July 29, 2016

Fonda, New York  (We decided it was named for Henry, not Jane)

The phrase “in irons” is used in sailing.  I had a sailboat once.  Actually, I had two.  The first was an 18 foot boat on a trailer that would not fit in the garage.  I spent a lot of time, effort and money on this boat and got a few hours of pleasure out of it.  It would have been far cheaper and far less trouble to rent a boat every few months for a few hours of sailing.  Unless you live on a lake where you could leave the boat in the water and unless you are comfortably retired and can spend some time actually sailing, I would advise you to do the same.

The far better solution for wannabe sailors is to have a friend with a boat.  That way you can make day trips on a sailboat or maybe even spend a weekend, sleeping in the tiny little guest bunk, while the owner enjoys the Captain’s cabin.  He’s entitled to the luxury, of course since he has to pay for and maintain this white elephant.  I had a friend with a boat and it was a bit of fun. He was dating my wife’s friend and the four of us spent a few days hanging around the boat in dock and we made a day trip on Galveston Bay… before  Hurricane Ike.  With the insurance money, he bought an apartment on the Seawall in Galveston.  Notice he did not buy another sailboat.  He learned his lesson and went looking for a friend with a boat, as well.

Where was I?  Oh yes  – “in irons”.   As you may know, sailboats can “sail close to the wind” by tacking – actually moving opposite to the wind direction at about a 45 degree angle.   By reversing in a zig-zag fashion, the boat can move upwind.  After the “zig” the sailor will turn by 90 degrees and the boat will turn to swing around and, having passed directly into the wind and then, carried by momentum , it will “come about” and the wind will fill the sail on the opposite side (the zag).

If, however, the helmsman is slow off the mark and does not pull off this maneuver sharply, the boat can wind up pointed directly into the wind, having lost all momentum.  Steering is now useless, because there is no moving water for the rudder to bear against and turn the boat further.  The boat is now “in irons” and will slowly begin to be pushed backward, losing the progress made by tacking.  It is something that is difficult to remedy.  Much progress can be lost.  At the end of this post, I will tell you the secret to getting “out” of “in irons”.

Now, I went through all that to describe why I am where I am now.  I am learning that shipping industry has participants that demonstrate the worst qualities of humanity.  They are hostile and vindictive.  They are petty and arbitrary.  They can be that way because they represent a lot of business to the freight companies.  The freight companies will put up with this abuse for the business.  Or, rather I should say, they will allow their drivers to be abused for that reason.

This cannot be assigned to companies in general, it has more to do with particular installations.  I arrived early at this particular receiver and was turned away because that is what they do.  Now, I have to go park at a truck stop and wait.  Unfortunately, the Federal Regulations say I have to stop driving before I  will be welcome at the receiver.  So I try to arrange a new time.  The management at this installation prefers not to do that, but to sarcastically call me a “no-show”.

So, I terminated that conversation and reported as “late” (while I was still early) and requested a “repower” on the satellite communication unit.  A repower is where someone could come and get my load and take it to the installation on time.  That did not  work and that is understandable, because there are only so many trucks in the company and besides, they operate with a skeleton crew at night and things seldom happen then.  So, finally, “dispatch” tells me to go in the morning to the same gate.  When I arrive, the gate guard makes a call and sure enough they can use this shipment to put meat on the shelves on the weekend.  So they assign a door for unloading.  But…one last check shows that the order has been cancelled.  I guess it is more important for the management to punish a driver for being early than to put product on the shelves for the weekend.

So, I am “in irons”  making no progress and no money for at least 19 hours more.  I took this opportunity to scan in my trip sheet with the previous load (with 8 days of hotel expenses – you can’t sleep in the truck while it is in the shop) so that some money will actually come in next week.  Breakdown pay is only $25 per day, so that is welcome.

I also  taped up the frayed and bared cable on the satellite radio/computer that sends assignments, swept out the truck, made some instant chicken soup and cleaned all the glass and mirrors very well (yes, I remembered Dad).

And then, of course, I wrote this for y’all.

Oh, wait!  How to get “out” of “in irons”

To review, you are in your sailboat which is pointed directly into the wind.  You are making no progress and in fact are beginning to drift backward.  What you need to do is go and push the boom.  That is the horizontal pole at the bottom of the sail.

Someone asked me once why they call it the boom.  Well, what you were trying to do when you got ”in irons” was called “coming about”  you were going from zig to zag by passing through an attitude directly into the wind by momentum, carrying over to tack on the other side.  The other way to turn is downwind.  Your sail will be on one side of the boat, going downwind and when you turn through the direct-downwind direction, the sail will suddenly go from one side to the other.  Now, that pole at the bottom of the sail will whip from one side to the other very suddenly. This is called making a “jibe”. The pole, generally speaking is right about at head level for people riding in the boat.  So the “boom” is named for the sound it makes when it collides with your skull.  This is called “onomatopoeia” where words are made directly from sounds.  Other examples of this are “wham” and “hiss”.

By the way, there is usually a rope-and-pulley system between the boom and the base of the mast to cinch the boom down tightly and make better speed.  It is called the “boomvang”.  Once, back in my Geophysicist Days, there was a seismic project called “Boomvang” and nobody else in the  company knew what the heck that meant.

Where was I?

The boom…to get out of “in irons”  you go and push the boom to one side to “back wind”.  That pushes your boat backward.  At the same time, you put the rudder over to the other side, which turns the boat until wind can again fill the sail and you can tack once more on the “zag”.  This is easy on a small boat or on a big one when you have a crewman.  Otherwise, it requires agility and creativity.

In Irons,

Steve

P.S.  I never did say who the small-minded, hostile staff of this upstate New York hell-hole worked for.  It rhymes with “Small Fart”.

