Simple Redneck Pleasures

What can be more fun than going to the dump?  Well, I'll tell you the answer.  It's going to the dump in an eighteen wheeler!  Now if you've never gone to a trash dump when the weather isn't so good you don't really know about the simple pleasures of slipping and sliding all over the place in your vehicle. They generally pack the roads in the dump with clay so they will hold up to the traffic, but that also makes them very slippery (and fun, in a redneck sort of way) when it's wet.  I delivered a trash load to a very large trash dump in Amsterdam OH yesterday where they have had quite a bit of snow lately. Well, the melting snow and slush wed together with the clay roads made it interesting to say the least!

First off let me show you what these trash loads look like.  This is a load of trash from Stratford Bailing in Stratford CT.  This is called construction debris and it is bailed up tightly and enclosed in these huge green bags.  What you are looking at here is about 48,000 pounds of trash.  It doesn't smell too great but it's not near as bad as the trash loads I some times pick up in West Babylon, that is more like household trash. Here's what it looks like loaded and ready to roll across the five states it takes to get it to Amsterdam.  Isn't that a crazy way to make a living?  I went through five states today just trying to get my job done.

There's nothing like going mudding in an eighteen wheeler!  You can lock in your extra drive axle and you aren't just in four wheel drive, you're in eight wheel drive!  Oh, I'm being silly, this is some serious driving, and I saw more that one truck end up in the ditch.  Some of the trucks had to be pushed, with a bull-dozer, up the hill to the dumping site, but you'll be glad to know that I made it under my own power.  Here's a photo of the site.  If you can see the equipment up on the side of the hill that is where we had to get so we could get unloaded.

I forgot to tell you about the seagulls, or maybe they should be called dump gulls that are at both the place where they bail the trash and at the dumping site.  I guess these are gulls that have an aversion to fresh seafood or something, or else they are too lazy to make their living at the sea - I don't know, but they are always hanging about gathering bits of food from the trash that is being processed.  I always throw them a few crackers from the cab of my truck.  I don't know why, I guess I feel kind of sorry for the dumb birds, surely some little fishes from the sea would taste better than these cast off wastes from the rest of the world.  Birds and people act strangely at times, sometimes life causes us to settle for so little when there is an abundance available.  "If you seek Me, you will find Me"

As I was headed over to Amsterdam and coming through the Susquehana Valley and then through the Alleghany mountains I was wishing Abigail or mom could be here with me to enjoy the beautiful scenes along the way.  This was the area that David Brainerd labored in with the local Indian tribes.  Here's a photo of a mountain pass I went through.  I don't like to take photos while driving, but I went ahead and snapped a quick one here.

After I got this load delivered I found out I'm headed right back to Connecticut with a sheetrock load.  I'm going to have to go get my truck and my tarps washed because I don't think the people getting this sheetrock expected it to already have the mud applied to it before they hang it on the wall!  Here's what my truck looked like after I got this ordeal over with.

All in a day's work.  Fun, fun!  I guess somewhere deep inside I'm just a little bit of a Redneck!