Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Caves

Today marked another first in my life as a trucker cat. For the first time I entered…The CAVES!!! These are located in Independence, MO as well as Kansas City, MO and other places nearby. In case you don’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about,…ask Matt.

MATT: I told you what to say about that. Tell them about the movie Deep Impact.

BUSTER: Okay, okay. There was this movie….Deep Impact…in which they all went to the caves…to live or something….so they wouldn’t die when the meteor crashed into the Earth…or something.

MATT: Yes, very good. The famous Caves which are always about 78 degrees year round, no matter how hot or cold it is outside. Lots of microfilm is stored here, and many businesses have warehouses located in many of these locations due to the advantages of the naturally consistent temperature. But today—

BUSTER: (interrupting) –Today we went there and some truck before us had crashed into a power thingy that makes electricity for lights and such. It was pitch black for the humans, but I could see just fine. Matt should’ve let me maneuver the passages with the headlights off.

MATT: Oh yes, that would have been great! It’s very tight maneuvering even with the lights on, but with them off I had to take extra care not to scrape the truck and trailer on the cave walls which were next to impossible to see. And to make things more interesting the walls are oddly shaped---they are not straight vertical from ceiling to floor. They still look like they were hastily gutted by some large apparatus you see in coal mining. And when I have to make a turn around a corner my tractor is nearly scraping one wall while the trailer barely misses the other. Here’s a couple pictures with the lights on. The lights were on one minute and out the next.

BUSTER: I can tell the rest of it if you don't mind. The lights were on one minute and out the next. Matt was stumbling around, fumbling for his flashlight, while I simply admired myself for my night optics. We both agreed, however, that there was too much diesel fuming going on in the Caves. We were happy to leave.

1 comment:

Hobo said...

That must have been an interesting day. I have never been in a truck, but the food source used to have one. He says that he never had to go to the Caves, but knows about them. Tell Matt to keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down.