WHICH WAY DO WE LOAD THIS?
First Time and Last Time
Second Time
This piece of equipment is called an arm to a dredge boom, a huge dredge boom....The story goes like this, We got to Miami, Arizona to pick up this dredge arm at the copper mine, early on a Monday morning. As you can see from the background, this mine was on the top of the mountain. We had to drive 10 miles from the front gate to the top to load this, surrounded the whole time by silty, slimy dirt, coated with copper flake runoffs. To top off the drive, it rained most of the time...never did dry out. It took two huge cranes to load this on our trailer, the first time it was loaded on the trailer seemed to be the best way, no overhang off of the back and the fly wheel fit just perfect over the gooseneck....we drove back down the mountain, (10 miles) to weigh the load, it turned out to be too heavy on the Tri-axles. Arizona only allows you to carry 62000 pounds on Tri-axles, we just happened to be 67500....we called it in to the office, what did they want us to do? Well, the big boss, who supposedly knows everything, (do you know one of those?) told us to turn it around, this should throw more weight to the front and allow us to axle it out properly. I will admit, that Bo questioned him on what the overhang would do to the weight, because if you turned it, you would definitely have an overhang...but we were told this wouldn't effect it that much. So, after explaining this to the crane crew at the mine that we needed to turn this around to axle properly, they told us that it could take awhile to get the cranes back up to the top, (while we were coming down the mountain, the cranes were moving into a big pit to move and dismantle another dredge), so we drove back up to the top of the mountain and sat there for the remaining part of the day. Just about sunset, the cranes came and lifted the arm and we drove out from under it and turned around and drove back under it so the cranes could set it back on us. After rechaining, we drove back off the mountain to reweigh....(mind you, the cranes moved back down into the pit at the same time). This time we had a 14 foot overhang, and we weighed 72000 pounds on the Tri-axles....big boss was not happy, neither were we! The office decided that they needed to send in another truck with a Tri-axle spread, thinking this would distribute the weight better, but the only truck close by wouldn't get there until the next morning. This was for the best anyway, as the crane crew had already gone home, it was about 7:00 p.m. The town of Miami, Arizona is small, very small, not a whole lot around. Most definitely there wasn't a Truckstop within 100 miles, we had to get a motel room, (about 30 miles away) for the night, just to clean up.
The next day, the other driver showed up about 8:00 a.m., the crane crew got there earlier, and they weren't to happy about having to do this again. Well, we weren't to happy either...but back up the mountain the two trucks went....then we sat, and we sat, and we sat....finally about 3:00 p.m., a guard came by and told us that they were having troubles with one of the cranes in the pit, seems like it didn't want to lift this arm either, matter of fact, it didn't want to move period! It broke down and they were trying to fix it. The first day wasn't so bad, yes, we got bored, and the conversations got funny and at times we all got slap happy from frustration...but, we did have a beautiful view from the mountain top and with binoculars you could even make out the dump trucks going up and down the roads and see our cranes and the crew in the pit. About sundown, 6:30 p.m. mountain time, we were told that the crane crew had gone home, (we had notice through the binoculars that they had left, we tried to tell ourselves that they had taken a break and would be back), that was a big joke on us, so we drove back down the mountain and left the trailers on their lot, went to get some dinner, then came back and slept out on their lot next to our trailers. The next day, we hooked back up to the trailers and drove up the mountain again, and we sat...and we sat....and we sat....at sundown we came back down the mountain, unhooked from the trailers and went to dinner, slept out on their lot that night too.
Well, we did this same boring, repetitious daily routine the next day...By noon I had made up a song and was singing it from the top of the mountain with all the gusto I could muster, off key and screeching every syllable. This was my rendition of "On Top of Old Smokey" out of boredom: On top of the mountain bored out of my head, I'm with my true love but he's in the bed. The scenery is beautiful but all I can see, is the cranes in the pit mocking me. If I'm here much longer they will find, a raving lunatic walking around blind. I'm tired of eating junk food can you help me please, otherwise I'm going to start eating the trees. There are no luxuries close by, the bushes and rocks aren't enough to hide behind. When we get out of here you can bet on one thing, I'll never stand on another mountain top and happily sing! Thank you...(bow) ..Thank you... Of course this drove Bo and the other driver to their own form of insanity, they actually walked around admiring the pretty little pebbles and rummaged through the trash piles of old rusty pipes, chains and equipment that had seen better days, long ago! And of course they both found treasures that they wanted to take home, how do men see the benefit or use of junk is beyond my imagination.
