Cowboys.
Another trip down to the Gulf of Mexico, the destination is Seadrift, Texas. It’s just up the coast from Corpus Christi, so plenty of miles for me. Last time you read about my trip to the Gulf I ran straight down from the yard, this time I run to Lethbridge, Alberta, before heading south.
I had planned to leave on Monday, but a social event the following weekend would mean I had to leave out on Sunday instead, this trip would take longer than my 70hr weekly duty time, so at some point I would need to park for 36hrs to reset my clock. My previous trip had left me with enough hours to get to Lethbridge on that duty cycle, so after an evening at the house I set off Sunday morning for the journey out west across The Prairies, to be honest, it’s not my favorite run, although I’m getting happier about it. This stems from my British roots, being a small island of 60million people, there’s always someone around, it’s a very busy place. I used to absolutely hate running west, there’s nothing to see, not a lot of places to stop and eat, nobody around, it’s all much the same, mile after mile after mile, but they are easy miles, the weather can make it hard work in winter time, but in early spring, it’s an easy way of racking up the miles. I’m also starting to appreciate the lack of people out there and given the choice between a run out West or a short haul south of the border, I’d take the west every time.
Day two of the trip was a day off, I had switched my loaded trailer at the customer for an empty and spent the day watching movies and generally doing nothing much. I speak to friends outside the trucking industry, they don’t understand this part of the job, they either think it’s a holiday or that it’s boring, but it’s part of what we do, sometimes I’m lucky enough to have a day off in a place where I can go out and play the tourist, other times I’m not.
Back to work today, I left Lethbridge and made my way to Medicine Hat to pick up my load for Texas, of course that involved stopping off for a Latte in Starbucks on the way. Loading didn’t take long and I was heading out twenty minutes after hitting the dock, I had to fax my paperwork off to the office so that they could organize my customs clearance to cross the border into the USA, so I made for the nearest truckstop and did just that, while the behind the scenes stuff was going on I made my way south to Coutts and the border. By the time I arrived I’d had a call from the office telling me everything was set up, so I was soon south of the border and heading down I-15 for Great Falls, Montana, where, after a fuel stop for both 361 and myself, I would cut across country to Billings. I have a lot of ground to cover in the next few days, so I maxed out my hours and stopped for the night in Big Horn, home of the legendary battle between General George Armstrong Custer, his 7th Cavalry and the combined forces of the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Sioux tribes, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The battle on the 25th and 26th of June 1876 may have been a loss for the paleface, but it was a turning point in the war, the American people were so outraged by the loss that the Government sent in thousands of troops who eventually overwhelmed the natives into submission. Thankfully this was way before my time, so I had a peaceful night’s sleep.
Day three started out perfectly, I did my pre-trip inspection basking in the sunshine, however the weather was about to take a turn for the worse, although that was not for a few hours, the short run down to the Wyoming state line was glorious, it stayed that way until Gillette, the self proclaimed ‘Energy Capital of the Nation’ Vast deposits of Coal, Oil and Coal Bed Methane Gas are found in the area and give credence to that claim. Usually I would’ve taken I-25 south, but the weather I mentioned earlier was responsible for the change of route. There were very strong winds from the west and the possibility of a Winter Storm around Cheyenne in the south of the state, this area is very exposed and frequently suffers from shutdowns of the interstate, I didn’t want to get caught up in any of that, so headed further east before turning south. It added a few miles to my trip, but saved me a lot of time, not to mention fuel, as I was heading east now, I had a nice strong west wind behind me.
I ran along I-90 to the South Dakota state line, passing through Sundance, Wyoming, home of The Sundance Kid, made famous in the movie ‘Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid’ he was formally known as Harry Longabaugh and originally hailed from Pennsylvania, he gained notoriety when he hooked up with ‘The Wild Bunch’ alongside Robert Leroy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, the ‘Kid’ got his name in prison, after being sentenced to 18months for stealing a horse, saddle and a gun from a ranch in Sundance. Again, this was years ago, so I had no problems with gun toting cowboys. I did get a hold up of sorts when I went into the Port of Entry and, after scaling, had to go inside the office and produce my truck papers to the DOT officers inside, all was well and I was soon heading east again. A couple of hours later I reached Murdo and made the turn south on US83. I followed this down through South Dakota into Nebraska and made it just over the state line into Kansas before the log book called a halt on the day’s driving.
Waking up in Oberlin, Kansas didn’t do my fancy coffee addiction any good, it was a bit of a one horse town and I had to wait three and a half hours before I came into a town big enough to have a McDonalds and top up on a Latte. This was in Dodge City, a first for me, I’ve never been through here before and was grateful for the bad weather that made my detour necessary. Although famous as a town for desperados, it was actually the railroad that put it on the map. The Texan Cattle Ranchers had long been driving their Longhorns north during the summer months for the lush pastures of Kansas. A quarantine line had been established in the eastern part of the state to combat a disease among the cattle; Dodge City was west of this line and soon overtook Wichita to become Queen of the Cow Towns. The Santa Fe railroad passed through Dodge City, so as well as an increase in cattle, there was also an increase in Cowboys and their notorious bad behavior. Today however its home to two huge Meat Packing plants and apart from the tourist trap saloons, it’s like any other sleepy Western Kansas community.
