 Hi this is John from Plymouth in Devon in the United Kingdom. You are watching Trucker Josh's vlogs. Got a CB but you're too far away Josh. Drive safe. Morning everybody. It's Monday. It's early. I guess well not anymore. 7.30 that's not early. It feels early. So that fire that ripped through a couple of businesses in Steinbach yesterday was a little more devastating than we thought. It's a total loss. The whole building's gone and there's a pet store in the building. Now I didn't think they had any pets in there. I thought it was just a pet food store. Turns out there was actually quite a few pets in there and most of them died and didn't make it out. The fire crews couldn't get to them by the time they were there and that's the saddest part for me. No human life was lost. Buildings can be replaced but when life is lost you can't just replace life even if it is pets. I've always had a little bit of a soft spot for animals. Maybe more so than some people but that's what's sort of sitting with me this morning. Kind of sad about that. Makes me sort of think of our boys you know if there was ever a tragedy at our home or something or no one would be able to stop me from going in to get my dogs. I don't care. You're gonna have to shoot me if you try to stop me from going in to save my dogs okay. You're gonna have to shoot me. I will go in there and I don't care what happens to me. I'll go in there and I'll get my boys. Just like if it was your kid or your family member inside still. Who would be able to stop you from running in there and trying to save them right. Anyway I'm gonna do a little pass by the area here. They got the fire all out. I just wanted to see the results of it on my way out be a little bit of a nosy neighbor I guess see what see what the damage looks like. It's terrible for these business owners. I'm sure they have insurance. You have to have insurance up here for that but that's that's not something that you can say to people like oh well you have insurance. It doesn't work that way. There's gonna be months now probably lost business and lost revenue all of the employees that worked at these stores are now out of a job. You can't just rebuild a building so you have insurance. You can't just rebuild a building overnight. There has to be an investigation now into what happened and then they have to clear up the site and then you know get new building permits and then hire a contracting crew to build it. They could who knows how long it'll be before they can get their businesses up and running again. And you know I'm a business owner myself now too. Well I have my online content which is a registered business with the government but I also have a physical business which is my trucking business because I own my truck now and if I lost everything yeah it would be devastating and it takes a while for things to go through so my thoughts are with them all the business owners and their families and all the employees. It's a rainy day. Glad I tied the load down yesterday. Got it all ready to go. Okay you can still see the smoke in the area here. Just gonna turn my vents to recirculate for now because there's also a paint store that burnt down and they're saying the smoke can be toxic. I'm not gonna stay around here very long but there's a lot of people who live in this area too. It was right on Main Street like right in the heart of the town. Let me just off here to our right. I don't know the business owners personally but I feel their pain today. It's a tough one. A little bit of a change of plans. I still have a little lumber behind me but it's different lumber. It's actually the exact same lumber but it's on a different trailer. So it is actually different lumber. It's the same type of load but it's going down to Des Moines, Iowa instead of just a Fargo. They have a nice reload for me out of Iowa and this will keep me busy until Wednesday. Remember I got to be home on Thursday. Very important. IVF transfer with my wife. So I've got to be there for that. So we're just pulling into the Flying J. How many clips do I start with saying that? I shouldn't even have to tell you. You should just know. Oh he's probably going to Flying J. We're in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Just gonna grab a coffee and get a little food in the truck. I don't have any food in the truck right now and that always makes me a little bit nervous. I don't need fuel yet. We're actually doing really good fuel economy. The wind has switched and it is now coming from Canada and pushing me south. It's been a really good day. I always think that this whole area in here, like in front of the pumps, is a huge waste of space. It's all paved so it cost a fortune to pave it. But you can't use it for parking or anything otherwise you're blocking in the pumps right? You can park here though. Hey straws cheaper. I'm here all night. Find a parking spot. I'm gonna run in and grab this coffee. Oh they're building something back here. I wonder if they're extending the parking