peggydeckboy:
SPARDO, Thank you for the information ,just what i was looking for i was puzzled how the immigration got involved now i know ,well planned lucky you was not sent home as DBS…
I was a DBS (Distressed British Seaman) the status which gave me the right of free passage back to Blighty. 
I am that was the case for you at lest you did not have to work your passage.Did you get your discharge book back also gto you ship out once home. i probably think not, you must have been very unhappy on the ship you was on?
On one ship i was on there was one man i just could not get on with, a little older than me, one day in the mess room with half the deck crew at smoko, WE were on the Chilean coast ,i/ we were arguing over something daft but i just seen the "red mist"as they say, and offered him outside ,as i stepped over the weather step to the deck i turned round and clouted him as he was on one leg stepping over the step ,i never ever did it again, because he got up and taught me a lesson i never forgot my own fault. after that i never had any trouble ever again on the ships or lorries, i learned .DBP.
Did you get your discharge book back also gto you ship out once home.
Oh yes neatly marked VNC (voyage not completed), and no never shipped out again, went back to the lorries. Captain of the ship once more. 
Thank you Spardo for your reply’s you had a experienced youth like us all who went to sea…
When i had finished writing my work history and knew it would not make a book however the name i was going to call it was
"MERCHANT NAVY ON WHEELS " DBP.
____@ Spardo. I first visited the Dordogne in 1983 and have always thought it as one of the most idyllic places in the World to live. I moved there in 2001, onto a 500 acre sheep farm close to Miallet. I kept my job, driving for a LKW Walters subbie and mostly did UK to Spain trips. The sheep farming was a disaster; fifty euros to raise a lamb, then take it to market and sell it for thirty. The harder you tried, the more you lost. Eventually the girlfriend gave up on the sheep and rented out the fields to a neighbour. The farm had been in her family for over 900 years and very building needed constant repair; many a weekend was spent fixing leaky roofs and crumbling walls. It wasn’t all doom and gloom and when the Sun shone; you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
____ This is a trip from January 2018.
____ From Steinbach, early on a Sunday morning; around the Winnipeg ring-road before heading North on Highway 6. Bitterly cold with snow forecast; it arrives at Devil’s Lake and the Highway 60, across to The Pas, is on a carpet of un-ploughed and drifting snow. North of The Pas, the road is better but the day-light is finished well before I finish the five hundred miles to Flin Flon. I have a vague address of Hwy 10A and hope to park in the car-park of an un-finished supermarket; which is easily found beside the Walmart Superstore. However, after consulting with a friendly snow-plough driver about overnight parking at Walmart; he informs me that I have the wrong supermarket. Walmart’s neighbour with the papered-over windows is the recently closed IGA super-store and the new Co-op is 200 yards down the road. We discuss the absurdity of one super-store closing while another is being built before the absurdity of discussing such things in temperatures of -30C sends us back to our vehicles.
____ Flin Flon was named after Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin who was a character in a book called “The Sunless City.” It is a hard-rock mining town that started in the 1920’s, but I don’t get a chance to explore before I am quickly unloaded and despatched to The Pas. The paper mill has a load going to Laredo; a good find by the office from the load-data boards on the Web. A heavy load with a long way to go, but good traction on the hard-packed snow that extends south of the border and through the Dakotas. Still freezing at Percival, Iowa, the third night-out; but by Oklahoma and into Texas, things are looking up for the Friday morning drop in Laredo.
____ From Laredo, across to Waller for a trailer switch; buoyed by the prospect of a visit to Vancouver Island. Two drops, Calgary, Alberta, and Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The two extra days at the start of the trip mean that a 36 hour driving-hours break is inevitable. After a lot of checking of maps, temperatures and truckstops; I select Mittens. The Oakley, Kansas, truckstop in the TA Truckstop group; clean, friendly, comfortable and wonderful showers. All these things and now calling itself “The Western Kansas Wildlife Travel Center.” The word “Life” is a bit misleading because all the wild animals are dead and stuffed.