I also gave 361 a drink while I sipped on my Latte, it was time to take advantage of the cheap (er) fuel of Kansas, and so I topped off the tanks in the Flying J truckstop. Having woken up in the middle of nowhere, I had yet to shower, so got that out of the way too. From there I continued south on US283 all the way through Kansas, Oklahoma and into the Lone Star State where I got off the two lane roads and picked up four lane US287 at Vernon and headed towards Fort Worth. This was also an important part of Cowboy folklore, it was on the Chisholm Trail, which led to, among other towns, Dodge City, it was a serious rival for bad behavior from the Cowboys passing through, Fort worth with its huge stockyards was the last place a Cowboy could spend his hard earned cash before heading north to Dodge City and the appropriately named ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ was a section of the city best avoided if you wanted to see another day, it really was the Wild Wild West. Today it’s more famous for its airport, which if the sign outside is correct, covers an area larger than the city of Manhattan. I timed it right and went through in the evening so missed the huge back ups that occur during rush hours. A couple of hours later I was in Waco, a little known town until 1993 and the siege between the Feds and the Branch Davidians, it got worldwide publicity in the aftermath of that incident. More recently Waco was the home of the White House Press Center; President George W Bush has a house 20miles west of the city. Today though it was my home for the night as I parked at the Flying J truckstop in the town.
I had a lot to do today, so made an early start, after a shower and a coffee, I had to make my delivery at 1pm and I had a four hour run to get there, I got off I-35 at Temple and ran on US190 to Cameron where I picked up US77 which would take me almost all the way to my destination, I’ve run this road a few times now, we come down this way on a regular basis, as with a lot of this trip, it’s a two lane highway for the most part, but it’s free of traffic, so apart from slowing for the towns, it’s good running. I like running down roads like this, I think you see the real America this way. I made it my delivery with time to spare, it was to a huge Chemical Plant and before entering I had to watch a 15minute safety video to ensure I knew what to do in an emergency. Why I need to watch a 15minute video is beyond me, I already know what to do in an emergency at a Chemical Plant……RUN RUN RUN!
Fortunately, no need for any running today, I was in and out of the place in under an hour and heading north on US77 again to my reload in Schulenburg, this is a regular job and as usual I was pulling out of the gate with my load on soon after arriving. I retraced my steps north to Fort Worth where I continued on I-35 north, I was taking this load to the yard not Alberta. I filled my belly in a Subway and topped off the tanks in Fort Worth, in the Pilot truckstop there was a lot of Nascar merchandise on sale, a lot more than usual, not being a fan of the ‘left turn racers’ I was unaware that the Texas Motor Speedway was just emptying its parking lot of fans, at capacity it can hold over 190000 people. Judging by the traffic trying to leave, there couldn’t have been many empty seats that night. The local cops were doing a good job of keeping things moving, so I sailed through at the speed limit, another ten minutes in the truckstop and I would’ve been tangled up in it all, good luck on my part.
I parked for the night at Marietta, Oklahoma. I could’ve made it a little further, but in order to keep up my quota of Lattes I had stopped outside a McDonalds with truck parking. From there I carried on I-35 to Oklahoma City, this city was formed in what has become known as ‘The Land Run’ in 1889, this was where settlers could claim title to unassigned land in plots up to 160acres, by noon on the first day the empty land became a new city with a population of 10000, today it’s population has swelled to a over a hundred times that size, luckily for me, they were not on the road as I went through on my north. I soon put Oklahoma in my mirrors and entered Kansas again, this time on the Kansas Turnpike, at Wichita I came off the turnpike and took I-135 north, until the lure of a KFC buffet was too strong to resist and I went in for dinner. From there I continued north and I-135 became US81, it’s still a four lane and there are only a few towns that do not have a bypass, so it’s a good route. I followed it up through Kansas, into Nebraska and onto South Dakota. I took I-90 east at the intersection with US81 and parked in Sioux Falls for the night.
Today was going to be an easy run, I only had a short run up I-29 to the yard, so I made a leisurely start after the obligatory Latte, I left one Dakota behind and entered another, not much to see along here until I stopped in Fargo for fuel, a shower and lunch. I then set off for the run to the border; usually it takes a little over two hours, today it took over double that. The Red River had burst its banks and the flood water had reached the interstate. The Highway Patrol were allowing trucks through the 8-10 inches of floodwater, but it would overwhelm smaller vehicles, so they were being turned around and sent back to Fargo where they would have to head west of the city before turning north again, this caused a bit of a back up and slowed me down considerably. Then I reached the flooded section of the interstate, the DOT had placed cones at the edge of the road so that we could drive through the flooded area, but it was quite unnerving still, it looked as if I was driving over a lake, as far as I could see in any direction there was water, it was a very strange feeling to be driving a big truck through it.
I made it through without shipwrecking and arrived at the border much later than expected, I only lost a couple of hours altogether, but it’s frustrating when it’s that late in the journey, considering the distance I’d covered up to that point, I’d had no hold ups whatsoever, yet here I was, less than three hours from the yard and I hit my first delay! I made it though and after finishing off my paperwork and parking 361, I was in my car and heading home in time for supper with my family, another week down and in the books.
Maybe a map image showing the route you took would help us foreigners understand where and what all the place names mentioned are. 
Also some annotations to the pics wouldn’t go amiss either 
. I’m still amazed how every pic shows like 5 miles of road with you the only vehicle on it. US is like a ghost town 
. It’d be impossible to take pics like that over here - there’s always other vehicles around you no matter what time of the day or night it is on the main roads.
