The Rest of that Week

So up I went to Warrenton, Missouri to a place that fabricated steel parts most specifically for Trailers. There is a persistent insistence amongst drivers that flatbed truckers are either (or both) scared of or bad at backing. This comes I suppose from the idea that
a flatbed truck does not have to back into a dock to be loaded and in fact can often be loaded by forklift from the middle of a parking lot. While this is sometimes true it is just as often true that a flatbed truck must back into some sort of doc to be loaded, and most often it is a tighter situation (since it will still be loaded from the side) and even more often it requires backing into a building which is difficult because the light differential makes it essentially a blind procedure. Often you see flatbeds avoiding backing in a truck stop, especially late at night, because a flatbed's trailer axles are spread apart (as opposed to dry van trailers whose axles are next to each other). Because of this flatbeds must avoid the tight turns since as the turn tightens the spread axles basically drag along the pavement and can cause severe tire damage or, in extreme cases, the trailer can torque itself into capsizing. So to those van drivers who insist on propping themselves up because they prefer their no talent lazy ass job I say fuck off. (Can I say that)
This back was one such back into a tight slot in a building.
The metal pieces they then loaded were wavy, corrugated, i guess, sheets about 25 feet long and 2 feet wide and perforated with 1 1/2" holes at regular intervals. They loaded 15 bundles in three layers in the center of the trailer in a matter of minutes. I then pulled out of the building and put the straps on to secure them to the trailer and then tarped the whole thing. It was not very big (but maxed out the legal weight) and I only needed one of the tarps to cover it. (The two tarps together could cover a load that was the full length and width of the trailer and as high as legal (9'6" from the trailer bed or 13'6" from the ground.) Then I used some of the 100 bungees I was issued to secure the tarp and I was off. And that only took two and a half hours. I hoped that it would get easier.
As I made my way into St. Louis the rainy greyness was turning to freezing rain/sleety greyness and I was looking forward to getting further east and south and back into the rain.
I chose a path that stayed on the interstate until Lexington, Kentucky and then headed southeast across the mountains and into Virginia. This was probably a mistake since the load weighed 46,000 pounds and the hills of Kentucky got some steep roads. it was slow going but I got there and delivered and again, in a matter of a hour or two got another load.
this one picked up in Roanoke the next morning and delivered to Clifton, New Jersey, not far from NYC.
The next morning I headed up to the grandly named Steel Dynamics in Roanoke and picked up, you got it, steel, in 20 foot long bars (3/4"x3") and angle iron (or like two of the previous pieces joined along the 20' side at a ninety degree angle). I drove into a building (strait in no backing) and a huge crane on a track that ran along the ceiling loaded the bundles from the many stacks onto my truck using an apparently very powerful magnet. The following pictures are of the bundles of Steel at Steel Dynamics in Roanoke, and their back lot full of scrap.

I drove these up to Jersey, spent the night at the receiver (a not in a particularly nice part of the state, as opposed to the nice parts of the state. Which is to say it wasn't Princeton or Cape May.)

In the morning I drove into the receiver's building Denman and Davis, a steel supplier to builders in the NY/NJ/PA area, and was unloaded, this time with simple chain hoists, and then had to back out of the building because they refused to open the door in front of me. My DM (driver manager) than told me to go home for the weekend. Three and a half hours down the NJ Turnpike, across the Delaware Memorial Bridge and down into Kent County once again.