The Trucking Adventure Begins!!

Home Yard in Anaconda, MT

Snow on the first time out

Well, we now have a REAL 'Trucker' in our family!! Tomo made his first run and boy was it full of experiences!!! From starting his first run alone with his trainer/supervisor driving another truck on the group of five trucks to be followed by a white out in Montana in the first two hours to Portland to pick up his delivery.  

 

 Truck stop in Cheney, WA and a lovely sister worker sent Mom this photo!! 

 

 

 

Rest Stop on the way to Portland, OR

 

 

Traffic Back up due to a jack-knifed semi.

 

 

 

 

 

First load, 520 Christmas Trees headed for Colorado!

Then heading out only to be backed up in traffic on I-84 for 2 & half hours due to snow/ice and a Jack-knifed semi blocking all lanes to windy weather in Wyoming to 'Thanksgiving dinner in a truck stop dinner, that he said was pretty good!!  

 

 

Then a smooth last stretch to the store parking lot in Denver to sleep for the night before the Friday morning deliver of 520 Christmas trees. Loved every minute of it, though the white out was a bit nerve racking!! He is happy as can be!!

Blue skies of Colorado!

A smile speaks a 1,000 words!

 

 

Tomo & Larry met up with some nice people in Colorado and got a great special meeting. Tomo is now in Bozeman, MT and will be back at the yard in the morning to pick up his passport as he is to head to Canada with a load for Edmonton. First time to cross the border as a trucker and not sure what that all entails, kind of wish he was traveling with someone for the first time..... but his is got to make it on his own. 

 

This company seems to be good at letting the drivers learn on their own, but..... a bit more training might be better for a young buck like Tomo. However, he is good to ask if he isn't sure.

 

Just woke Tomo up. He had driven through the night and arrived in Calgary at 10 am. He is in Calgary and had to wait until 3 pm for them to unload his truck and finally finished at 6pm. Then he finally got some sleep. He thinks he is headed to Idaho for a pick up and then off and running again. More later as we hear. 

Tomo made it from Calgary to Idaho Falls, and now has a loaded trailer, that he is taking to a swap point, and exchanging trailers then bringing the second one back to BC. After that he hopes to have a few days to clean out his apartment and get his stuff into storage and then.... who knows. 

Never a dull moment when you have a trucker in the family!! 8 )

Tomo got to Idaho Falls, ID and then on to Tremonton, UT where he swapped trailers, only to find his new load had a flat tire. Had to stay put till it could be fixed and so now hopefully he is headed back up to Burnaby, BC with this load. Hopefully, the following load will take him to Everett/Seattle area. Then he may have some time off to get his things squared away!! Since this was suppose to be a 'TRIAL RUN' to test his skills and ability!! hahaha! a long evaluation, just short of a month! 

Yesterday I was on the phone with Tomo just outside of Pocatello, Idaho. He mentioned that he had a truck scale coming up in 2 miles. So we continued talking and all the the sudden, Tomo yells 'SHOOT!!' He passed a line of trucks, and then realized that it was the scales that they were getting off for!! So he pulled over, and walked back to the scales!! He grovelled and apologized and they gave him a warning. Thank goodness! $265 is the fine for failing to stop!! The moment he had passed, the DOT put out a call for the Patrol to stop him. The rescinded that and so all was well. I wonder if the GPS have a warning signal for all the Truck scales?? He didn't even see it until he was past the fork to exit.

Another learning experience. 

Home for the clean up, truck and apartment!

 

Tomo finally made it back to Granite Falls!! 30 miles away at a scale check, they shut him down due to a brake hose failure!! I am glad they caught it, but he was a bit miffed to be so close but not able to move till someone came out to fix it!! Safety first!! Thanks DOT!!

 

Tanner & Masaki's ride to school?

School Bus or Truck??

 Boys being as they are, the high school boys were comparing their trucks.  'My truck is bigger than yours, NO!! mine is bigger than yours!!' 

 

 

 

WELL, when the boys drove up in their 'truck'!!!  Guess who won the competition!!  Hahaha!!  Nice to have a trucker in the family!

 

 

 

Heard from Tomo today. He was able to get his truck cleaned out and loaded with his things this past week. Then headed out to Boise. He stopped off in Pendleton, Oregon only to be awakened at 2 am by another trucker, letting him know that he had a large lake of oil under his truck. He got up and checked and sure enough, their was ...a large lake. He shut down his truck and went back to bed. 

Blew a gasket in Pendleton, OR

 The following morning, the lake had grown even larger and the mechanic was called. He had been losing oil, but not sure exactly where. This time he blew a gasket and so had to be fixed. The mechanic worked for a few hours but had another appointment so had to leave and then come back later. So Tomo finally got back on the road at about 8 pm and finally arrived in Boise a bit before Midnight.

Tomo is now in Tooele, Utah for the night!  Waiting to pick up his load tomorrow and head on to .....  not sure where.