Turning the Page

Monday, July 30^th, 2012

      What keeps us running? Is it personal achievement? Fear of something? Desire to get somewhere other than where we are? Trying to lose weight? Doctors orders? I have my own answer for this question, but I will certainly note that I've been running pretty solid for the last four days, driving from Springfield, MO, up to Aurora, IL, then over to Tacoma, WA. All this to make it back in time to leave again going the other way.

      When you run so hard to get somewhere, the days go by in blurs. You take the federally required minimum ten hours off, sleeping maybe six or five of them. Hygiene takes a bit of a hit, since it seems like there's no time for anything. There are some incidents that hold prominence in my memory of the last week.

      Leaving Springfield, I was assigned a load out of the Kraft factory. I had no idea how much different stuff Kraft makes, but have a look sometime. I had settled in for a wait, since it was a live load, but I was still in a bit of a hurry. You're always in a hurry when it is time to go home. And I was hungry. My stomach was about to jump out and get its own food. Walking into the shipper, the entrance way is a makeshift break room, with vending machines against the far wall, and a low table built into the near wall. The narrow path between the obstacles was decorated with a smattering of chairs of varying makes. They totally had a microwave. Rummaging in the truck, I found that I had some microwavable Velveeta shells and cheese. Oh yeah. Guess who makes that? I went in and joked with the clerk about my lunch. He came back with a pouch of the cheese sauce, flopped it on top of the microwave and said jokingly that the big pouch was the real stuff. He walked away. A few hours later, the pouch was still there, so I took it and put it in my truck. Sitting on the floor, I found that after a couple hours it was rather hot, as the floor heats up from the exhaust filter not too far under the passenger seat. I will say that in a pinch, Velveeta makes a good hot pack and will stay in your shirt for a good spell, the foil stuck to your skin. Later in the week I tried easting the Velveeta with some salty corn chips, figuring “nachos.” Bad idea. That stuff is way to salty to be used as nacho cheese, at least with chips like Fritos. So I tossed the bulk of the bag, sad for the loss of my heating pack, but not that much.

      Blowing through Iowa and South Dakota, then a touch of Wyoming and into Montana. In the South East part of the state, one will find the monument to Wounded Knee. More specifically a pretty boy turned slaughterer. (curly hair that would make Fabio jealous!) They even named the national forest after that Custer guy. This time was much different. A fire had swept through some time before. Entire trees still standing upright, looking like spent matches. The Earth was blackened in many places, in others it was scorched red, devoid of any trace of organic matter. Some surviving trees showed traces of where the heat had singed all of the needles off, as if the fire still haunted the area, leaving a shadowy trace of its existence. Little burnt out nubs of bunch grasses set amidst a blackened landscape. And the smell. It still smelled like an ashtray. The area reeked of char. For all of that, some annual grasses had sprouted, brilliant yellow green, vibrant with new life among the failed cinders, brought about by the recent rain that had swept through. That whole scene will leave an impression for some time.

      So now I'm back, getting ready for the next adventure. I'll be hanging up my CB for a little while at least, maybe for a long while if I find something else I wish to pursue. Chances are that I'll be back out on the road, running. From what though? I've been so busy running for work that I've not really had time to take stock of my life, to reflect on events, to experience my emotions, from joy to grief. I have a lot I need to work through. I can see why some people stay out on the road all of the time. Your problems can't catch you if you are one step ahead of them. If you're always focused on what you are doing right then, the thoughts get crowded out by the present, for better or for worse. Still, some things do need to be experienced, and this is what is happening for me now., now that I've stopped moving. For now.

The week in review

Thursday, April 12^th, 2012

      As with anything in life, adhering to a rote pattern for its own sake does nobody any good, especially me. After nearly a month away now, I feel compelled to write. However, I do not feel compelled to write daily, as was my mandate before. To be honest, it seems kinda hard to top my experience in Saint Louis. I am still trying to burn that image out of my mind. In the meanwhile, I've returned back to Sumner, then out again, but this time, exploring the back roads of the heartland, which I'm sure is called that not because of geography, but because people here have hearts. I think.

I've seen all sorts of things this past week. Driving from Superior, CO to Golden is a wonderful drive, especially if you are not pulling any weight. This drive takes you abreast the Rockies themselves for a short span. The further south you travel from Boulder / Superior the more it becomes foothills, with less splendid views of mountains. For those interested, Superior is where Boulder has located all of the big box stores like Costco, where you can buy 100% recycled (80% post consumer) paper towels in bulk, because really, there is no irony there. Speaking of which, I wonder if this town has a complex by being so close to an awesome place to live?