____ Out of Oakley northwards, across country with just 20,000 lbs of cargo; up to Ogallala, then US Highway 26, north-west into Wyoming. On to Sheridan, for the night; setting up the long haul into Calgary. But even a Level 2 DoT inspection at Interstate 15 scale doesn’t stop me getting to the Calgary Flying’J before dark. The positive temperatures of the evening plummet to -15C by dawn. Half the trailer delivered and into the mountains with snow-flurries and trepidation; a little more weight and a little more tread on the drive tyres would ease the tension in my neck muscles. But after the Continental Divide at the BC/Alberta border, the wind drops, the temperature rises and the filth from the road sprays the truck relentlessly. About 50 mpg for screenwash. By Revelstoke to Kamloops, the road is bare and dry. I push on in the darkness and hope it is the same for the Coquihalla Pass. The summit is down to one lane of ice and slush, grip is not good, I tuck in behind a slow-coach letting the brave fly by. Coming down is no better, but when the flurries turn to rain then my worries turn to finding a ■■■■■■■■■■■■ in the Flying’J at Hope. Another long day.
____ Out of Hope with the number 17 on my mind. Turn-off the Trans-Canada Highway onto 17 and it takes you straight to the ferry terminal at Tsawwassen. From Schwartz Bay on Vancouver Island, Highway 17 to the Trans-Canada Highway and the delivery is at the junction of the two. Just a half hour wait before departure on the half-full Coastal Renaissance at 9 o’clock. Ninety minutes of calm water and a bit of jinking about through the Gulf Islands and I’m pulling off the boat after my first ferry crossing in a truck for about eight years. Thirty minutes down to the northern outskirts of Victoria for a quick tip and back at the ferry terminal to line up for the 1 o’clock crossing back to the mainland.
____ Reload is for Regina, Saskatchewan, from Port Coquitlam; load Friday, tip Monday. But after I get there, they discover it is a hazardous load and Ruby Truck Line doesn’t have insurance for it. Eventually, I get told what I was fearing; no reload until Monday. By that time, I’m in Chilliwack, consoling myself with all-you-can-eat fish and chips at C-Lovers Seafood Restaurant. On Sunday morning, I run back to Delta, ready for the reload from Annacis Island and with the Super Bowl on the big-screen at the Tidewater Pub.
____ A rainy weekend spread into a wet Monday as I loaded on Annacis Island for Winnipeg. Fourteen ton in the trailer as I set out East; tackling a slushy Coquihalla with more confidence than the west-bound crossing. Trying to get as much done in daylight as dirt sprayed the truck and turned to ice on impact. From Revelstoke, over the Rogers Pass and onto Golden, the headlights became dimmer, the mirrors and windows filthier despite frequent stops for cleaning. The Husky at Golden seemed an attractive overnight stop even though I still had driving hours available.
____ Dawn on a new day and I’m away; Ten Mile Hill and the Kicking Horse Pass climbing into the clouds. Then the Continental Divide; from British Columbia into Alberta and bright sunshine. Downhill to Calgary with the weather influence from the Arctic; to Redcliff for fuel and the fitting of the Winter front. Minus twenties with ice on the inside of the north-facing drivers-side window. A late finish at Whitewood, Saskatchewan, 747 miles for the day. An eight hour break before cracking-on; getting the trip finished on the eighteenth day when it should have been done inside a fortnight.
