Running produce to Alaska

I think the main concern is break downs and the cost to get equipment fixed or towed. We have a lot more trucks running up and down Hwy 97. That makes it a lot easier to help or recover a load if necessary. If you are a single truck operation it wont matter too much, but if you run a fleet of trucks up the road it makes a lot more sense to keep them all in the same area. Since the trucks that come up through Alberta will be on Hwy 97. I personally like the Cassiar, but I am not the one signing the pay check. As long as I get paid for the extra miles I don't mind taking the long way round. Hwy 97 is probably the safer route as well and then you never know what insurance companys are dictating behind the scenes.

 

Well, I am back in my home away from home in Anchorage. I finished off loading on Friday afternoon in Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula. The weather is nice and met a couple other drivers and been comparing notes.

I did have some trailer issues that I was able to fix on the side of the road. After a lot of head scratching and ingenuity I made it work, but I lost three hours and that put me behind. I spent Wednesday night in Otter Falls, YT and found a flat on the truck in the morning when I got up. Finding tire service is a real pita and I will start carrying my own tools from now on to do the job myself.

Here is a picture of the ice blade tooth that I found in my tire. The tire had 40,000 miles on it and is trash due to many cords cut.



I also got my big radio installed and had it programmed up here for the Alaska and Canada channels. Now I can actually talk to other drivers as well and find out what is going on. I might go cell phone shopping here in a little bit and see if I can't find a plan and phone that works better than what I have now.

 

Made it back home last night. I got the truck washed this morning and did some house cleaning as well. Spent my time at the truck wash going over my recent settlement sheet. I had missed the payroll cut off for the last pay period when I turned stuff in and had over 10,000mls on this check. I could get used to getting paychecks like that every two weeks.

Return trip was pretty uneventful until I came through Quesnel BC at night and somebody that was hiding in the dark thought it would be fun to throw stuff at moving traffic. I was blinded completely after the object smashed in the right half of my windshield and trying to wipe it created a nice film over it. After slowing down and wiping and washing I had some visibility and still was not sure what had hit me. It looked like a big snow ball, but that did not explain the complete mess. When I finally had a save place to pull over I realized I had been egged. That egg hit hard and I thought my whole windshield was coming in.

The next day I did catch up with the culprit and took care of that prankster.



Obviously, I am just kidding about the second part, but somebody does need to be hit in the back of the head for throwing an egg in the windshield of a truck that is running about 100kph on a two lane road. I did talk to a RCMP officer that was camped out beside my truck when I got up the next morning and he was not very happy either. Unfortunately, their patrol area is huge and not easy t have a Mounty close by when you need one.

Since the weather is getting nicer the CVSE has been setting up checkpoints and started doing commercial vehicle inspections all over the place. When I came through 100 Mile House they were just putting all the cones out and pretty much shut Highway 97 down in both directions with their check point.

Looks like I will be home for almost a week until my next trip since I did not want to go South and all the earlier loads had been covered. Suits me fine and I can enjoy some time at home with my girlfriend.