Driving the truck for Cabaret.
Reservations
We have been renting a 20 foot Hi-Cube van from uHaul near the Canadian Tire.
1410 Main Street
North Vancouver B.C.
V7J 1C8
604 986-5656
You can call on the phone, or you can set up the rental online at https://www.uhaul.com/
Reserve the truck WELL in advance. I mean months in advance. I just tried to mock up another reservation 2 months in advance and the nearest 20 foot van I could find was on South West Marine. … WELL IN ADVANCE!
Cabaret is always on a Saturday so set up the rental for pick at noon the Friday before and for return on the Sunday after so that will be a 48 hour rental. Do not include the dolly rental, the blanket rental, the miscellaneous choss rental. We only want the truck so you should uncheck any boxes that say “include tape”, “include packing material” anything like that. DO INCLUDE insurance. At the time of writing, insurance was about $15.00.
A few weeks before and possibly again a week before, I call the uHaul office and just double (triple?) check that everything is on track, ducks are lined up, we’re on the same page etc.
Friday noon, go pick up the truck and drive it to the courtyard at the north west corner of the school. Open up the back and get the ramp out. The kids may all be waiting there for you but that hasn’t been my experience. More likely is that the kids are expecting to load the truck after school. Check with the teachers but chances are, you can go away and come back around 3:00 p.m.
Loading
The kids will very likely have put a lot of stuff on the truck by the time you get back from your late lunch but it will probably just be piled at the back edge. You will have to organize it into a load and secure everything in place. Here’s the deal:
Tie a freight strap that does NOT have a ratchet doo-dad, to the centre of the back wall. You’ll use this later. These freight straps have hooks that don’t work with the anchor boards in the truck so drop the hook down behind the anchor board and then thread the strap through the closed loop of the hook, slip-knot style.
There are two “anvil” boxes on wheels, rectangular boxes made of plywood with metal corners; Don’t load them until almost last. Also, don’t load the double bass or the mike stands until last.
Put big things in the front but as you put them in place, fit little things around them or under them so that there is as little wasted space as possible. We have been putting the keyboard on the ledge that overhangs the cab. The front wheels of the marimba fit on the ramp but the back legs do not, so start the front of the marimba up the ramp and have to stout students pick up the back legs and just roll it up the ramp and put it down. Tuck drums or speakers under the lags of the marimba, When you see a little square of room between some big things, check for something just the right size to tuck into that square. Pack tight and interlocked as much as possible and as the truck fills up, remember to keep the end of the centre strap within reach. Once you have everything else on and organize so that they are sort of level across the back, put the two anvil boxes on flatwise so they form a sort of fence to hold everything else back. Get another freight strap that doesn’t have a ratchet doo-dad and reach back over the load to hook it behind the lower anchor board behind one of the anchor board mounting points and bring this strap around the anvil case to the centre strap. Now get the long freight strap that does have a ratchet doo-dad and hook that up on the other side of truck in a similar fashion. Tie a loop into the centre strap in such a way as to position the loop about 1 a foot back over the load, then thread one or the other of the cross straps througf that loop so that when you thread the ratchet on and tighten everything up, everything tighten’s up. Here’s a picture:
Truck loaded and tied in.
The double bass should be strapped to the wall on its side, well away from anything that it could crash into. Don’t crank the strap up very tight, just tight enough to hold the bass firmly in place. Here’s a picture:
Bass loaded safely in the truck.
And do something similar with the mike stands but once you get these all tied together, crank these up very tight so none can sneak out and roll around the back, crashing into everything. Here;s another picture:
MikeStands in truck