ChrisArbon:
_@ Spardo. I first visited the Dordogne in 1983 and have always thought it as one of the most idyllic places in the World to live. I moved there in 2001, onto a 500 acre sheep farm close to Miallet. I kept my job, driving for a LKW Walters subbie and mostly did UK to Spain trips. The sheep farming was a disaster; fifty euros to raise a lamb, then take it to market and sell it for thirty. The harder you tried, the more you lost. Eventually the girlfriend gave up on the sheep and rented out the fields to a neighbour. The farm had been in her family for over 900 years and very building needed constant repair; many a weekend was spent fixing leaky roofs and crumbling walls. It wasn’t all doom and gloom and when the Sun shone; you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Well well, Miallet is just 20 minutes up the road from me, what a small world, and is the place where the bloke I mentioned earlier raises his Bison for slaughter. Perhaps he was the renter who agreed that beef was better than mutton . There was a Scotsman who lived there too, maybe still does, who is a radio ham and I was invited there to see all his kit. There was talk of me getting a French licence, it wasn’t hard, all multiple choice questions and Morse code, which I still had from college days, was well out of the window, but it was the cost of a decent set up that put me off. I lost track of him when I moved forums (there’s some funny people running them here ).
Now back to read your latest story.
Nice story mate, not sure I’d have liked such long journeys away from home though. With Gauthier’s here I did venture into Italy occasionally, and Belgium and he did use me obviously for UK loads but never down into Spain, couldn’t make it pay he reckoned. In fact my journeys got longer after my retirement when I started volunteering with the dogs. Spain very frequently because my main ‘customer’ was a Dobermann rescue association and Dobies are category dogs down there, so loads to bring back for re-homing here. But also ‘private’ jobs as far as Inverness in the north and Budapest in the east.
BTW, I was a bit surprised to see your logs listed in miles, was that obligatory running south into the States?
Following Peggy & Spardo’s tales of going to sea I thought I better add mine as it shows another side to the stories.
I wanted to go to sea from a young age and was fortunate to start sailing at sea from about 13 years old. At weekends and school holidays I was lucky to have access to 4 quite large boats, 2 were gentleman’s yachts, one was a Bristol Channel pilot cutter and my favourite: an ex Brixham sailing trawler like the one in the pic below.
Being a grammar school boy – albeit a lazy one at studies – probably helped me get a place as a Cadet with Overseas Tankships (Caltex) and on leaving school at 16 went on to do a year’s course at Nautical College. Our residence was in South Kensington, London and the actual classrooms above a primary school just of the Mile End Road in East London, the original college having been destroyed by the Luftwaffe in WW2.
Having learnt coastal navigation and basic seamanship from my sailing days gave me a head start, particularly with the more practical aspects.
Small boat handling we did in the West India docks, whilst more heavy duty training was on a coal burning training ship: the Glen Strathallan.
In September 1964 I got instructions to fly to Malta to join my first ship, the Caltex Plymouth.
I had to pack for a year, all the clothes and uniform I would need plus a small library of study books – it took 2 large suitcases to pack it all in.
Uniform included No.1 uniform suit, battledress jacket & trousers, tropical whites, duffle coat, smart leather gloves, plenty of shirts & collars, white boiler suit and working shoes. I think my parents really struggled to pay for it all as Merchant Navy outfitters were not cheap.
Anyway adventure day came and off to Heathrow Airport for the evening BEA flight to Malta.
The aircraft was a turbo prop Vanguard and what a difference to what we experience these days.
I was sat in a row of 2 with a table between an opposite row of 2, similar to the setup in trains. Once we were airborne a steward came round and laid the table with a white linen table cloth, silver cutlery, glasses, china cups & saucers and a menu. Then followed quite an excellent meal – so far so good !!!
We arrived in Malta just after midnight and I had that experience when you arrive somewhere a lot, lot warmer than the UK – stepping out of the plane was like walking into an oven. Funny how quick you acclimatise and never quite have that experience again.
Once through customs I found the agent waiting for me and off we set for the dry dock. I was expecting the deck crew to be the usual hairy arsed brits and to be teased a bit as a first tripper.
BUT to my surprise as soon as I got out of the car 2 slightly raggedy Indians came down the gangway grabbed my suitcase and led me to my cabin.
Again the cabin wasn’t what I was expecting, it was bigger than my bedroom at home and fitted a good size bunk with storage underneath, a couch, coffee table, armchair, desk & desk chair and a wardrobe. AND, to top it off, my own bathroom with shower, toilet & washbasin.
