Down On The Coast

Living on Sponge Cake,
Watching the sun bake,
All these tourists covered in oil.

On my front porch swing
Strumming my six string,
Smell those Shrimp, they're beginning to boil.

-Jimmy Buffet

I was sitting earlier today on a boat dock with my bare feet hanging in the water just chilling and resting.  I'm sitting down in Port Fourchon, Louisiana.  I was just up in Chicago and picked up a back haul load of 22 large bags of graphite powder.  Most of us have only seen graphite powder in a little tube that you can buy to lubricate a lock with. This load of Graphite powder went down to MI SWACO at Port Fourchon.  I don't know if you remember it or not, but I posted once before about a trip down here to Port Fourchon.  This is a small little place that supports something like 8,000 jobs. This swampy marsh supports the off shore oil field business, and almost anyone in the oil business has a yard of some sort here.  If you'll click on this link you can see what I posted about Port Fourchon in a prior post.  Here is what 45,320 pounds of graphite powder looks like.

This is a nice place, with a lot of great fishing areas.  I spoke with my dispatcher about what we were going to do next, and I was allowed to just stay here for a day or two and take a break if I wanted to. I really do get some great privileges granted me on this job.  Most trucking situations want you to keep moving so they can put you onto the next load, whatever that may be.  Here is how my discussion with my dispatcher went.  "Look Dale, I want to keep you happy, and I know you mentioned to me that you would like to get one of those nice Northeast loads when you got back.  If you come back now then we will just have to wait until Saturday for one of those loads, or put you on something for Friday, but that will mean you don't get back in time for that load to Connecticut."  He allowed me to decide on my own how I wanted to handle the situation.  Having my choice of loads, and the respect of my dispatcher, who knows he can always depend on me to always "git er done." has afforded me a lot of benefits that few truck drivers ever realize.  So, here I am resting up and enjoying myself like I'm Jimmy Buffet, and this is the view from where my truck is parked.

My dispatcher called today to go over the available loads with me and it turns out that the Connecticut load is going to have two stops in North Carolina (where all that serious flooding is going on) before it continues on up North.  Also our terminal manager made a request for that load to be given to one of our drivers who is training a new driver because that new driver needs to drive in some mountains for his training.   So, I decided I would take a load that goes down to Miami.  So my next load will go down to South Florida with several stops in Florida along the way.

This area is really interesting.  It is the land of levees, marshes, unique vernaculars, and the rich smells of the sea.  While taking a walk yesterday I saw a gar, a jelly fish, several "flying fish," some loons and herons, and even a juvenile sea otter playing along the edge of a marshy area. The main road coming into this area is an elevated toll road.  It is elevated for a good many miles.  This isn't the greatest picture, but here is a look at the road from where my truck is parked.

Here is a look at what most of this whole area looks like.  It feels like a "Marsh Wiggle" should be appearing at any moment when you are out walking around down here.  The roads are just about eighteen inches above the water, and that measurement increases and decreases with the tide.  There is so much water everywhere, and for the most part any strip of land that is above the water level is being used for commercial purposes.