With sadness we received news of the sudden passing of long-time Expediter, friend and loyal supporter of EO - Arlin Randy King known to many of us on the road as Pa and his wife Ma (Jo).
He had a long history in this business, almost unheard of these days going back to 1987. He was pushing two decades in this business, now that is a true veteran.
Arlin had the load of his dreams in 2003 and I'm posting his story to share with the EO community.
R.I.P.
Lawrence,
Expediters Online.com
[/b]
http://expediteworld.com/thumbs/JO-6A.JPG
=========================================
Sharing an Alaskan Experience
As expediters we have all dreamed of getting that run of a lifetime.
You know what I mean, that run that pays an enormous amount of money and still takes you to a beautiful place where you can take some time off and really get a chance to see all of the local places of interest and take in the beauty of the surrounding area, and just plain relax for a few days.
Well after expediting for over 15 years it finally happened to us and we would like to share this fantastic event with you and yours and to help dispel the myth that loads like these never happen.
October 17 2003 We had just came home from a two week vacation and had just finished putting new tires on our one ton Chevrolet extended van, shortly after we had reloaded our luggage back in and finished remaking our bed an agent from Salt Lake City Utah called, my wife answered the phone and as I was coming back inside I could hear her arguing with someone on the cell phone, and she had just told this gentleman to quit joking around and to please put Gator on the phone as he is the only one that would try to trick us into taking a fake load. he has done it a few times before.
(Gator or Rick is a friend of ours that likes to play tricks )
Well after starting the conversation all over again and a few apologies on our part we finally got everything sorted out.
David Smuala was offering us a load that picked up in Toledo Ohio 174 miles away going to Anchorage Alaska 3,846 miles away, paying $6,192 it had to be there in 5 days and would we want it, my wife ask me what do you want to do, take it or not, I told her to accept the load while I finished taking a few more things out to the van, we then grabbed our dog Sable and headed to Toledo.
Needless to say we were nervous and excited and apprehensive all at the same time, I was sure the load would be cancelled before we ever reached Toledo, and being that the pickup was at the Toledo airport and a military load at that, I couldn't understand why it wasn't being flown up there in the first place.
I didn't get over the anxiety until the load was placed in our van with the shippers way bill signed and we got back out onto 94 west and began our fantastic run.
After 2 days of driving I still felt that someone was going to call and tell us to take it to the nearest airport to have it flown the rest of the way and that would be the end of it. But something else weighed heavily on my mind, After 2 days of traveling at roughly 70 MPH we weren't even half way there yet! Only then did it sink in as to how vast North America is and how far this trip was going to be taking us.
As we continued the trip towards the Canadian boarder in Montana on highway 15 we were mentally trying to think of everything that we should buy in the USA before entering Canada and continuing on to Alaska. We stopped and got fuel, and cashed a com check, stopped at a small grocery store and bought several bottles of soda pop, some small cakes and pies,2 loaves of bread, canned spam and a jar of peanut butter and a jar of strawberry jelly, then we found a Napa dealer and I bought a spare serpentine fan belt and we headed out for the great northwest.
We crossed into Canada without any difficulty and continued to drive the rest of the night then at 5 am we shut it down and both of us took a 4 hour nap. Upon awakening we continued on towards Prince George In Alberta Canada then on thru to Jasper Park, it had been raining for most of the afternoon and as we were approaching Mt Columbia ( The highest point in Alberta with an elevation of 12,294 feet ) the rain had changed to light snow but it seemed to get thicker as we neared the top of the mountain and then it literally turned into a white out as we were descending, I could barely see the snow bank on the shoulder of the road where they had plowed earlier in the day so I used this as a guide as to where the edge of the road was and continued on down the mountain at 5 to 10 MPH as there was nowhere to pull off the road, I felt it was safer to continue than to leave the vehicle stopped on the roadway and be a safety hazard to some unsuspecting motorist that might have gotten caught in the same circumstances and sure enough before long we had another motorist behind us, we both stayed at the same speed and at no time did he ever get closer than 200 feet behind us or attempt to pass as we slowly proceeded through the storm.
It took about and hour to get to the bottom of that mountain and it began to clear up a little at least we now had visibility for more than a block and I thought we had it made, boy was I ever wrong because as we rounded another curve and started downhill again the snow disappeared and was replaced with heavy fog with almost the same limited visibility that we had experienced earlier that evening and we couldn't tell whether we were driving up hill or down and had no idea as to where or when we would find a place to pull off the road safely but we did notice that there were now several cars behind us and again no one attempted to pass us as we slowly worked our way around curves and mountains that we could only guess as to how steep and long they were.