I didn’t bother unpacking, apart from my washbag and being pretty tired went to bed. I was awoken at about 7 in the morning by a Goanese steward bearing a cup of sweet tea and explaining that dress code was tropical whites.
Time for breakfast, as the deck officers lived midships it was a walk aft to the dining saloon which was fitted with round tables for 4 - If I remember correctly – arranged with the Captain nearest the Pantry/Galley door and the rest descending in rank with cadets nearest the entrance.
Once again white tablecloths, all laid with the necessities and the day’s menu. Around 7 courses for breakfast, 3 or 4 for lunch and about 5 courses for dinner, all with choices as well. You could eat as much or as little as you wanted and the food was excellent. You have to hand it to the Goanese they are superb cooks.
Probably best to break here with a picture of the Caltex Plymouth.
Facinating Whisperingsmith, especially as I have a suspicion that we both attended the same nautical college, although probably not at the same time. Mine was Kind Edward the V11 and our college was near the India Dock road with accommodation in the west, the corner of Cromwell and Gloucester roads. We never had anything as posh as that to take to the water in, just a bloody great whaler to row about the East India Dock.
Although my family was nautical, well sprinkled with Master Mariners and at least one Chief Engineer, from Llanelli via Southampton and Manchester, I lived my early life inland so didn’t have your advantages. A mate at the college was from Portsmouth and had his own boat that he used to sail from there and invited me down but for one reason or another it never happened. I believe I have related much of this elsewhere.
But I do remember the gnarled little bloke who taught us karate and ■■■■■■■■■■■ someone larger with a strangle hold but I also remember that while I was doing that he could be putting a knife into me. 
Yes I was at King Teds same as you - 1963/64
2nd Mates also 67/68, but that was on the corner of West India Dock Road & Commercial road.
It was the Mariners Hotel and a couple of classrooms
whisperingsmith:
Yes I was at King Teds same as you - 1963/642nd Mates also 67/68, but that was on the corner of West India Dock Road & Commercial road.
It was the Mariners Hotel and a couple of classrooms
Thought so, though I was earlier than you, about '59 or ‘60 I think which explains the enhanced ocean going facilities. But you are right about the Mariners’ Hotel on that corner. We also used Poplar Tech College for some subjects.
We used to go up to Soho at the weekends from Cromwell Road, didn’t realise at the time how famous the Marquee, Two Eyes & Macabre would become. But I had just escaped a sheltered life with Baptist Parents, I was pretty green but sea life soon changed that
Excellent story from chris ,the trips you describe are like out of a" book "of what most drivers would like to do brilliant reading more to follow i hope.
whispering-smith waiting for your next episode im sure it will be as good as all stories on here.
SPARDO ,there was always something bugging me about your episode in SYDNEY it did not quite read as if you were one of the deck crowd, they would have gone on the ■■■■ instead of going to immigration, your were a mate nothing wrong with that at all whatever it was, it must have took a lot of guts to do what to miss the ship ,you did fair play…i will now leave it be thanks again,dbp.
peggydeckboy:
SPARDO ,there was always something bugging me about your episode in SYDNEY it did not quite read as if you were one of the deck crowd, they would have gone on the ■■■■ instead of going to immigration, your were a mate nothing wrong with that at all whatever it was, it must have took a lot of guts to do what to miss the ship ,you did fair play…i will now leave it be thanks again,dbp.
I wanted it to look genuine, so it did look genuine and they treated me the way they did, as if it was genuine. Going on a bender would have put the blame on me for missing the ship. So it wasn’t. That’s all.
You cunning bugger, David.
____ @ Spardo. We always were paid in cents per mile and the electronic logs were in miles. I think, just to confuse the driver because the speedometer is in Kilometres. I can’t remember any bison but can recall an ostrich farm in the area. All the betes went to market at Thiviers. Our nearest neighbours were Dutch retirees, then the French guy who grew organic wheat in our ploughed-up prairies. The other adjoining land was farmed by an old resistance fighter who had a eau de vie still in the cellar and his old rifle propped up behind the kitchen door. I asked him once if it was loaded; to which he replied,
“What use is a gun with nothing in the chamber?”