      “B-Double E, Double R, U, N, beer-run!” Traveling from Boulder to the middle of freakin' nowhere Montana was more amazing than I thought. The trip through Wyoming along WY-59 certainly made pulling 45,000 pounds worth it. This road is fairly lonely, but not as lonely as one may think. Along the way, There are all sorts of industries. A number of tanker trucks passed me going the other direction. Most bore hazardous materials placards, number “1267,” and a couple with the number

“1203,” both flammable liquids; crude oil and gasoline respectively. I was wondering where this all came from, then an answer presented it self in the form of myriad pumps. Even better, I passed a site calling itself “Peabody Energy Mine.” Wait... I've heard of Peabody before.. oh yeah! The coal guys who wanted to mine coal under the Navajo reservation and use fresh aquifer water to sluice it over to Vegas! Then I passed another 2 “energy mines” along with miles of train cars, either filled or waiting to be filled. That and empty wind swept miles of ranch land, which cna be very breathtaking to behold, especially now as we head into spring.

      Up to Montana and back into Wyoming for the next load. Unbeknownst to the entire world, except for a select few, the North East corner of Wyoming holds a massive deposit of bentonite. I'm sure you are all waiting with bated breath, “what the hell is it?” It is often called bentonite clay, but it is in reality a volcanic ash. Light gray in color, it cakes very much like clay and is slippery as all get-out when wet. Or so I am told. The principle use is to make cat litter, the clumping variety. Talking to a local in the nearby truck stop, I learned of myriad uses for the slippery grey dust. It goes into cosmetics. It is used in steel production. It was, at one point used to create molds for engine blocks (single use molds), it goes into all sorts of food products, from hot dogs to all this other stuff I wonder about (as a binder). Yes, this little area of the world produces something like 70-80% of the world's cat litter. No shit!

     Then Off through South Dakota and Nebraska. The town of Mission, SD is buried in the heart (well, upper heart) of one of the Sioux Reservations. The town itself is not much to look at. Lots of squat buildings, some nicer than others, a few boarded up, graffiti along the perimeter of a steel building on the main drag. A shiny C-store on the west end of town, a university I've never heard of Sinte Gleska, but most of all I noticed the people. This town had more people on the streets than I had seen in mid morning Bellevue, WA, a place certainly 100 (perhaps even 1000) times larger. People of all ages walking around town going about their business. I'm not sure how to convey my amazement at this simple thing.

      Then there's Nebraska. Ever hear of Sandhill cranes? Well Google it if you haven't. Ever wonder why they are called this? I sure did. Turns out that there are endless miles of sandy hills pocked with marshes in north central Nebraska. Seems the cranes breed here. Muskrat lodges by the dozens!

      Fast forwarding to today, I got to enjoy quite a lot of the back roads here, almost driving off one of them just contemplating the landscape. Passing through the town of Farwell, NE (home of the largest Polish Catholic Church in Nebraska, a surprisingly specific sign) I got the sense that I was, in another place. Poland specifcally, even though I've never been. The land is flat, green, windy and probably cold as heck in the winter. Further along the road, is Loup City. The self proclaimed “Polish Capital of Nebraska.” I'm sure there's a tasteless joke in here some place.

      Back through Broken Bow and down to Lexington, to pick up an empty trailer. I learned that I was going to IBP, or Iowa Beef Processors, which it seems Tyson had bought out at some point. On the way down, I had driven past a number of expansive feed lots. Cows standing in complacency for want of a place to go and graze. Air so foul with manure and urine that I gag as I drive the 2 miles past one of these places. Yes, right to a “processing plant.” Waiting in line to get my empty trailer, 4 cattle trucks pass by, sending more cows to their doom. Yet I still eat chicken, and I know their fate is no less worse. Ah morality. That said, I apologized to the cows as they gazed out of their mobile metal prisons, only to be prodded into the jaws of death, and prayed that they have a better life in the next incarnation. What else could I do?

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Your brain on trucks; a disjointed ramble

Thursday, March 1^st, 2012

      Oddly enough, it seems that I have stopped at the only Pilot truck stop in the nation that does not have wireless internet. I will not grieve for lost time staring vacuously into the shiny screen. In fact it fits into the theme of the day. Actually it would be just as appropriate to stare blankly at a screen as well, but screens are so limiting.

