What is going on with the weather in Alberta? This is getting just a little ridiculous, to say the least. Did the weatherman forget about APRIL SHOWERS, spring flowers and all that mush? April snowstorms are for the freaking birds. This, especially after having a full week of > +10° weather!

….. SNOW, ICE RAIN, RAIN, WIND all at freaking once. Time to earn my money I suppose.

Derrick, one of my Calgary counterparts on the midnight Safeway run was telling me that the roads were all messed up because of the storm on Thursday night. I thought to myself, “What a whiner. Can’t handle a little driving in the rain. What will he do when he is faced with an Alberta winter.” Derrick is from Winterpeg. He just moved to Alberta about a month ago so he hasn’t experienced all that Alberta winter has to offer.

My truck was in the shop having the turbo repaired so I was driving one of our International Eagle bunk trucks with the big pulling engines. The rig would be over-length because the Eagles are too long to pull 2 50′ trailers using a long tandem converter dolly. No big deal. The scale will be closed when I go by so no need to worry about being a couple of feet over length. Of course there is always a wrench thrown into the mix.

Safeway’s brilliant shunt drivers are having a makeshift job action due to being handed their walking papers effective May 30. So they are taking their sweet old time getting trailers to the doors to be loaded for Calgary. They seem to think that being assholes will save their jobs. Of course they are thinking like two year olds. Their jobs are history. Direct is taking over all transportation effective June first and nothing these dip-shits do is going to stop that. So in all their infinite wisdom they are screwing, not management, but their fellow drivers. Aren’t we all drivers regardless of for whom we work? Management is just sitting back biding their time until the end of May. They don’t give a rat’s patootie if the drivers are sitting around for an extra three or four hours a night waiting for loads. So the only people being screwed over are the DRIVERS. Great work boys!! You are screwing your own.

Anyway, I digress, as per usual. The scale at Leduc, Ab. closes at 11 p.m. every night. It does, however, re-open at midnight. So the optimal time to get out of Safeway Distribution is between 10:20 and 11:10 p.m. Before or after this time frame the scale will be open. After waiting for my trailers I was happy to note that I would be dragging my over-length ass past the scale at 11:55 p.m. NOT! I hooked up to my lead trailer and noticed a RED light on the reefer control panel. “SHIT SHIT SHIT” I tried! The Loader tried! The shunt driver tried! We all tried to get the reefer to start up. No friggin’ luck (wish I was Irish… Oh wait… I AM). The trailer had to be unloaded and the load had to be put in another trailer…. SHIT SHIT SHIT.

Meanwhile, Derrick has arrived in Edmonton, dropped his Calgary indbound wagons and hooked to his Edmonton outbound trailers. He had a full load of dairy and produce on one and empty breadtrays on the other. Nice load…. On a dry windless night <wink>. In heavy winds that light trailer on the back is nothing more than a 48′ freaking sail. Makes the trip interesting to say the least. Don’t pass those babies with a freaking SMART car. Can you say SPEED BUMP?!?

It took about 45 minutes for my trailer to be swapped out and re-loaded, 10 minutes to hook the two trailers together and check the lights etc, and about 45 seconds to pee out the three coffees I had drank during hours of waiting around. For anyone paying attention, I have mentioned the perils of coffee in an aside entry (HINT: Look at the sidebar over there ——>) Again I am sidetracked (but that’s why you are reading this. To see if I can stay on topic for more than three sentences… I won’t let you down, it will never happen)

I would now be crossing the scale at around 0030 hrs. For those of you who don’t speak 24 hr clock that is 12:30 a.m.. Perhaps if I don’t look in the scale house the twit inside won’t notice that I am over-length. Hmmmm… Ever seen a 2 year old playing peek-a-boo? They figure if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. It doesn’t work that way, yet I was hoping for it regardless. The truck I was driving is capable of doing 112 kph on the pedal and 110 kph on the cruise control. Either is illegal with turnpikes behind me. 100 kph is the max speed for extended length doubles in Alberta. So what? I hit Anthony Henday Drive for the trip out of town. Winding the pig, er rig up to 110 the cruise control was set. It was raining a little, but not bad. 40 minutes later I was at the scale. I think my theory worked. Going over the scale I thought to myself, “oh shit oh shit oh shit.” After scaling all 9 axels the light turned………. GREEN…. YES!!!!!!!! He either didn’t notice how long the truck was, or he didn’t care. It was raining and he would have to get wet to come out and measure the unit.