____ This next trip is from this time in 2017 and for Ruby Truckline.
____ There are no weekends for long-haul truck-drivers; just a couple of days-off at the end of each trip. Leaving home on a Friday is normal and usually means good miles before a Monday morning delivery. A trailer will be loaded and ready for departure from Winnipeg at 3 o’clock. I am certain that the shipping department finishes at three and will time their day so that my trailer is the last bit of work they do before going home to put feet-up for a couple of days. I join the workforce in a battle to get out of the factory gate at knocking-off time with none of them giving a second thought to the truck-load of their product that will be at the Mexican border before they clock-on again.
____ Watertown is the first night-out; followed by a long day in the saddle. On to the Cowboy Travel Plaza, situated to the east of Interstate 35 in rural Oklahoma. The prospect of a brisket sandwich has kept me going throughout the thousand kay day. The Smokey Pokey restaurant used to be buzzing at the travel plaza but with the down-turn in gas and oil exploration, the truck-park is now rarely full. Just a dozen enjoying the offerings of a great pit barbeque; drivers out-numbered by locals.
____ After a big day, it is disappointing to get up and find you have to do it all again. Another thousand kilometres get me through Fort Worth and down the busy-busy Interstate 35. Waco, Temple, Austin and San Antonio to mile-marker 39 and the small town of Encinal. It is not worth going into Laredo as my destination is a customs bonded compound near the Colombia Solidarity Bridge; twenty-four miles upstream over the Rio Grande. My trailer will be taken into Mexico by a local haulier; there is a loaded Ruby box-van waiting for collection just a couple of miles away in another secure drop-yard.
____ Destination Brampton, Ontario, delivery Thursday pm. A diagonal route with many options, but first night at Hillsboro, just south of Dallas, and a time to plan. Most of the second shift on Interstate 40; across Arkansas under hot, humid and cloudy skies with the threat of thunderstorms. The rain starts as I finish; parked a couple of miles east of the Mississippi River at the small town of Hayti in the Road Ranger Truckstop.
____ The alarm on my I-phone sounded at 04.15; which was puzzling, as I had set it for 06.00. But it was a tornado warning alarm and within thirty seconds; the cab was rocking, rain was pelting down and somebody’s shed roof came flying out of no-where at 32 feet per second per second and landed on the hood of the truck with an almighty bang. The wind died away as quickly as it came but torrential rainfall continued for over an hour. When I did venture out of the cab; the parking lot was flooded with a mass of floating debris and dawn was breaking.
____ The tornado hadn’t touched down in the truckstop but it was a near-miss. Fall-out from the twister was every where. Most trucks suffered dings and dents with one from the Melton flat-deck operation being hit the hardest. The local fire department was busy else where so no more damage was caused when the drivers rallied round and lifted all the mangled steel and splintered timber off of the trucks. I thought I was lucky to get a way with just some scrapes on the hood. I was out of there by 8 o’clock and up to Napoleon, Ohio, for quiet night after a strong tailwind helped me across Illinois and Indiana.
____ Across the toll-free Ambassador Bridge at Detroit and up to Brampton for a trailer switch. Loaded trailer exchanged for an empty one inside 30 minutes before heading back down Highway 401 to London. The next load is from Bay City, Michigan, booked in for Friday morning and going to Winnipeg. Only problem: running back into the US after doing a week’s work with out a log-hours reset. Canada’s regulations give an average of an extra 10 hours driving time over the US. But I have just enough time to get loaded and back into Canada, via the International Bridge at Sault Ste Marie; any other route would have me sitting-about.
