Highway to Heck

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission



        There is a road in California that goes straight from Bakersfield to absolutely nowhere, 10 miles north of San Luis Obispo. This particular stretch masquerades itself in every atlas as a winding country lane, gently meandering around a few hills and maybe a little river on it’s slow way west.
        This is how it lures its prey.
        I am sure that in a car or on a motorcycle, the drive is pleasant though somewhat narrow and twisted. This is mere speculation. The experience was quite different in a semi. Particularly memorable when hauling two flat bed trailers piled with drywall.
        I had to get to San Luis Obispo by 7:00 am to a construction site that actually needed about 500 sheets of drywall. The weight of the truck was 25,000 pounds empty, and the drywall came in at just under 54,000 pounds, putting me just under the legal limit of 80,000 pounds.
It was about 8PM when I stopped for dinner in Bakersfield.
        Side note: there is a saying “when on the road, if you want to know where to eat, go where the truckers eat”. No. Truckers eat wherever there is a parking lot big enough to park the rig. Period.
        I had just finished two rock-hard biscuits covered in lumpy grease masquerading as gravy. Looking at the atlas I saw that taking the interstate would bring me miles and miles out of my way, and I wouldn’t have gotten much, if any, sleep before I had to make the delivery.
        Then I spotted the solution. Like an insect looking at the lure of a venus flytrap I pointed and said, “that’s where I want to be.” I took off down the road anticipating an hour or two of a pleasant drive before taking a well-deserved nap.
        After the first twenty minutes or so, the realization slowly dawned that there were no other trucks on that road. After another ten minutes, I began to notice that there was no one else on that road. Blessedly oblivious to all this implied, I shrugged and settled in for the drive.
        The first sign of trouble was probably the single lane, hairpin, no warning, suicidal, widow-maker curve. The one my headlights didn’t catch until I was halfway through it. That one.
        I had already slowed down considerably by then, as the road had persisted in narrowing for some time, but 40 tons, however slowly moving still requires some effort to stop.
        A semi uses airbrakes; the tractor (the actual part where I sat) in front of the trailers generates the pressure. The tractor tends to selfishly reserve most of the pressure for itself, and sends the trailers whatever is leftover. Thus, the tractor tends to have a little bit better stopping power than the heavier and bulkier weight it’s dragging.
        Take a deck of playing cards and set it down on the top of a table. Now bump the table so that the cards lean into an angle. Now imagine that instead of cards, you’re actually looking at 54,000 pounds of drywall, each sheet arguing with its mate over which way the truck had actually meant to go.
        The straps I had tied the drywall to the trailers held, but when I was loaded up at the drywall factory, they had left a considerable gap between stacks on the trailers, giving them just enough room to rearrange themselves into a more comfortable position.
        I was now grateful for the lack of other traffic, as I had to stop in the middle of the road to tie it all back down again.
        This meant removing the tarps.
        If you have never seen a tarp used for a flatbed, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. One of these tarps could be easily used for a six room camping condo. They weigh nearly as much as a Buick and handle like lead sheets. They are put on and taken off by climbing on the top of the load (which was now roughly akin to rock climbing an avalanche while lugging this tarp) and literally kicking the end of the mess over the side of the load. Entire process on a solid load: about an hour. Entire process on a scattered load, in a totally black, moonless night in the middle of nowhere with coyotes, Gila monsters and rattlesnakes: about three.
        It was now midnight. The words “witching hour” kept running through my mind. I wanted more than anything to run back, but the road was too narrow to turn around and the shoulder was so soft I would have flipped the truck had I ventured onto it. There was nowhere to go but onward. This time, I kept it to 20MPH. I still had about 80 miles to go. You do the math.
        Fortunately, within a few minutes, I no longer had to worry about a soft shoulder on the road. Now there was no shoulder. I had climbed Mount Olympus. I call it this not because it was so grand, but because the road hadn’t widened any more than 8½ feet wide and there was neither guardrail nor shoulder nor anything else but air between me and a drop of about 35,000 feet. It could have been ten feet, it could have been 50,000 - there was no way to know in that stygian darkness. Besides ... the only difference would have been how long I would have had to scream before I hit.
        Did I mention that the width of a semi is 8 feet? I had three inches on each side to spare. I was going slowly enough now that I didn’t even disturb the vultures gathered on my truck in anticipation of breakfast.
        At about 3AM, I had been bathed in sweat for so long I ran out. I had been climbing that winding-sudden-death trail for so long, airplanes were passing below me. Even the vultures were getting bored. But the moment they had been awaiting finally arrived: There was a hairpin turn - without any shoulder.
        As I remember it, it was like the road stretched out over the void of space. There was nothing on either side, and a rather high penalty for mistakes.
        The truck I drove actually consisted of three parts: the tractor and the two trailers. In many cases this makes the turning radius smaller. Saying smaller for a semi is like saying you got hit with a low yield nuclear weapon. You have to drive forward quite a ways before you can start a turn, and there wasn’t much forwards to have.
        There is a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes, and I had a sudden rush of religious fervor when I cam to this turn. To this day, I don’t remember getting through it, but I do remember it was nearly dawn by the time I did.
        I started going back down hill after that, the little blacktop-covered-deer-trail never widened nor grew any shoulders, but somehow the idea of going downhill make a difference.
        Finally, as dawn streaked across the sky, I ended up on a flat surface. Not only flat, but also so much wider than my truck, I felt I could finally breath again. I got out for the sole purpose of pealing my hands off of the steering wheel and ripping the shirt I wore off the back of the seat. The vultures flew away, disgusted with my success. I was saved!
As I got out, I realized that I was parked on a bridge. To call this engineering afterthought a bridge is only to acknowledge that there was running water beneath it. One could easily give the same high sounding name to a piece of cardboard.
This structure was a simple cement slab, spanning a rather energetic river. That was all. I could only pray it was reinforced.
        All 80,000 pounds of my vehicle was centered on the very middle of this thin slab. The vultures came back. This time they brought a bottle of wine.
        Getting off the bridge was the only time I exceeded 40MPH the entire trip.
        I had to climb back up to get to San Luis Obispo, but by now there were so many trees that I was sheltered on the cliff side. These same trees, while tall enough to ignore cars, were not tall enough to avoid the windshield of the semi that plowed between them. Still, it was daylight, so I was doing better.
        Until opposing traffic started showing up.
        There were about six cars all told, each one voluntarily drove into a ditch. I would like to think most of them did so out of a sense of generosity, allowing me room to pass.
        I suppose complete terror and surprise could have played a part too.
        I emerged on state rout 101, a sensible road with four lanes and a shoulder wide enough to park on while I tried to remember how to breathe.
        I called my dispatcher when I made the delivery and told him of my harrowing adventures, the disgruntled vultures, the bridge, driving through outer space, and the horrible night I endured. I added harmony and background violins to my sad tale of great woe and ultimate manly driving prowess. I finished my epic, prepared for anything he would tell me.
        Or so I thought.
        All he said was “Ok, I have another load for you to pick up. It’s in Bakersfield.”