Gary, IN - Through the Ice Storm and the Snow

Somehow, I managed to drive nearly 600 miles in ten and a half hours, despite having to go through a white-out snowstorm in Virginia and driving on icy roads much of the night. Either I misread the clock by an hour or just made incredibly good time once the conditions improved.

To recap what happened yesterday but that I was too tired to write about, I arrived at the shipper for my current load at about 4:30 AM. The only person who was there was a yard guy moving trailers around. I asked him when the office opened; he said 6 AM. I go in the office a little after 6 (I was taking a nap) and they tell me to come back after eight since nobody is in that can load a trailer. I go in a third time at about 9 (dodging rain) and get told that I'm quite early but that I can back into a dock after the driver currently in it leaves. So I go out to the truck and wait, take the dock soon as it comes open, and lie back to relax. They didn't even start loading me for another hour, then took about another hour to finish the job. All told, I was at the shipper for just over six hours, good for $45 in detention pay. I left quickly as I could, drove until my hours ran out, and parked in Wytheville yesterday afternoon, as my last post said.

Overnight and into this morning, conditions were fine, except for a brief stint going through Virginia. Conditions were overcast but otherwise fine at Wytheville, but only fifteen miles north, there was a heavy snowstorm. Visibility briefly dropped to near-zero; the only way I could tell that I was still on the road was the rumble strip, which I deliberately was riding down at 25 mph. At least those conditions didn't persist long, though the snow didn't stop for about an hour and I ran into a few more patches of flurries throughout the night. At least the West Virginia Turnpike was relatively clear; I shudder to think what driving through such mountainous, winding roads would be like in poor conditions.

Aside from one short stop in Ohio to use the restroom, I just drove straight through to get up here. I'm not sure when I'm going to leave just yet - I'm tempted to sleep in a little, perhaps to about midnight instead of 10 PM - but it's a relatively short trip from here to my delivery location. I could, hypothetically, get there in less than four hours. Of course, I don't have another assignment yet, but I've been repeatedly reassured that there's plenty of loads in that part of Wisconsin, so I suppose I'll just have to wait and see. At worst, I might just have to kill time at the Green Bay OC. Given that I'm one of the few drivers willing to work at odd hours of the morning and night, though, I suspect they'll be rather eager to keep me going.