 Hello, this is Todd Taylor, the Vanjo Man coming to you live from my studio from Nashville, Tennessee to Spartanburg, South Carolina. When I'm touring or no matter where I'm at, I love watching Trucker Josh TV and thank you Trucker Josh for pulling that freight from Canada to USA and everywhere you go. Without Truckers, you know, we wouldn't have a lot of food or anything. May God bless you. Safe travels. Good morning, good morning everybody. We're here at the Shipper. We slept here overnight. There's five of us drivers from regional here, all picking up loads. And like I said yesterday, trucking is trucking. Things always change. I was told I was going to Waffenton, North Dakota, this whole time I've been saying we're going to Waffenton, we're going to Waffenton. Now I get my load info through here. I got my pickup number. I'm getting loaded next. And it says I'm going to Buxton, North Dakota, which isn't nearly as far. Buxton is just between Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota. It's a much shorter ride. It's only two and a half hours. So I wonder if the address on my information here is Buxton, but it actually goes to Waffenton. I'll have to figure that out yet. But if we're just going to Buxton, that's not a very long trip. Sometimes they do this. Sometimes the address that is, it's the ship to address. Sometimes the person or the company who bought the freightment or paid for it is in a different location than where you're delivering it to. So it's the consignee and then the ship to address. I'll have to figure that all out once I get rolling here. But if it's just Buxton, we're just going on a little joy ride today. And I guess we'll have plenty of time for our walk. Look at it that way. Gotta write all the info down into my records here. I think anytime now they're going to ask me to pull into the yard. We're hauling big rolls of like plastic pipe. Big rolls of it. I'll show you, I'll show you in a bit. Let me get loaded and then we'll get on the way. That's what I was talking about. Load to these all week back and forth. So these are going to Buxton, North Dakota. There are others that will be going to Waffenton later this week from what I've heard. So that's what's going on. So you have to use two inch portable straps on these. You have to be very careful because you can't, you got to tie it down tight enough that it's not going to fly off, obviously. And you got to tie it down light enough or gentle enough that you're not going to damage these things. Because if you, this is hard plastic, if you crush that in, they can't use it. So we have that pipe in the middle protecting it as well. Two inch straps, portable ratchets, one on this side, one on that side on each bundle. And to get them through there is a little bit tricky. I'll show you. You got to have really good aim and a little bit of baseball knowledge. I was a pitcher once when I was a kid, I think for one season. I was a sidearm now. You know what? I'm a sidearm pitcher. All right. So I'm going to have to hold this while I'm holding you guys, okay? Because there's nowhere to place you guys over here. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to hook you guys in here. Okay, let's try that again. All right, you ready? Okay. I'm going to go to and right through just like that. And it went through all the way through, right? Yeah. The harder one is up here because you sort of got to take a, like, like you're doing a volleyball spike. You got to jump and spike it through there. I played volleyball too for a while in school. I really like sports. Hockey was my favorite though, obviously. When you fail, you look around to make sure no one saw you. Then you try again. Second try. Anybody see that? The only thing about, uh, you know, hiding yourself in a way like this, that people don't see when you fail is they also don't see when you win. That's okay. This is here. Go to the other side and ratchet them down. These are the, uh, portable rack. It's right here. This is what we use. You see now, came through on this side and there and there all the way down. Shouldn't take long. These are very light bundles. Very light plastic. All hollow. So you got to be careful not to squish it, right? Very light load. First make sure that it works properly. If it doesn't, you got to, uh, grease it up a little bit. There's no fun fighting with an old rusty winch that doesn't want a winch. You take this from the back like this. You open it up and you give it a tongue. You push it through like that. See, it's like you're sticking his tongue out at you, right? And then it chomps down on his tongue. That's the way to do that. Little silly analogy, but it's a good way for new guys to remember, uh, which side to put it in. Don't put it in through the front. Too tight, but tight enough. Too tight, but tight enough. I'm not going to go anywhere, but