 Morning everybody. We got this beautiful package to deliver today. There's another guy right on the other side of me. I don't know who he is but he's got the same kind of package so he's going to the same place. But he got here 20 minutes after me so I can get going 20 minutes before him. So we're not going to waste any time. I'd like to get unloaded first. Some stretches. I'm going to be a bright one out so I got the shades out. We're in Deer River, Minnesota. Now we have about an hour and a half, a little less, to get to Brainerd, Minnesota. I'm going to get this package off my trailer and I'm going to wait to see what's next. The fun thing about trucking is you don't always know what's next. Very often you know what's immediately next but you know the future is a mystery. It's an adventure. You never quite know where you're going to be going or what's going to happen. All you know is it's going to be fun if you like this kind of lifestyle. I mean if you don't like trucking it's going to be terrible or you're going to hate it. But if you like it, I mean not everybody likes the same stuff. This is the kind of stuff I love. This is what I live for. I love trucking. Other than my family, this is what I love spending my time doing and spending my time with the truck and on the road meeting other travelers, meeting other truckers. If you can balance that, you're going to have a pretty good lifestyle I think. Pretty good life. Every job has a little bit of sacrifice, you know, and there is a lot of sacrifice more than the average job with trucking we have to admit. But for those of us who love the job, it's a lifestyle that we enjoy. Most of the time, I mean not every trucker is perfectly happy. I miss my family back at home too. Of course everyone does. We all have depressing days. We all feel like quitting some days. We all feel like we're not going to be able to do it or we all feel like we're not good enough. We all have those days. So when you feel that way, don't feel alone. Because even I have those days. But the trick is to pick yourself back up and to just keep going. Eventually, you know, you get back home, you see your family, and you feel good about being able to provide. And about doing a job that you actually enjoy. Because doing a job that you hate isn't only bad for you, it's bad for everyone around you. Because you'd be a miserable person. Waking up every day, your whole life doing something that you hate doing would be very difficult. So find something that you love to do. It doesn't have to be trucking. For me, this happens to be what it turned out to be. But find something that you really enjoy doing and do it and do it to the best of your abilities. Be the best person out there. Be the best worker. Be the best trucker. Be the best cop or the best accountant or whatever you want to be. Always do your best. Anyways, enough motivation for the morning. We're about ready to start moving. I don't want this guy to move before me and get unloaded before me. Then I gotta wait. Alright, we can get moving and this guy's already opened his curtains. That means he's getting ready to move soon too. Gotta beat him. I'm sure our trailer's gonna come with us. Wonderful. The trailer brakes engage. The trailer brakes are released and the trailer is attached. For a quick go, it's kind of nice having such a short commute in the morning, you know. Get out of bed and one step forward. Boom, you're at work. Cut out all of that annoying traffic on the way to work. I mean, the most traffic I have on my way to work is when Diesel's with me and he's standing between the seats. I won't get out of my way. But you may have noticed Diesel's not with me on this trip. So we tried that thundershirt, right? It did help, but it didn't do enough. He didn't have quite a panic attack like he has in the past, but he still definitely got completely stressed out, became kind of confused. Even when we got him home, it took him a full day to completely sort of recover and start eating properly again and acting like himself again. So I don't know what's going on with him. I mean, he is an old guy and I just think that the trucking life may be something that is not for him anymore. And so I don't think you're gonna see Diesel with me much anymore on the road, unfortunately. It makes me very sad to say that. He's very happy at home though. He's got tons of energy, eats all his meals properly. He runs around in the yard, plays with Chevy, rustles him down to the ground. He's very happy, but you know, I think there was a good comment in yesterday's video or the one I released yesterday. It's a couple of days ago. You know, Diesel drew up on the road with me. It's all he knew and he was very happy. You know, when I got married and then he started staying home a little bit more because he was having a little bit of panic attacks on the road, right? He was stressing out his anxiety was going up. So I left him at home for a little while. And I think he really, really enjoys his family life at home. And I don't blame him. He deserves that, right? He deserves to have a happy family. He lived with me on the road for nine years, nine years. So you know what? In the last few years of his life, he deserves to have a good family life at home. He's got a good mom. He's got good brothers. He's