Rest Area Interstate 84, exit 188, Hermiston, Oregon, December 16, 2016

   I passed this rest area just before the exit to my assigned fuel stop.  When I got to the truck Stop, there was a line of trucks backed up on the ramp up to the fuel islands,  The road was gravel with frozen slush and trucks were slipping around like so many novice ice skaters.  A rig coming out stopped and the driver put down his window, as I did in response.  He tells me to avoid the place unless I need fuel.  I did need fuel of course.  I am instructed to buy fuel here and there is no escape, but I thanked him for trying.  To say this did not bode well is to belabor the obvious.  Why did he stop to speak to me specifically, ignoring the others in line?  I can only guess that he was once a driver for The Company, like myself. 

   When the column of trucks moved forward, my wheels slipped.  I had locked the differential and so had all eight drive wheels spinning.  Fortunately, no one was yet behind me.  I let the whole rig slide back a bit and then steered off the  frozen slush ruts to newer snow, a trick I had just recently learned while walking to rest area bathrooms.  That made some forward progress possible.

  Most of my readers are unfamiliar with icy sidewalks, so while I am on the subject of walking on ice, it also pays to take small steps, keep your hands free to wave around for balance and don’t let anyone rush you.  I was exiting the commuter train station in Oslo, Norway once  (I worked for a Norwegian company, then). All the locals were in a hurry to get somewhere and I was swept up in the crowd.  I made a faux pas (French for “stupid mistake” – I never learned Norwegian) and I slipped on that invisible trap they call black ice.  I landed on the back of my head.  Lucky it wasn’t some important part.  It must have looked bad because a woman screamed.  I told my coworkers about it and for the rest of the week, they watched me for demented behavior – more than usual, that is.

   The fuel islands were chaos.  The truck ahead of me could not gain traction and he finally threw his tire chains under his wheels to make it to the pumps.  He wasn’t the first one to try that.  When I got to the pumps, I found some poor miscreant’s set of tire chains frozen in the ice.  I managed to fuel the tractor and pull up past the islands, to find what military men call a Charlie Foxtrot.  As I am sure I have mentioned before, this is a mnemonic phrase for an abbreviation of a “colorful” (obscene) expression for a massively confused and disorganized collection of human activity.  I did not take any pictures, because no one likes to be recorded in their misery and because I was busy struggling to get by, myself.

   After fueling there was a bottleneck to exit where six lanes converge to one and trucks attempting to park are sliding around blocking the way.  Forty five minutes later, I was back on the entrance ramp, but exiting.  I wanted to warn the poor fool I saw entering, but I was in no mood to stop.  So, I just made the sigh of the cross at him (May God bless you, my son).  He was probably wondering what I was trying to tell him.  I am sure it occurred to him a bit later. 😉

   There might have been a space I could have snagged by blocking the flow, but I wanted out of there.  Dante’s Inferno includes a section of Hell where sinners are imbedded in a frozen icy plane and this was beginning to resemble same. 

   I intentionally reversed my course (a trucker taboo) on the Interstate, found an overpass and returned to this rest area that I passed before.  There were two other trucks with three spaces between them.  I pulled into the center one.

Above:  The serenity of the Rest Area contrasts with the Dante’s Inferno of the Frozen Truck Stop

I promised Montana pictures and I have not forgotten.  Events accumulate quickly in this Walkabout and I struggle to keep up. Things worthy of notice happen while I am remembering events of days past. Hence, this method of the standard font when remembering and the italics to describe what is happening in the moment.  If it confuses you, imagine how I feel!  About half the time, I can’t say what State I am in (other than that State of Confusion).

I am a bit like Columbus.  He did not know where he was going, didn’t know where he was when he got there and didn’t know where he had been when he got back.

The Moon over Montana, setting just before the sun rises behind me.

Arriving at those distant mountains seen before.  The sky brightens with the dawn

Gnarly mountains garnished with fresh snow

An outcropping of rock too steep for trees interrupts the forest.

A river crossing.  Please excuse the dirty windshield.  Some of the most impressive views are not available for photography since bridges and the winding mountain pass roads require two-handed attention.  This one was an “easy bridge”.  I remind the readers that the walls at the edges of bridges and scenic steep drop-offs are about three feet tall.  That would stop a passenger car from careening over the edge.  But, my Decaton cargo is stacked on a trailer floor that starts at about three feet above the ground and continues to a height approaching fourteen feet.  It would easily careen over the wall and into a river or over a thousand foot cliff.  The wall, in fact would only insure that the rig would tumble into the abyss, rather than merely plunge into same.  Therefore, I must admit that many of the most stunning vistas pass unphotographed while I strangle the steering wheel with both hands!

Through a National Forest.  

The river shares the valley with the highway.

A snow covered rest area somewhere in the middle.  I should make notes of where these pictures are taken.   So quickly pass the miles and the vivid scenery that time and place are soon forgotten.

A Study in Contrast.  Very black cows on very white snow (this photo has run away – I will try to find it and force it back here – life is hard for photos;-)

Moonshine on the snow illuminates the landscape in a soft and eerie blue light.  I am not sure what caused that streak, just left of center.  I am sure it is not a comet, because I’ve seen a few.

Out of the mountain pass into a valley.  The photos just do not convey the majesty of the vista that reveals itself to me as I descend.  It was far more breathtaking than what you see here.  I guess you just have to be there in person to get the full impact.  You may begin to understand what drives me to travel.

The mountains loom over me as I glance (keeping eyes mostly on the road) up at them.  I am only half-joking when I say that I could have sold tickets for the trip I made across Big Sky Country.  The photos may hint at that awesome beauty, but far more vivid images remain only in my memory.  This is a sign for Exit Zero, at the Western end of Montana. 

Over The Road

Steve