An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Loaded at the System terminal. 43k of various sizes of aluminum plates. Asked them to load me tail heavy because I have a spreadable tandem. But because I couldn't get them to slide while empty, they decided to load me more forward making my drives 33k with 3/8 tank of fuel. I tried to tell them that it would slide once we had some weight on it, but they didn't think so (which it did slide just fine once I got back to a truckstop). Tarping is still my Achilles heal doing open deck, especially when we have 8' drop tarps and pull 3' high loads. Makes getting the ends wrapped up tight a PITA. Took me 20 min to strap down and a couple hours to tarp...and just as I got the back tarp in place it started to sprinkle, so I had to toss the other 2 on real quick before anything got wet. One day, maybe, I won't take all day to do my part of a load

 

Mine is 3 different heights, but pretty much yeah, that's a lot like what I am hauling. If we had shorter tarps it would've helped, but even the guy who signed me out says their 6' tarp are too big for these loads. Not sure why we transloaded this from a System trailer instead of System hauling it, but hey...miles are miles, and I'm not sitting waiting, and it puts me in a good area for my next load

 

WY is doing it's thing today. Coming down I-25 out of MT and the signs are saying to expect closures for light, high profile vehicles. Wind gusts to 60+. I've got 43k that's 3' off the deck and it's pushing me around a fair bit. Will be glad to get to NE (taking the scenic route, 25-80-York, NE then down to Salina on the US routes so I avoid Denver. Only adds 20 mi)

 

I had to retarp that one elevator load I took to AZ, partly because it was such a mismatched bunch of pieces, there was no real good way to keep them tight. I am one to over bungie rather than have a parachute or a kite following me. When I have a fairly symmetrical load like this one I keep them tight. I made it thru WY with the typical heavy crosswinds and my tarps are still right where I put them... although I miss roping tarps instead of bungies, rope doesn't stretch when the wind hits the tarps.

 

Hanging on to a tarp and let it throw you off a trailer is a futile effort. I handled tarps while the winds were building for hurricane Ian...the one caught a gust while I was pulling it back over the remaining 2 stops, and I dropped to the deck and let it go.

As far as flatbed, I would rather do what it takes on a flatbed than have to deal with grocery warehouses, lumpers, paper mills and loooooong waits to get a dock and get loaded or unloaded. This load took less time to load than it took them to get the portable scale pads lined up so they could weigh me while loading my trailer. As long as I can physically do this, being slow or not, I will stay on an open deck for as long as I can.