Here in the Desert most of the residential construction has slowed to a creep, much like the rest of the state and country.  We do, although, see some remnants of commercial development proceeding.  I can only guess this is because the financial commitments were in place prior to the cruel reality of the economy, which we all woke up to not so many months ago, was either not known or believed.   

This time last year on the major arterial roads mixing with the commuter traffic you would see a lot of heavy equipment (bulldozers or what have you) being hauled to construction sites in the early morning.  But, not so much any more… until my drive to work today. 

You have seen those long tractor-trailer rigs with huge road work, grading, and construction equipment loaded on them, right?  Well, I saw one this morning.  It was the type with long trailer that went towards the rear a ways and then stepped down to a lower level.  Sometimes you may see two pieces of equipment on that kind of trailer. 

The one I saw this morning, in deed, had two pieces of equipment on it.  One was some sort of lifting equipment, resembling a fork lift on steroids.  I could imagine it might be used to lift materials to a roof or second floor of a structure being built.  It had a bright “construction equipment” yellow paint job and it was cabled/chained to the lower level of the trailer.  The second item on the higher level platform of the trailer was a dump truck, that by the way, had matching yellow paint.  You could see thick steel cables stretched on each side to hold it in place. 

Now seeing a tractor trailer loaded with construction equipment during my morning commute wouldn’t seem to be such a strange sight, except for the current construction slow down I spoke about.  What caused this particular event to stand out was that the matching yellow dump truck was made by TONKA.

Of course, I chuckled when I saw it, but what really struck me was the idea that this guy in the tractor cab was just plain happy to be alive and driving his rig.  It might be a while before he gets to haul more serious equipment, but by gosh; he was going to get through it (as we all must) with a little humor on his side.