A bunch of useless crap
Published on November 1, 2010 By MasonM In Blogging

This evening finds me in Greencastle, PA. I hauled eight elevator cages from a factory in Wisconsin to a wind farm under construction on a mountain top in Middle-Of-Nowhere, PA.

The original plan had been to deliver the cages first thing this morning and then come down here this afternoon to pick up some crane parts for a customer back in Wisconsin.

That plan was tossed out the window as I wound up blowing half the day at the wind farm. A piece of advice, if you need to get in and out in a hurry don't go to a wind farm that is under construction on the top of a mountain in Middle-Of-Nowhere, PA.

I had to park at the exit ramp off the interstate and wait for an escort to come meet me and lead me up the mountain to the site because: A) it's a secured area and nobody gets in without being escorted, and, there aren't any signs leading you to the place so if you don't know where you are going you are never going to find it.

It took the escort 90 minutes to show up. He led me through the little town and out into the woods. We made a turn on a gravel road and followed it up, and up, and up, with a lot of round and rounds to boot. It was a very crude road and top speed was about 10 mph.

After an hour of up and up, and round and round, he led me to the staging area. He said to wait here and "sooner or later" someone would come to lead me to the actual delivery site. So much for being in a hurry.

I tried to call dispatch to let them know what was going on, but it seems cell phone signals don't care much for up and up, and around and around. No signal at all.

"Sooner or later" turned out to be about three and a half hours. This fellow led me even further up and up, and round and round, and after about an hour of 5 mph speed we finally arrived at the location where I was to be unloaded.

He said to go ahead and untarp and unstrap the load and the crew would be by "sooner or later" to unload it. Great.

About 45 minutes later "the crew" showed up to unload me. For some reason they felt they needed five people to unload these units. Basically, the guy running the lull did all the work and the other four just stood around and watched.

I then made my way back down the mountain, down and down, and around and around. I finally got back down to where the cell phone worked again. Naturally, when I called in the dispatcher was having a fit.

I just explained the situation, what had happened, and that we would just have to deal with it as best we could.

I made best possible time down here but it was far too late to load today as the first shift knocks off at 2:30 and second shift doesn't do any shipping.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day.


Comments
on Nov 03, 2010

Hi M! Glad you're still getting around! Nice to read ya! Keep on truckin'! [corny I know!lol!]

on Nov 04, 2010

foreverserenity
Hi M! Glad you're still getting around! Nice to read ya! Keep on truckin'! [corny I know!lol!]

Thanks, good to "hear" from you.

on Nov 04, 2010

UP and up and round and round!  Well, it made for a great story (the silver lining).

Oh, and in case you did not notice, the Bee) makes the cool dude icon.

Good to see you back in civilization!

on Nov 04, 2010

Dr Guy
UP and up and round and round!  Well, it made for a great story (the silver lining).

Oh, and in case you did not notice, the Bee) makes the cool dude icon.

Good to see you back in civilization!

Thanks. Yeah, I did notice the unintended icon.