Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Sticky Situation

This was an early morning run we did for a customer.  We even called twice to double check the directions because we had a "bad feeling" they were wrong!  Boy were they ever.

It was dark, foggy and rush hour...and here we are at the bottom of a steep hill with a 2 ton elevated bridge to our left and a cement wall dead end in front of us.  


What you can't read because the photo turned out blurry is that these are EMERGENCY VEHICLES ONLY  and PEDESTRIANS ONLY signs.  Of course they are posted at the bottom of the hill where they really didn't do us any good.  (I know we told them we were in an 18 wheeler/tractor-trailer)


We couldn't have made this corner if we wanted to!


The endless stream of cars squeezing past us while we wait for a patrol car and more guards to control traffic so we can back out of this lovely little spot.


He had to back up the hill (about 7% grade) weaving back and forth between the low hanging branches (he did miss them both on the way down and up, but we took out several cones).  Then blind side the truck and trailer into the highway.  All of this while me, several guards and two patrol cars tried to control both the pedestrians and cars.  The cars where easy to control. They just blocked them from coming forward with the patrol cars.  The people on the other hand, kept darting around us and into the path of the truck!  You would think all the flashing lights and the big truck coming at them would make them think twice, but nope. (more Darwin Award candidates)


If only we had come in during the daylight after the fog had lifted a little, we never would have driven down into that horrible place!


Here one of the guards helping us is taking ANOTHER call from his superior yelling at him to get that truck out of that gate.  Apparently this gate is only open to vehicles for 45 minutes each morning so all the superior officers can get to work without waiting thru the lines at the main gate.  OOPS.  Of course they wanted the names of the people responsible.  We gladly spelled out the person's name very slowly so they could get all of the credit for this morning's fine adventures!

Since we had already had so much fine fun this morning and they were already there, the patrol cars decided to give us an escorted pass thru the correct gate and on to our destination.  This turned out to be a good suggestion, because they had to have us cross several coned areas and stop traffic for us to maneuver several times.  They also smoothed our way thru all the gates and check points.  Mind before we left with them on this little trip they told us not to worry about any cones, we would be driving over a few.  UNDERSTATEMENT!  We must have crushed over a hundred of the little buggers that morning.  But they were right, there was no other way in.


The funny thing is that we ended up right below where we got stuck that morning.  This bridge was the one we were first directed to.  Only it took 5 more miles of driving to get around to the other gate and finally end up where we needed to be.  Just a few hundred feet from where we started out.



Funny how things turn out some times isn't it?

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