thing Monday morning. This meant that I could take two days off.

I made a slight detour to the East and arrived in New Jersey at noon Friday. I Parked the truck in a rest area on the freeway and took the bus from the park and ride to downtown New York.

A lot of guys like to drop their trailers and bob tail but I am too lazy to crank the dollies, (landing gear) the legs that hold a trailer off the ground when there is no tractor under it. Besides when I am on my time off I don't want to be shifting gears and I hate city traffic (that's why I'm a long haul trucker). I like to let a bus driver worry about the streets while I sit back and enjoy the scenery. Besides sometimes you can meet a nice lady on a bus.

I spent a fantastic two days with Daisy whom I, had met in Vancouver several years ago but, hadn't seen in five years. I got off the bus at the famous Port authority building and walked through downtown Manhattan. Through Grand Central Station. Past times square. A construction elevator had bent and bent the scaffolding, about the thirtieth floor on a new fifty storey building. The street was blocked off so no one would get hurt if it fell. I went into the Chrysler Bldg, to ask directions.

Daisy has a one bedroom apartment on the twenty-sixth floor of a fifteen year old building just one block from the Chrysler building (it is one of the many buildings she can see from her front window). She has no balcony but has a view of other older, taller buildings.

Friday evening Daisy and I walked past the U. N. Building then through Central Park. We were amazed at all the fireflies and how bright they were considering it wasn't dark yet.

Central Park in New York is similar to Stanley Park in Vancouver only a lot smaller and doesn't have lakes or a seashore.

It was dark by the time we left the park and we strolled down Second Ave. W. which is much like Denman St. or Yaletown in Vancouver only longer. Old buildings. Lots of restaurants, busy with the night crowd. We had supper with Daisy's agent.

In Vancouver my friend and I used to walk the sea wall around Stanley park and kick ideas around. A lot of the sit com I am working on came from there. At the restaurant Daisy's agent and I sat for a long time, boring Daisy stiff, working out a scene for something he had in mind.

Saturday morning while daisy was sleeping I went walking and found an office service. At Kinko's, I got caught up on my E-mail. Then I walked fifth ave. Park Ave. Golda Meyir Way, Korea Way, and Broadway, went to Macey's, and saw the Empire State building.

In the afternoon Daisy and I caught the 'D' train to Brooklyn where we walked the boardwalk at Coney Island and tried to find a Coney Island Red Hot but had to settle for a hot dog as no one knew what we were talking about when we asked for a 'Red Hot'.

I always remember my father singing a tune, "Coney Island Red Hots, they're hot, they're hot, they're red hot. They'll tickle your teeth, they'll curl your hair, they'll make you feel like a millionaire. Coney Island Red Hots, they're hot, they're hot, they're red hot. A loaf of bread, a pound of meat, and all the mustard you can eat. Coney Island Red Hots". So I guess I have always had in it my mind to try one and then we couldn't find one.

After a short picnic on the beach we had to rush back into town so Daisy could go to work. At midnight after Daisy got off work we went to the movie "Mafia" and then walked Second Ave. and First Ave.

Sunday I took a bus out to Secaucus and then a taxi to my truck which was still in one piece. I kinda wish it had been broken into. Then I could have stayed longer in NY., but maybe next trip.

My overall impression, NY is much like Vancouver. Bigger, older, dirtier. Just another seaport city. Wouldn't want to live there. Daisy's agent says I need to if I want to get an agent and get established as a writer. Once I am in I can move to a small town. Probably too high a price to pay. I'd rather drive truck.

Sunday afternoon I drove to a suburb called Lonquille, South East of Montreal and slept in the truck in front of where I would unload.

I started untarping at three AM. By seven I was in the suburb of Dorian which is on the West side of the city, having made it through before the rush hour really got started. I spent the next two days at a new Flying J truck stop. Flying J is a chain across the US. This is their first one in Canada.

Tuesday I went back into Montreal and loaded a large shear for cutting sheet metal. It was going to Los Angeles so I phoned my friend Mickey and told him to line me up some beach bunnies. Mickey is from Vancouver and was spending the summer hanging out at the Burger Shack in Long Beach.

Tuesday night, I, and a couple of other drivers, went to a tittie bar. A tittie bar is where you sit and drink while you watch girls get up on a stage and take their clothes off to show you their wares. (Unlike a peeler bar where the girls undress on stage to entertain you). Later the girls will come around to your table and try to entice you into going into a small booth in the back where they will do a dance just for you at the cost of ten dollars per song.

