Living the dream. Lots of pictures

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS EX-PAT BRITISH TRUCKERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

For the past few months I’ve been running Canada only, it started off in a vain attempt to pack up the filthy weed, but I found that I liked it up here as the miles/money was good and I’m getting plenty of time off between trips. The reason I had to stay north of the border was due to some anti smoking medication I went on. It is banned in the USA for truck drivers, but it’s ok in Canada. It didn’t work, all it did was keep me awake at night and make me ■■■■ even more than usual.

My Canada only runs have all been to the West, some just to Alberta, but most have been to BC and I love it, it really is a stunning place and from a driving perspective the twisty mountain roads beat going in a straight line any day.

Most trips start out from the yard, I tip the trailers the other blokes bring up from the US, although sometimes the Canadian leg of the trip has more miles in it than the US leg, so it’s not exactly shunting. Other times I will switch trailers with another driver, this usually takes place in Alberta, they send a trailer to Calgary or Edmonton and I turn around and run over the rocks to Vancouver with it.

It’s been a very long winter, I’ve had some scary moments, the roads have been evil at times and I’ve seen some nasty weather. Freezing fog, ice rain, snow storms and mental blizzards where I couldn’t even see the duck perched on the end of my hood. It’s my fifth year in Canada, but usually I’ve been going to sunnier climes in the winter, so it’s been a bit of a shock to the system really, the winter weather is brutal and luck plays a very big part of staying out of trouble. So far, so good, for me thankfully.

Anyway, that’s enough of my old tripe, here’s a load of pictures.

First snow of the winter

Running alongside Lake Shuswap heading east.

Top of the Roger’s Pass on the way home

Breaking my snow chain virginity on the last hill out of BC.

The Banff National Park.

Back in Manitoba, before the snow reached it.

The snow followed me back, this is at the start of the next trip west

Oh what fun this is…

The first casualty in the ditch, plenty more to follow.

Not much snow, but the road is sheet ice.

Fly Sheet heading home in his little F86

A decent amount of snow fell during the night, this was in Regina SK.

Yippee, more snow…

First big truck in the ditch I’ve seen.

Look at the state of the road, easy to see why this is number two in the ditch.

361 is now wearing her winter coat

Back in the mountains.

More mountains.

Snow plow in action.

The old girl looking a bit weathered.

Woo hoo, tarmac….

Nianiamh going the other way in his recycled Freightshaker.

More like a brass monkey than a duck.

Not much visibility.

One of the wreckers off the TV show Highway through Hell.

Wrecker in action towing a truck up the Coquihalla Pass

SNAFU on the Coq…

Pulling hard up the Coq.

Made it to the top.

Awesome view, but not from where I was sitting.

Another one bites the dust.

That’s all for now, got a truckload of pics still to put up, but I’m off to have one of those life things I keep hearing about :wink:

2

Great photos as usual. I wouldn’t fancy doing 6 or 7 months of winter driving like that like you chaps get out there!

3

robinhood_1984:
Great photos as usual. I wouldn’t fancy doing 6 or 7 months of winter driving like that like you chaps get out there!

Thanks, some are odd sizes, don’t know why, they’re all from the same album. As for Winter Driving, having just done six months of it I have to agree with you :laughing:

4

some great pics there, I been lucky and 99% of my runs have been down south rather you then me

5

taffytrucker:
some great pics there, I been lucky and 99% of my runs have been down south rather you then me

Been there, done that :laughing: Got bored and fancied a challenge, certainly picked the wrong time of year for it :cry:

6

newmercman:
Been there, done that :laughing: Got bored and fancied a challenge, certainly picked the wrong time of year for it :cry:

What lies in store for next year? 7 months of ice skating hell or heading south?

7

newmercman:

taffytrucker:
some great pics there, I been lucky and 99% of my runs have been down south rather you then me

Been there, done that :laughing: Got bored and fancied a challenge, certainly picked the wrong time of year for it :cry:

Think i had bout 3 runs over the rock and 2 over from Toronto that do me for now thanks lol

8

robinhood_1984:

newmercman:
Been there, done that :laughing: Got bored and fancied a challenge, certainly picked the wrong time of year for it :cry:

What lies in store for next year? 7 months of ice skating hell or heading south?

My plan is to win the lottery and never drive a lorry again. HTH :laughing:

9

Certainly some great photos there NMM . I love running out that way as that scenery is hard to beat anywhere in the world , but during the winter months I’ll happily stay on the Prairies and leave my new chains unused in the jockey box . Seen the Coq at it’s worst too many times in my life .

10

lol.the coq …my first 2 runs alone to BC went through the canyon following a ex Banbury boy until i realised i could use my BC ferry card to pay our tolls …duh…
jimmy.

11

Good read and nice pics Mark. Looking forward to next weeks installment. :slight_smile:

12

Excellent photos Mark… love those ‘bobsleigh run’ pictures you took.

With the company i work for being based in Cranbrook BC, I had to do my driver training and driving test on those icy road’s mid January!

I remember on my first day’s Class 1 ‘training’ in Cranbrook, my ‘trainer’ Doug was telling me i was going too slow :angry: (it was -15 at the time and the roads were solid ice!) he wanted me to ‘go faster’… :open_mouth: I remember thinking 'this blokes a nutter and we’re both gonna die a horrible death over a cliff then be ‘crushed’ by the concrete ballast afterwards… but it never happened, i never even slid or skidded… ice is a weird thing to drive on.

