weblog@wonderwinds

Being way up there in the cab isn't way up there any more. Technically it still is, but it has gotten to be the normal view of the road. Getting much better at driving it too. I reckon I'm well over 1000 miles behind the wheel so I guess I better be getting better No snow yet. Not serious snow anyway. Plenty of rain, plenty of traffic, plenty of road construction. Missed an exit yesterday or the day before. Oh well eh?

"It" by the way is a FreightLiner Classic XL with a Detroit diesel pushing about 500 horsepower through a 13-speed transmission, limited by law to 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. A few days ago we were hauling ~42,000 pounds of stuff from Oregon to Nebraska, then 8800 pounds of something else up north a wee bit, now about 28,000 pounds of I dunno what out to California. That is of course in addition to the tractor and trailer. We topped out at roughly 73,000 pounds out of Oregon. Quite a few mountain ranges coming east from there, so quite a bit of gearing down to crawl up then gearing down again to crawl down even slower. Drop it one speed when you crest so's you don't lose control on the way down is the thing.

Ah well. It's gotten late again. Just found the get-on-the-internet usb thingie so I figured I'd post something.