____ This route does have it’s disadvantages, slightly longer, three expensive toll bridges [ Blue Water, Mackinac and the Soo ] plus the undulating terrain of the Canadian Shield. But all the loads of this trip have been light weight [ 22,000 lbs, 25,000 lbs and 18,000 lbs]; the card board packaging doesn’t slow the Detroit and it’s five hundred horses. Trouble only arrives at the very end of the trip when changing into top gear ratio produces a horrendous grinding noise. A quick inspection reveals nothing wrong so I assume that it is an internal problem. Just fourth and eighth gears are affected; nothing there. I finish the job running along at 45 mph with a high revving motor. Bobtailing back to Steinbach after dropping the trailer in Winnipeg; doing about the same speed as all the other Sunday drivers.
Thanks again Chris i another trip that i would have envied doing,the more i read of your trips , maybe they got mundane to you but for a outsider looking in they are a job a driver would like;
When your are on a 1,000 miles day not possible to do even in Europe even back in the 1980sunless running bent , do the interstate rounds actually go through cites so you pick up local traffic commuting on one junction and off the next your concentration would be on full as different if driving through country. are the toll roads?
ARE the use of C.Bs still in use ,i never ever had one or used on ,did you use one did you find it a handy thing to have for your long trips,
When i did my short stint i n DENMARK on a agency we were paid on milage, once we got in the cab and started driving from that meter reading until you left the truck you got paid ,if by chance you had to stay with the driver, when your driving time was up and you went in to the bunk, then the other chap took over, and did their driving to the delivery, or un till you got back to PADBOURG. more trips please .DBP.
Do you never cross into Mexico Chris, does anyone with US or Canadian plates, and if not, why not? I suppose no-one goes even further south either, commercial traffic anyway?
For a time, years ago I drove for Cheverall’s of Luton pulling a tilt trailer proudly emblazoned with the legend ‘UKWAL’ UK West Africa Line, followed by ‘This trailer goes to Nigeria’. Pretty cool eh? Obviously the unit and driver never went anywhere near the place.
Apologises for the thread drift Chris but can you tell me why some Canadian vehicles have a front number plate and some don’t. 
And as you mentioned Bob from Kelowna in one of your stories, can you ask him if he ever saw these two super cars around Kelowna, about five years ago.
____Thanks for the comments. I’ll try and answer the questions from DBP, Spardo and MRM. It was 1000 kilometres a day [about 600 miles] and I never had a problem with that as long as I got a good nights sleep. There was a CB radio in every truck but I only switched it on if I came to a traffic jam and couldn’t see the cause. Otherwise, the endless abusive racial comments made for pointless listening. We were paid the same for empty miles as for loaded. Distances were calculated by PC Miler which the office also used for fuel tax mileages.
____There is a myth that anybody going to Mexico will be robbed, kidnapped, beheaded or worse. But Canadian and US trucks don’t go into Mexico simply because they can’t get insurance. Now transshipping at the border is such big business that it is not going to change any time soon. In the border towns there are a lot of trucks with both Mexican and American licence plates and these do the majority of the cross-border shunting. In theory, Mexican trucks can run all over the US but the only one I ever saw away from the border zone was Mennonite owned and operated.
____MRM. Those supercars should have a front plate if they are registered in BC. You see a lot of high end sports cars with the plate lying on the dash; maybe they do the same if they get a pull. You don’t need anything on the front in Alberta unless it is a tractor unit. I’ve not seen Kelowna Bob for ages; last thing I heard was that he was driving a side-tip B-train for the Baffinland mine on Baffin Island.
____This story is a diary extract from the Summer of 2010 and illustrates what a problem border-crossing can be.
____DAY 1: Humidex: a new word for me; the opposite to wind-chill. I strap and smoke-tarp a load of green plastic sewer pipes and am wringing wet with sweat. The temperature is 30 degrees C, with the humidity, the day has a Humidex rating of 40. It’s a relief to get out on the road in a refreshing air-conned truck cab. The pipes have come from Langley, BC. I have them for the last 1300 miles from Steinbach to Etobicoke, Ontario. Eastbound and into the cool of the night, a long days drive to Marathon, Ontario.