still. We'll do the same thing for all of these down here. North Dakota took a little while to get across the border. I had to wait about an hour at Duty Free for my custom clearance to go through. Usually it doesn't take that long. There must have been a holdup somewhere, or maybe it got lost in the shuffle over lunch hour at the broker. I don't, I don't know what happened or how that works. All I know is I send my paperwork away and they, it gets cleared at the border for me. I don't actually have to take care of that process. I figured eventually, and here we go, rolling on down to Buxton, which is just past Grand Forks. It's about another hour and a half down the road here and we turn around. We'll go back and grab another one tomorrow morning. We'll get there tonight. We'll get back tonight. It's actually a nice little rounder. I was kind of hoping to be going to Wapden just because it's more of a full day that way, but that'll be later this week, according to the shipper. We'll see. I know they're moving about 20 loads a day, so we're busy. A big yard with lots of these rolls. I've got one, two, three, four, five of them. I'll have another five tomorrow, another five the day after that, and after that, and after that. That's all I got left. That cardboard sits between the pipes and this corner here, just so that they don't get damaged. And I take this back and I reuse it on tomorrow's load. We're in Fargo, North Dakota, just filled up fuel at the Flying J. Fuel cost right here right now is $1.74 Canadian per liter, and that's $4.79. $4.79.9. $4.80 US for US gallon. $1.74 per liter, though. That's not too bad. Not too bad at all. Cheaper than back at home. We're about to head out on our walk. Three consecutive days in a row. I'm going to try to get another five kilometers, three miles in today. We're not that much further south from where I live. I'm about maybe what, two hours south, like 200 kilometers, 120, 150 miles south of where I live. And look at these trees. All the trees here are perfectly green, and I'm out here in the evening in a t-shirt. It's warm. It's almost hot. This time of year you can see how the cold weather line moves south. You know, we're probably a couple of weeks ahead of Grand Forks here, and then it slowly moves south. Grand Forks, Fargo, you know Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Kansas City. And around Kansas City is around where the the snow usually usually stops in my experience, right? Sometimes the snow is south of there. Sometimes it doesn't. It's coming guys. It's already where I live, and it's it'll be here soon. Get your jackets ready. So some trees are losing all their leaves here in Grand Forks. I spoke too soon. Still, most of them are green though, right? Yeah, I live so close to Grand Forks. I've never actually explored it. I think I'm on 32nd Avenue right now. There's a hobby lobby over there. I think there's a Walmart over there, so it's like a it's a big avenue through town. It's not like I'm actually getting a good glimpse into what Grand Forks is all about, but I just have a nice walking path, right? Hello, Shadow. You keep ruining all my shots. This tree is the two and a half kilometer mark, or the one and a half mile mark on my journey today. I'm gonna turn around right to the sidewalk and then head back. Kind of fitting. It's right at uh what's that sign say over there? Fit Body Boot Camp? I'm headed all the way to the boot camp. Now I'm headed back. So I just went on a straight line east down 32nd Avenue from uh, I think it's 32nd. I should confirm that before I tell you guys, from Flying Jay and Grand Forks down that same road straight east one and a half miles, 2.5 kilometers. Now I have no choice but to complete my goal for the day because I got to get back to the truck. The only way to do that is to get my three miles in. Right up here it'll say, yeah 32nd Avenue South. We went from just west of the I-29 down 32nd Avenue South all the way to South 24th Street back there. So my pace is about a steady three miles an hour, five kilometers an hour, because I can do this in pretty much exactly one hour. And I'm not wearing any fancy fitness gear. I'm just in a regular t-shirt and jeans and work shoes. Those are seal toes. Just keep it simple. Don't get all gotta spend all that money on all the fancy fitness clothes. I mean walking shoes would probably be comfortable. We'll get there eventually. For now, I got shoes that's all I need. Technically I don't even need shoes but it makes it a little easier. There's the Flying Jay sign over there. Way in the distance. We're almost there. Just got a crossover I-29 on the home stretch. It's all downhill, literally after this bridge. They're better than the first night, that's for sure, with that blister I have on the bottom of my foot. Right near the toe on the bottom. It's not getting any better. It