I finally started on the outdoor riding arena project today. I got all the heavy equipment lined up at United Rentals (these guys rent pretty much every Tonka toy you can imagine). I was supposed to start getting gravel/sand from the local quarry early this morning, but due to a spectacular accident that happened on the I-680 south near the rental location, it took me 1.5 hrs to get there – its only 5 miles. I managed to get 4 loads of ‘base rock’ to make the foundation of the arena before the quarry closed – they close at 2:30 ?!?! I guess folks who build stuff/truck stuff get up much earlier than I.
Driving around the quarry was ‘interesting’. Lots of huge earthmovers tooling around, much larger dump trucks, etc. Plus – everyone but me knew where they were going. I finally had to stop at the office to ask directions, etc. Saved me from accidentally getting loaded with asphalt 🙂
Once I figured out the routine, it was a pretty quick trip in and out. You just pull up near the pile of stuff you want a scoop of and like magic, the big loader appears and fills each truck in a single scoop – pretty wild sitting in the truck, watching this thing come up and hover over you and dump its load.

My dump truck is much smaller in comparison pretty much every other one in the quarry. But its about as big as I can get up / down our road. As it it, this truck squeezes thru some places with maybe 6 inches to spare on either side. I’m sure a much better truck driver than I could get a 10 wheeler up the road, but until I go to truck drivers school, I’ll stick with the smaller one. Plus its no fun meeting other traffic coming down our road (when I’m driving up full – its a real drag to have to stop/slow down on a hill because someone in an SUV can’t figure out that 1) I’m bigger than they are 2) I have a full load and am not stopping unless forced to 3) they have an SUV – THEY can drive it off the pavement at least a little to squeeze by me. The closest call today was a bicyclist – he passed me when I was going down the hill empty, so I knew he’s be on his way down when I returned with a full load. And like clockwork, I found him – even after honking my horn around the corners, he came flying around a corner and almost impaled himself on the front end of the truck. He dove off the side of the road next to the cliff (rather than going flying down the ravine into the creek).
Tomorrow will be busy – i need to get around 10 loads before the quarry closes. I’m sure the neighbors will be so happy to here me go up/down the road starting at 5:30am :-/