      Starting off early, I left Anaconda behind. The guy that was next to me idling his noisy ass p.o.s. truck left before me, which is just as well. Consequently, I did not sleep as well as I could have, and I am certainly ready for bed. Here are some observations I made during the day.

      At one point, I was totally spaced out, but still being with the road. It is like you see what is going on, but your body mind is completely elsewhere. I was alert enough to be sure. Someplace past the Little Big Horn Battlefield, I considered it funny that they actually pay me to do this. For some reason it had not occurred to me at the level of “I am holding a steering wheel and contemplating everything.” The idea of it being work was long gone.

       Driving past Little Big Horn, it gave me pause to reflect. Were Americans such a bunch of ethnocentric, mean spirited bigots? Are we still? If our nation is mostly a nation of Christians, I would say we are setting a poor example, and/or ignoring what that Jesus dude said the whole time. Just driving past the site, one can feel the resentment in the earth. Furthermore, it is a monument in the Crow Nation. Why immortalize someone who slaughtered a bunch of people because they did not agree with him/his system? I found it hard to believe that being an American myself, that I was somehow linked to this inhuman madness.

      Late into a long day, there is a certain kind of momentum going. You've already been driving for so long. Your body takes a bit of a back seat as your mind takes over. That full bladder? It can wait another 60 miles (and it did). When you do finally stop, it is like hitting a wall. Suddenly not moving at a good speed feels foreign to you. The head thinks you are still going, but the body is stiff and sore from hunkering down in one position for 6 hours straight. Nothing that can't be walked off, which is just as novel.

      I found it funny the things I remembered about certain stretches of road. The hill south of Billings is long and more long. I remembered the hill as you turn onto 212. There is a stretch of 212 in Montana that I have a vivid memory of passing a truck driver, who was on his cell phone. I would keep catching up to him at 65 (back then) and I went to pass. I don't think he even looked into his mirror the whole. He was up to 65 some time just before I pulled along side him on the two lane road. In the end, I honked my horn and he slowed to let me pass, still on his phone. I later found out that he could have been going quite a lot faster than he was. I was less patient then.

      Today it didn't matter. I had almost the entirety of the east bound drive to myself. In 180 miles, I was passed 5 times, by cars. That certainly contributed to enjoying my spacey time. Road hypnosis is a strange thing, and it leaves you tired in the end. A shower rounds out a wonderful day, which can only be made better by some good sleep, since my brain isn't functioning too well. Good night all.

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HoLy MoLY!

Thursday, February 2^nd, 2012

      You know what makes this job so interesting? If you do, write your answer on a $100 bill and send it to me. Listening to Car Talk, is not the answer (but thanks for the inspiration anyway). The most surprising and intriguing aspect is all the people you meet. Landscapes and nature are always spectacular (I did manage to spy a bunny on the lawn at Denver!), yet they will always be so. Granted, they may appear different in varying seasons and weather, which is part of the reason I find the natural aspects of this job enchanting, but for sheer stun power, it has to be the people.

      We'll skip right to the people. I pulled into Inland Empire, my shipper for this load. They make cardboard boxes. A cat's dream job (well testing them anyway). I have no idea what is going on, so I talk to the yard jockey. They are the guys that move trailers about on these tiny little truck-like vehicles with an itsy-bitsy turn radius comparatively. I do as instructed, go inside after a small jog and grab my paperwork. Jogging back to the truck, I find the trailer which bizarrely had two sets of numbers, one stuck over the other. I'm checking the trailer for the ride, making sure the mudflaps are secure, the lights work, the load is secure, the wheels are inflated, and so forth when the yard jockey comes around and informs me that He'd like to shuffle a bunch of trailers around, and it would help if I move the trailer I'm hooking to. Well of course I'm going to move it. I seal the doors (which is less grandiose than it sounds) and make my way to my truck.

      The yard jockey is there explaining how he plans to move everything, not that I care, but I listen top be polite. This is how the conversation went, to the best of my recollection.

      “The yard is too small. It feels like it has gotten smaller since Inland got bought out.”

      “By who,” I wondered aloud.

      “IP,” Since I've hauled all sorts of paper products before I know he means 'International Paper' yet he continues, “International Paper.” Then out of left field he asks, “Are you a Believer?”