One of the other drivers from the company I work for took a lady, she looked Filipina but was from the island of St. Julian in the Caribbean, I asked her later, back to a booth for a table dance. Thirteen songs later it cost him one hundred thirty dollars. He was allowed to touch and suck her breasts.

Table dancing is different than lap dancing. In some clubs the girls sit on your lap while they do their dance. This bar only had table dancers although there really isn't a table in the booths, just a chair for the gentleman to sit on and the girl dances in front of or between the mans knees.

Different clubs have different rules and different girls set their own rules as to what will happen besides dancing. Some girls will touch the men and some won't. Some won't allow the men to touch them while others will allow much more.

It was a slow night and I had several girls rubbing against me trying to entice me to take them back. Three of them were black, two from Haiti and one from Martinique. I was getting so much cuddling and conversation from them I didn't have to go in the back and spend money.

Wednesday I left Quebec and drove to Ontario and the Ten Acre truck stop North of Belleville, about an hour North of Toronto. I spent two days looking at the playboy channel while dispatch tried to find more load for me.

I also watched the movie channel. I saw Spy Hard, Pentagon Wars, and Poodle Springs.

Thursday I was bored, got out my notebook and composed a very short chapter for my novel.

Friday afternoon I went to Burlington, about an hour South of Toronto and loaded a large router table for Las Vegas. I slept through rush hour and then crossed the border at Port Huron, Mich. Friday night with the trailer only half full.

As I rolled west Saturday, on the I-80, bikers kept passing me. There was a big rally at Sturgis in the Black Hills.

Sunday night I slept at a truck stop in Denver Colorado where I had a tough time finding a parking spot. All the truck stops were full.

Monday I spent my ten work hours driving through the Colorado Rockies in the sunrise.

At five thirty AM I crossed from Colorado into Utah. The area is rolling desert, much like the Badlands of Alberta. A sign says, "Caution Eagles on Highway". Sort of like the sign in the cut on the highway North of Summerland in the Okanagan Valley that says, "Caution. Deer on Road". In all the times I have been through either I have never see neither.

Last month I went the other direction at sunset. Both times the sun was displaying beautiful colours in the sky which I had to watch in my mirrors. However the angle of the suns rays, on the topography in front of me, added a different perspective to the already beautiful scenery.

When I was in New York, Daisy's Agent had asked me what I would work on if I had the money not to have to have a job. I think I would work on my sitcom. I started on it as a producer last year and lined up a few actors and made overtures to the actors guild and have a line on a couple of camera crews. While driving through the desert I mentally outlined another episode.

One of my E-mails from a friend back home said that she had ought a CD burner. I wonder why anyone would want to burn CDs? When I burn toast I throw it in the garbage and get a new toaster.

When you enter Nevada you go through a small town that consists of two large casinos. One of them has the most spectacular water fountain display I have seen anywhere. I had stopped there on my previous trip going East just to see it.

I made a comment on the CB, "I wonder how they manage to find all that water in the middle of the desert". A reply came over the air waves, Those are tears from all the losers".

Monday afternoon I took my eight hour break at a rest area in the middleof the desert. The rest area, about five hours North of Las Vegas, is powered by a huge solar panel.

As you come through the break in the hills North of Las Vegas the valley spreads out like a carpet of light. Small towers form a cluster of light in the center. As you approach, mile after mile, down a long gradual hill, the lights draw closer and larger until you enter and pass through the center with all the large casinos a couple of blocks to your side.

At a truck stop on the South West side of the city I helped guide a truck into a space across from me after I parked. I went inside to get a permit for my trailer for California. There were no computers at this truck stop so that I could check my E-mail but lots of slot machines. As I went back to my truck I met the trucker I guided into the parking space, he was going for a shower.

I walked across the street and wandered through the Silverton Casino. I then took a taxi to see where I would have to unload in the morning and had him drop me downtown where I walked the strip. At one AM it was one hundred six above and considering it was in the middle of the desert it was surprisingly muggy.

I saw the big casinos. Casino New York New York has a statue of liberty surrounded by water with two fireboats in it, a Brooklyn bridge with water under it and a Chrysler building as well as the Empire State Bldg.

One of the smaller casinos is called the Boardwalk and has a roller coaster on the roof and a merry go round inside. It is done in a Coney Island theme.

Two huge casinos are under construction. One will have an Eiffel Tower and contain seven thousand rooms. The one across the street will have six thousand.

On the corners they have newspaper boxes that are free. The papers are pages of pictures of nude girls with phone numbers. Table dancers in Vegas get $20 per song.

