Another quick shred trip

Today was another very quick 'turn-around' as they would say.  That means that I got unloaded and headed back very fast.  I was scaled in (meaning I pulled onto the scale at the shredder) at 9:46 AM.  I put on my hard hat and safety vest and pulled up to the inspection shack.  (It's really a small metal building where the inspector monitors all the activities of loading/unloading, not really a 'shack')  I was told where to dump and I promptly backed my truck into position.  I got out, swung the door open, and got back in my truck.  I control the trailer's dumping from inside my truck.  After dumping my load out, I pulled out of the way, got out and inspected my truck, closed the trailer door back up, and went back over to the scale to weigh out (Scale out).  I scaled out at 10:00 AM.  So, how long was I there?  Are you guys good with math?  I bet this one's a cinch for you!

I got back to our Sweetwater yard and got loaded back up.  I snapped a few pictures of the Sweetwater scrap yard for you guys there as I was waiting to get loaded.  So, remember how I told you we had pieces of junked cars that I hauled?  Well, here's how it's done...



This machine is called a 'shear', it chews anything it grabs right in half!  Today, it's junked cars.  Chuck is usually the one running the shear in Sweetwater.



Half of a truck that is being sheared or shredded.  Pile of shred cars on the left, pile of junk cars on the right.

Truck 7 getting loaded on Wednesday with shred (mostly shredded cars)

This is a 'grapple', it has 4 claws that picks up scrap metal and loads it or stacks it into piles.  Rudy is the name of the guy loading me on Wednesday. 

I hope this helps explain a little bit more about how we handle our 'shred' or 'shredder' and what it is when I talk about it!  It's good to know that everything (I mean EVERYTHING) in these old cars gets recycled.  No waste!  Hopefully, I can get my video skills put into practice & get you guys a good video of getting loaded.  No promises, but I'm going to try my best!  It might take a while!

Are you guys doing anything exciting this weekend?  My plans are to go visit my parents that live in Sierra Blanca, TX.  That's way out West near El Paso, TX.  It takes about 5 hours to drive there from Snyder.  It would take about 9 hours to drive there from Fort Worth, TX.  Texas is a huge state!!!  My sister and her 2 girls are already out there.  They flew to El Paso on Tuesday.  Her husband will join up on Friday night, he has been in Chicago, Illinois this week working.  My sister lives in Nashville, Tennessee.  Nashville is about 11 hours from Fort Worth!  So, how many hours would it take to go from Nashville to El Paso?  I know you guys can get that one!!

I will try to get some pictures of my trip this weekend.  I don't plan on blogging while I'm gone to visit.  But, I will tell you all about it when I get back home!  We plan to eat some good home cooking, do some roping, and catch up on eachother's lives.  Since we live so far apart, it's nice to catch up. 

I went to the truckstop to buy you guys a map of Texas.  But, they didn't have one!!  Can you believe it?  I guess it's a top seller and they ran out.  I did find a big road atlas.  It has a map of every state in it.  I think I'll send that instead.  I will try to find some stickers for you guys to put in there for each place I talk about.  Hopefully by the end of the year, we will have it full of stickers! 

I hope you're having a great week!  --Robbie Walker