THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

Just got back to Carlisle OC after delivery and pickup... Wow what a friggin adventure that was

 

You here at the OC moosc?

 

Should a seen 83 earlier took me an hour to get 15 miles to my pickup in Middletown from Starbucks in York. Hopefully they cleared it up a bit now. Trying to decide if I want to head south or not

 

Nope they made me live unload... messed up my whole day had planned for a quick drop and hook. What a friggin' day though, where do I even start.

So I'd been watching the weather and figured if I started at around 6, I could get to Starbucks, drop and hook, then get to my live load in Middletown and be on my way back to the OC just as the weather was hitting.

Of course, as I'm leaving the OC gate the **** hits the fan and the fun begins.

Ok, made it to Starbucks, side roads were nasty but I was taking it easy, of course then they tell me I have to live unload.

Sit there for about an hour while they unload my trailer, finally get done and head out of starbucks.

Leaving starbucks there is a pretty good hill that wasn't plowed just after you turn out of there, I watched a UPS van struggle to get up it so I locked up the power divider, hit the high side and put as much foot into it as I could without John Force-ing it all the way up the hill, made it up there thank GOD and then got on 83 north.

Slow going, just a mess, even better when 3 4 wheelers on the southbound side decided to domino into eachother and everyone on the northbound side had to stop and look.

Of course the idiot 4wheelers don't realize JUST HOW FRICKING STUPID THIS IS TO DO ON AN UPHILL GRADE, and so next thing u know Fedex and Estes single-screws are on the shoulder having to burn their way through the ice to get up the hill, no way in hell did I want to get stuck so I got down in low gear and just kept rolling and left space in front so I wouldn't have to stop.

Getting closer to my pickup and starting to think I should have just got back to the OC. On some 2 lane backroad BS that hasn't been touched, with a ton of rolling hills. Start to get close to what I think is the entry and have to sit there and gear down for about 1/4 a mile cause I can't touch the brakes or my trailer wants to take a ride into the ditch.

Of course the customer has this steep downhill into their lot which wasn't plowed either, I hit the brakes to stop before I start down the grade and realize I'm not going to be able to touch the brakes at all or this trailer is just gonna be out of control, as I see it sliding sideways to a stop in my mirror. So I put it in second gear and put the jake on low and PFFFCTCTCHCHTCHE'D (thats what my Cummins jake sounds like on 2cyl mode lol) my way down into their lot nice and smoothly without the trailer going down the hill at a 90* angle beside me.

Now before the peanut gallery throws a fit and say BUT YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO JAKE IN THE SNOW - look - I am in control of my truck. I know how hard my jake pulls on the low setting, I know what it feels and sounds like if my drives lose their grip, I am in control of my truck and had an out should the drives have started to slide. End of story.

So, finally get loaded there. Watched a driver leaving the shipper earlier go up the hill I had to come down on, his strategy was basically... floor it. lol. While I was getting loaded they did have someone come in and plow and sand the lot, he got the hill a little bit but not much.

With a grand total of 4.7k lbs now in my trailer (oh boy this is gonna help so much) I got up some momentum and didn't have too much trouble getting up the hill. Luckily I could easily get back on 76 from the shipper, so I did that and headed back into Carlisle.

After looking at the weather, and talking to some people I made the call to head south. If I did it again, I wouldn't have chosen to go. Not because of the conditions, but just because of the wasted time (I burned up all my hours and got like 370 miles for the day). I sure as hell wasn't gonna goatpath it on the Qualcomms route to 15 south down the uhh, I think its the Carlisle Pike (i call that the rollercoaster), so I left the OC and got back on the turnpike and took that to 15, and followed 15 down through Maryland to 270, and the usual joyride around Washington DC.

PA needs to step up their snow game. So does VA. Maryland put both states to absolute SHAME when it came to having the roads cleared. I just couldn't get a break from the storm though. And of course it had to turn into that nasty wet snow. Couldn't be the nice fluffy dry snow that you can just leave your defroster off and it just bounces right off your windshield. Nah, had to be that wet stuff that just makes a mess.

I tried, I really did. Eventually it got the best of me though. My wipers turned into fricking drumsticks, and I kept having to hit every rest area and knock the ice off them as the only way I could see out my windshield was if I dropped my air seat all the way to the floor and did the supertrucker lean while rolling down the road. Figuring I probably didn't want to be in that position if I really needed to maneuver my truck, I eventually got frustrated and opened the windows about 1/3 of the way each and set the defroster to NUTROASTER9000 and that got things hot enough on the windshield to make me not have to stop so often, but eventually a little bit of ice would start to ride under the blade and it was all downhill from there.

Didn't see many trucks out there today, I guess that was my sign, lol. But I took it slow and steady, and apart from one 4 wheeler pulling in front of me to get around the snow plow, and then slamming on the brakes because they got scared of the salter spraying salt everywhere behind the plow, it was relatively incident free. Just about had to pry the seat out of my rear end though after that moment though, I was so mad.

After finally getting through the neverending traffic around DC, which was only compounded by the bad weather, flashing blue lights and at least a 7 car pileup in the express lane, I made it through Richmond and Petersburg and got on 85 south.

As usual, no matter the weather, or time of day, the Alberta scales were open. No matter though, this time I had my new IFTA stickers on and only had 5k in the box, probably doubled that with all the ice stuck to my truck and trailer though LOL.

Got parked and post tripped with 10 minutes left on my 14.

So, yeah, I made it. **** wore me out though, man. Hopefully I'll make my pickup on time tomorrow, but I gave CS a heads up and told them about the delays and that I might be a little late, I'll probably wait until daylight before I head out tomorrow because I imagine the roads are gonna be really nasty with black ice.

BE SAFE OUT THERE