All in all it is not a nice place to wander. The streets are too wide and divided so you can't just cross anywhere. The casinos are too big and take too long to go through or to walk past. Not like the old part of town that has smaller buildings and a more pleasing atmosphere.

Back at the truck stop I fired up the truck and turned on the air conditioning. While I waited for the truck to cool off I went to the casino in the truck stop. The other driver was playing at a poker table. He had a pile of chips in front of him and still hadn't had his shower.

I was watching, trying to figure out how they played the card game but the lady said I couldn't sit thereif I wasn't playing. Fine, I went to bed. I didn't want to give her my money anyway.

Tuesday morning I went into the truck stop for breakfast, the other driver was still at the same table. The pile of chips had disappeared and he was digging money out of his wallet. He still hadn't had his shower.

Tuesday afternoon I unloaded in Los Angeles. It was in the middle of rush hour when I got to the city but all the traffic was locked up heading out of town. I breezed along the freeways laughing at all those frustrated commuters who don't have sense enough to take the bus.

After unloading I went to a truckers cafe in Long Beach to meet Mickey. He got out of his pickup wearing a T-shirt that I had brought him back from Nogales a few months ago and I got out of my rig wearing a T-shirt from New Zealand that he had given me a few months ago. We looked at each other and asked, "Where did you get the nice T-shirt. We both replied, "From you."

Mic took me up signal hill that is all oil wells, one above the other, all over the side of the hill in the heart of the city. Years ago some scam artist had sold the hill to a bunch of suckers as oil land and then fled the country. The poor buyers pooled their money together, bought one rig, drilled one hole, and became rich.

Mic took me to Dino's house where he had cooked a pot roast supper. Roast potatoes and wine served on the patio. No time to plug in my computer and test the modem, Mic rushed me back down the hill to the Burger Shack to meet Dino and his friends.

Then we made like tourists. He took me to Belmont Pier and all the swimming beaches, but no one was swimming after dark. The air was quite cool compared to the heat in Vegas the night before.

We cruised Ocean Blvd., Long beach Blvd. Drove by the Queen Mary and the off shore oil rigs that have been disguised as apartment buildings because the local residents complained about the eyesore out in the water. Saw streets that you see in the movies, Wilshire Blvd., Mulholland Dr., names so familiar you think you have been there before.

I would have liked to have stayed another day and gone swimming, at least checked out the bikini's, but the office was anxious for me to get back to work.

I left early Wednesday morning for Lodi in Northern California where I spent four hours in the hot sun loading and tarping bags of Onions.

One hundred ten degrees in the shade but no shade. Have you ever tried to walk on a field of onions or baseballs, covered with a tarp so you can't seewhere not to put your feet? I can't tell you how many times I almost fell off the truck. Try climbing up the side of a hill of bagged onions. My legs were aching by the time I was done.

I drove a few miles further North to a truck stop in Sacramento where I spent the night. I went to the movies and saw 'Saving Private Ryan'. It is a very long movie but so action packed you don't notice the time.

In the truck stop, in the cooler, in the prepared food section they had `Coney Island Red Hots'. Just pop em in the micro wave. I didn't bother to try one.

Heading East through the Donner Pass I kept looking for a wide spot to pull over and check my load. I knew those stupid onions were going to shift on me all the way to Montreal. Yup, that's where I was going, right back where I had come from.

Near the top of the pass is a rest stop but before I could get there a trucker passed me and pointed at my load. My front strap had come off and I had to stop and remove it before it went under my tire and ripped the load apart. Good thing it was a fellow trucker and not a cop that saw it.

Out in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, in Northern Nevada are mines that produce mud and put it in bags. I met a trucker from Kamloops, B. C. who goes to get the mud and takes it to the North West Territories to be used in oil wells.

The last gambling town in Nevada, as you go East, is called Well's. As you enter the area you will hear girls on the CB who will give you directions to their ranch and tell you of their hospitality, discreetly of course.

The town only has two truck stops a couple of stores and two ranches. The ranches don't raise cattle. All have slot machines and card tables.

In the center of B. C. there is a small town called Wells. It used to be a mining town but is mostly a ghost town now. There were two main mines that covered the sides of opposing mountains but the buildings have been torn down because some children had gotten inside and gotten hurt.

Although federal laws make gambling illegal in Canada many places have charity casinos and destination casinos which were built by bending laws and twisting regulations.

The town of Wells has always been legally licensed, a proviso left over from the gold rush days. Every now and then the talk springs up that they will build a destination casino there but the location is not advantageous. Though thousands of tourists visit there every year, as the restored gold rush town of Barkerville is only five miles away, it is a long winding drive from Quesnel which is the nearest center.