Regional vs. Long haul

What was the job in Canada; something to do with tar sands?

 

Oil refinery for ConocoPhillips. The money was obscene! They were paying the construction workers $85-180/hour. They were opened from Monday-Thursday. I ran flatbed delivering structural steel.

It was rough tho. You know how you hear these guys talking about how they never pissed in a jug or whatnot? Yeah, they had portOjohns there, but the good temp days in the winter were around the -25 area. Bad days could hit -50. I'm not exposing Binky to negative 50! Northern Canada is a real eye opener.

You know how in the States, you always hear someone crying about their life in a truck? I remember one winter in Grassland Alberta and the FlyingJ, getting out of the truck to eat with a fork. Cold as hell, the wind pounding, all the trucks in the parking lot idling with their marker lights in so you could see them. Felt like we were being sandblasted. Went into the restaurant and no one complains. Talk about rugged people. Living in an icy hell and happy.

The motels were strange too. Motels would look like truck stops. Everyone would bobtail in and park, and plug their trucks in. You wouldn't think a truck would start after being off 3 days, but if you plugged in the block heater, it would. Yeah, they sound awful, but we'd let them warm up for an hour or so and the idle would smooth out.

"How do you know when you're taking a load to Hell, Six?"

It's not just Canada. If you are in a place where if something goes wrong, you have a good chance of death, you're in Hell. How will you know? Pre-plan.

 

Personally long haul is the way to go, there is no money in local or regional here and you have to work way to hard for the less pay, kids are grown and wife works nights so being gone running coast to coast and border to border works for me, but, when she retires in 13 months I'll either go local or hang up the keys for good.

 

I talked to her a few days ago. She said she'd be okay if you kept your OTR gig.

 

She said you promised not to tell!!

 

But if you did longhaul you could have 2 families instead of 1.