got a big yard to play around in. I think Diesel's fully retired from trucking. I may take Chevy with me on a short trip here and there, but he's not really a trucking dog either. He's a family dog at home. So it may just be me out here to loan some trucker out here on the road. But don't worry. Once my kid grows up, he's going to be born in less than five weeks. Holy smokes. Five weeks. Once they're old enough to come with me in the truck. And I'll have my kid with me on a few trips during the summer if they want to come with me. I hope they do. Because I used to go with my dad on the truck in summertime and I really wanted to have that experience with my kids too. But you know, it's up to them. If they're not into it, that's, that's cool. I always love trucks, always. So that was my thing. But I'll take them with at least on a short trip here. They've got to at least experience it before they make a decision, right? They make experience. But that'll be a little ways down the road yet. It'll be in the vlogs, don't worry. Don't forget to subscribe. Got a whole lifetime ahead of us yet. And you know, in a way, not having Diesel with me, it sort of frees up some of my time here on the road if I want to think selfishly. Frees up some of my time and makes it a little bit easier not having to stop and walk them all the time. But I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because I enjoyed that. So yeah, I'll save some time on the road. But that was time I had no problem spending with him, you know. It is what it is. You can't blame him. He's got a good family at home having lots of fun every day. Driving a truck is fun. Being a passenger in a truck isn't always as fun. We've arrived. Nobody in front of us. So I'll quickly run in there, see if they're ready. And we get to take our tarps off inside and unload inside. Which is always very nice. What isn't nice though is how often my glasses are dirty. Not very nice at all. Okay. Oh, that's nice. Okay, let's get inside. Let's get it done. Beautiful day. Beautiful day. We could walk out here and not freeze on the way in. That is always a good day. Just about finished. Gonna get these last couple of lifts off and we'll be out of here. Outside the building. Maybe a quick walk around. Make sure that I didn't leave any tarp straps or anything on the step deck here. Don't want to have anything fly off into traffic while I'm walking around. I'm just going to give the tires a little boot just to make sure that they're filled with high quality air. Lights are all working. Nothing is on the deck. And I can roll down the highway and feel assured that everything is as it should be. Now, if you want to do a more thorough check on your tires, you'll check the air pressure. Or you'll hit them with a hammer or a tire whopper, whatever you want to call it. And that'll actually, you can tell by the ring of the tires, if there's good air pressure in there. That's a good way of doing it too. Kicking the tires like I'm doing it isn't exactly the most informative way to learn about the state of your tires. But I'm just checking now to make sure they're not flat. I checked them this morning. I don't always check the air pressure every day, but you learn to hear it when you hit it with a tire whopper with a hammer. You can hear the tone of it when it goes, if you got one that goes like, different tone, and you know, air pressure is different in that tire than the other ones, then you get out your pressure gauge and you check. But I mean, honestly, I don't do that every single time I stop right now. I just want to be double sure that all of my tires are inflated and not flat. Because when you have duals like that, you don't always feel it right away. When you're going down the highway, if one tire is flat, like remember not too long ago, I had the inside tire that was flat. I would not have known until that thing heated up and blew apart and ripped off my, my, my mudflap hangers, like damaged my half fenders, like did some real damage and have a real bigger, like a much bigger problem, right? So a lot of these little tips and tricks. I know a lot of you drive truck yourself. And these tips and tricks aren't really for you. You know these things. I know that I'm preaching to the choir half my audience, I'm preaching to the choir. But there's also a lot of people that watch me that don't drive trucks or that are thinking about driving trucks or, you know, just starting off. So remember, I don't consider myself a trainer. I'm not here to train you on how to do things. I'm just an entertainer and I'll show you the way I do things that makes life a little easier sometimes, like how I'll tie something down or, you know, kicking the tires, walking around or how you want to check air pressure. I can give you little tips and tricks. I've been doing this for a little while for the new people. I've been driving since 2006. And I've been over the road doing this, what I'm doing now since 2011 with small little breaks here and there in between took a year doing city work and stuff. But I've been driving trucks and around trucks my whole life. This is what I do. But I don't want to be responsible for training you. That's what the trainers are for. They get they get paid for that. And that's their job. And they're good at what they