 Hi, this is Robin from Spokane, Washington. You're watching Trucker Josh Vlox on TJV with Diesel Weasel. Thank you everybody from Minot, North Dakota. It's cold out. No, it doesn't rhyme. Why not, Minot? Why not because it's cold? Really, really cold. So we're headed up to Calgary, Alberta. I think that's where we're gonna spend the night tonight. Tomorrow we're gonna go do our Christmas shopping at probably the Chinook Center, which is like a big mall area. We're gonna go do some Christmas shopping. And then we'll deliver our load on Monday in Red Deer. I'm hoping to be able to get a reset in there. We'll see. It's gonna be pretty tight, but we'll see what happens. So I released my video yesterday. It was called Slow and Steady. And in that video, we talked a long time about electric vehicles and solar-powered homes. And I realized that there's a few of you who really don't like to talk about new technologies like that. So we're gonna talk about it some more. Not today. Maybe later. Not right now, though. Found the responses funny. Anyways, guess I gotta give my friendly reminder again that this channel isn't just about trucking. I just happen to drive a truck. That's why they call me Trucker Josh, because it's what I do every day. But while I'm doing this, there's so much more going on in my head. There's so much more in my life than just trucking. I'll show you the sites. I'll take you where I'm at. But we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of different topics throughout the day. It's just like I have been for the past about eight years. Yeah, so if you're coming here expecting exclusively trucking content, you're gonna get a lot more than that. You're gonna get some trucking stuff. You're gonna get a lot more than that, too. We talk about a whole bunch of stuff here. So just a reminder again of that, because there's some people telling me or asking why I wasn't just talking about trucking. Oh, they must be new. That's okay being new. If you are new, hit that subscribe button, hit the bell and get ready for a variety of topics here on TJV. Let's get going. Beautiful, beautiful, my knot. What a beautiful place. All nice and white with snow. It's just cold. I mentioned that. It's cold. That's okay, though. It's okay. We're prepared for it. A couple hours away from the border, we're gonna cross the north portal into Saskatchewan. I should let you guys know, if you guys want, like, exclusive trucking content, there's a lot of great guys on YouTube and girls that make great trucking-specific content every video on YouTube. You know, I saw this channel the other day when I was sort of surfing around, sniffing around, seeing who else was out there. All it does is it shows the road, driving down the road in real time for 40 minutes. No talking. 30,000 to 50,000 views. People like that stuff. There's channels like that. I don't want to be just like, that's their thing. Let them do their thing. On this channel, you're gonna get so much more than trucking. That's- that's- trucking doesn't define my entire life. It's a big part of my life. Yeah, but it's not the only thing in my life. That's not the only thing I want to talk about, either. I live, eat, and breathe. Trucking. Day after day, after day, after day. Sometimes I want to talk about other things, and, you know, this vlog is supposed to be a reflection of my personal experience in life. As a trucker. Turn right. And there's so much more going on than just trucking in my life. Like the electric vehicle thing. That won't get big into it now. You guys got mad at me last time I talked about it. Oh, I was laughing at the commons and just shaking my head. You can't drive along this road for 16 kilometers. So one guy's like, Trosh, you shut up and talk about trucking. That's some kind of entitlement. I've been building my channel here for eight years, day after day, and come on here and tell me what I should talk about every day. So, fair warning. We're gonna talk about other things than trucking from time to time, and this is not a trucking-specific channel. Remind the audience side every couple of months, because you know, there's new people who come on here, and that's totally cool. My vlog is called Trucker Josh Vlogs, right? So I get the irony in that. Like, oh, you're gonna talk about other things than trucking? Yeah, there's a whole lot more to a trucker than his truck, and trucking, you know? That's the whole point of this vlog. I want to show you what my entire life is like. We're gonna lose our four-lane highway here right away. We're gonna get onto the two-lane 52 highway going towards Canada. My air pressure in that tire that we got fixed the other day, because I was under the impression that they replaced the valve stem. They didn't. They just fixed it and stopped it from leaking. So I went to go check the air pressure in there today, and it started leaking air out very slowly again from my, uh, as soon as I went to go check the air pressure, right? They got it to stop leaking out of the valve stem, and it's just, it's got a sticky little, uh, they call that a little tongue in there or whatever. A little bit sticky, probably because it's cold. I got it to stop leaking. I'm wondering why, why didn't they replace the valve stem? I guess you don't have to. I mean, if it's just, if it's fixable like that, I'm just gonna have to keep an eye on it and, uh, probably get that replaced. I'm gonna just truck safety next month. I'll keep an eye on that air pressure and that valve stem. Get that replaced as soon as I can. It's kind of frustrating. I mean, it, it