       My response, “In what? International Paper?” Seriously. I felt that I had missed some kind of segue here. I guess there wasn't one.

      “Well who do you work for?”

      “Uh, I work for Swift, it says so on the side of the truck.” He smiled that condescending smile of 'you are so going to burn in hell.' I played it a bit more, just because I enjoy this sort of thing.

      “There are only two kingdoms,” he continued. I wish I could invent stuff this comical, but real life is way funnier. So I started to get his drift, which I had since the first question.

     “Oh, if you are talking about religious stuff, then I consider myself more of a Taoist.”

      A blank stare. “What the hell is that?”

     “It is something like a Buddhist, but without the detachment from the world, rather the acceptance that you are a part of it [and by extension divine, which I did not say. No need to irk him more]”

      “Oh, well then that's too bad, (something about sin, I forget.)”

      I'm feeling that it is tie to wrap this up and get going, I've got to get out of Denver before the shit... err... snow storm hits the area. “Well that's all well and good, I respect that you have a different belief than I do, and that's cool. I'm content with my belief system, and you are welcome to respect that as well, or not.”

      “That's the greatest sin!” What? Letting people think their own thoughts? God forbid! Or is it agreeing to live and let live? Man, I could only imagine what he would have said if I were a Muslim!

      In the back of my head, I leave thinking, “Well dude, you can enjoy your beliefs. I cannot fathom the idea of a god that judges you, for one, then hates you so much as to separate you from the rest of life. Inconceivable!” More to the point, I'm straight up baffled that people still believe in things like “sin” and “god's wrath” If I didn't have a calendar, I would have sworn that we were sometime in the Dark Ages.

      Heh, I wonder what he would have said if I told him about all of the nature spirits that surround us, and help make the planet grow, Or perhaps about all of the other planes of existence that go far beyond 'Heaven' and 'Hell.' Or the myriad of pixies, gnomes, sprites and Divas that romp and play in the forests. Or even talking to trees. Yeah, I'd totally be burned at the stake. Well, maybe not. I would more likely be preached at about how I am 'sinning.' But like I said, to each their own. I hope he has a great life!

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Meta-fer-iffic!

 

Monday, January 23^rd, 2012

      Hah! See what I did there? Pretty smooth eh? Yes, you too can make up words at your whim! Truth of the matter is that I'm now 2 times zones over, and I didn't sleep too well last night. That and a hot shower will do a number on your brain's capacity to think and/or stay awake. That, and my brain is tired from doing so much exercise today.

      The bulk of the day was spent driving in fairly featureless terrain, except for the first couple of hours. Beautiful! Driving East on I-80, I was up a little bit before the sun, so I got to see it rise. Just east of Rawlins is Elk Mountain. From far away it kinda looks like a shield volcano, a cross section of Kileaua, if you will. To the south of this shadowy pre-dawn blob is another hill. The best way I can think to describe it is as a horizontal lower-case “l” with the serifs (pointy bits on the ends). A shaft of sunrise light was shooting exactly between the two points on the end of the crater, looking like a brilliant beam of light shooting up across the remnants of the previous storm's clouds. Great start, no?

      As a part of the vague and yet to be defined “make my life a better work of art” project, I decided to spend the day flexing my gratitude muscles. I chose today, because holy cats, it can be a long drive! Especially when you can hit cruise control and, well, cruise. From about 40 minutes west of Cheyenne to about Iowa, there is no need to shift up or down, barring the occasional construction zone with markedly lower speed limits. I started with being grateful for the most immediate things. Heat in the truck (it was cold this morning), a truck that works, and so forth. Then suddenly four hours had gone by and I somehow didn't feel like so much time had passed. So I stopped and had coffee and ice cream for lunch. Well I had a cheese-stick and a couple of carrots too. This practice of gratitude got be be touch to constantly maintain. The mind wanders. In fact, it wandered right into today's topic of metaphors (spelled correctly here).

