Eye Catching Trucks: MAYFLOWER

When I was a kid, I was always excited to see moving trucks around the neighborhood. At the time, the reason for my excitement revolved more around the fact that we'd have new neighbor and whether or not these neighbors had any cool kids I could play with ...

I'm all grown up now, and I'm still excited when I see moving trucks! Now however, my focus has shifted from the people moving in to the truck that carry their belongings. And now, I'm not scouting their belongings... I'm ogling the trucks. (Just to clear any potential misunderstandings! lol).

Most moving companies have really nice trucks, but the ones that always stand out are the Mayflower trucks! I really perk up when I see the Mayflower logo on a trailer, because I know with 99% certainty that I'm about to catch a glimpse of a gorgeous truck!

(So if any of you Mayflower truck drivers see my black pickup zooming by to get in front of you, it's not my intention to cut you off.... I simply wanna ogle your truck in my rearview mirror .... lol...)

A Mayflower truck I passed on my way to Arizona last year....

The Mayflower trucks are just so well polished! Both trucks & trailers are always well matched and they all look nice and clean and well taken care of. Some of the tractors have perversely huge cabs!! I'm talking apartment size cabs! Unfortunately I haven't been able to snap a photo of any of those, I usually see them when I'm driving myself & unable to take photos, but I've included a photo from one of my favorite websites, Hank's Truck Pictures , which showcases one of these cabs.

Mayflower truck with huge cab (Hank's Truck Pictures/Sissick Collection)

Another photo I found of a Mayflower truck with a good sized cab.

I recently stumbled across a Mayflower hub not far from where I live, and I was able to snap a few photos. Unfortunately it was a holiday so the gates were closed and it was hard to catch a good photo op of their trucks.

But fear not, now that I know where they are located, I'll be back there for more photos :)
(I guess I'll give up stalking United Van Lines and give them a break for awhile..... lol........)

Anyway, behind the wall of the Mayflower hub, I spotted a Mayflower trailer that probably isn't on the road as much anymore and certainly shows how the Mayflower trailers have evolved through the years... There was an old Ford truck parked next to it, but it was blocked by trees and difficult to photograph, so I'll have to catch it next time. I did, however, find a photo on the web of a similar Mayflower truck & trailer combo, so I borrowed that photo for my post.

Front end of the older Mayflower trailer parked @ the hub

Shot of the older Mayflower trailer parked @ the hub

Photo borrowed from the web, showing a similar trailer to the one I photographed,
hooked up to an old Ford truck.

Below are a couple of current Mayflower trucks & trailers I caught while out & about on my little photo safari. It's kind of interesting to compare them to the older trailer from above :)

Green Mayflower trailer outside a hub in Ontario, California

This gorgeous W900 was stretched out in front of the hub as well...

Mayflower Kenworth W900 truck, Ontario California

Mayflower Kenworth W900 truck & trailer, Ontario California

I visited the Mayflower website, just out of curiosity, and I was pleasantly surprised to find the following link:

http://www.mayflower.com/moving/full-service-movers/moving-tips/safe-driving.htm

It's a page that reiterates how to drive safely around a big rig, a topic that is near & dear to my heart and one that I cannot repeat enough in this blog so I decided to include their link.

Kudos to Mayflower for posting this! Hopefully at least a few motorists will read it & watch their behavior on the road.

How to empty a trailer

My attention was recently directed towards Youtube, to these wood chip trucks and the way they unload these trucks and this is pretty crazy!

Apparently it's a cheap & efficient way of dumping out all these wood chips, but holy toledo, I'd seriously be worried about my truck if I had to send it skyhigh like this.

The drivers are not in the trucks by the way, in fact, as mentioned on one of the videos, they are usually the ones strapping down their trucks & handling the hydraulics.... that way if something goes wrong with their trucks, nobody else can be blamed .... (Makes sense!)

Anyway... below are three videos I found that were pretty cool. Two of them show the wood chip dumping from a distance so you can see the profile of the truck as it's jacked up into the air. The second video is shot from the rear so you can watch the chips as they are unloaded.

Pretty crazy stuff.... fascinating to watch. I tried to find some more info on this way of dumpting wood chips, but all that comes up in my searches are more videos....lol. However, if you read the comments on the videos, there are actually a lot of information there regarding braking systems & why they dump it this way.

Grab the popcorn & enjoy .... and by all means ....

KIDS (both big & small!)! Do NOT try this at home!! =P

Here's another video shot from the rear so you can see the chips dumping out....

And finally another clip from a thrill ride called "wood chips trucks" ... the person who shot this added a sound track to his film. :)