Too Cold for Humans

Well the trip to Baton Rouge was short lived. Had load back to Dallas and then a 4 drop load going north again. Way north. Had 2 drops in Chicago, one in Madison, WI and final in Green Bay, WI.

It took 8 1/2 hours to get loaded so I sat at the shipper for the next 1 1/2 hours so would have 10 hour break in. That way I could go as far as I needed that night. There was a bad winter storm pushing south east from Canada...again!!

Well, I ended up driving all night because it was about to push into central Missouri. I made it to St. Louis, MO by 7am the next morning, showered and went to bed. The snow had come in behind me in central Missouri and dumped 8". When I got to St. Louis the sun was shining and when I got up it was cloudy and the storm had just about caught up to me. The second my 10 hour break was up I pushed up I-55 to Chicago. I called ahead and the first drop said I could park for the night in their dock, so that gave me a place to go. Good thing to because it started snowing 2 hours after I got in there at 11pm. There was 4" on the ground when I unloaded the first drop and the second drop was only 1 mile away so it was easy too. The rough part from there was to get over to Madison, WI.

Chicago was getting hammered pretty bad and was expecting up to 14" of snow by Friday morning when the storm got done. Once I got away from Chicago it was not too bad, the salt trucks had the freeway in decent shape and could get up close to the speed limit. I made it to Madison and got the third drop off. I next called the last drop in Green Bay to make sure I could park in their dock and they told me I could. Since it was only 230pm I headed that way. I did not want to fight the icy roads the next morning to get there.

I got to the last drop at 430pm and settled in. At midnight I got a cussing by the guy coming in to plow their parking lot. Said I wasn't supposed to be there. I didn't mind moving til they got done, but his attitude wasn't called for. He must have been from New York or something. No, I forgot I was in Green Bay...you know how those Cheese heads can get. Anyway, I just pulled up where they had finished plowing and went back to bed, I wasn't leaving.

This morning I unloaded the last few pallets and got a load out of Manawa, WI which was 60 miles west of Green Bay going to Ottawa, KS. As bad as the storm was on Thursday and all the high winds over night, the roads were in great shape. They were complaining on TV about the price of salt going up from $29 a ton to over $54 a ton just this year. That's a heck of a difference. Glad they are still paying for it though. Salt is a wonder drug for icy illness.

I ran over to I-90 near Fort McCoy, WI, and headed west into southeast Minnesota. Then south on I-35 through Iowa toward Kansas City. The temp in Minnesota was -5 degrees at 5pm and was dropping to -20 overnight, that was not wind chill temp either. Where I'm at just inside Missouri it is getting down to -5 tonight. Too blasted cold...