      I began to think of life like driving a truck. I suppose we could do this with any mode of living, be it trading stocks, pushing a broom, or splicing fiber optic cables on the sea floor. Sitting in my cab, I am in control of my vehicle (my body-mind). I can read the gauges and collect other input from my senses. We all do this. I make decisions based on relevant information, and take in plenty of wonderful, but otherwise irrelevant information. I move through life at a certain speed. In this case, it is dictated by the company, but regardless, it has to be a speed one is comfortable with. You will change your speed based on conditions. Sometimes the road of life is icy and you has to drive with care, usually slower. Other times we can just ride on cruise over a dry road. These times are easy, but don't push you much except in terms of endurance (how long can I put up with this?). Somedays, you'll run across people going slower than you, maybe because they are carrying a heavier load, or just move slower. Both situations are just fine. Some people will blow by, either because they are carrying lighter loads or are burning a lot more fuel (life force) to get some place faster. Maybe there's a balance between the two. Some people are in it for the money, others are in it for the love. I'm in it for myself. To take some time to be alone and reflect on things. When it is all said and done, we are all in it for ourselves, it just depends on how you want to look at things. We can do good for society by helping others make something (delivering raw materials or finished goods to improve a product), or by feeding people. We may bring people inspiration (ever see a little kid get a truck to honk?). Not only that, we are all going at our own pace. You can't push a truck out of your way, although I've seen someone in a car try to do that very thing (hilarious effort in futility). We all drive our own road. Some will be more considerate of others out there, some less. The best we can do is drive safely and with care for those around us, even the trees on the side of the road, since I'm sure they don't care to be driven into.

      I'm sure you could dive as deeply into this metaphor as you'd like. The parallels may spin into fractal infinity. I'm done for now. I'd like to play some banjo and do some personal work for the rest of the night. Take care all, and remember to drive with your lights on... especially in the rain.

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The Land of Ice and Snow

Sunday, January 22^nd, 2012

      I'm a lucky bastard. Really, I am. Well, I'm not technically a bastard, but I have been lucky so far. To date, I missed almost all of winter barring a few incidents in Canada in November. I feel as if that was another lifetime ago already. Being in SoCal was a treat, even Sparks was nice enough. Donner Pass seemed like an anomalous blip on the radar of crap weather. But now, I feel that I've actually stepped in it.

      My present load is going from Salt Lake City to Missouri (Mexico, MO to be precise) and the routing has me going across I-80 for quite a ways. This is a great route if you like to space out and stare off into the distance. I really dig on that. In the winter, however, the story changes a bit.

      Starting off in SLC, I dial 511 for road info. Smart move, Ian. No sense in getting all worked up if the highway through Parley's Canyon is closed. It turned out that the chain restriction had been lifted not too long after I was loaded, so I got on my merry way. Motoring up the hill, all is well. There is a bit of ice on the road (formerly snow compacted by many tires) but it fades away soon enough. Smooth sailing all the way to the border. Right on!

Crossing into Wyoming, the road is wet, which is cool with me, but I see a large number of trucks parked in the Port of Entry (a weigh station). Hmm. I wonder why. About 7 miles down the road, the surface becomes ice/compacted snow. It sounds like I am going over a continual rumble strip. This effect due in large part to the impressions left by tire chains used at some earlier point. There are a few clear-ish spots but they are short lived and barely a tire's width anyway. Looks like 45 m.p.h. for a long stretch. I resolve to get off the road as soon as I can.

A clear spot opens up, and a chance to pass some people doing 35. Seriously. So I zip by at a cool 40, and I pass a parking area. DAMMIT! Looks like I'm going to keep on truckin'. Someplace around mile marker 68, the road is still crap. I could park at Little America (truck stop in the middle of nowhere), but it is absolutely packed. The road has a couple wet streaks for tires in one lane with scattered icy rumble strips.

Then finally, at Green River, the road clears up. It's even dry in some places! Zooming along at 63 (top speed), I release my white knuckle death grip on the steering wheel and ease up on my tension levels. I take more time to notice the landscape. I spy two groups of antelope, presumably playing on the range. They looked like they were eating, but I'm told that they play out here. I look a bit more intently on the local flora. This snow may be the lion's share of their water for the year, and I notice that the plants seem to funnel the wind around themselves leaving little drifts leeward. Brilliant! I'm not sure how intentional this is, but it totally rocks for me.

Knowledge is power, so I dial 511 again. In the mean time, it seems that the road over Elk Mountain (11k+ feet) has become so crappy that they've shut it down entirely. In a stunning turn of events, they have re-opened the section from Cheyenne to the Nebraska border, which I'm guessing was closed because of massively high winds, since the roads are dry. I consider my options. In the end, I shut down in Rollins instead of going to Laramie, where the rest of the people who kept driving East will have to stop. I'll sacrifice a shower to have some peace of mind. I'll get my chance soon enough. For now, I'm resting for the balance of the day and calling it good.