do. Hopefully, hopefully the trainer you got is good. I mean, I've seen some at other places. All the trainers that I know are really good. And they want to help you. But I'm just here to entertain you and show you how things are and how my life is on the road. That's why it's called my trucking life. I mean, it's not your life. It's my life. So both of our lives on the road are going to be different. There's like a million of us truckers out here in North America. And each one of us is different. Each one of us sees the world a little differently. And I can only show you the world and what I do through my eyes. So I like to remind the vlog of that every now and then, just so that people remember, you know, when I say something, I always reserve the right to be wrong and corrected. I'm not afraid of being corrected. I don't think I know everything. Sometimes I get things wrong. And then people correct me and I look it up and I go shoot, I was wrong. That's why you got to watch every day because I'll correct myself the next day. If I did, if I said something that wasn't quite correct the day before, depending on what it is, I mean, I could always go in there and cut that out. But I'll most likely correct myself in the next day. But I try to stay away from the training topics and stick more to the showing you. Look at the world. Isn't it beautiful? Look at this truck. Isn't it beautiful? Look at that truck. Isn't it beautiful? Look what I'm doing. Look what I can do. Okay. We're going back up to Canora. I got another one of these coming back down tomorrow. I've sent it before. This place here is like my favorite place. This is one of my favorite runs. It's simple. It keeps me close to home. And on both sides, the guys are just great. The shippers and the guys who load my truck. The receivers here are great guys. I love sitting here just chatting with them. I mean, if we didn't have stuff to do and have work to get done, I could sit here and chat with them all day. But you know, I've got to get my stuff done. They've got to get their stuff done. So it's nice to come visit them, you know, every once in a while. This week I'm coming back again tomorrow. So I got to see them twice. That's good guys. Let's sort of get to know who's unloading you and who's loading you when you go to the same place over and over. I really like that. And since we get to tarp this with a big machine up in Canora, and then here we get to untarp indoors, it's the best possible tarping situation you could ask for. I mean, tarping is never exactly ideal. You do it because you have to and because it's requested, right? It's not like we wake up in the morning, we're like, yeah, I can't wait to turn my load. Can't wait to roll up these tarps and lift these 80 pound tarps up onto my deck. Whoa. No, it's we do it because we have to. But when you have a situation like this where you get to do it inside, oh, it makes life so much better. And it's actually pretty enjoyable. You know, it keeps you want to do some physical work. You don't want to just sit in your seat all day. So this gives you the physical work you need because you'd exercise you need while still keeping you out of the elements and out of the cold out of the rain. I really appreciate that when they do that for us. It may seem like we have an easy job. Well, all you do is hold a steering wheel all day. You know, that's how some people treat the job. That's for sure. But that's not the way I treat the job. There's a lot more to this job than just holding a steering wheel and keeping the rig on the road. I mean, that might be the most important part is keeping it on the road. But there's so much more, especially on flatbeds, especially on flatbeds. That's why when you get into trucking, if you're new and you're starting off, I would recommend start off on vans. Just easy, just a dry box. You know, get to know the feel of the truck. Do that for a year or two through all the seasons. Get to know the feel of the truck and how to drive the truck itself, how to become good at driving it. If you can drive a manual, it's even better. That's a good skill to have. Even though a lot of trucks nowadays are coming out automatic. I like I like manual better. Here's you a lot more control over the truck, especially in deep snow and stuff. You know, start on that and then you maybe reefer that adds a little bit of responsibility, right? Because now you don't just got a dry box. Now you have a temperature controlled trailer behind you and you have to make sure that that thing stays at the proper temperature. That's not something I have a lot of experience in. I'd try it one day, but maybe we'll get a reefer division one day. Who knows? It will buy out a company that has a bunch of reefer contracts and you know, start doing reefers. I think that'd be kind of kind of an interesting experience. It's like dry van with extra responsibilities, right? And loading and unloading is a bit more of a pain on reefers. You got to make sure your trailer is clean and they often only load you or unload you in like middle of the night and like after God knows the angels are sleeping, they want to work. But after reefer, you know, you can get into flatbeds. And once you get good at the basic flatbed stuff, you can do more specialized stuff. And then you can do wide