At 3 am in the morning we came into a lighted area and looked for any kind of side road or driveway that would allow us to get off of the roadway as we were getting tired and had to get some sleep, was we ever lucky it turned out to be a small Truckstop, Cold as it was outside we decided to leave the van running as we crawled into the back and got some well earned sleep. At 9am Jo got up bought us some coffee and woke me up said she had talked to the people inside and they told her that the fog doesn't usually lift until afternoon their time which would be about 3pm our time and that the fog always lifts slightly above the mountains in the afternoon and descends all the way to the ground every evening at that time of year due to the snowcap and glaciers in the area.
The fog lifts a little earlier and Jo starts out as soon as there is enough visibility to drive safely and we are now headed towards Whitehorse which is about the last biggest town in the Yukon before you reach Alaska. We'll take another break here before we finish this run in the morning. Luck was with us as neither of us experienced any fog so I continued driving on up to Tok Alaska and took a 4 hour nap as she drove over to Gillam Alaska then on over to Anchorage, she stopped and we got fuel again before we delivered the load that morning, As soon as we got the load off we went for breakfast, and took a short tour around the city.
we visited EarthQuake Park and then we drove to the south side of the city and all the way back to where we had breakfast as there was a motel there that allowed pets, we relaxed in the Jacuzzi and I started telling her some of the information I had found in one of the booklets that the motel had in the lobby. Hey did you know that they have the most active volcanoes and the most earthquakes than anywhere else in the world. This information did not please her in the least and after watching the local weather stations report that a winter storm was starting to form and would likely move all the way down as far south as Seattle Washington and as far east as Whitehorse we both decided that any thoughts of visiting the museums, cafes and taking in a few more days of the local sites would have to wait as being stranded in Alaska for the winter didn't appeal to either of us and as the Alaskan Highway is the only route in and out of here we had best start back first thing in the morning while the chances of it still being open and not snowed in would allow us to get several hundred miles of travel in before the snow would catch up to us.
We awoke to the rumbling of Piper cub airplanes taking off at 8 am seems everyone wants to see the mountains from above and are willing to pay $65 to$150 to do so, we packed everything back up and I went down to get some coffee to go and to start the van as it would be warmed up by the time we brought everything back down and were ready to go, but at 10 below zero it wouldn't fire up so I had to jump start it from a spare battery that I keep in the rear side cargo door area, after it started we brought our luggage down and got underway and managed to get about 250 miles in before we stopped for the night at a small garage and gas station that was still open. I asked if we could park somewhere on the property overnight as it had begun to snow and we would rather drive do our driving during the daylight hours and if he would be open first thing in the morning, He showed us where we could park and said the he would be open at daybreak and he would have the coffee ready first thing in the morning and to come on in as soon as we got up. We had a decent nights sleep and took him up on his free coffee that he offered us that morning and wanted to know what route we were going to take back into the USA, we had planned on going on down into Seattle but he advised us that they had 12 inches of snow that had just fallen last night and nothing would be open going down that way, I had to agree with him on his advise as we now had 6 inches of snow that had fallen here while we slept. Jo ask him what he did all winter and he said that they would be closing down for the season next week and that he just lays around and watches television till spring.( Must be nice ) We Thanked him for everything and pulled out onto the snow covered road and headed east.
After about 30 or 40 miles we finally came to where they had actually plowed the snow away well sort of plowed it anyways, Up here they don't plow it all off of the roadway they leave about 3 to 4 inches of snow cover and then they dump tens of thousands of tons of crushed stone on top of this snow and allow it to pack into it forming a stone embedded snowpacked road that doesn't require a lot of maintenance thought the rest of the season. These stones are thrown about as every vehicle passes by and after being pelted hundreds of times by everyone driving by you get to the point of actually putting your hand up as if that is going to stop your vehicle from getting hit with these stones but it becomes a natural habit after a few Big ones hit the windshield, we had a total of 15 chips and one big crack on the drivers side by the time we hit the good ole USA. After traveling on this road for 2 days we noticed that our fuel mileage was getting pretty bad and wasn't to sure what was causing it, We stopped to get fuel for the night and as I was walking back to the van I noticed fuel leaking on the ground,Jo was cold and had started the van just before I had gotten there, we quickly moved over into the parking lot and shut it down, I checked underneath it and the fuel had stopped so we fired it up again and sure enough it was pumping fuel out as long as it was running. I wasn't about to get under it in the below freezing weather and as it was after dark I decided we would wait till morning to see exactly what the problem was and get it fixed, we went to bed and slept till 9 AM. When I checked it out the next morning I came to the conclusion that somewhere along the way the stones had knocked the fuel filter connection loose and after snapping it back everything worked out OK.
