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Greetings,
faithful C-nados!
Yes,
it does seem like it has
been a while since the previous installment of The
Chief (tm) News hit the stands. And that's
because your boy The Chief (tm) has been on the road hard,
rackin'
up all those miles so you don't have to! Like the bumper sticker sez:
IF
YOU DON'T LIKE SEMI-TRUCKS
DON'T
EVER BUY ANYTHING
Yup,
pretty much everything in this country gets to where it is purchased
from, having been shipped there by truck. When you see (or, worse,
endure a visit to) these giant distribution centers, this becomes very
clear, both for the good, and for the bad. But some other times you
don't go anywhere near a
distribution center, much like the “dispatch” that The Chief (tm) finds
himself on as you read this...
You
see, his pickup was towards the eastern side of Utah, not far from the
borders of Colorado and Wyoming. A visit to Utah a week before had, in
fact, been via I-70, coming in from CO
(and the Coors Brewing plant, where he saw at least a giant stack of 10,000
--
er, 9,700 empty kegs awaiting deployment). He had the presence of mind
to stay overnight in Glenwood Springs, a wonderful little town he had
greatly enjoyed in his only previous visit (please do click here to read).
The design of Interstate 70 coming in from the east is quite literally
worth reading about -- absolutely gorgeous, going through the canyon --
and so is the town. 'Course, the town has gotten a LOT bigger since
that other stay, and not all for the better, but it is still situated
in a lovely spot. (The only real bad news: the cat at the hostel, who
had inspected my motorcycle, has since passed away.)
This
time, on the way in, we took I-80, up towards the north. Drove along a
35-mile stretch of completely straight road, alongside the Bonnevile
Salt Flats. FWIW not the
longest such stretch in the US, and anyway The Chief (tm) has already driven
on
the longest such stretch, down through KS, OK and TX!
Vectored
down through Salt Lake City, up over Daniels Summit at 8K+ ft. where,
pre-sunrise, the temps were only in the high 30's. Made the pickup at a
hard-working but beautifully-located ranch; four miles of driving on a
farm road to receive a trailer load of hay bales! Yes, and they each
weigh about 1,400 lbs. So, if you don't want to do the “maff”, just
know that the trailer is fully stuffed: 45,000 lbs from 32 bales. That
made for some slow / hairy driving up to the 9,114 ft. mark at Indian
Summit on Utah Rte. 191 -- and then back down again, an ***8% grade***!
Then through some eye-wateringly gorgeous canyons cut by the Price
River, and accompanied by the railroad tracks which still haul coal out
of the aptly-named Carbon County. By the time we were back in the
“flats” -- though still at around the 6K-ft. elevation level -- the
temps were in the high '90's. Quite the swing, n'est-ce
pas?
Delivery
couldn't have been more different: rolling along the Salton Sea, probs
below sea level (ergo, a 9,000 ft. swing in elevation!) to a little
place called Calipatria, CA. Again pre-sunrise, the sliver of the
crescent moon and one of the visible planets right above it reminded me
of the scenes in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, wherein such a celestial
alignment usually called forth the presence of The Monolith, which did
little things like hasten the evolution of ape into man, man into the
“Star Child”, and so forth. Ho hum! Ah, but no such effects on our
little trip, although the musical accompaniment -- a CD called
“Downtempo”, which hails from the Burning Man trip in '08, really set
the tone.
“Surreal”
is not the word, but there I was, rolling along in the dark with no one
else on the road, the man-made Sea gradually beginning to show itself
to my right, the more faint stars gradually disappearing into the
lightening sky with the moon and that planet holding out to the last
moment. For whatever reason, I thought back to my visit to Black Mesa,
AZ (again, please do click here),
and all the wonder and awe that came from it. Not just from the natural
surroundings and beauty, but also from the perspectives you are
sometimes lucky enough to glean from the innocence and inquisitiveness
of children, and of people from entirely different walks of life than
your own. (Seriously, go back and read about it.) Zooming across this
almost entirely foreign landscape, lit by the moonlight, on the
company's dime, well, that's the stuff you read about. Which, uh,
you're reading about,
are you not? :-)
Oops,
we do digress! The Communications Office here at TC(tm)N --
and of course that's merely the abbreviation for “The Chief (tm) News”
-- yes, the Office is happy to report that it still lives and dies by
its policy of “keep those cards n' letters coming”. And MAN, have you
people kept 'em coming! To wit, the mailbag is almost always full of
excellent questions about life on the road.
