Truck in for service

We arrived back in Claresholm after this last trip of over 5,500 miles and the truck has been taken down to Lethbridge for a service whilst I reset my hours.

As soon as we got my tyres unloaded this morning we ran up to Calgary to load reels and return to base where we hope to head south towards Texas on Saturday morning.

Reels from the last trip to Oklahoma.

 Nice clouds over the prairies today.

Boo Hoo, no Barbie.

We were promised a BBQ at Lexington South Carolina this weekend with some of the other boys from Watt and Stewart who were waiting for loads there, but we got loaded there on Friday afternoon and went up to Paducah, Kentucky to wait until Monday morning when we can legally run through Illinois.

Making the best of our reset here, we chose to book into a motel (Americas Best Value) for two nights to give us a break from the truck.

There is a well known BBQ place in Paducah with a good reputation, and wood stacked up outside which we had pegged yesterday ready for a lunchtime visit today.

We went 'round there today, and it's closed on Sunday!

I looked through the windows and as I did it smelled like the smokehouse in Whitby.

Oh well, maybe next time.

This picture by Cath

In 1996, the Paducah Wall to Wall mural program was begun by Louisiana mural artist Robert Dafford and his team on the floodwall in downtown. The over 50 murals cover a number of subjects, including Native American history, industries such as river barges and hospitals, local African-American heritage, the old Carnegie Library on Broadway St., steamboats, and local labor unions. (Wiki)

This picture by Cath

Steamboat traffic on the river.

The Coca Cola plant, closed in 2005.

Steamboat crews waiting for guests.

I always struggle taking shots of other peoples art work because they need to be seen in context, ie, full size in the correct setting. The pictures above are all along the flood wall alongside the river, and it's nice to see that they haven't been covered in graffiti, but the USA always seems so much more civilised, and well mannered place (in general).

Downtown Paducah

Downtown Paducah

Tomorrow we head out for Alberta via Illinois, Ohio, South Dakota, North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

If we get back without any problems we should be able to turn and burn back south to who knows where.

Big Donuts.

We are setting off tomorrow with big reels for Oklahoma, taking a zig zag route to avoid all the low bridges.
Our break went quickly, but we managed to meet up with some of the other lads who work for Watt and Stewart, including two of the newest drivers, who seem to be getting along great with the company.
A quick visit to Micks new house near Claresholm, a look around the vicinity and some shopping, followed by a meal at Roys Place in town left us relaxed and ready for an early night and a fresh start in the morning around 6am.

On a frozen lake with Mick Mc Garry. The ice was at least a foot thick.

Dereliction in North Dakota.

Just a few bits of video from the last trip, no fancy editing (no software) but may be of interest to other drivers.

The long road.

We drove through 21 US States and 3 Canadian provinces in this last trip of about 7,500 miles.

The numbers are waypoints, not overnight stops!

Time to chill out at the Lazy J for a couple of nights.

Paducah, Kentucky

Sitting at the Pilot truckstop in Paduchah where we have stopped for the night, showered and fed, with good internet access.

After unloading the tyres in Cochrane Ontario on Tuesday morning we ran down to Missisauga and squeezed into a spot at the really crap Pilot truckstop late in the evening, ready to run to our pickup in Brantford Ontario the following morning.

We were at the yard ready to load in a timely fashion, but they took an absolute age to get around to us!
The load was for two separate drops in South Carolina, Spartanburg, then Greenville which we duly set off with, crossing into the USA over the beautiful Bluewater Bridge at Sarnia Ontario.

The electrics in the truck had been playing up a little the last few weeks, but I had checked everything I could, and I assumed it might just be tired batteries, but on the way south it became clear that the alternator was buggered!
A quick call to the boss, Ryan got us a stop at a Peterbilt garage in Knoxville Tennesse, where after about an hour we pulled away with a new alternator fitted and working a treat. This was much better than the Pete dealer in Lethbridge where a simple service had us sitting in the workshop for ages before anyone even put a hand to it, apart from tipping the hood, and the whole deal took two days, for a simple service and some small repairs, and they clearly didn't see a problem with the electrics!

We crossed mountains in North Carolina at night, and feel sure that we will have missed some beautiful scenery, if the views we got in the mountains further north were anything to go by.
The two drops were done quickly and we kept on running, down to the tyre yard in Lexington to load some small (smallest we've carried yet) 11'4" off road tyres for Alberta.
An early overnight stop in Madison, Georgia due to the curfew time, and after greasing the truck and trailer at 5am, we ran up to where we are now, Paducah. We would have liked to have got to Mount Vernon, but an RTA on the highway stopped us for a while, so we lost some daylight time.
Tomorrow we will get up into Iowa, then Monday should see us stopping at Watertown South Dakota , where fellow trucking blogger Chris Arbon recommended a good place to stop.
These few shorter days should see us rolling the hours around without busting them and having to reset anywhere, and letting us get up to Claresholm for a cosy couple of nights at the Lazy J Motel. on Wednesday night or Thursday morning (weather permitting).

Late post.

I wrote this post on Sunday, hoping to post it sooner, but we've been without internet, so since I wrote it we have cracked on a bit and we're now south of Detroit on the way to South Carolina with lumber from Toronto.

It's always nice to find small town USA, where the pace is laid back and the people seem more friendly, and Grand Marais ticked those boxes whilst we had a relaxing break there due to being unable to run our oversize load into Canada on a weekend.

Cath feeling the chill in front of the frozen bay.

On Friday night we had a wings and pizza supper at Sven and Oles and a couple of beers in the Pickled Herring bar.

We did try another bar, but the food was aimed at the hippy clientele, ie tofu and wild rice style concoctions, they also were charging $9 a glass for wine, which, although I don't drink wine much, gives an indication of the other prices for beer etc, and being a tight Yorkshireman, it was more than my delicate disposition could take, so we had a quick beer and moved on.
Saturday night we went back to Sven and Oles and had another good value, tasty, filling supper, and a couple more beers, but not the 'Blue Moon' beer which I tried the night before, which was served with a slice of orange, and according to Cath smelled like rotten veg.

We had wandered around the lake front on Friday, taking pictures in a bitter wind, but when we went back down on Saturday morning we were surprised to see that half the bay had frozen over during the night. It was also a nice blue sky on Saturday, so the pictures didn't look like black and white shots.

We had booked a room for two nights in one of the local hotels which was warm, clean and very comfortable, with nice staff, and our only disapointment was the 'fuel surcharge' scam, which is, what it is, a scam!

The bill for the room was as we had agreed when we checked in, but apart from the tax (which is always added) there were two other charges, one for the use of the amenities, and one for the fuel surcharge.

There was an explanation at the foot of the bill, which says it was a 'compromise' to avoid increasing their room rates, which is clearly ridiculous, so I told them I wasn't willing to pay either of the extra charges as they had never been mentioned at the time of checking in.

The extra cost was only $4.50 total for the two nights but, it wasn't the principle, it was the money!

We returned to the rest area near the border for Sunday night, and took the half mile walk up to the very impressive 'High Falls'.

High Falls waterfall near Grand Portage on the US Canadian border.

Much better in real life!

If we get this way again in summer we would definately try and make time for a stop here in this stunning area of Highway 61 Minnesota.