This week of work was extremely challenging. I left Sat night at 8:30, got home Monday afternoon at 4pm. Left again for work at 10:45 on Monday evening and didn't get home until 11p on Tuesday. In just about 75 hours, or 3 days, I spent 6 hours and 45 min at home. Very odd, very odd indeed!
Let me start at the beginning.
Sabbath was awesome. We did 2nd service, got to sleep in, go to SS then Church, a nice leisurely worship morning. Then lunch at our place with my in-laws and Doreen's home-made gluten patties, lightly steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy all topped off with a yummy bowl of ice-cream.
After a bit of visiting they took off, and we piddled around a bit then met back up with my in-laws at the McDonald Road church for a quartet concert, in which 3 of the singers had been either voice students or in the choir when Larry taught at Southern years ago. The Highlanders. They were pretty good, enjoyable to listen to.
Then we ran over to our church where our Pathfinders were having a Pine Car Derby race. I got to help in the prepping of the cars to be raced. (Making sure they all were of equal weight.) Then helped keep the winners and losers straight until we had one overall winner. The girls really enjoyed it and had their favorites and were rooting and hollering every race. (I figured Joelle would be into it and was pleasantly surprised to see Natalie thoroughly enjoying herself!)
We finished with that, ran home, I changed and ran to work arriving at 8:45p. My partner and I got the truck prepped, and off we went. I was to drive 4 hours to Glad Springs, VA, we'd sleep for 2 hours and he'd get up and take us the rest of the way to PA, we'd unload and head home. All well and good, except for one small detail...
About 11:45 I hit the I-40(E)/I-81(N) split and got slowed down by about 4 accidents within about 8 miles. The kicker was there was about 15 cars, total, in these 4 accidents. Then I saw it, ice had quickly formed around the edge of my windshield. Oy vai!!! I tapped the brakes and sure enough the trailer started to come around. After it straightened back out I goosed the gas and you guessed it, the tractor started sliding - the road was ice. I HATE driving on ice. I went another 10 miles or so and came across another accident and right after it 6 semi trucks all sitting on the shoulder of the road. That's it I thought, I'm outta here. The next exit happened to have a TA truck stop - I slid 'literally' into a parking spot, pulled the brakes, called my dispatcher and said, "The road is covered in ice. I'm shutting down until they get it cleaned up." He wholeheartedly agreed.
My partner gets up at 5am and figured they had the roads salted by then so he goes on duty and heads out. 8 miles and 20 minutes later - he had to stop, couldn't go any father. The road was blocked by a bunch of vehicles. Because it was still night, we couldn't see exactly was blocking the way, but when he pulled over on the shoulder the truck and trailer slid off the road on to the gravel the ice was so slick. 
Not 30 seconds later a second LD truck stops next to us in the center lane of traffic. When daylight came we got out and all tried not falling on the slick road. Just look at how shiny the road is. Not a patch of ice free pavement anywhere on that Interstate. You can see the traffic backed up behind us. It was the beginning of a 5 1/2 mile back up before the TN DOT decided to shut the interstate down. 
The mess ahead of us is what blocked everything up. I know the pic is kinda small, but the truck at the very front has his trailer on the shoulder and the tractor in the slow lane. Another truck has his tractor in the middle lane and trailer in the slow lane. Then not seen in the picture is a cattle truck with his trailer in the middle lane with the tractor in the fast lane, effectively blocking up the entire Northbound side of the interstate. Well, all this ice and shutting down twice put us behind 10 hours. The problem is, that isn't the worst of it.
When the state finally got the salt trucks out, it was a slow process getting everyone sufficiently salted to get 'em going. When he got back to us, he got us going but didn't salt the lane in front of us to keep us going. It was flowing water over ice. I climbed out of the truck to throw salt under the drive tires to get it melting and us some traction and when I stepped, I slipped and landed on my right butt cheek and elbow, trying to keep from cracking my skull open like a melon on the pavement. I got up, took two steps back towards the tractor and went down again the exact same way. OY VAI! It hurt.
We were finally headed northbound again and I climbed into the bunk, changed into some dry threads and went back to sleep. We arrived at our first drop and when I got up, found that I was very sore. I could work though. We got empty and back to swap trailers and home. When we arrived at the trailer swap point, not a soul was there and no paperwork anywhere for us. So we had to sit for 2 hours waiting for a dispatcher to arrive, which put us even farther behind.
Once we got our info I took off, drove for the last two hours I had available and shut down for another two hours until my partner got enough time back to get us home at 4pm. Almost 12 hours later than we usually get back from that trip.
At home, we enjoyed a bit of snow, I repacked my gear bag and lunch cooler and took a shower then went to bed. When I got up, I was really hurting. It had a very similar feel to whiplash I'd gotten in years ago when I got thrown off a wave-runner. So I downed about 4 Advil and off to work at 11p for a midnight dispatch.
My partner and I arrived at the yard at the same time, went into dispatch for our paperwork and trailer assignment and found out, our load was not yet loaded. Of the 9 drops on the trip, 3 1/2 still had to be loaded. So we got our tractor, loaded our gear, parked it and went to sleep. Just after 2am the dispatcher called the truck-phone, it was ready. I popped more Advil, we loaded up and left.
After we got to IL, it was COLD. Single digit temps. That didn't help much. But we worked quickly and got the trailer empty and I got to go to bed. When we got back home, I was still stiff, but it wasn't hurting like it had been. Boy was I thankful for that.
Saw my Chiropractor today and will go again Fri just to make sure, but man, Mr Murphy hit on this week of work. Just about everything that could go wrong (save for an accident or equipment breakdown) did. I am SO glad to be done with this week and home now. I hope to not have a repeat of that anytime soon!!! :)
There IS no place like home!!!
1 comment:
I heard about the ice storm as I was in Oregon. I thought about giving you a call, but decided if you were in it you didn't need to be bothered. I saw some picts when I was in Ca and wondered where you were. Guess what you were stopped. Guess I should have called.
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