Heading Home for the Holidays

Well, I got that last load delivered up to North Collins, New York, but it wasn't a cake walk.  It was more akin to ice skating than anything else I can come up with.  I actually felt my truck breaking loose from it's traction on the road at least a dozen times while working my way through some blizzard like conditions as I soldiered my way through the final leg of the trip to North Collins.  Some times you will get yourself into such a bad snow storm out here that you are safer to stay on the road and go slowly than you are to try and pull over to the side and stop.  I've seen this scenario played out several times up in the Northeast where a Big Rig will pull off onto the shoulder and stop just because they can't hardly see anymore due to the heavy snow falling.  They will leave their lights on and maybe their flashers going, and just as soon as a car comes creeping along and sees them, the driver of the car assumes he has wandered off the road (which can't be seen for the snow) and he pulls over behind the truck and slams into the back of him.  That is why I point out that in times like that it is usually safer to just keep moving even if it is only a crawl.  It can be very frustrating when you can't even see the lanes on the road, or even the road for that matter.

The last time I was home my wife bought me this silly looking hat with fur trim and those big flaps that come down over your ears.  I tossed it in the truck, thinking I probably would never use it, but she proved herself smarter than me again (this seems to be a pattern in our life together) as I made good use of it in North Collins as I was removing the tarps from my load in a wind chill factor of ten below!  That hat was a life saver, and I owe my wife a big hug of gratitude!

I slept on the property at E & D Specialty Stands, my customer in North Collins, and they unloaded me the following morning.  They had to snow plow their parking lot first, and then there was such a layer of ice on the lot that they had to put snow chains on their fork-lift just so they could get a little traction.  It's all in a days work when you work in this area.  Lake Erie gives that snow a sort of turbo charged effect that they simply call the lake effect.  Here we are getting their material off in the bitter cold weather...

I took my supper alone that night as I sat by the fire (the bunk heater).  And I couldn't have been more satisfied with it all.  I accomplished what I set out to do for the day, earning a good night's repose. Who could complain about such a wonderful meal as smoked oysters and crackers with a nice glass of Tea?  It may not seem like much to some, but it was enjoyed by a simple man whose enjoyment of the simple things in life makes his life full and rich.

I got dispatched from there on a nice load down to Tampa, Florida!  That was refreshing to get down there where I was actually sweating just a couple of days later.  As an Over The Road driver you get to experience such wild swings in the weather that it is sometimes almost an overload for your senses.

I went from Tampa back to Delhi where I picked up this current load that I'm on.  This one has two additional stops and the consignee.  The first stop is in Conway, Arkansas with the next one following in Knoxville, Arkansas, and then the consignee is in Kansas City, Missouri.  After that I will make a mad dash back to Delhi to drop this trailer off at the plant, and then I will Bob-tail home on Christmas Eve, putting me home for the holidays.  I'm going to take a week off and enjoy seeing my little girl Abigail who is home from school.  She is the one who rolled her little car recently.  We lost a good car, but at least we kept our little girl.  For that we are very thankful!