Running With Watkins & Shepard

Thanks and yes, I remember that section (and a whole lot more) all the way to PA when I pulled that load out of Helena before the holidays in that blizzard. Only difference was, I had almost 43,000 in the box then but the crosswinds were constant at about 35 with gusts to 55 the whole way.

I REALLY don't want to face that basically deadheading....

 

Well, so much for my plan of getting out of Sioux Falls at 06:30. After a nice shower this morning, I was standing at the counter in Loves talking with a few drivers. One of them a native SD resident who told me I might as well wait until daylight because the roads haven't even been touched yet. He says that SD used up all it's funds before winter even got here so they won't pay overtime to the road crews for night work....

I was sort of taking that with a grain of salt and thought I'd fuel up and head out anyway. Just then one of SD's finest walks in and confirms that I-90 is quite a mess still. He came in with a missing persons poster. A woman went missing two days ago up here. He proceeded to tell us they've had a string of folks go missing up here lately only to find them days later frozen to death.

My prayers go to those families and to them finding this woman before she's added to that list!

So I think I'll delay for a couple hours and then get rolling. I'm not taking any chances with such a light load.

 

Always my friend. I'm here in Helena and the load isn't late. They gave me 5 days, tried to do it in 3 (summer schedule...lol) but got it done in 4.

It was quite the ride though. I left Conover in snow and basically dealt with snow, wind and icy roads the whole way. TN was messy, KY was a little break and then from the IA border on it was back it down and take it easy. The roads finally cleared up after Buffalo MT so I could run the rest of the way.

At less than 10,000 lbs, I'm not ashamed to admit this was a tense run. Every truck stop or rest area I stopped at had about the same conditions as the roads. I'd spin out of every one so hitting the roads had me nervous quite a bit. But I'd see empty roller skates moving along slow so I figured I could as well.

I cleaned off all the snow from overnight at the Loves in SD but the truck was warm and so was the windshield (I prefer to keep it cold). So the first 100 miles or so was a B***tch trying to see and the wipers were icing up bad. So I pulled into a rest area, cleaned everything off again, opened the windows at 3 below and let everything cool down. Then I shut off the heat in the front of the truck and used the rear heat to keep warm. From then on it was much better.

The hammer lane was clear but the slow lane had 1 foot deep drifts for many miles. Every so often I'd come up on a plow scraping it off but the wind was blowing hard from North to South so the clouds of snow behind the plows was intense!!

Basically you had to stay far enough back for the wind to blow it past the hammer lane, then he'd hit a bare spot and you could see enough to pass him....LOL Timing was critical (and luck most times)...LOL

The worst part of the run was through WY. I was running at night on solid ice the whole way. 7 hours of that at between 40 and 55 mph is when I decided the 3 day goal wasn't worth it. I found a flying J just in time as there were only 6 spots left and the next TS was another 200 miles...LOL Parked, slept and rolled in the morning to get here. Quite the adventure for sure.

So I have a load to Seattle due Thursday but I'm here in Helena trying to figure out what's wrong with Betsy. Brandon and I are gonna take her for a test run in the morning at 8:00. She won't get out of her own way and my MPG is through the floor! If I can get out of here tomorrow, I can take the run. We'll see.

 

Yep, my bad...LOL