Caught In A Blizzard!

I'm parked at the TA truck stop just outside of Farmington, Connecticut. The snow is about knee deep in the parking lot, and there are trucks jammed in here just as tight as they can get. This is one of those rare truck stops that charges a fee for parking. I don't normally frequent the ones that charge you to park, but in this case it was just about my only option – truck parking in the North Eastern part of the country comes at a premium. I could have stayed in the parking lot at Stanley Access Technologies where I made my delivery yesterday morning, but not being sure just how long this storm is going to last I chose to be a little more comfortable by having access to restrooms, a restaurant, and another form of shelter than just my walk-in closet sized domicile that I cross the country in. The interstates are closed and there is a travel ban in place for now.

This happens every once in a while – last year I remember getting hung up in Indiana for about three or four days due to highway closures from a winter storm. I also remember that the Denny's restaurant in the truck stop finally ran out of food because no deliveries could be made due to the storm. There were some waitresses in there putting up with a bunch of whining griping truck driving idiots. The waitresses had not even been able to go home from the restaurant because of the roads. They were sleeping back in the kitchen as best they could, and then coming back out to face these pathetic truck drivers who did nothing but complain about them not having any food. I felt sorry for the waitresses, but the truck drivers should have had better sense than to get caught unprepared for such an event.

So, how do yo prepare for such an event? That's easy! You should always have several days worth of food with you on your truck. I keep a decent amount of food in my truck because I enjoy preparing my own meals for not only the economy of it, but also because I can eat healthier meals that way. So here's how I prepared for this little crisis: I knew I was headed into a storm of “historical proportions” as the news forecasters were fond of saying. (I seriously think they say that stuff just to sound important or authoritative – I mean, it is just a blizzard – we have them every year) So, as I was traveling up into Connecticut I was thinking about how I wanted to handle this. First thing I wanted to do was fix me a nice pot of black bean soup – nothing like hot soup on a cold wintry day! So I stopped along my way at a rest area and put the ingredients together in my faithful little crock-pot. Then I turned it on and let it simmer it's magic away as I cruised along my journey. Hot soup – that will be wonderful tonight. Here it is cooking away as I roll on down the road. It gets a little crowded living in a truck and you've got to have that crock pot right down there on the floor where you can reach it because you don't want that thing tipping over if you were to have to slam on the brakes for some reason – yes, if you're thinking I learned that lesson the hard way then you are correct.

Next I like to have a little something to snack on – some chips and hot sauce will do the trick! I'm supposedly on a diet, but I'm gonna slack off a little for this storm.

Okay, so now we might need a little form of entertainment, after all we just don't know how long we're gonna be in this predicament. We'd better make sure we've got a good book to read – I think I just might enjoy one of my old favorites by G.A. Henty. Yes, he will be a slight more interesting than listening to the truck drivers tell their lies at the lunch counter in the truck stop.

And if this storm puts me out of business for too many days I just might have to dig out one of my all time favorite “old school” movies – nothing like a little bit of Humphrey Bogart in his epic film about human nature to tie me over.

I'm just about to start eating my supper – there's no fanfare here – soup tastes just as good in a Dixie paper bowl as it does in Staffordshire clay! Man, this soup is good. Only thing that would make it taste any better is if my sweet wife were here to share it with. Food just always tastes a little better when you can share it with someone you love.

This storm caught me right in the middle of being on a roll. I ran a record amount of miles this week – 3,767! It is very difficult to find the necessary legal hours to do that kind of mileage. Somehow it all came together this last week for me. I think my previous record was something like 3,425. My clock was at it's very limit as I parked here at the TA. So, this forced break will give me a chance to not only take a little breather, but it will also reset my seventy hour clock so I can keep moving the goods down the highway while not so fettered by the clock.

When I parked at the truck stop here's what the view outside my windshield looked like:

Two hours later it looked like this:

Another two hours later, as I pulled back my curtain to take another photo so I could share with you the progression of this storm, here is what I saw:

I'm realizing that while turning that record amount of miles this week, I was mostly driving at night. There are several advantages to night driving. Some of which are complicated to try and explain because it has to do with the re-cap hours that roll back onto your legal driving hours at midnight, so I'm not going to bore you with all that technical stuff – I'm sure I've bored you enough with all this other stuff. There are, of course, problems associated with night driving also. Things like the glare of oncoming headlights, driving fatigue, and here's one that I bet you wouldn't think of. If you drive all night, and then go to sleep at around 9:00 am, when you wake up at about four in the afternoon (which is what I do fairly often) what do you eat for breakfast? I keep some cold cereal and milk in my truck, and that is often my breakfast of choice. Occasionally I will get a nice breakfast in a restaurant, but that usually needs to be in the morning time. The other day while in Ft. Payne Alabama I woke up and decided to see if I could find me a decent steak to eat – that's right steak for breakfast! I was kind of rewarding myself for having accomplished such a gang buster week. Of course after being celebratory, I am now sitting idle in a blizzard! Oh well, the Santa Fe Cattle Company in Ft. Payne did not disappoint – this small rib eye with a baked sweet potato and green beans was delicious!

I fear I'm starting to sound like my wife's dear old late “Grandma Kitchen” who always spoke of the food that was shared when ever we would be talking about a past family gathering.

Well, that's enough of me going on about truck driving, blizzards, and good food for one day. I'll let you know when I can get back on the road.