One thing we learned from this trip if taken at this time of year is that you'll likely encounter every type of road and weather condition that you can think of, and that they do not put guardrails up unless it is a very dangerous curve or the roadway is along the edge of some of the tallest mountains you'll ever see, if you have a fear of height let your co driver drive, Beauty abounds everywhere and we grabbed as many photos as we could but should you get the chance to make this trip of a lifetime to Alaska Please pray that it's in June July or August if you want a better trip than the one we just experienced and will never forget. We were gone for 12 days ( 7 days deadheading back to Michigan) paid $1,200 in fuel and food, Had to have the windshield replaced as well as one headlight and a chipped turn signal lens and have been ask if we would ever take that trip again? Sure but not at that time of year.
Another fact that we couldn't ignore was that we were without communication from the time we entered Canada and until we got back into the USA our Qual Com never worked and our cell phone only worked in a few places on the higher mountains and the fact that no one talks on the cb made me wonder what type of equipment they use for getting emergency help in a hurry up there. it did make us feel rather isolated from everything.
We hope the we've been able to give you some valuable insight as to what to expect should you ever get the chance to take a trip up there to Alaska, we felt that the Yukon and the Northwest Territories had the most breathtaking views in route and some of the prettiest lakes as well.
We hope you'll enjoy the photos as well, even though a trip like this is a rarity in the expediting industry, should you ever get the chance go for it as it will give you a whole new perspective as to just how large of an area North America is and the vast amount of beauty that goes unnoticed by millions and millions of people who will never get the chance or opportunity to see this country like you and I will by being involved in the trucking industry.
Be safe in whatever you do and especially out here on our highways.
May your loads be long and profitable?
and your layovers pleasant and sweet
until we can get back together
and find some place to meet.
Thanks Randy an Jo
He had a long history in this business, almost unheard of these days going back to 1987. He was pushing two decades in this business, now that is a true veteran.
Arlin had the load of his dreams in 2003 and I'm posting his story to share with the EO community.
R.I.P.
Lawrence,
Expediters Online.com
[/b]
http://expediteworld.com/thumbs/JO-6A.JPG
=========================================
Sharing an Alaskan Experience
As expediters we have all dreamed of getting that run of a lifetime.
You know what I mean, that run that pays an enormous amount of money and still takes you to a beautiful place where you can take some time off and really get a chance to see all of the local places of interest and take in the beauty of the surrounding area, and just plain relax for a few days.
Well after expediting for over 15 years it finally happened to us and we would like to share this fantastic event with you and yours and to help dispel the myth that loads like these never happen.
October 17 2003 We had just came home from a two week vacation and had just finished putting new tires on our one ton Chevrolet extended van, shortly after we had reloaded our luggage back in and finished remaking our bed an agent from Salt Lake City Utah called, my wife answered the phone and as I was coming back inside I could hear her arguing with someone on the cell phone, and she had just told this gentleman to quit joking around and to please put Gator on the phone as he is the only one that would try to trick us into taking a fake load. he has done it a few times before.
(Gator or Rick is a friend of ours that likes to play tricks )
Well after starting the conversation all over again and a few apologies on our part we finally got everything sorted out.
David Smuala was offering us a load that picked up in Toledo Ohio 174 miles away going to Anchorage Alaska 3,846 miles away, paying $6,192 it had to be there in 5 days and would we want it, my wife ask me what do you want to do, take it or not, I told her to accept the load while I finished taking a few more things out to the van, we then grabbed our dog Sable and headed to Toledo.
Needless to say we were nervous and excited and apprehensive all at the same time, I was sure the load would be cancelled before we ever reached Toledo, and being that the pickup was at the Toledo airport and a military load at that, I couldn't understand why it wasn't being flown up there in the first place.
I didn't get over the anxiety until the load was placed in our van with the shippers way bill signed and we got back out onto 94 west and began our fantastic run.
