Trucking Stories
Las Vegas
VIIIVVIIVAAAA LLAALAAS S VEGAS!!!
So what happened is: In some little town outside of Calgary we picked up a shipment of pre-fab housing panels, destined for a retirement complex in California. What, amazingly, our company had neglected to discover was that the panels were all oversized; they hung off the back of our flat-deck trailer by a good four feet. When we phoned to tell them this it took them by complete surprise. What, you didn't bother to check? Considering that it's your job to know this stuff, how does something as important as this slip your notice? [lest you think I'm unkind... let's just say this is not atypical]
So why does this matter to my partner or I? Because oversized loads require individual permits for every province and/or state traveled through. Each province/state has its own set of by-laws regarding the times and routes you may drive. A common one is: no night driving.
Driving teams like to be on the move 24/7; it's how you make your money. Both my partner and I are in a foul mood because, of course, this wasn't discovered until we made pickup late Friday afternoon with government offices about to close for the weekend. Instead of making delivery Monday morning, we can now expect Wednesday.
Driving as much as possible, we ended up in St. George, Utah. It was Saturday night around 7.00p (local time), three state permits and two days short of our destination. Our plan was, having gotten as close to the border as possible, to spend the weekend in shitty restaurants and shitty bars grumbling about our shitty job.
That is, until my partner made an observation. "Y'know, we're only about two hours from Las Vegas." He looked knowingly at me.
I thought about this, then returned his glance. "Y'know, it's only the trailer that doesn't have the proper permits."
Now the decision wasn't immediate. We spent a good fifteen minutes agonizing over the potential consequences. I mean, considering how we had been stranded in a joy-less state, without pay, and weren't expected to talk to the office until Monday, didn't we have some sort of moral obligation to sit tight and not have fun? After said deliberation, we dropped the trailer at a truck stop and drove the truck through Arizona, into Nevada and spent Saturday night in the capital of sin: Las Vegas!
A memento of my Las Vegas adventure.
You can see my co-driver, Claude, just behind me
Drinks there are so cheap! We parked the truck in a parking lot for a mere $10/night [considering we slept in the truck's bunk beds, this sure beat any hotel] and wandered onto the strip. Every casino in sight was hocking drinks for a dollar or giving them out free if you took a chance at the huge-ass slot machine located next to every casino entrance; trying them was also free. We spent most of the night on Freemont street, which has an enormous tv-like screen covering the entire roof of the street (car traffic is blocked off; pedestrians only). Bright, animated, music-filled shows - lasting a few minutes each - play regularly.
I spent perhaps $5 at the slot machines and perhaps another $6 on drinks. This, combined with numerous free drinks, leaves my recollection as to how much I actually drank beyond my ability to recall. So both my partner and I were completely loaded. We stumbled around from casino to casino, admiring the beautiful girls, collecting whatever free items they would give us and profusely mumbling about how we each liked the other guy as a driver.
We were going to go into a free nudie bar on Freemont street until we discovered that the "free" bar had a mandatory three drink minimum (at a price of $8.50 each). While hanging out at a casino we ran into a rather talkative drunk who was recently divorced, had apparently won a shit-load of money at the tables and seemed to like the fact that we were Canadian. Next to my partner was a (very) old chick who like the fact that he was Canadian. I laughed at him in low enough tones that only he could hear my amusement. The drunk guy decided we should all go to a strip bar, and he was buying. Yah! [Why the strip bar theme was running through the night, I cannot say. I've actually never been to one.]
On our way out we stopped to watch a comedy show playing on a small stage in the casino. When it finished we hailed a cab and after my partner ensured the cabbie was taking us to "one of the good bars" we were off. Turns out that if our newly acquired drunk friend had actually won it big, he certainly didn't have any of the cash on him ("Just check with the hotel, they have it on my tab!"). So we left him there. Or maybe we gave him a lift back to the strip, I don't remember. Either way, we soon ditched him and I was left with the cab bill [sigh]. After enough time had passed, we made our way back to the truck; the Casinos (open 24/7) had outlasted us both. We collapsed into our respective beds and called it a night.
Sunday morning we woke up and realized something: Damn! But it's hot in Vegas! My partner took a picture of a thermometer reading +40°C. When you're Canadian, that's hot! (Have you ever stuck your hand out the window while driving at night? Usually it's cold, right? While approaching Las Vegas we tried this: it was warm. Really warm. Did I mention this was at night?).
We grabbed something to eat. Then my partner wanted to find the Golden Nugget Hotel (I guess it's somewhat famous), which we did. There was an outdoor area, inside the hotel, which had water jets spraying a cool mist into the air at all times - and you can just go in there, whether you're a guest or not. We must have laid there a full two hours; admiring the women and enjoying the sun. I left my co-driver there and decided I would investigate the Casino. I lost $20 on video-blackjack and video-poker, but made $20 on the blackjack tables. Then I got a kick-ass shrimp omelet and went back to the truck.
Sunday night and we're back in Utah. Monday morning we get our permits faxed to us and no one's the wiser. I guess being a trucker ain't all bad.
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