Thursday, September 29, 2011

One More From the Road

Well, actually, several from the road. Clearing out the ol' memory card a bit - various things that caught my eye in my never ending journey to nowhere in particular, but always with somewhere in mind.


This is one of our tanks held with two cranes - one "tailing," and one doing the placement. They pulled it off the truck, one hooked to each end, the truck pulled out, and then they began the process of taking a horizontal tank vertical without ever touching the ground. If memory serves, the biggun is a one hundred fifty ton crane. Those tanks of ours only weigh seven or eight thousand pounds, but it takes a hell of a stick to put those tanks where they needed to be. You can see one of our white tanks on the left almost in line with the red SUV. Those green tanks are steel and were not made by my company.


This'll give ya a closer perspective how high they had to lift to clear those structures. That tank is 12'x35.' This was in Wisconsin just north of Rockford IL.


HOT lookin' Pete at Brooklyn, IA.



Just not your every day bug in Western Kansas Paradise, so this puppy caught my attention immediately if not before. South of Iowa City, IA.


Juuuuust a tad over half the fleet at rest for the weekend, all scrubbed and serviced, ready for another week. The Mighty Binder is the one to the left - there is one other Navistar product, the rest are PACCAR products.


Today near Watford City, ND. My compadre unloaded and set that tank. It's a little different - it has a cone bottom with a sump hole. The crews have to set up those rings perfectly, then fill with pea gravel, dig a hole in the center, and angle the sides into the bottom before we can put the tank in it's "slot." The crane on my truck cannot lift one of these puppies unless it's mighty close if at all. This is a Cormach Model 36000 with four extensions, and it will lift the full weight at full length. These tanks are 12'x20' steel - rated at 400bbl crude oil holding capacity.


My compadre in the blue hard had - the crane operator/truck driver. He works a hell of a lot harder than I do and practically lives in North Dakota - coming home for the weekends only.





I don't care who you are, this is just plain kewl. A sculpture made from bits of cast off machinery of a cowboy riding a triceratops. This clever idea is on the main street in Lemmon, SD. Apparently, the Grand River Museum has some triceratops bones, so the idea of a dinosaur, a cowboy, and old farm machinery fits right in with the culture and history of Lemmon. When the sculptor says his chaps and saddles wear like iron, he ain't kidding. Yee Haw!!!

Lemmon is where a couple of us landed tonite. It will take a big day of driving to get home tomorrow, and Tubby Trucker is already bushed. G'nite, all - sweet dreams and don't let the bedbugs bite!

4 comments:

Jinglebob said...

Yup, a John Lopez work of art. He does some really cool stuff. They had a calender out with a diffeent one of these sculptures on each month. He's done quite a few, besides being a fantastic artist in regular bronze sculpture. If you get downtown in Rapid City, they are putting in life size sculptures of all the presidents on the street corners and John is one of the 4 sculpture who are doing the work. Nice guy too. Always friendly when I see him. His nephew just made it to the NFR finals in saddle bronc riding. Wish I could hook up with you as you pass thru'. One of these times!

Anonymous said...

it IS way cool, I agree.

Love the "secondary" sculpture from found objects (that's the official name, as far as I know)

14 years ago, when our office was going through renovation and demolition revealed lots of fascinating rusty things in the walls of that 1930's skyscraper, I proposed to make a collective collage of them and hang it in the reception. couldn't sell the idea to the Principal...he was more into golf and yachts and didn't appreciate material remnants of past civilizations...

Cedar View Paint Horses said...

Great pics! It's always interesting to me to see what real peeps do in the real world.

threecollie said...

Love the art, the mantis and the close up of what you haul. Wow, those things are huge! And I echo JB's sentiments. I don't think you haul those monster tanks through this region, but if you did, you are one blogger we would love to meet. Take care out there.