Aug-20-09
I followed i-75 south to Dayton, OH and then took Hwy 35 south (east) to 23 south to Portsmough, OH (right next to the Kentucky border). I switched to 52 east and found the consignee with no problems in the town of Hanging Rock, OH just 25 miles east of 23/52 junction. They were closing at 2:30 pm and I barely made it.
When I sent the 'load delivered' message to Dispatch, they - as promised - quickly sent over the new load offer with the pickup in Kentucky. The shipper was only 14 miles away (in Wurtland, KY) but I had to do a detour along Hwy 23 to get to a bridge.
My GPS led me to the town of Ironton, and I see a sign that says, "Commercial trucks over 7'8" wide are prohibited on the bridge". What the heck? I come closer to the bridge and there's another sign with the same message. I'm probably 8'6" wide but can the bridge be this narrow? I have no idea where another bridge is and my appointment at the shipper is for 4 pm, just 30 minutes away. I look at the bridge from a block away and it looks fine: 2 lanes, cars are speeding back and forth ... I decide to follow the GPS directions and cross the bridge. The approach is very narrow but the bridge itself is okay, tight but not too bad. I breath out as I come to the stop sign after the bridge and here's where the adventure begins.
I do a couple of very tight turns at lights and see a sign "low bridge, 12'8" At first I panick but then remember that I'm pulling a flatbed and that I don't have a deflector on the roof. So, I pull forward, go round the bend towards this railway underpass and ... stop. Something wrong here.. The height is okay, but the road under the bridge is like a tunnel made out of concrete, and this tunnel is probably 8 feet wide! What's more, it's not straight and it curves to the left and there's no space before this tunnel to swing the truck in an arc. I'm stuck.
I put on my flashers and go out and look. No, I can't make it. As I turn back to the truck I see 2 cops walking towards me. And I'm thinking, "A ticket." and "These guys are fast." But the cops don't look hostile or anything. "It's not your fault. There's no signs", says Cop #1. Cop #2 meanwhile is blocking the traffic behind me and Cop #1 is now blocking the oncoming traffic from out of the tunnel/bridge. Cop #1 asks me to back up and make a u-turn in a small driveway off the road behind me. It looks doable and I do just that as passers-by gawk on ... "What the heck is this guy doing?" they're probably thinking.
I turn around and follow cops' directions to get to Hwy 23 on the Kentucky side. I reach the shipper without further complications...
I'm picking up steel products and the paperwork says, "tarp is required'. Mmm ... my first tarping. I back up into the warehouse and they load the stuff on the trailer with a crane. After I weigh at the yard scale (44,400 lbs) I pull into a special area for chaining/strapping/tarping...
2 hours later ... the load is strapped, two tarps are on top of it, and I'm soaked. It's 90 F outside and the so-called "steel tarps" MacKinnon uses on their trailers are 19.6' by 30'! The tarps are all 18 oz vinyl, with no flaps. To me they feel like they are 200 lbs each
At least the load is quite dense and sits low, maybe 4 ft from the floor.
I change into shorts and another T-shirt in the truck, grab an empty bottle and head into the warehouse to finde some tap water. I see 2 guys chatting in the lunch room and I ask them where I can get drinking water. One of the guys says he wouldn't trust the local tap water and adds, "I have a bottle of water in the cooler in my car. I'll just give it to you." I say I have no change but he says he doesn't need any money. We go out to his car and in the trunk there's a huge cooler with a bunch of bottles. The guy gives me 2 (two) 500 ml bottles of water, ice-cold, and I can't thank him enough.
As I'm driving on the road 10 minutes later, with my A/C on full blast and a bottle of cold water in my hand, I begin to feel like a human being again
Delivery is tomorrow in Milton, ON Canada anytime.