lot or what? I think this is all parking up here, right? Or is this handicapped parking? No, just that one is handicapped parking. This one is regular parking. Or is it paid parking? Shoot. I think that one was paid parking. Whatever. I picked this one now. Too late. I don't see any markings on the ground that say that I can't park here so I'm gonna straighten myself out a little bit. That was a bit of a funny turn that I took. I have myself in nice and straight between the lines because this is the US of A and they paint lines even though they're pretty faded here but most truck stops you find in the US are paved with nice lines parked for the parking so you know exactly if you're in the lines or not. Now don't get me wrong most truck stops in Canada are also paved but that's a new thing. When I first started trucking long haul in 2011 the trucking scene as it were was very different back then in Canada. Since I've started in 2011 there has been huge leaps forward in truck stops in Canada. It's been very nice to see. The Petro Pass, Petro Canada truck stops have expanded, they've renovated, they're doing well. Husky was bought out by ESO and they've revamped and renovated most of their locations as well which has brought it up to the standard of everything else and I believe this all started when Flying J entered the Canadian market. They entered around 2010 2011. Right around when I started it was still very new then or maybe it was slightly after. It was around that time and I remember when Flying J came up to Canada they built truck stops like they do exactly like they do in the States here right. They're identical and they had clean showers, sanitized showers. They had you know easy access, paved parking, beautiful truck stops right which probably in the US you just took for granted like that. It was just normal. In Canada it blew our minds a little bit. It was like wow look at us. Oh we're getting places and I really think that them entering the Canadian market really forced all of the other truck stop chains in Canada to really up their game because they don't want to lose their business to an American company. We're friendly with our neighbors. I understand it is an American company and I'm a huge fan of Flying J and you know maybe I should be supporting Canadian companies. I do like Petro-Canada. I got a fuel card there as well. I go there quite often. It very nice stops up there but I really think that they all really had to up their game to compete with Flying J. Flying J came in with American money and that was big big money. A lot of money in the US and it really forced them to the market to get better. So now I mean we got great truck stops everywhere. I don't know if that has anything to do with it but that's sort of the what I've always sort of thought figured because it was all around the same time but maybe maybe it would have happened and maybe it would have improved without the presence of Flying J. It would be nice to see more Canadian truck stops become as big as the American chains. We don't have the population to support such big billion trillion dollar companies but you know at least it's an American company and you know not some company from overseas that has nothing to do with us like some Chinese company or something. I don't see how that would ever work. Who knows? Who knows? I don't know. I'm gonna go inside. I'm trying to put my shoes on right now. Grab myself a coffee, get some food and we will continue our journey down to the great state Iowa. I owe you a video of my trip to Iowa. See what I did there. I remembered my blankets this time and I even brought a better spare one than the spare one I had in here. It's all these crumbs. Really? How would crumbs get on my bed? I don't even eat back here. Anyways, we're set. Got myself a cheese burger hotdog thinger and two tow tornadoes and a rib sandwich for later. That's in the cooler. Sat. Point of coffee. Yeah, it's in a coffee. The most important part you might say. Let's get out of here. This is not gonna be my half hour yet. I'm gonna stop for a half hour a little further down the road. Maybe for supper. We'll see. Shall we? Beautiful day outside. They have a long combination units in North Dakota here too. That looks like 248 foot trailers. So it's not quite as long as ours in Canada but that's still pretty good. That makes sense because like North Dakota is like the prairies of Canada. It's wide open. Why not let them have two trailers between certain areas like not everywhere but down the highway like just makes sense. Get ourselves back on the highway. The next morning we drove through the whole night. