Friday, September 24, 2010

Haulin' Big Sunrise To Sunset

This week, I hauled my first oversized load. Ten feet, six inches wide. I am now classified as an "F3" with the company we're leased on to; a "Flatbed 3".

We have one piece, not very tall (about four feet high) and not very long (twenty-two feet), but wider than our eight foot, six inch trailer. So it's considered "oversized" or OD, "over-dimensional".

It's not really any different to drive than other loads we've had since it only hangs over twelve inches on each side. We can still park in one parking space, but to move the freight across the country, we have to have permits for each state and can only run during certain hours.

We picked up in California and we're going to New York. Every state we've gone through, we've only been allowed to run during the daylight hours; either a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset or, a half-hour after sunrise to a half-hour before sunset.

The pay is great and I really enjoy the short work day. And this week, being stopped at sunset every night gave us a chance to sit and have dinner at a normal hour and watch all the new fall shows. The only thing I don't like, is that we cannot deviate from the route we've been given. That means no stopping at Barnes & Noble, no taking alternate routes and no time to goof around during the driving hours.

I don't know if I want to be hauling around windmill blades, but this oversized stuff is a nice change of pace. I wouldn't mind hauling a few of these every once in a while.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1 YEAR AGO:
When Continuing South Isn’t Possible, Here Are Some Other Choices
2 YEARS AGO:
Neat, Trim, Appealing And Sophisticated. In A Word: SMART
3 YEARS AGO:
I Know She’s Topless, But Is That A Castanet In Her Hand??
4 YEARS AGO:
A Wicked Good Time
5 YEARS AGO:
All The Boring Details

1 comment:

Pat said...

Haul Big, Pay Big. Sounds good to me too. Plus, you guys can sleep under the stars on the unused part of the flatbed.