will yet, don't worry. I'm not worried. She's gonna keep trucking along, keep on going. It's got to get better sooner or later, right? Okay, got myself a coffee. Got myself a truck. Got myself some diesel fuel. So let's go burn it. My exercise in today. Feeling fantastic. Three days in a row. Nine miles this week already for those of you keeping track. Or 15 kilometers. Of course there's somebody coming right now, isn't there? She's gonna wait for me. Thank you driver. I'm in my convex mirror there. Good thing for those, or we'd have a lot of blind spots. Those mirrors are priceless. They are worth every single penny you pay for them. A lot of people put them on their hoods too. Not me. I like the look of the hood the way this is. I don't want to mess it up by putting big goofy mirrors on there. I can see. That's why I have that window right there. Whatever mirror, whatever I could see in the mirror that would be on that fender there, I can see through this window here. And I've also got a mirror up there that I can see down. So I can see just as much and the truck looks better in my opinion. I wasn't sure if I was going to follow through with it on the road. You know, I really want to, but I know me. Hey, does anybody know what those blue lights are on top of the traffic lights? You see that one right there? I don't know if the fish eye lens it might not pick it up. Like I just went through a red light. It just went through a red light. When the light is red, there's a blue light on top of the light standard that lights up as well. What is that for? You guys saw that pickup truck too, right? You got the yield, my friend. Trader Josh is the right way and I will use it. Interstate I-29 Northbound. What do they call it in French again? Travaux. Travaux. Got a red light and there's nobody on the other side of this, but we still have to stop, don't we? Probably should. I don't know if it's on a sensor or a timer. It's probably on a timer, right? Or is it on a sensor? I see a little red light. Obviously that red light, but beside it, there's another red. Aha! Maybe it is on a sensor. My turn. You have to wait. We're just about back in Carmen here. What, 10 miles just north of here, just around the corner? You just park at the customer and get loaded again first thing in the morning. It's pretty quick getting loaded and unloaded. Like honestly, they had us loaded in like 15 minutes. Maybe another 15 minutes to tie it down. Maybe half hour, 45 minutes. It'll be a little quicker tomorrow now that I know what to expect. 100 meters. Turn right on. Highway 3. And then at the receiver, down in North Dakota, literally 15 minutes. 15 minutes and I was out of there. A really good road to have. I like it. It's gonna be a good week. Carmen, come on. Don't do me like that. Dang it. The one stop light in Carmen, I thought I was gonna get a green. Be like, oh, Carmen likes me. Why don't you like me, Carmen? I think this is Main Street that I'm on here. It's got some fancy lights and poles up ahead here. It makes me think that this is the main drag of the town. Have you guys ever been to Carmen, Manitoba before? It's off the beaten path. TransCanada runs north of here. Doesn't pass through here. So usually if you're in Carmen, it's because you either live here or have a reason to be here. Sort of like Steinbeck. That's why I kind of like where Steinbeck is located. It's very close to the main areas of travel, right? But it's off the beaten path. If you're in Steinbeck, it's because you want to be in Steinbeck, not because you're just passing through for the most part, unless you're going like a small town somewhere. Like I just turned his high beams on there? Well, maybe not. Is that the bowling alley? Yeah, I guess bowling alley is closing down. Everyone's going home from the bowling alley. A hot place to hang out in Carmen. There's a lot of people there. Maybe it was a party. So this is the main street that I was referring to. Very fancy. They have a crosswalk. Very nice. How many people you think are in Carmen? I'm guessing four thousand? Two without? Two to four thousand? I don't know. Google it. Am I right or am I wrong? Two to four thousand. I mean, I know that's a big gap. I'm gonna go with three thousand, right in the middle. I think we need some more chrome on this dash. I mean, what do you think? I'm gonna have to remove this phone mount, though, when I do that, because I'm gonna need that space. That's okay. I'll find a different place for it. For now, that's... I think so. I think there's some more chrome over here, more chrome over there, some more chrome up here. I think we need some more chrome in this truck. What do you think? We're here. Let's see what we can see. It's very dark outside. Ready for round number two tomorrow? Back here. Empty trailer and a whole bunch of rolls back there. Can you see it? It's not