My Day as a Rocker

The restrictions my current locale puts on my social/gym/shopping/etc life is usually made up for when I settle myself into my 30 tonne Volvo A30D. I Hear that diesel engine fire up and feel the sheer power and grit as I make my way in rocky, muddy, slippery, steep - you name it - terrain and it just makes me smile.
When I have to back up into a tight spot, or manoeuver myself under the bucket of a percariously placed hoe - and I nail it - its actually rewarding. So the cold days, the "i'm-sure-violating-some-health-code" outdoor bathrooms, the crap gym with the cables about to snap on the Universal, and the 12x8 room with the 12 inch tv that has no batteries for the remote, are made a little better when I toss my bag up then climb the stairs to my (heated!) seat a few feet above the rest of the world and start my day.

Waiting to be loaded. The line of trucks stretches all the way around that curve and into the pit.
Where we get loaded. See that safety berm to the right? Its very narrow and yields to a straight drop of about 30 feet. Very high probablility of an incident - and not just a 'slip, trip or fall', but a serious, possible injury incident. We have to use extreme caution using this roadway.
If you see that first hoe, (now this arrangement can change within a trip around the pit - which takes 5 minutes btw) we'll get loaded there, and keep straight. Thats easy. But when the hoe moves to the left, and we have drive or back in, making that left hand turn back onto the road is, sometimes, downright scary! This was SUCH a cold morning!!

My shadow. Aren't I cute?

Mmmmm... A balmy day

The John Deeres that nobody wants to drive .... We like our Volvos.

Getting our boxes 'scratched'. The load freezes and sticks to our boxes and every once in a while, we have to go to a hoe to get them scratched. So instead of using our radios to tell someone they need to get their box scratches, there are some pretty interesting hand gestures in attempts to enlighten the other drivers.