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We went to sleep. So my night is over now the next day's beginning so we're gonna continue it a little bit in this video. We're gonna include the delivery. I gotta go into Des Moines which is not to sleep with the sounds of the highway right beside me. Absolutely beautiful. It was a long day yesterday. It was. But we did make it all the way down here into uh would this be southern or central Iowa? A little north of Des Moines. This lumber's got to get off my trailer. It's in the way. I have another load I want to put on here but I can't put it on there until we get these sticks off of here. Old Blue has been running great. Knock on wood. Which has fantastic vending machines with very delicious cookies that I had for supper and pop tarts that I'm gonna have for breakfast. Not be healthy but it's convenient. Started up Old Blue. Just getting the juices flowing, getting the oil flowing, the coolant flowing. Karen set up here. Make sure that she knows what she's talking about. I don't want to miss my delivery. I need to get unloaded as quickly as possible. I have a reload over in Davenport that I have to be there for. I miss this. If I miss it today they're gonna load me tomorrow morning and then I'm gonna have a really hard time getting home for the transfer. Like the biggest day of our lives and our marriage for big. So I have to get loaded today. Tomorrow's video but I wanted to complete today's with the delivery. Lumber Company in Des Moines, Iowa. It's coming from Meadowlake, Saskatchewan. Canadian lumber coming down here. Alright let me check your work here. Always double check what my GPS says the road is. I have a Grand McNally truck GPS. It's pretty good. It's a little bossy but it's on truck growth usually most of the time. You catch her in a what are you thinking moments before you get on the road and suddenly she's like hey take this way. This is the best way and you're looking at it. You're like that's not the best way. That is clearly a low bridge. We gotta get on the same page. Sort of have like a team meeting first thing in the morning. Too much you remind them. I'm the boss. You work for me Karen. Screw up too many times. I'm throwing you out the window. You're replaceable. How was that? Was that going too far? Was that very boss-like? I'm sorry Karen. Maybe I went a little too far. Don't get mad at me and lead me somewhere else. You gotta be careful with them too. You know you upset them too much and they they mess with you. I was just kidding Karen. You're a valuable member of this team but I'm still the boss. Sure now she's got nothing to say. As soon as I get on the road and I busy occupied with traffic then she's gonna be yapping her mouth off. It's a hot one. We're here at the lumber yard where we got a deliver. Don't want to get run over now. But you can see me. Oops, wrong one. Do I know how to put this on? Alright so they're just gonna swing past here and show them my paperwork. We're just gonna confirm that I am at the right place. There's no other lumber yard around here so this better be the right place. And then once they confirm that I'll take my straps off and they'll take their lumber off. Undone them on the other side. The way I do it I'll take them off like this. Hang them all up along the side here. Get it all off here so we can start unloading on the other side. And then I go and bring them all to the front here where I can roll them up. What it looks like when I'm ready to start rolling them up. And I go get my strap roller. I hook it onto my trailer right here. And roll them all up. Put them where they belong in the headache rack. And once we're all empty, my straps go in the center one. These wires need to be fit. They're just for these lights up here. They're supposed to be hanging up here a little better. But the short ones here. Medium size are longer and long ones on the bottom. This is how this was when I bought it. I got to figure out is this supposed to be screwed in up here or it's up there right? It comes down sometimes. I'll work on that. Just little things. There's always little things to work on. We're ready to go. And the last thing I do before I'm ready to leave is I bring my tarps from the back. That's the only place I could keep them. To the front. I guess I could have put them on top of the lumber in the front but whatever. I had them at the back. Nothing wrong with that. But I bring them up to the front here. Just in case people get sneaky and they want to take them from me at night or something right? I wake up and I can feel it when people jump up on my truck or on my trailer up here. I don't feel it as much when people are messing around at the back. It's never happened to me before. It's probably not very likely to happen that someone takes your tarps. But I like to keep all my equipment and all my personal stuff as close to me as possible. For you today guys, we're gonna go pick up that load tomorrow and tomorrow's video. Well today for me tomorrow for you. So I hope you enjoyed it. If you did hit that thumbs up button. Share it. It helps me out a lot and it's free to do. Leave me a comment down below. It helps with the algorithm and stuff. Tell me what you'd like to see more of. What can I do better? How can I make these videos better for you? I always like to hear what you guys want to see. I'll see you tomorrow.