Got a load out of US Steel in Pittsburgh, PA, so we drove the 200 miles from Williamsport empty to get there. The load was steel coils going to Brownsville, Texas - about as far south as you can go in the continental USA.
Pittsburgh, by the way, is the pits. More hills than even San Francisco, and just as steep. The steel mill we were loading at is buried in the suburb of Allegheny, and there is absolutely NO direct route in or out. Every road is a windy, twisty, under construction mess through neighborhoods, business districts, tunnels, school zones, airports, you name it. Then we overshot the entrance to the place and had to turn around on an almost blind corner.
Once we got to the mill, we ran into our next set of challenges: getting in.
We are used to having to wear PPE (personal protective equipment) like hardhats, vests, safety glasses and boots, so that wasn't a problem, but this outfit has a computerized check in screen, where one scans one's drivers license, then enters a pickup number. Hiccup number one: our pickup number wasn't in the system. Gotta go back out and call the dispatcher. He sets up 'another' appointment, and we wait for about 45 minutes. This time, we got past the appointment stage, then we have the "Safety Test", where they ask 3 safety questions, and if you get any of them wrong, you get 'banned' from the mill for 24 hours. Guess what? Collin was overstimulated at this point, and got confused on a question, and he answered it wrong. Now what? Luckily, we had me. We were able to scan my license instead and go through the whole process again, and this time we passed.
Inside the mill, we pulled up and got loaded by these cranes that reminded me of the big flying things from Tron - you know, the ones that looked like squared off arches and flew along and blasted people and ships and such. Of course, these didn't fly, but roared along on tracks overhead. The noise was very distracting, but we had to tarp the load before we could leave.
Needless the say, our nerves were on edge after the drive in, and then the worry we wouldn't get in and get loaded, and THEN all the noise inside. Alas, we still had to get out of town, which looked to be even more of a challenge. We appeared to be at the center of a tangled web of roads, with no apparent straight shot out. To top it off, it was Friday after work, and everyone seemed to be on the roads. We spent about 45 minutes arguing about routes and dodging cars, when we found ourselves faced with a choice of using the Hwy 43 tollway, or staying on Hwy 51 - both of which seemed to be the 'best' ways to get to I-70. We chose the tollway, since it dropped us farther west on the I-70. Lo and behold, the tollway was virtually empty. It cost us $5.70 to go 18 miles, and we had the place almost to ourselves. I think we had about 7 cars pass us in those 18 miles. Ah! Sweet relief. I guess Pittsburghers are cheap when it comes to using tollways.
We went just a short way down I-70 before stopping for the night. Since we are heading through south Texas, we wanted to make sure the truck was in top shape, no problems, since Texas is known for roadside inspections, and their DOT trucks actually go out onto the highway and pull trucks in for inspections.
