It seems like I can't get a break with the weather up here. Early this morning, part of I-80 was completely covered in ice and snow; I could just barely make out the yellow stripe on the left edge of the road and ended up finding the rumble strip a few times. Of course, this was on a five-mile long 5% downgrade. I took it in sixth gear, bouncing between 15 and 20 mph. A few drivers passed me, but I was pulling away from someone behind me, so at least I wasn't the only one worried about conditions.
That drained me a lot, though, so I used the weather as an excuse to pull into a parking area and get a couple hours of sleep. They knew that my delivery was contingent on the weather being decent, and while the weather is okay right now, the road conditions near Laramie were really dicey. I only averaged 41 mph this morning; to make my delivery on time, I'd have to average at least 49. So I sent in messages telling operations that I was going to be late; they've updated the customer and, far as we know, there's no issue with the fact I'm going to be 16 hours late.
Of course, even that assumes that conditions tonight are good. I-80 is fine right now, but it's just started snowing here and there's a winter storm warning in effect for the area I'm going into. If the highway is impassible, there's obviously nothing I can do, but I need to at try make progress on this load, even if it means I'm doing 15 miles per hour through a blizzard. I still have no idea where I'm going after this load, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wait until I deliver this one before assigning me something else, just because the weather out here is so unstable right now.
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