By Friday morning, the big boss was getting a bit upset, (do you think he ever gave a thought to how we felt out on the top of a mountain counting clouds and an occasional bird?), the office tried to explain to the crew at the mine that as soon as this load was off our trailer, we had to go to Phoenix and pick up a Case Cotton Bailer, and that this was very important.....so in other words.....get the lead out!!!! The crew said they would do all they could, but the crane was still broke down, and they were having a tough time getting it fixed. The big boss told us and the other driver that we were to give them until 3:00 p.m. and if nothing was done, then the other driver had to go to pick up the Cotton Bailer, as Case is a BIG client and we didn't want to have any problems with them. So, if you can guess the outcome, then you are one step ahead of my story...at 3:00 p.m., the other driver pulled out and headed off to Phoenix. It wasn't 30 minutes later that they came to tell us that they got the crane up and moving to the top of the mountain...we told them it was too late. Bo got on the phone to see what the office wanted us to do....seems that there wasn't another stretch Tri-axle in the area...and it could possibly take another week to get one there.
Well, our dispatcher, (not the big boss) asked Bo if he thought he could shag the load out of Arizona, (because once we got into New Mexico and Texas our weights would be legal), Bo said he thought he could as the weigh station going out of Arizona eastbound was never opened. Our dispatcher agreed on this point. The big boss was a little hesitant, then made the comment, "Do what you want, but if you get caught, the fine is coming out of your pockets!" Bo and our dispatcher decided that we would try it. We drove back up to the top of the mountain and the cranes lifted the arm and we turned it around. We drove back down off the mountain, by this time our permit, (which wouldn't do us any good anyway) was waiting for us.....but because it was going to be Saturday the next day, we couldn't run this big of an oversize load over the weekend in Arizona....by this time it was going on 5:00 p.m., (not enough time to get out of the state before sundown), we were stuck until Monday morning.
What do you do for entertainment in a town the size of your thumbnail? Well, we left the loaded trailer at the lot at the copper mine and got a motel room for the weekend, then took the truck to a car wash and spent a good portion of Saturday cleaning off the silt from the copper mine, then we detailed the tires and really gave the inside a once over, it looked sharp! We took a grand tour of the town, (tried to stretch it to an hour of driving and walking), spent some time in their grocery store buying snacks and the rest of the time we stretched out on the big bed and watched T.V. pretending the whole week never happened. We would call this a luxury, or mini vacation out on the road.
Monday morning saw us up before the chickens ready to pull out when we could see a streak of blue on the horizon. It was a good thing we were able to ask for our own route, that way we could go the back roads to New Mexico and the only scales we would see were the last eastbound out of Arizona, (for all the years we had been out on the road, this scale was never opened), until that day!!! 3 miles from the New Mexico State line and the sign said open....if this wasn't enough to just frost a person, I looked over at Bo and asked the million dollar stupid question..."What are you going to do?"...He just looked at me, and asked "How much cash do we have to bail me out of jail?" As we were slowing down and coming into the scale house, the scale master was standing outside smoking a cigarette looking at us. At the last minute, Bo saw a sign that said, "Over width loads pull around the scales and bring in permit." This saved our hides, Bo pulled around and stopped, grabbed the permit and went to the office. The scale master asked, "Why didn't you pull onto my scales?" Bo answered, "Because I'm over width" and pointed to the back part of the arm, which was over the sides of the trailer by about 4 inches on each side. Apparently this was good enough for the scale master, as she didn't say anything more, just looked at the weights on the permit and said O.K.
We were never so glad to get out of that state and into New Mexico...it was a good feeling to know that the rest of the trip we would be legal on our weights. At the first Truckstop we saw, Bo pulled in and called our dispatcher, when he answered, Bo asked him if he could cash a C.D. to bail him out of jail and to help pay for the fine of being over weight and how long will it take to get another trailer there with cranes to move the load.....The phone went deathly silent, then you could hear this moaning....and finally he asked, "It was open?" Bo told him not only was it opened, but we were in a pack of trouble. He had our dispatcher moaning and groaning for about 3 minutes, then told him that it was a joke. He got a big kick out of it, and told Bo pay backs could get rough, he told Bo the only thing that was really disturbing him was how was he ever going to tell the big boss that we screwed up. We all had to admit that was the first time any of us had ever seen that scale open...we wouldn't do that again, or would we?!
Oh, by the way we took this to Houston, Texas to the shipping docks. It seems that it was going to be shipped to Costa Rica....but we had to take it to a business on the docks for them to crate!!!!! Can you believe that?! They were going to put this monster on a crate slab and metal band it down....I always wonder if it ever made it, I'm sure the arm did, but did the crate???