Profile For Paul J.

Thanks for the responses. I'm still heavily pondering the idea of going into the truck driving life and a nice, quiet run to Anchorage and/or Fairbanks on a regular basis would be decent.

For those of you considering a run to the North, be SURE and get a current copy of The Milepost book. It tells you where everything is, and I mean everything, along the Alcan or the Cassiar Highway. It changes every year too.. Different places shut down, that kind of thing.

Pay close attention to the little orange flags on the side of the road. Depending on how many there are, that how bad the bump in the road will be.

Here's an interesting tip. If you're heading North at the beginning of Summer, get your fuel on the North end of the town you're going to fill up in. For South bound late in the season, hit the most southern gas station in the area. Reasons behind thing? The traffic headed North in the early season is full of RV'ers and they're sweating bullets looking for gas, therefore, stopping at the first place in town and filling up. Hence, the station sells a lot more gas than the one on the North end of town and can charge a lot more for it.

When the rv'ers are headed back to the South, the opposite happens..

There's a LOT of wildlife and most of it comes out later in the evening when all the RV'ers have pulled over to camp for the night. Wildlife ranges from bears, to caribou, to moose..

If you don't stop anywhere else to relax for a few hours, the ONE place you'll miss is Laird River Hot Springs.. Just hope you don't mind smelling loke you've been eating nothing but hard boiled eggs until you can find a place to get a decent shower. On that point, the campground across the road has a shower available but, the water there smells worse than the hot springs..

I've driven the ALCAN 7 times during moves with the military, sometimes having the wife drive a 2nd vehicle while I pull a trailer full of my own stuff.

I recall seeing trucks going both ways but, never managed to catch a name of the company they're working for.

Are those trucks just supplying stores along the ALCAN up through Canada and back or are they hauling to Anchorage and Fairbanks?

I know household goods go by ferry or boat to and from Alaska and then loaded to trucks for their final destination.

Any information on running the ALCAN would be greatly appreciated.

I live right across the Big Ditch from you up in 'the Couve. Just off I-205.

So last year, I went to a School Bus Drivers training school (figured I could get my CDL started that way) and they mentioned at the start that if anyone didn't last 6 months, they'd have to pay for the training they received..

Day one of training consisted of filling out a few forms here and there. Then the "instructor" handed a stack of paper saying "Take one and pass it on.." for a total of 8 pages of text.. No pictures, just words..

Then he tells the person in the first seat to read the first 3 paragraphs out loud, and so on through the rest of the class and all the pages.

THIS was a major part of their training!

The next day, I called and said "I'm sorry but, I was offered a job and I'll be accepting that instead of driving a bus."

Some other things they mentioned was ways to get more hours... One was filling the fuel tanks on the busses or washing the busses... driving for football games or other sporting events..

I've been seriously looking at buying a 14-16' box van and doing moving with that.

CDL is recommended from what I read here but, not required.. unless you want to move up in the world of transportation. I want to drive something where I can take my dog with me to work and make my own wages.

I'm retired military and the VA has said they'd pay for me to go to a CDL training school but, is there any companies out there that will hire someone with a shiny new drivers license??

I'm up in the Pacific North Wet along the I-5 corridor and wouldn't mind running up and down that route.. Maybe the Western states if it comes to that. I've also driven the ALCAN to Anchorage and Fairbanks a total of 7 times and that would be a great run..

Any ideas or suggestions??

Currently I do floor plans and drawings for people wanting everything from outhouses to 4,500 sq ft houses.. I did Engineering work for 20 years in the Air Force, any time I had a chance, I was operating heavy equipment.. but.. I'm tired of sitting in a room in my house looking at a computer screen. You drivers have got the best screen there is.. You get to see the country every time you're behind the wheel.

I stepped out of engineering for a year or so and starting buying, repairing, and selling small engines (i.e. lawnmowers, weed eaters, chainsaws, etc), had a step van I picked up at an auction for $1,600 and drove it home. Had plans to make it my mobile shop.

Wife poo-poo'd all over that idea.. Sold the step van 2 years later for $3,800..

I'm thinking I'm going to get back into fixing them again. Gives me a lot more satisfaction than drawing lines on a screen..

I've got a Uniden 40 channel if I recall. I also run a Bearcat Scanner and an ICOM 706 vhf/uhf ham radio. The CB and the scanner have individual antennas while the Icom has a Hygain with multiple "stingers" I can swap out to work the different HF bands as well as a 2 meter antenna. So basically an HF antenna with 10, 15, 20, 40, and 80 meter bands and a 2 meter antenna for the HF side.

The 20 meter is the one I'm usually running on my truck when parked because it'll slap every bridge or overpass I go under because of the height of it.

