After getting my truck out of the repair shop in MN on Thursday morning I headed over to western WI to pick up a combine at a small farm. It was raining hard and I knew it wasn't going to be a lot of fun.

I had recently purchased a Frogg Toggs rain suit at a Cabela's store. This was the first time I had worn it in a rain storm. If you are considering buying a rain suit do not buy this one! The rain soaked right through it as if it weren't even there. It was a total waste of money.

The old man at the farm was in no way equipped to be loading equipment onto a truck. The rain  and mud just made matters worse. The combine itself wouldn't start and had to be dragged onto the trailer, a dangerous and time consuming proposition. The two other pieces, a bean head, he dragged with his tractor and wrestled onto the desk with a small bucket loader. There was a fair amount of damage done to the equipment in the process.

The old man griped and complained the whole time. He really was a very unpleasant fellow. Several times I thought the old guy was going to drop dead right there and then. He was mad at having to work in the rain. He was also mad at me because I refused to operate one of his tractors to help in the loading.

We do not operate a customer's equipment under any circumstances. The liability is just too high. As some of the stuff got damaged, the liability for that is all on him, if I had done as he wanted I and my company would share in that liability, not to mention if his tractor had been damaged. Also, as it is against policy, if I had been injured in the process my Worker's Comp would be denied as I was violating policy.

After several hours and a lot of griping from the old man the stuff was finally on my trailer and chained down. I was soaked to the skin and feeling pretty grumpy myself. I called the customer who had purchased the equipment and let him know what had happened and that there were some damages done during the loading.

As I was on a skinny country road there was no way for me to turn around and go back out the way I had come (we did the loading on the road) so I continued on the way I had been going. After a couple of turns I found another skinny road that would lead me to the main highway. 

I made a left turn onto that road and drove 2.5 miles before I came upon a section of road that had been washed away by a flash flood caused by all the rain. Wonderful. I had to put it in reverse and back the 2.5 miles back to where I had turned onto the road, back around the turn and back onto the road I been on (no mean feat on little country roads) and continue on to find another road to put me back onto the main highway.

After touring the countryside for a while I did eventually find my way back onto the highway. I saw a great deal of flooding and passed on taking two road with small bridges that looked like they might be washed away at any second.

I delivered the stuff the following morning to a farm near our yard. The unloading went far better than the loading did. Once finished I went up to Appleton to pick up a fire truck to bring back down to the yard.

While I was chaining down the fire truck some smart ass backed one up behind where I was working and opened up the valves to drain the water tanks. 1,000 gallons of water started pouring out onto the ground and since the I was between it and the drain the ground slops towards it flooded the area where I was working. My feet were instantly soaked and I was more than a little angry to say the least.

I had to get control of myself so as to not go over and throttle the asshat. Instead I simply climbed back into my truck and waited until the river of water finally subsided. That cost me some wet socks and about 15 minutes of my time. Next time I will refuse to load in that spot and will load uphill whether they like it or not.

I finally made it back to the yard and put my truck into the shop. There were some repairs still to be made which the MN shop didn't do because we didn't want to wait another day for the parts, and also my truck was due for routine servicing. I borrowed the company van, went to Fleet Farm and bought a proper yellow "Duck Suit" for working in the rain. Duck suits are hot but at least they are waterproof.

I then checked into the local motel. I will be hauling a fire truck to the Naval Station in Norfolk, VA but don't need to be there until Tuesday. At some point today I will chain it down and maybe get a start on the trip. No point in getting in too much of a hurry since it's an over size load and I can't run past Ohio on Sunday due to the over size weekend curfew in WV, MD, and VA.

I may just hang around and leave out on Sunday morning, or I may get a bit of a start on it today. I haven't yet decided. For now I am drinking coffee and will do my paperwork to turn in to the office. At some point I want to go get a haircut before I lave out. Once the paperwork and haircut are taken care of I'll decide whether to leave out today or tomorrow.

Either way I'll have to pop into the office to pick up my over size permits and drop off my paperwork. I'll just have to smoke another pipe and mull it over.