After 2 days of driving I still felt that someone was going to call and tell us to take it to the nearest airport to have it flown the rest of the way and that would be the end of it. But something else weighed heavily on my mind, After 2 days of traveling at roughly 70 MPH we weren't even half way there yet! Only then did it sink in as to how vast North America is and how far this trip was going to be taking us.
As we continued the trip towards the Canadian boarder in Montana on highway 15 we were mentally trying to think of everything that we should buy in the USA before entering Canada and continuing on to Alaska. We stopped and got fuel, and cashed a com check, stopped at a small grocery store and bought several bottles of soda pop, some small cakes and pies,2 loaves of bread, canned spam and a jar of peanut butter and a jar of strawberry jelly, then we found a Napa dealer and I bought a spare serpentine fan belt and we headed out for the great northwest.
We crossed into Canada without any difficulty and continued to drive the rest of the night then at 5 am we shut it down and both of us took a 4 hour nap. Upon awakening we continued on towards Prince George In Alberta Canada then on thru to Jasper Park, it had been raining for most of the afternoon and as we were approaching Mt Columbia ( The highest point in Alberta with an elevation of 12,294 feet ) the rain had changed to light snow but it seemed to get thicker as we neared the top of the mountain and then it literally turned into a white out as we were descending, I could barely see the snow bank on the shoulder of the road where they had plowed earlier in the day so I used this as a guide as to where the edge of the road was and continued on down the mountain at 5 to 10 MPH as there was nowhere to pull off the road, I felt it was safer to continue than to leave the vehicle stopped on the roadway and be a safety hazard to some unsuspecting motorist that might have gotten caught in the same circumstances and sure enough before long we had another motorist behind us, we both stayed at the same speed and at no time did he ever get closer than 200 feet behind us or attempt to pass as we slowly proceeded through the storm.
It took about and hour to get to the bottom of that mountain and it began to clear up a little at least we now had visibility for more than a block and I thought we had it made, boy was I ever wrong because as we rounded another curve and started downhill again the snow disappeared and was replaced with heavy fog with almost the same limited visibility that we had experienced earlier that evening and we couldn't tell whether we were driving up hill or down and had no idea as to where or when we would find a place to pull off the road safely but we did notice that there were now several cars behind us and again no one attempted to pass us as we slowly worked our way around curves and mountains that we could only guess as to how steep and long they were.
At 3 am in the morning we came into a lighted area and looked for any kind of side road or driveway that would allow us to get off of the roadway as we were getting tired and had to get some sleep, was we ever lucky it turned out to be a small Truckstop, Cold as it was outside we decided to leave the van running as we crawled into the back and got some well earned sleep. At 9am Jo got up bought us some coffee and woke me up said she had talked to the people inside and they told her that the fog doesn't usually lift until afternoon their time which would be about 3pm our time and that the fog always lifts slightly above the mountains in the afternoon and descends all the way to the ground every evening at that time of year due to the snowcap and glaciers in the area.
The fog lifts a little earlier and Jo starts out as soon as there is enough visibility to drive safely and we are now headed towards Whitehorse which is about the last biggest town in the Yukon before you reach Alaska. We'll take another break here before we finish this run in the morning. Luck was with us as neither of us experienced any fog so I continued driving on up to Tok Alaska and took a 4 hour nap as she drove over to Gillam Alaska then on over to Anchorage, she stopped and we got fuel again before we delivered the load that morning, As soon as we got the load off we went for breakfast, and took a short tour around the city.
we visited EarthQuake Park and then we drove to the south side of the city and all the way back to where we had breakfast as there was a motel there that allowed pets, we relaxed in the Jacuzzi and I started telling her some of the information I had found in one of the booklets that the motel had in the lobby. Hey did you know that they have the most active volcanoes and the most earthquakes than anywhere else in the world. This information did not please her in the least and after watching the local weather stations report that a winter storm was starting to form and would likely move all the way down as far south as Seattle Washington and as far east as Whitehorse we both decided that any thoughts of visiting the museums, cafes and taking in a few more days of the local sites would have to wait as being stranded in Alaska for the winter didn't appeal to either of us and as the Alaskan Highway is the only route in and out of here we had best start back first thing in the morning while the chances of it still being open and not snowed in would allow us to get several hundred miles of travel in before the snow would catch up to us.