really picking up. It's too dark outside. It's 9 30 in the evening. They only start loading at 8 30 in the morning, so we have some time. That light's in my mirror here, this bottom one. There's two in there, right? The bottom one burnt out already on me today. First trip. So I got it replaced right away and bought some extra bulbs, just in case. It's those incandescent bulbs, right? That's why I didn't want incandescent. I was like, burn out. LEDs don't burn out. Just a fluke, just a faulty bulb or something. We'll see how long the others last. They're just the, uh, a little round like license plate light bulbs. I think they're called 67s. $5 for two of them. They're not that bad. I'm gonna head back to the sleeper. I've got some time to edit this up and maybe watch some YouTube, TikTok, whatever else I can waste my time on. Back there is going to be great. Thanks for watching today, everybody. Please don't forget to subscribe. If you like it, chances are your friends might like it too. Tell your friends about Trucker Josh. Tell your friends and, uh, give me your opinion. What kind of chrome should I put in this truck? Okay, honestly. Give me your opinion. What kind of chrome should I put in here? Right? I'm thinking about getting a different steering wheel too. I saw one at the, the TA. I think it's TA or Petro in Rochelle, Illinois last time. I was there when I was running with my father-in-law. It was, what, the same as this? Except it was a blue steering wheel. Would that be too much? I don't, I think it would match very nicely with the blue lights. Old blue, blue steering wheel. All of this obviously isn't gonna happen anytime soon. Here's been some unexpected expenses that have shown up at our house. We had to get that new hot water tank installed. That was unexpected. Joy. We also have to still deal with our crawl space. We have a solution for that. Brown's plumbing and heating is going to help us with that to get the humidity down. We've got a nice big dehumidifier that's going to be built into the house and drained directly into the sewer. They're going to help us out with that. I guess it's not unexpected, but it's inconvenient of an expense. And one of our windows cracked at home. I've never had this happen to me before, so we have to replace the window and we got a quote on it and it's going to be a little over $1,500 with installation. So that's an unexpected expense. We knew that that window, it's been cracked for a little while, but who knows, hoping it would get through another winter. It's just a crack, right? But then it cracked further for reasons we can go into in another video. I think somebody broke it. It wasn't Britt. It wasn't any of the dogs. We had called another glass company to come and take a look at it because it was just cracked, right? We wanted to see what they thought of it. Somehow, after they looked at it, it was broken. I'll have to show it to you when I get back home. I'm not very happy about that. They didn't even ring the doorbell. They came all they're supposed to do. They're supposed to come and measure the window, take a look at it and get back to us with a quote on a new window. Well, we came back. They didn't ring the doorbell. They didn't even let us know they were there. But they were there. They admitted they were there. And there are two chips that you can see a tool made into the window close to where the crack was that broke it further. And now the window has to be replaced as soon as possible because of whatever they did. But we don't have any proof because they didn't ring the doorbell. But we know it was them because there's tool marks on the window. So we're pretty upset about that. Maybe we'll talk about that in a home time video sometime. That'll be a good rant. That'll be a really good rant. I don't like to call people out and leave bad reviews on YouTube. I don't want to, I don't like to do that. I like to give good reviews. But maybe we'll see. It's getting fixed now. Another company came and gave us a proper estimate and they're going to get it replaced for us. And they've been treating us very well so far and we're okay with the quote they gave us. It's going to be a different kind of window. It's going to open. The current window doesn't open. That's on the house. Anyway that's an expense we weren't expecting. So there's that. So some of the improvements on the truck have got to go and hold until we catch up with that and get that all done. And then there's a few other projects that have to get done because we're hoping to be able to start building on our land maybe next summer. We're really hoping to at least get the foundation started. Again, a topic for another video. But the foundation of our shop is what's going to go up first. So we can get that done next year. That would be great. But building stuff isn't cheap. I'll see you tomorrow. Take care.