Remember what I told you about calling my dispatcher and picking up the return materials from Stanley because the original plan they had for my back haul load was only one bundle? Well, I showed you what my load looked like after I picked up the returns from Stanley, but here is the single bundle of material that I had to get a fork lift at the SAPA plant to move to another trailer for me. This is what I hauled all the way back from Cressona, Pennsylvania to Delhi.
Looks a little lonely back there for that long ride doesn't it? The other returns had to be taken to the plant in Cressona, but this one bundle needed to go back to Delhi.
I was telling you in my last post how the beautiful foliage only served to remind me that winter is coming. I'm not afraid of driving in the inclement weather, I've actually done quite a bit of it. The worst thing about the winter is working out in the elements. There is nothing quite like having to lay out your tarps on the ground when there is 18 inches of snow on the ground and it's 5 below zero with a fierce wind howling in your ears. Do you remember this photo of me folding my tarps in a snow storm up in Syracuse, New York?
That is by far the toughest part of this job - doing the physical work that is required out in the weather. Those tarps weigh about 135 pounds, but in the winter when they are covered with ice and snow it is sometimes nothing short of a miracle that I can get them up onto my trailer from the ground. I actually like physical work which is one of the reasons I chose to be a flat bed driver, but I have to admit the winter is a challenge, and I am not quite a young man anymore.
Here's a few more winter scenes to give you an idea of what it gets like out here, but remember, our customers still need their freight, and often times on this dedicated account our company gets charged back for holding up the progress of a factory where we are supposed to be making our deliveries on time or else it shuts down the production lines in the factory. They call these loads JIT loads (Just In Time).
Here's a shot of the Stanley Plant in Farmington, Connecticut that I go to all the time. This is part of the parking lot and driveway that I just backed my truck down about 100 yards into the area where the fork lift unloads me. The snow is so deep that you can't even tell where the curbs are or where the edge of the pavement is. That was a challenging day. I don't know if you remember the historical record setting snow they had in Buffalo, New York this past winter, but this picture was taken on that day. Yes, I was up there driving through that record setting snow storm.
Winter has it's challenges, but we just have to take it as it comes. I've been thinking about this job I have now doing this dedicated driving for SAPA and it actually takes some of the most difficult parts of the winter out of the equation. Of course I've still got to drive in this mess, but much of the tarping that we do is done inside the buildings at the various plants. That is some nice relief from the elements that "Old Man Winter" throws at us.
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