takes a lot out of my day. Like it, it threw around more than just my day when that happened, because the shipper had to adjust their schedule as well. So it'll load me, uh, on a preloaded trailer instead of a live load because I had a flat tire or a low tire because of that valve stem. So going to get that fixed, that takes a lot out of not just my day, but other people's day as well. And I want it fixed correctly when that happens or if that happens, you know? What can you do? It's not leaking right now and I still got good air pressure in there. So just keep an eye on it. I just gotta realize that when I check the air pressure, that little thing in there can stick. If you're back here, it's a great fight north here. In the, the great province of Saskatchewan. Crossing border, entering Saskatchewan, changing time zone. No, we were already in Saskatchewan. What are you talking about? Borders and protection is on the Canadian side. We went through border protection services, gave them our best smile, showed them our ID, showed them our paperwork. They gave me a stamp, sent me on my way. Continue on this road for 33 kilometers. So if you're wondering what it's like crossing the border, just have a few things at the front of your mind or ready to tell them. Okay, they're gonna, they're gonna ask you where you're from. They're gonna ask you where you're going. If you're in a personal vehicle and you're going into the US from Canada or into Canada from the US, they're gonna ask you where you're going, where you're staying. They want to know what your business is. They want to make sure you're not a terrorist in short. So that first of all, they're gonna ask you, if you're coming back to your home country, they're gonna ask you if you bought anything in the other country. Because if you did, there's a certain amount you can buy. You can only buy about $400 worth after 24 hours. After that, you have to pay duty, which is a special tax because then Canada, the government gets jealous that you went to the US and bought all your Christmas gifts down there. So they want to cut of that too and they're gonna charge you if you buy more than $400 worth after 48 hours, sorry, not 24, 48 hours. Under 48 hours, you're gonna have to pick, which is pretty much just sales tax. So if you're gonna go shopping in the US, it's best to make it a 40 hour trip, 48 hour trip. That way, you know, you're not being charged tax in the US and Canada. Or vice versa if you're coming from the US. I'm gonna ask you if you have any alcohol or tobacco in the vehicle. They're gonna ask you if you have any weapons in the vehicle. Ask you if you bought anything, how much you bought, you should have your receipts ready just to show them if they ask. In that case, they'll usually bring you inside, you bring your receipts inside to the person at the desk and show them there. You don't have to, you usually don't have to show them that stuff at the window, but have it ready just in case. And have all this information ready to go. They're gonna ask you how long you are out of the country when you're returning to your home country. Have that information ready. Don't sit there bumbling. It makes you look suspicious. And remember that the people at the window, they're not there to be your friend. They're not paid to be your friend. Like, very often, they're very friendly, with me anyways, friendly people. But they're not, that's not their job. Their job is to, you know, be a little bit of a front line defense. Protect the country and make sure you're paying your fair share of taxes. You know, that's to make sure you're not doing anything shady. All right? Answer them honestly and directly look them in the eye, you know, stuff like that. But don't stare them down, you know? You know what, you know what you're doing. Just don't be suspicious. I remember when I crossed the border like every week, a couple of times every week, so I sort of get used to it. You know, the people at my regular border crossing, they know me already. Doesn't mean that they're going to just give me a free pass. They still treat me just like anyone else. But, you know, they recognize my ID. I'm in the system that I cross there regularly. Some of them watch my videos, I'm pretty sure. Because how else would they know my dog's name is Diesel? They let it slip sometimes. They're like, oh, so how's Diesel doing? Like, how do you know his name? Caught you. But obviously they're not going to treat me any differently. They still give me random searches every now and then and all that other stuff, search my load and, you know, waste their time looking for a contraband and stuff like that. You're not going to find anything, but go ahead, go ahead, random selection, go and search Trucker Josh. At least you know that you won't have to do much paperwork because you're not going to find anything. Right? It's pretty simple. It's pretty simple. Don't record yourself going through the border like your interaction with the person at the window or anything. The Canadian side, there's no laws against it. But, you know, nobody likes being, I just wouldn't record it. The US side, there's actually laws against it. You can't go there and record the conversation you're having with them, which I don't really like because they can record me. Why can't I record them? So how do I prove that I was treated fairly or unfairly if that would ever come up, right? Whatever. They don't like cameras. Just put your cameras away. And definitely don't secretly record them. That can get you in trouble. Anyways, that's the basics of crossing the