Keep on Truckin' 12-12-09

So many different shapes and sizes of trucks carrying so many different commodities travel our highways - I am always intrigued by them.

This truck in northern California is hauling shredded wood from a lumber mill, perhaps it is going to a paper mill or will be used somewhere as mulch. I remember when I was growing up in Portland during the war, and after, we burned sawdust in our furnace. The cheapest fuel at that time and easily obtained. A large truck would deliver it through a chute into the basement which had partitions to form a sawdust "room" for storage.

Only five logs on this truck, because of their size. But they are really pikers. The common load in the 40s and 50s was two or three logs. And frequently only one huge log was all the truck could haul. They were still cutting old growth forest back then.

This is a more common load these days.

Haven't any idea what these huge black pillows were carrying. They wiggled, so I suppose it was some sort of liquid. The signs on the truck gave no indication.

Highway construction markers make a colorful load. Unfortunately the traffic was stopped all the way across Hwy 210East due to an accident immediately ahead. I was the second car back, behind a big SUV, so I didn't have to look at the accident scene. After about twenty minutes, while I read my book, the CHP started the traffic moving again. I didn't look to see what had happened. I am always so afraid that the" looky-lous" are so busy looking they will run into me, so I watch the traffic. This was one of five accidents I saw on Monday, surely the worst.