I was about two months into the project and had the truck at the place where it was going to be transformed into a motorhome. The boys got right to work and there was nothing else for me to do but wait. I did drop in regularly to give them ideas, check on the progress and generally be a pain in their sides.
And, since I wasn’t allowed to live off of any investment money, and my savings were drying up quickly, I had to get a job. It didn’t take long before I was back in the cab of a truck, spinning my wheels for money.
Hauling containers wasn’t romantic but it did keep me close to home. Back and forth between Vancouver and Seattle/Tacoma twice a day, sometimes three, in an old Freightliner cabover.
After a while it was all routine, back and forth, back and forth… Then it started to rain, and rain, and rain. It rained heavily for three weeks straight and localized flooding was everywhere. One morning I was dispatched to bobtail to just across the border to pick up a can going to Tacoma. I got to the yard where it was and pinned up to it, wound up the landing gear, and started to pull out. I knew right away that it was freaking heavy. So, I went to the scale and weighed it. It was way over weight, like 10,000lbs over.
There was a new government scale between me and my destination and crossing it was not an option, so, like the outlaw trucker I aspired to be, I decided to take the backroads. As I looked at the map, I saw one road that was far enough away from the scale that I was sure I wouldn’t have any problems. Away I went.
I came up to my intended route, and there was a bit of a problem. A sign said, “Closed due to flooding.” Crap. Well, there was no turning back now, so I got out of the truck, moved the barricades, pulled through, put the barricades back and carried on.
I drove a few miles until I saw a sign, “ROAD FLOODED”. There was a bit of water across the road. No big deal, I thought, and proceeded through. It was maybe a foot deep. As I came out the other side, I laughed. A little farther down the road and, again, a road flooded sign. This time it was a little deeper, but it was a straight stretch and I could see the tops of the fence posts all the way to the other side, so away I went. No problem.
The rain was still pouring down as I came around a bend. And there it was, a seriously flooded road. I stopped and could see a small gas station and a cafe on the other side of the river, about 500ft away. The fence posts went straight down under the water, and then it dawned on me, this was a river and there was probably a bridge under there somewhere. I didn’t have much choice, so I put it in gear, let out the clutch and slowly entered the water. I kept it as close to where I thought the middle of the road was, and soon found out that the holes in the floor where the throttle and clutch pedals were weren’t sealed too well as water started shooting up through the holes. I rolled down my window and looked. The water was half way up my door and the cab was filling up fast. Then I noticed the wake I was making as it rolled ahead of my truck across the river and it took out a shed on the other side.
By then everyone who was in the cafe and gas station were standing on the other side, cheering me on. I felt a big bump and figured that must have been the bridge as I crossed it. Another big bump a second later and I started climbing up out of the water. The cab had filled up to my knees. I put some air in the seat to get it high enough so that my butt didn’t get soaked and as I came up to where it was below the level of the door, I opened it to let the water out. Unfortunately, my gloves and a few other things went with it.
As I got closer to the cafe the crowd were pumping their fists, clapping and giving me a lot of thumbs ups. A few of them waved for me to stop, but there was no way I was stopping! I kept on going, looking at the crowd in my mirrors as they waved goodbye.
I arrived in Tacoma an hour or so later, delivered the container and called my dispatcher, telling him that I was done and asking what he had for me to bring back. There was silence on the other end. “You made it?” “No problem”, I said. “Well I’ll be…” He covered the phone and said to someone in the office, “He made it!” He said to give him a few minutes and to call back and he’d have a return load for me. It was around then that I realized that I’d been set up! They knew that can was seriously overweight. They knew, the jerks.
He got me a return load and I was back at the yard in a few hours, just before closing time, and there was no one in the office. I parked the rig and went home. I never did bring it up again, and neither did they.