Mind you, I don’t need to wear a seatbelt when driving on the ice and snow down steep grades because my ‘■■■■ cheeks’ still do do a fine job of gripping the drivers seat!

I write this from a very hot :sunglasses: Bakersfield, California where i have been sat all day …today waiting for a reload, (still getting paid for it tho!)

I stopped smoking using those electronic cigarettes, i was on about 30ish regular cigarettes a day… so i bought a load of electronic ones, smoked myself silly till i didn’t want to smoke any more (i smoked since i was 15 and now i’m 48) then never wanted to smoke, if i ever feel the need… i just have a bit of chewing gum.

Col :grimacing:

13

contractdriver:
I write this from a very hot :sunglasses: Bakersfield, California where i have been sat all day …today waiting for a reload, (still getting paid for it tho!)

Now I’m jealous. I have 46 of the lower 48 states and my last two elusive ones are California and Nevada and they seem to be permanently out of reach. Not entirely surprising when I’m based in NB I suppose.

14

robinhood_1984:

contractdriver:
I write this from a very hot :sunglasses: Bakersfield, California where i have been sat all day …today waiting for a reload, (still getting paid for it tho!)

Now I’m jealous. I have 46 of the lower 48 states and my last two elusive ones are California and Nevada and they seem to be permanently out of reach. Not entirely surprising when I’m based in NB I suppose.

44 out of 48 for me, Oregon, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire being the elusive ones :cry:

15

newmercman:
44 out of 48 for me, Oregon, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire being the elusive ones :cry:

You did well to get Rhode Island. I think I’ve only been there once or twice to tip. As thats on the long way round when heading south its the one place that many many drivers based in the Maritimes never get as when we go south its to the 495 and then head towards NYC on 84 and 91 or 395 to the 95 which misses RI. As for Vermont, the only time I’ve got that was back on reefers when we’d regularly tip at the markets in Boston and then head empty up to Montreal.

16

Nevada… I was on the 318 heading south for the 93 for Vegas two days ago and it ‘snowed’ so hard at a place called ‘Sunnyside’ that i had to park up and end my driving early…


here is one of the best road names ever!, and even better if your paid on 'mileage… errr, that’s 43c per mile and it’s 2 light years away… I don’t know how far a light year is, but i guess it’s canny far :open_mouth:

Nevada must have the smoothest road’s in the US so you can ‘bop’ along a bit also… :open_mouth:

Col

17

robinhood_1984:

newmercman:
44 out of 48 for me, Oregon, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire being the elusive ones :cry:

You did well to get Rhode Island. I think I’ve only been there once or twice to tip. As thats on the long way round when heading south its the one place that many many drivers based in the Maritimes never get as when we go south its to the 495 and then head towards NYC on 84 and 91 or 395 to the 95 which misses RI. As for Vermont, the only time I’ve got that was back on reefers when we’d regularly tip at the markets in Boston and then head empty up to Montreal.

I’ve been through RI countless times, we do an LTL run that starts in NC then up to MD and then on to Boston and then home, it’s a full on week, but can be done legally in just under 70hrs. I delivered there once too, loaded out of Missisauga, was supposed to be going to NH, so I was going to cross at Cornwall and run along the river into VT and then down to NH, but the load was too high for a reefer trailer, so I got the RI load instead, they needed me to get a full load out of the Boston customer, so anything that way was good enough, but they knew I needed to tick a few boxes still, so they looked for something to help me out, pretty good of them really.

Now I’m north of the border, the boxes will remain unticked, but I’m not bothered about that anymore, I’ve been doing it over here for five years now, so I’ve lost my enthusiasm a little, I was living the dream, now…it’s just a job :wink:

18

The pictures look great…just started the ball rolling in the UK to get my HGV…Then i wanna drive out in Canada hopefully at 46yrs old im still able to get a job out there so i can get residence out there…thats the plan anyway.

19

newmercman:
Now I’m north of the border, the boxes will remain unticked, but I’m not bothered about that anymore, I’ve been doing it over here for five years now, so I’ve lost my enthusiasm a little, I was living the dream, now…it’s just a job :wink:

I’m getting the same way now. I’ll have been here four years in the first week of May and while I’d like those last two states, I’m getting a bit bored with the job in general. I like trips out to the western states as they’re still quite new and exciting for me because I haven’t been there that often but for the past 5 or 6 months I’ve been doing very little other than Georgia and back and I’ve developed a serious case of I-81 blues. The only saving grace with the whole thing is that its gotten me away from winter weather on every trip so its been a blessing in that sense.

20

simonbee:
The pictures look great…just started the ball rolling in the UK to get my HGV…Then i wanna drive out in Canada hopefully at 46yrs old im still able to get a job out there so i can get residence out there…thats the plan anyway.

I dont see why not. A lot of companies will want 2-3 years experience but Ive known people come here with only a few months worth and still manage. Your age wont be a problem for getting a job, the only place it could potentially be an issue is at PNP level which is the first stage of your application for residence. At the moment in New Brunswick for example the age limit for the program is 55 but they’re supposed to be lowering it for some reason, I think the new limit will be 50 but I’m not entirely sure. Either way that still leaves enough time and other provinces could still have different age requirements any way so dont let that put you off by any means.
Most of the people I know that have come here from the UK have been about 40-55 when they moved out here, so nothing out of the ordinary there.