border. You know, where are you going? Where did you come from? How long are you going to be there or on your way back? How long did you stay? How many days? What did you all buy? What's the total amount of goods purchased? Any alcohol or tobacco? Any firearms or weapons? Okay, now if you have a pocket knife or like a Swiss Army knife or something, make sure you always refer to it. It's a tool. It's not a weapon, okay? It's a tool. They understand that, but if you have a knife along like a machete, that's not a tool, okay? That's a weapon. Make sure you claim that. And if you get brought in, you get searched, they ask you. Do you have anything on you? And if you have a Swiss Army knife in one of your pockets, make sure you tell them and slowly hand it to them. Okay, just make this common sense, right? Common sense. They got to deal with a lot of crazy people and they don't know you. So they don't know you're a normal person or a crazy person. They got to assume the worst and protect themselves. So just same thing with dealing with police, you know? Just let them know what you're doing, be honest with them, straightforward, not really a stressful experience. Nine times out of 10 going through the border. It's a very pleasant experience. I would say even like 9.9 times going through the border. It's a pleasant experience, at least for me. And that's that. But here we are in Saskatchewan. This is the province that is directly above western North Dakota and eastern Montana. It begins at the 49th parallel and goes all the way up to what parallel is it up there? Northwest Territories. It's a pretty big province. The main focus here is agriculture, as you can see. It's a prairie province. Down here in this section, there's a lot of oil being dug up, too, right out of the earth, sold to the market. A lot of potash and very friendly people. It's Ryder Nation. They love their Saskatchewan Rough Riders. I've talked about that before. Okay, you got nothing good to say about the riders. Just keep your mouth shut while you're here and you'll be just fine. But if you want to get their favor, just compliment the riders. Just say, man, those riders, what a great team. You'll make friends with anyone. You want to know how I could prove we're back in Canada? There's no overpass over the train tracks anymore. And look at all that oil moving. Whoo! You know, there was a train just like this. It was calling crude oil recently, very close to here in the same province, like last week, last month. It was recently derailed and it was a really bad spill. It lit on fire and it was a huge fire and it made a bigger mess than one of the biggest pipeline spills that we've had. So it leaves you scratched in your head. There's so many people out there standing in the way of us building pipelines to transport this same crude oil, right? They don't want us to put pipelines in the ground. They would rather us transport it like this. And you know, trains derail. It would be so nice if we had another way of transporting this oil without the risk of derailment. You know, a cleaner way of transporting oil. Like a pipeline. Wouldn't that be nice? No, we gotta ship it across the country in these things. Man, the train must be heavy. It's going east right now. So it's obviously coming from, probably coming from Alberta. Who knows where it's going? It's going that way. Somebody over there needs some oil. These guys are bringing it. You know, train engineers or train drivers, as you might say. Very similar to me. You know, they do the exact same thing I do. They just, like each one of those train cars is almost two of my full payload or my full loads. So let's look at the pounds on the side of these trains. The gross vehicle weight or the gross weight is, what, 185,000 pounds or something? 180, 190,000 pounds? Each train car? And my gross vehicle weight is, in Canada, here's 87,500 pounds. 87. So he can haul each one of those trains, train cars, is 100,000 pounds heavier than my whole truck. Fully loaded. Each one of them, he's hauling like a mile of those things. So train engineers, they pull a little bit more product than we do. It's just, it takes a lot longer to get it to market. You know, everyone would ship their goods by train if they could, right? But it takes a lot longer. You've got to load the train, you've got to put the train together, slowly snaking across the continent. You've got to unload the train, put it on a truck. It's much easier to have a personalized delivery, just put your load on a truck like mine and they can zip it right to you. Way faster. That's my specialty. I'll get your freight to you faster than the trains can. And it's also a lot more personalized then, right? I picked the freight up straight from the shipper. I delivered straight to you. All you've got is me in between, right? On a train, you have, oh, who knows how many people in between you and your shipper, right? The shipper loads it onto a truck, which brings it to a train yard, which sits in the train yard from it. Then somebody else loads it onto the train and then the train brings it across the continent. You probably switch train engineers a couple of times along the way. And then somebody else takes it off. The train puts it in the yard and somebody else takes it from the yard, puts it on a truck. And then that truck brings it to you. You've got all these people in the mix. When you use a trucking company or when you use people like me, just one person, I go pick the load up and bring it straight to you. Much quicker, much more convenient. You should use trucks, if you say it.