Ice Road Truckin'

I really needed to take a brief time-out before this post to compose myself. I figured the last post would keep people occuipied for a day or two.

I'm sitting here in Carlisle PA enjoying a sunny Saturday, looking forward to going home soon, and reflecting on my last weeks travels. My job is fun, and I enjoy it, but it is a job, which means there are days that are going to be harder than others. This whole three week run has been plauged with equipment failures and bad weather. I will take the equipment failures 10 times out of 10 over last weeks weather.

Soybean Loading at the Co Op, had to have a tractor pull my ass out of the drainage ditch that had iced over and I slid into...

My run through southern MO was a sheet of ice, black ice, the kind of ice you can only see by the reflections in oncoming cars headlights on the shiny pavement. I-55 was so slippery, the big trucks couldn't climb the hills on the highway. God bless the Maine DOT guys, nothing had been done out here. This meant stopping at the bottom of a hill, using the lowest gear possible, and two trucks would climb the hill at a time, with impatient and anxious four wheelers trying to get around the whole mess. When I exited at US 60 west it was so slippery, that my empty trailer kicked out from behind me by about 15 dergees, and was sliding in the passing lane, I was going about 5 mph and still had no way to stop if I wanted/needed to. Be mindfull that a semi, at 70feet long and 10 feet wide can't just pull off the road anywhere, you may never get moving again or you may be causing a big roadblock for others to crash into.

Things improved with 45,000lbs of soybeans in the trailer.

Saw a LOT of this...

I poked my way to Seville OH, where we have an OC. While eating dinner there, I overheard a handfull of drivers talking about their drive across I-80 in PA, and just how bad that had been.

"huh..." I was thinking "you should have been where I was yesterday boys..." Being the good Mainer that I am, I don't start bragging about who had it worse than me, because karma has a twisted sense of humor about such things. I kept my mouth shut and listened...

The next day I was driving I-80 east to my destination in MA. The wreckage was everywhere. This place must have been a special kind of hell to drive in. I couldn't compose myself to take shots of the really bad wrecks I saw, like the semi hanging from a bridge abutment, but I think you will get the idea from these.

I laugh on with others about how all I have to do is sit and drive every day, how hard could that be... well, some days will scare the absolute hell out of ya.