12*4*10

Last week I took Garrett and his best friend, Dustin, out to Shane's jobsite to watch what he does. Shane had to go in at 11:30 at night to load some of the bridges that they are installing overnight on I-15. It was a pretty interesting trip, especially for the boys. I already knew what to expect, but I don't think they really understood what Shane had described to them.

They have two cranes hooked up to one really long girder. They have to pick the girder up with the cranes and "walk" it over to the semi hauler in perfect sync so that the girder doesn't start swinging and cause an accident.

Then they have to lift in sync and set it down on the trailers.

The girders are way long, so they have to have a little mini truck called a steer dolly that rides at the end of the girder behind the diesel to help support it and guide the turns.

This is just a picture when we first got there of Shane with his loader. He spends a lot of time in this too, but it doesn't really have a lot to do with loading the trucks. I just wanted a picture.

This is Shane's crane all hooked up and waiting for the next truck to be loaded.

Setting the girder on the truck and steer dolly. Look how long that thing is! You can see the other operator's crane boom on the left too. They are both hooked on and moving in sync.

This is Shane in his crane.

This is the steer dolly. The cab is only a little bit higher than the tires are. It looks pretty funny to see a guy climbing out of there.