The 706 gives you something to play with when you're parked. I was in Fairbanks, AK one time and hooked up a 20 meter dipole (wire) antenna between two tall trees and worked into Europe and had about 10 different ham operators trying to get ahold of me. Most of them are trying to work all countries/states and Alaska is a tough one to get.

In my AM/FM radio, I have a plug in where I can connect my cellaphone and I can listen to Pandora for free nationwide. Gets a little hard to pick up anything on the ALCAN because. well, basically they don't have a lot of cell towers up there.

I'm right there with you on that idea Robert. Take a look at this website and there's a ton of reading on there that will help with your ideas: https://bestfriends.org/resources/how-start-animal-sanctuary

My idea is to buy a decent sized piece of land for an animal sanctuary. It'll have a "Night drop-off" pen out by the front gate for those people that are too ashamed about give up their friends for one reason or another.

I'll get as many disable vets to come work out there as I can find. I'll have a 5 or 6 man team taking down old barns and reusing the wood to build small cabins that they and other vets can live in while they're there.

I'll build at least one large barn to begin with so the critters have some place to stay dry and warm during the winter or rainy seasons. Lots of acreage with dog runs, pastures for horses, donkees (Great livestock protectors), sheep, goats, etc.. Decent sized Chicken Coop area for fresh eggs. Maybe a couple of dairy cows for fresh milk.

The Pit Bulls will more than likely have their own kennel area until I can determine if they're dog friendly with other dogs..

Absolutely No-Kill.

If someone wants to adopt a pet, the pet will be taken to their house by one of our workers to make sure they have adequate fencing and shelter for the animals.

I'll probably pick up a couple of horse trailers to help out on large rescue projects as well.

That website will give you a lot of ideas on how to raise money and collect donations for food for all the critters. It also talks about how to read what an animal is feeling, as in sad, happy, lonely, that kind of thing.

I've been able to download about 130 books on training and working with dogs and I plan to get involved with some of the organizations that take dogs and teach them to be assistance dogs. A friend of mine wants to do something along these lines but with her horses, allowing disable vets to come out and work with the horses and learn to ride them.. Horses for Heroes is a great organization to learn about that part.

Along with dogs being available, you can also get retired race horses from local horse racing tracks. They put them up for auction and if no one buys them, they load them into the meat trucks. Heck of a way for an animal to be treated that brought so much joy to so many people and is still capable of offering a great ride with a little bit of training.

Sorry to go on and on about this topic but, it's one that's very near and dear to my heart.

My tag line on all my emails says the following:

Saving just one dog won't change the world, But, it will surely change the world for that one dog.

Wife and I want to open a state of the art pit bull rescue facility. Indoor and outdoor play areas for when the weather is bad and I've designed a custom rig that I could use to go pick up vetted pitties from high kill shelters to give them a second chance at a real life.

Quick Update. Swift now allows dogs but, expect to pay $1,000 to have your buddy as your co-driver..

(I wonder how hard it is to teach them to back into the docks?)

Swift's policy is to not allow pets on board.

I know, Lewis' friend needs an ESD. Trucking is a rough business. I think one ESD on board won't be enough.

Well that's not too bad then. I had a shepherd/Husky mix many moons ago that ate the back seat of my Expedition. Luckily I found a guy on CL that had one the same color and he was just selling the seats. He was a great dog except for eating that seat.. Oh wait, he ate my Lazy Boy seat as well. He was still a great dog.

The pet deposit isn't lost. You'll get it back, as long as your pet doesn't eat the interior or soil the interior. It's just a security deposit.

I've noticed this forum has 1278 pages of posts, some going as far back as 5 years. I've read where most truckers don't make it through their first year.

It'd definitely be interesting if we could look at the names of the folks that have been posting all this time and see how many are still on the road.

Kind of figure out what the numbers are like on this forum.

We might find them a bit higher here because of the support and guidance this forum offers but, there's still going to be a good percentage that probably aren't around any more.

So I always cruise Craigslist and I've always love the old cabovers and found this setup.

It's a 98 FreightShaker and has a Detroit 60 motor supper 10 transmission drom 40 24 set of trailers may separate.

I'm thinkin with those two trailers, you could haul some pretty decent loads.. Maybe a few cars, lots of lumber, etc.. etc..

They're asking $28k for the whole setup. No idea on the status of the engine, miles, etc..

I'm sure I'd need a doubles endorsement to run this rig..

What are your thoughts?? I've included the link to the add as well. If one of you guys or gals jumps on it, that's fine. I'm just tryin to see if a rig like this would work. I see the old cabovers hauling connex boxes between Seattle and Portland almost everytime I get on I-5. Most of them look sadder than this rig.

Is that a good motor?? Looks like it has 2 large gas tanks on it. Anything else you see?