____DAY 2: A misty start to the day; which is good. No wind and with a high load, a shade taller than the legal maximum of 13’6’', that’s good for the fuel consumption. In the afternoon, the next load instructions arrive: load Thursday at noon: Haileybury, Ontario, going to Questa, New Mexico. Nice one, 2098 miles and somewhere different to look forward to. With plenty of time to get the pipes unloaded on Wednesday, I reach the Rest Area at Parry Sound; the one with the Tim Hortons seems a good place to finish the day.
____DAY 3: I wait till the early morning rush into Toronto has subsided before I run the centre lane of Highway 400; south through Barrie and round to the eastern side of the Lester Pearson Airport. The right lane of the 400 used to be the shoulder and the bridges are a shade lower than 13’ 6’'. The pipes are off quicker than I can roll up the straps as airliners take off overhead at one a minute. Then along to the Big Freight System drop yard to change a flatdeck for a stepdeck; this is on the western perimeter of Toronto’s major airport where now shadows of incoming jets are now shading the truck. North to North Bay and onto New Liskeard for the night at Gilli’s truckstop; ten minutes from Haileybury.
____DAY 4: The load is mining equipment; a 20 foot container outfitted as a workshop, tools and all, plus some other pieces. Not long to load or secure, it takes longer to get a confirmation out of the fax machine after sending 28 pages of customs invoices to the broker! Down to the border at Sault Ste. Marie; I’ll wait until morning before I cross.
____DAY 5: A long line of cross-border traffic waits on the long bridge linking the two Sault Ste. Maries and when I do get to the booth I’m told I have been selected for a search: code-named " Intrusive." I back the truck onto Bay 2 and retire to the lobby wondering if “Intrusive” includes body cavities. There is a three hour wait and all I can think about is the truck-driver who was told by a customs officer that it was normal to have an erection during a body cavity search.
" But I don’t have an erection," says the truck-driver.
" No, but I do," replies the customs officer.
Eventually I am told that they have found something and are debating between “Seizure” or “IE”, which stands for immediate export. In the container is a $10.00 corn broom, labelled “Made in Mexico”, on the manifest it is listed as Canadian. Having put that much time and effort into their search, they are not going to let it go. Another two hours and it’s decided: IE, ie: everything is being sent back to Canada. By then it is too late on Friday afternoon to do anything about it.
____DAY 6: The office is as incredulous as I am and sends me to the BFS yard in Mississauga with the trailer; I can leave it there for someone else to take when things are sorted out. Shame, a good mile trip swept away from under me. Three step-deck trailers are waiting, topped-up, to go back to Steinbach. Only they are not there; but I am assured by the office that they are somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area and could I look for them? Another hot sticky night with little sleep at the Mississauga Husky Truckstop.
____DAY 7: I’m on my way, Sunday morning, to the Fifth Wheel Truckstop at Milton with it’s breakfast buffet and free internet. Thinking about it; if I was asked to top-up trailers in the GTA, I would do it at Milton’s Truck Town Terminal; a huge compound with dozens of local and out-of-province companies with haulage yards. So I swing by there on the way and there they are! Eight straps later and they come with me for breakfast. After bit of surfing on the web and back to the Soo for the night.
____DAY 8: Steel grey clouds loom large over Gitche Gumee as the wind and rain lash down on Highway 17. My head is filled by the lyrics of Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting masterpiece “The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald” as I head westwards along Superior’s north shore on Highway 17.
“Superior,” they said, “never gives up it’s dead, when the gales of November come early.”
Squalls, all day, all the way to Thunder Bay.
____DAY 9: Back to the yard in Steinbach with the three trailers and the corn broom! At the moment the broom is part of the running equipment of the truck, a tool of the trade. Bizarrely it can now travel, as many times as it likes, in and out of the US without any problem. The next time I’m in the Haileybury area, I’ll take it back to the shipper.
____Overall Distance:- 5883 kms.
Chris, I’m surprised you were allowed to load a container without pins.