Meanwhile, Derrick, who left 45 minutes before me is on the radio whining about the traffic, weather and pretty much anything he could think off. I pissed him off by calling him a “Fucking fairweather truck driver.” Sheesh!! I think I made some comment about sounding like a teenaged girl who while driving for the first time is asked to PLEASE speed up to the speed limit. I don’t understand why he was irked. I guess the truth hurts. Either way. I have the beast wound back up to 10 kph over the limit. You see, the RCMP have their radar set at 121 (11 over the posted limit) to nail speeders. Since I am driving the posted speed limit, chances are the cops aren’t going to give a hoot that I am speeding. 20 minutes later I crested the hill at Wetaskiwin. That’s when it hit….. SNOW, ICE RAIN, RAIN, WIND all at freaking once. Time to earn my money I suppose.

There were tractor-trailers, cars and small trucks in the ditch on both sides of the highway. At one point I found myself having to slow down to zig-zag around a jack-knifed WATSON’S tractor trailer. I grabbed the Mike phone to call Derrick. “Are we having fun yet?” the response…. “Man, I can’ talk now. I am in ice and slush up to my buds.” Sheesh!!

Okay, so there was slushy crap all over the roads. Ruts were being formed by the slush that was freezing. So what? Hammer-Down!! The secret to making decent time in that shit is to not make any quick moves and brake as smoothly as possible as little as possible. I was making pretty decent time, passing everything is sight but taking my sweet-ass time making lane changes to get by people. I think a couple of cars had to swerve as I tsunamied them while passing. I didn’t have a CB in the truck so I wasn’t hearing what the truckers were yelling at me, though I am certain I can imagine what it was.

As I rounded the bend and started climbing the Ponoka hill I heard Derrick come on the Mike phone. He was muttering something about a Jack-knifed truck at the bottom of the Ponoka hill. Thinking to myself that this would be cleared up by now, since he was 45 minutes ahead of me I crested the hill doing about 80. As I came over the top all I could see was LIGHTS… Red, Blue and Orange lights everywhere. In front of me there was a Safeway Turnpike. I had caught up to him. Oh brother. I slowed down and followed Derrick through the wreckage that had been another turnpike double.

It took some time to wind my 130,000 lbs back up. Unfortunately Derrick was having some problems with his light trailer and wouldn’t wind her up. Sheesh!!! As we got to the 6 lanes at Lacombe I was about fed up with doing 50 kph. On went my blinkie-blinks. Just as I was comfortable with the forward momentum and had the trailers flowing with the wind I started to move into the hammer lane. For some reason the truck (Derrick) in front of me decided to straddle the lanes. WTF? Instead of going left, I wnet right figuring he was having problems. As I went to the right lane he straddled the centre and right lane. WTF are you doing. I bellowed into the Mike phone…. The response, “You will blind me if you pass. Stay behind me.” Ummmmmm Was I not being blinded by the wash from behind him? I tried once more. He wasn’t going to give so I gave up.

5 and ½ hours later the 3 hour drive to Calgary was over. I convinced dispatch to give me only 1 trailer to go back. I go back to Edmonton with 2 empty trailers. I didn’t want to fight the wind, slush and ice with 1 empty trailer much less 2. While I was hooking my converter to my ltrailer Derrick came over to chat. That wasn’t happening. I hate losing my temper on anyone and at this point I was already boiling over. “Are you mad at me?” I think he got the point when I walked around him, jumped in the truck and drove away leaving him standing there in my SPLASH!

By now it was morning rush hour in Calgary. It took me over an hour to make the 10 minute trip out of town. Another 5 hour’s to make the three hour drive back to Edmonton due to cars losing control in the slush and muck all the way to Red Deer, and I was done for the day. Dispatch put me out of service for Friday as I had over-run my legal hours of operation by three hours. Cool!! Drinking on Friday night <hehe>. Altogether it took me 17 hours to do an 8 hour run, thanks to fair-weather truck drivers and SPRINGTIME IN ALBERTA!!!

The moral of the story is…. If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the fucking porch!