(In
fact, pretty soon we'll be staffing-up at Comms yet again, looking for
folks with, at minimum, a science background at the professorial level
of a major research university, handy with Matlab and/or has a bumper
sticker to prove it, and whom can hack past the HR firewall in order to
submit the formal application. Good luck to all qualified candidates!)
So
here are the latest very interesting questions worth discussing. One
is, what's it like sleeping in the back of the truck? To which I say,
it's pretty lousy if you're cooped up in there with hay bales! But of
course that's a joke, because we don't sleep in the trailer. The
tractor itself, OTOH, has a fairly roomy sleeping cabin with bunk beds,
lots of cabinet space, separate A/C and audio controls, and so on.
Pictures wouldn't really do it justice, but it is more than tall enough
for an adult to stand up in, so it's sort of like being in a very small
camper, or a really nice
tent! Except that water never gets in it, and you don't have to set it
up each time...you just drive it to the next place...
Another
question asked about theft, and this could mean two separate things.
Theft of cargo, whether from the
trailer, of the trailer, or of the
entire truck, is a REALLY BIG DEAL in terms of $. Consider that 45,000
lbs. of say, electronics, or medical equipment, could easily be worth
hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. So there are these
super-heavy-duty locks that go on the trailers, the trailers are locked
to the trucks, and in certain “high theft areas” the trucks are not
allowed to be left alone at any time. Plus, when they are loaded and
leave the yard, they need to be driven at least 200 miles before making
any stop, to discourage thieves from possibly following along. Wild
stuff...
WRT
theft from the tractor, at a truck stop let's say, here is my
observation. Some of us may live, or have been lucky enough to have
lived in, a place where it was always said that “people didn't lock
their doors”, or you could leave your bicycle unlocked at the store, or
if you lost something someone would find it and bring it to you, things
like that. The point is, everyone knew that you just don't mess with
things that are not yours, and it's usually pretty good that way. Why
it came along to where stuff gets stolen just because it's there,
or whatever goes on in the big cities, well, it's just too bad, and
I've lived both.
At
the truck stops, I think it's still mostly at
the stage where people know that you just shouldn't mess with other
people's stuff. Sure, there's the risk of getting the crap beaten out
of you (or worse) if you got bagged trying to steal something from
someone. But in general, if stuff starts to get stolen more and more
frequently, then that means that EVERY TIME you leave the truck, you
gotta lock it up. Or if you're inside a truck stop eating lunch,
working on your laptop, and you have to go to the bathroom, then EVERY
TIME you'd have to pack everything up and bring it with you -- a major
hassle.
It
just feels, to me anyway,
that drivers are still hoping that things can remain the “right” way at
the stops, where you don't have to worry as much as you would back in
the “real” world. It may be sorta among the last holdouts of that
simpler, better time, where things didn't get stolen just because you
looked away from them for a split-second. Yeah, if you're near a big
city, then the chances of theft are higher, but elsewhere, you're
hoping for all you are worth that everything will still be OK. And the
longer that people are willing to keep believing it, I think that it
can be. At least, I *hope* it can be, and I'll do my part for as long
as possible.
There
are many more very good questions to be answered, but might we suggest
to leave them for next time. Hope all is well with everyone, and
continued apologies to those with whom I have been unable to make
contact directly. TTFN! See you out on the road!
--Sincerely,
The Chief (tm)
a.k.a.,
The Pacific Standard (tm)
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