loads, oversized loads, and you just keep building up your resume, keep building up your experience. And once you get to, and don't rush it, and I've been doing this, like I said, like what, 15 years now? Somewhere? I'm learning something new every day. I have the rest of my career yet to keep learning. And once I'm done, there will still be things that I'm learning after I'm retired. I mean, oh, I never thought of that, you know, 40 years of trucking, that's a way better way of doing that. Always, always keep your mind open. I'm not better than anyone else. I'm not better than you. I may have a little more experience in some areas than it may be better at specific tasks because of the experience I have. But you probably still know a lot of things that I don't know. Maybe you're not a truck driver. Maybe you're a doctor. Well, you're definitely better than me at doctoring, at being a doctor. Because you imagine, or a surgeon, oh, like thinking of like, all that. Oh, I would not be a good paramedic or doctor. I can't handle human blood for some reason. Animal blood is fine. Oh, yeah, that's fine. But once it comes out of a human and you see like, I just, I'm not supposed to see the insides of people, okay? That's why we have skin wrapping it up and holding it inside. We're not supposed to see that. So my wife, y'all knew where this was going. My wife's getting a C-section for our first baby. And I'll be there. I'll be right there. But I don't want to see that part of it. I'll be standing right by her head. I'll be keeping her as calm and comfortable as I can. But when they do the surgery, keep the curtain up, doc. I, show me the baby when you got the baby, okay? I want the baby. I don't want everything else that is not supposed to be for my eyeballs, okay? That's a good thing. They're professionals and it's a pretty simple surgery and they're good at what they do. And I don't think my wife has anything to worry about or fear and they'll, everything will be perfectly fine. It's just, I don't like seeing blood. Okay? We all have our things, all right? I'm not perfect. Not the manliest man, I guess. A little bit of human blood and I get all, that's just me though. So I wouldn't make a good doctor or surgeon. So thank God for you doctors and surgeons out there. Shout out to you. If you're a doctor or a surgeon, leave me a comment down below. Thank you for what you do. Thank you because I couldn't do it. So I'll make you a deal. When you need stuff, I'll bring it to you, okay? And when I need to be fixed, I'll, I'll come to you, okay? Deal? Right on. Let's get moving. Going back to Canora. Canora's not getting any closer. This guy, this guy was about to leave and he cut in front of me as we were leaving. I hope he's not going back to the same place I am. I don't want to follow him all the way up. International Falls that way. Ding dong to you too. This is Big Falls, Minnesota because the falls here are so big. So watch out. Wear a helmet. But you're going to fall big. Just left Fort Francis, Ontario. We have 212 kilometers left to go. It'll be dark by the time we get there. I'm going to fuel up a little bit in Canora just so that I can get back down to the U.S. So I'll fuel up my tanks completely there. So I got to Canora and I put in 150 liters of fuel or 39 U.S. gallons. Now we're going to round it up to 40 just for an even number. And that gave me just over a half tank. Now the weather is supposed to be very mild throughout the whole next week. The 10-day forecast looks amazing. I'm not worried about it getting too cold. So I'm just over half a tank now. I'm going to get down to Minnesota tomorrow. I'm going to fuel down there for a cheaper price. Up here we're paying about $1.99, $2 a liter Canadian for fuel. In the U.S. with exchange rates and everything else included, they're paying $1.59 per liter, Canadian fuel. So I'm saving almost 41 cents approximately. About 40 cents per liter. I put in 150 liters here. Tomorrow when I get down there, I'm probably going to fuel up for about 500 liters. If I know my truck, let's be conservative and say 400 liters. Okay, it's probably going to be more than that. But you know, if I'm saving, let's say 40 cents per liter and I'm buying 400 liters, that's $160 I'm going to save by fueling down there tomorrow. So you can add that onto my page. It's like getting an extra free $160 tacked onto my check. This is a for-profit operation, everything I'm doing here. All right, I have a family to support. We got a new baby to support. Have I mentioned that yet? I mentioned it in every vlog. I'm very excited. I have to support my family. I have to put food on my table. I'm not running a charity. This truck is not a charity. It's not a non-profit. This is a for-profit operation. And if I'm going to make more money by fueling up down there, that's exactly what I'm going to do. End of story. Thanks for watching my vlog today, everybody. I had a lot of fun. Tomorrow we're going to be going back down to the U.S. to Minnesota, visit our wonderful friends down there. They're very, very kind people. Can't wait to go and visit again and then we'll see what we have on the plate after that. So we'll be up here first thing in the morning. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe, hit that like button, and we'll see you tomorrow.