Makin' the bacon while local tanker yankin'

Merry Christmas to all. I'm enjoying a few drams of a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 20 year that my wife gave me for Christmas while the turkey smokes outside.

Off today, but I'm going to go into work around 2100 and belt out my Saturday work to have a "long" weekend.

 

In the true “2020 sucks” fashion, my last load of the year is on Martha’s Vineyard. What’s so bad about that? Ocean was so rough getting over here that they used 2 inch thick rope to tie down all the trucks to the deck of the boat. Well the trucks that had the tie down rings anyway, so basically all the tankers and one van.

About tossed my cookies on that journey, and even more surprised they didn’t cancel the trip. Now I’m hoping they don’t cancel my return trip to the mainland because I do not want to get stuck here for the holiday.

Photo of the rings on the trailer attached.

 

Surprisingly it isn't bad. Even more surprisingly, the locals are pretty friendly to trucks. For the most part when they see a truck with a turn signal on somewhere they almost always yield to the truck. The absolute unquestionable exception to this rule, is any vehicle with a NJ plate.

The trailer I usually pull is a tridem trailer, but they pulled it into the shop a week ago because it was due for it's tank inspections and they are also going to refurbish and give it a fresh paint job, which come to find out they do every 5 years when they do the required pressure test.

I miss my tridem trailer, it feels weird bringing 10,092 gallons instead of 12,600 gallons. I'm told I'll have it back in a couple weeks. Biggest upside to the tridem trailer: I won't go anywhere near Connecticut.

 

Dispatch told me today once the weekend comes I'm to switch out my 11,600 gallon water capacity trailer for a 14,550 gallon water capacity trailer (Not the same one I used to pull, and will load to 12,600 gallons or 86% of capacity). No big deal, except I was also told that they are putting together NY overweight permits for me as well and I'm permanently keeping that trailer.

So while I believe the NY overweight permit they'll assign my tractor and trailer will allow me 107k gross, MA and RI for me are capped at 99k, but I believe by my math that 12,600 gallons and that specific model trailer still puts me right at 98k with the current tractor I pull. Only real downside is that it is a rear loading trailer, so I have to be more cognizant of how I position the truck to hook to loading arms at a rack.

::happy dance:: no Connecticut loads for me for the rest of the season!

 

It's a tough gig, but someone has to do it. Got about 45 minutes of throwing a fly line out there on the Vineyard until the return ferry docked. Tomorrow is going to suck though, I know it'll be a race against the 14 with the 3 loads they dropped on me tomorrow. 33,000 gallons total tomorrow.

Very strange, because it's unseasonably warm (granted, not like last year), but companies on MV and Nantucket are all of a sudden back to ripping through gas.

 

Testing out the new day cab hammock on my way to Nantucket. Initial setup is easy, although I need to fine tune where I put the pool noodles and tighten up the slack for the hammock.