God Bless America

The day after i passed my test,i was on my way to indianapolis,via Raynham(near Boston),James was introduced to me, he was going to be my guide for the next couple of weeks,i say guide because this guy knows everything and it was a bit like going on a coach trip, on your left is so and so on your right etc,seriously this guy is probably one of the nicest person i have ever met and he's an American.Over the next two weeks James would give me that much info i felt like my head was going to explode, theres only so much i can store in here.After an indepth pretrip we were ready for the off,to leave Prince Edward island you have to cross The Confederation Bridge which spans the Northumberland straits for 12.9 kms, in winter this can be totally ice covered but due to the mild temperatures at the moment the main channel was ice free.Entering into New Brunswick the sun was shining it felt like a summers day (until you got out of the truck)it was freezing,we ran all the way to the U S border Houlton, Maine you have to be very serious i think to work at these crossing,i dont think they like anybody,we had to go inside because i needed an i 94 pass for multiple crossing, $6 later after a pretty uneventful procedure i came out with a pass which is valid for 12 months NICE!!! easier than trying to get my TWP.I took over the driving and we made it all the way down to our first drop where we parked for the night.We shed a massive 1 pallet of in Raynham,Ma and set off for Indianapolis, well we drove about 200yds into Walmart car park Yep car park we were going shopping, i couldn.t imagine driving into Asda car park back in the UK but its pretty common over here to see trucks parked there.We had a couple of days to get to Indianapolis so it was a pretty easy run down there taking in plenty of stops we shared the driving i was pretty comfortable behind the wheel (still grinding the shite gearbox though),After a little mishap in Ohio we had to move the dolly on the trailer forward because we were slightly over weight on the Drives, moving these forward solved that problem we were good to go,there are scales everywhere you go in North America not like the UK it feels like every 20 mile s there is that many.The U S A has a different weight limit to Canada, you can only gross at 80,000lbs (36287.00 kgs) where as in Canada with the same truck you can gross 84,000lbs (38102.00 kgs),After unloading we headed for Chicago where we were to load for Toronto.Our parking place for the night was Gary Indiana (the birthplace of micheal jackson) these truck stops are pretty impressive and you are treated well not like back home.We loaded and set of back to Canada our delivery time was for 7 am next day we headed for michigan as Detroit would be the place where we would leave the U S and enter into Canada via Windsor.Seeing all these places just opened all the music knowledge in me,Motown was born in Detroit it felt quite surreal all i could think off is martha reeves singing Dancing in the streets.I Backed on to the bay at our delivery point early sunday morning this was where i encountered my first lumper,Back home,we back on the bay someone off loads you paper work gets signed then you leave NO Money exchanges hand,here to get unloaded you get the services of a Lumper where you have to Pay them to off load, $89.00 for this pleasure, i am definately in the wrong job it took 35 mins to empty us Easy money.Finding free internet is few and far between but he Fifth Wheel truckstops have this they give you a code at the counter and hey presto free internet,so i sent most of the day on skype speaking to the beloved.We had been away 6 days and it had flown by, our journey back to PEI consisted of 2 collections in Toronto and 1 in Montreal, how wierd that is running through Quebec everything is french and averyone uses french as there first language,but what a beautiful province, miles and miles of stunning scenery.We headed into Moncton to off load then another load came through, Load PEI deliver Scramento pennylsenvia, Things were coming clearer now and pretty much made sense,we had sorted off ended up driving as a team by now so it was pretty much non stop for the whole of that day until we got down to Bangor, Maine.Unfortunately being away does have it s downfalls My washing had stacked up by now and i was pretty much out of anything to wear so for the next couple of hours was spent doing the laundry, i really could do with a maid.After tipping Sacramento which is in the TRI Valley regions mostly harmish communties we set off for Camden New jersey,this route took us throug h philadelphia, again some of my favorite artist came from this city Teddy pendergast,Billy Paul Al green,so this was pretty neat.Im sure by this time James was fed up of me singing away,sorry mate.After viewing the Land Lizards at Camden we headed for the flying J at Carneys Point for a well earned shower.Our route back to Canada was back through Pennsilvania then through New York State up to Niagra Falls, you can just see the spray coming up of the Falls on the American side hopefuly i will be able to have a proper look one day.Our delivery point was at a food market in Toronto here i witnessed yet another crime,to get into where you need to go to get unloaded you have to pay $30.00 yep thats right,you pay to enter the customers premises how good is that.We met up with another of our drivers I met him boxing day so it was good to meet up again we were both loading then tipping at the same place,so off we went again moncton was our destination taking in a shower and food stops along the way the route took us to riverre du loop where we headed through Edmunston, Nb eventually arriving in moncton.We were just about to head home when wew were asked to do a little job down to Halifax Nova Scotia we accepted and off we went due to the time we were going to arrive we stopped at the Big stop at Enfield for the evening Yipee free internet.So there we go 14 days after our journey started we were heading back over the Confederation Bridge back to Prince Edward Island, my time with James was over i felt a little sad we had built up a pretty good relationship even living in a confined space for that long we got on well (Except for his snoring thank god the reefer drowned him out lol)so thanks for putting up with me mate and cramping your style its been an absolute pleasure,now its my turn to hit the road,a little nervous maybe but another milestone has passed.