We awoke to the rumbling of Piper cub airplanes taking off at 8 am seems everyone wants to see the mountains from above and are willing to pay $65 to$150 to do so, we packed everything back up and I went down to get some coffee to go and to start the van as it would be warmed up by the time we brought everything back down and were ready to go, but at 10 below zero it wouldn't fire up so I had to jump start it from a spare battery that I keep in the rear side cargo door area, after it started we brought our luggage down and got underway and managed to get about 250 miles in before we stopped for the night at a small garage and gas station that was still open. I asked if we could park somewhere on the property overnight as it had begun to snow and we would rather drive do our driving during the daylight hours and if he would be open first thing in the morning, He showed us where we could park and said the he would be open at daybreak and he would have the coffee ready first thing in the morning and to come on in as soon as we got up. We had a decent nights sleep and took him up on his free coffee that he offered us that morning and wanted to know what route we were going to take back into the USA, we had planned on going on down into Seattle but he advised us that they had 12 inches of snow that had just fallen last night and nothing would be open going down that way, I had to agree with him on his advise as we now had 6 inches of snow that had fallen here while we slept. Jo ask him what he did all winter and he said that they would be closing down for the season next week and that he just lays around and watches television till spring.( Must be nice ) We Thanked him for everything and pulled out onto the snow covered road and headed east.
After about 30 or 40 miles we finally came to where they had actually plowed the snow away well sort of plowed it anyways, Up here they don't plow it all off of the roadway they leave about 3 to 4 inches of snow cover and then they dump tens of thousands of tons of crushed stone on top of this snow and allow it to pack into it forming a stone embedded snowpacked road that doesn't require a lot of maintenance thought the rest of the season. These stones are thrown about as every vehicle passes by and after being pelted hundreds of times by everyone driving by you get to the point of actually putting your hand up as if that is going to stop your vehicle from getting hit with these stones but it becomes a natural habit after a few Big ones hit the windshield, we had a total of 15 chips and one big crack on the drivers side by the time we hit the good ole USA. After traveling on this road for 2 days we noticed that our fuel mileage was getting pretty bad and wasn't to sure what was causing it, We stopped to get fuel for the night and as I was walking back to the van I noticed fuel leaking on the ground,Jo was cold and had started the van just before I had gotten there, we quickly moved over into the parking lot and shut it down, I checked underneath it and the fuel had stopped so we fired it up again and sure enough it was pumping fuel out as long as it was running. I wasn't about to get under it in the below freezing weather and as it was after dark I decided we would wait till morning to see exactly what the problem was and get it fixed, we went to bed and slept till 9 AM. When I checked it out the next morning I came to the conclusion that somewhere along the way the stones had knocked the fuel filter connection loose and after snapping it back everything worked out OK.
One thing we learned from this trip if taken at this time of year is that you'll likely encounter every type of road and weather condition that you can think of, and that they do not put guardrails up unless it is a very dangerous curve or the roadway is along the edge of some of the tallest mountains you'll ever see, if you have a fear of height let your co driver drive, Beauty abounds everywhere and we grabbed as many photos as we could but should you get the chance to make this trip of a lifetime to Alaska Please pray that it's in June July or August if you want a better trip than the one we just experienced and will never forget. We were gone for 12 days ( 7 days deadheading back to Michigan) paid $1,200 in fuel and food, Had to have the windshield replaced as well as one headlight and a chipped turn signal lens and have been ask if we would ever take that trip again? Sure but not at that time of year.
Another fact that we couldn't ignore was that we were without communication from the time we entered Canada and until we got back into the USA our Qual Com never worked and our cell phone only worked in a few places on the higher mountains and the fact that no one talks on the cb made me wonder what type of equipment they use for getting emergency help in a hurry up there. it did make us feel rather isolated from everything.
We hope the we've been able to give you some valuable insight as to what to expect should you ever get the chance to take a trip up there to Alaska, we felt that the Yukon and the Northwest Territories had the most breathtaking views in route and some of the prettiest lakes as well.
We hope you'll enjoy the photos as well, even though a trip like this is a rarity in the expediting industry, should you ever get the chance go for it as it will give you a whole new perspective as to just how large of an area North America is and the vast amount of beauty that goes unnoticed by millions and millions of people who will never get the chance or opportunity to see this country like you and I will by being involved in the trucking industry.
Be safe in whatever you do and especially out here on our highways.
May your loads be long and profitable?
and your layovers pleasant and sweet
until we can get back together
and find some place to meet.
Thanks Randy an Jo
