A Three Hour Tour

With Atlanta and the soaking rain behind me, the mission was now to pick up freight in Cleveland, Tennessee and simply transport it to a location outside of Harrisburg, PA. The route would be a straight shot up I-81, an interstate I have travelled more times that I could possibly remember. I know every crack in this road. My travel on this freeway has included all the seasons over many years. Your friendly author here has been on it  in every kind of weather event and yes, snow on several occasions.

By the time I arrived in Southwest Virginia, this storm had dropped perhaps 8 inches of winter, making travel slow, but not impossible. The highway was relatively clear, affording me the opportunity to make up a little time lost by slow going in Tennessee early on created by road crews salting and sanding. Christiansburg, Virginia popped up on the GPS prominently pearched on the dash of the Fat Cat signaling to me that Roanoke wasn’t very far up the road. Traffic began to build and then suddenly stopped cold. Trucker chatter on the CB turned to the hold up and before long it was being reported that there was an accident up ahead at mile marker 128. Dam, I’m sitting here looking at mile marker 111. This is going to take a while. Motorists began to pop out of their vehicles and a concerned looking man from a four wheeler (trucker slang for a car) came up to my window and asked if I heard anything on my CB radio. I told him what the truckers were saying and that he should make himself comfortable, this was going be a good wait. He thanked me shaking his head as he walked away. I rummaged in my on board food cupboard for something to eat and came up with a can of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee over stuffed ravioli to throw in the microwave in a Styrofoam bowl covered with wax paper. From my vantage point in the truck, I watched kids play football catch on the shoulder of the road and folks standing around in conversation circles on the roadway. After lunch, I called my brother Tom who was on his way to New York with his family by car from South Carolina. They decided to take I-95 and avoid this mess.  They usually take this route, but changed their plans after seeing the back ups on TV.

Hour number four was approaching and my thoughts turned to who was involved in the accident. It must have been very serious for the highway to be shut down this long. A wave of sadness passed over me with the thought that someone might not make it home for Christmas. This person or persons were on the same course as I was. Now, they might not be. Like Don Henley once sang, life can change in a New York Minute. Always consider the important things in life. That’s what the song says.

Finally, after four hours of listening to truckers grousing on the CB, copious texting on the phone and a pipe full of Kate’s special blend from the cigar lounge back home in Hiram, traffic began to move. As I moved forward, I discovered abandoned and snow covered automobiles littered both sides of the interstate. Some were pointed in unnatural positions. I spotted a U-Haul moving truck with a trailer and a late model Honda Accord on it in a ditch. Now, that had to be a moving experience someone will never forget. Further up the road, I encountered two more stoppages, for additional accidents that weren’t as long as the one in Christiansburg.

As the clock ticked 16:00, evidence of nightfall began to appear. In yet another backup, I passed an intermodal tractor trailer jack-knifed across the highway. An intermodal is a container trailer that comes from a ship or a train and is attached to a trailer assembly with wheels to be pulled by truck. There was just enough room to fit my truck between the back end of the jack knifed trailer and the guard rail. Lucky for that, or that would have been another four hour wait.

Abandoned and snow covered vehicles continued to show up on the sides of the highway. Supposedly, the National Guard rescued countless motorists from those cars and ferried them to shelters. This travelling public wasn't prepared for this challenge getting home for the holidays or finishing up Christmas shopping.

I began to see electronic message boards that spoke ominously about trip fortunes ahead. They displayed the same passage of “Heavy Snow, Avoid Travel, Seek Shelter!” Well, it’s a little late for that message. My trucker friends on the CB complained of jammed truck stops that were running out of food and fuel. Truckers were beginning to line their rigs up on the sides of the roadway and off ramps. Truckers are only allowed to drive a total of eleven hours a day.  When your time is up, you have to stop driving and shut down for a ten hour break.

The road surface was now converting from a slushy snow and wet arrangement to ice. The ride became extremely bumpy driving over chunks of ice we affectionately call moguls. Just like the kind you ski over, except bigger. I had racked up a grand total of 79 miles from the point of the four plus hour highway shutdown and was now in Lexington, Virginia. All the trucks and cars had come to another complete stop. Now what? I said out loud. The CB chatter now turned to a foreboding hill up ahead as slippery as a used car salesman on a third rate lot after a flood. In yet another traffic jam, drivers and passengers got out of their vehicles to see what the problem was now.  By this time, there were countless motorists searching for a place of personal relief. Truckers offered buckets and empty truck trailers to persons in need. Some auto drivers were beginning to panic for lack of fuel and food. This was turning into an ordeal for some.

The theme from Gilligan's Island popped into my head...."a three hour tour, a three hour tour..." The Virginia DOT was nowhere in sight. No plows, no salt, no nothing. I had never seen it this bad in recent times. Virginia was always fairly good at snow removal. I drove this route by car in the 90’s at the end of a snowstorm similar to this one. This amount of snowl didn’t seem that unmanageable to me. This DOT would be fired in Upstate New York. Virginia is a snow state; they should be prepared for this sort of thing. Sadly, thousands of motorists were left with the short end of this stick.

Word then came on the CB, several truckers and cars attempted the hill and slid into the guardrail in a crunch of metal. 911 was called, but no one came. With no authorities in sight, we truckers took matters into our own hands. Three rigs lined up blocking the highway so no one else could get by and suffer the same misfortune as the ones who attempted the hill. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries from the mishap down the hill.

The truckers gathered and plotted a course of action to get down this steep grade.  It was decided that we would send the trucks and cars down, one at a time with instructions to stay in the middle and don’t exceed 1 mile per hour. The middle truck behind me would come out of the three across line and follow me when I descended to the bottom of that roadway disguised as a slab of ice. Me and the Fat Cat were second in line, behind a power company truck. The power truck radioed that it was slushy at the bottom of the hill and to take it very slow. My truck has what they call a “Jake Brake” which is a type of brake that employs engine compression to slow and eventually stop the truck. It works without supplying any stopping force to the wheels. It’s great because I can reserve my air from braking and also avoid skidding by not applying pressure to those wheels. This was one time I was extremely glad I had this kind braking system. Thank you Mr. Jacobs for figuring that one out.

As I watched the power company truck disappear out of sight in front of me, my knuckles grew white gripping the big steering wheel. My thoughts raced with scenarios of doom on this highway as I prepared to descend this mighty grade. Once you start a slide on ice, there’s not much you can do to get out of it. Steering and braking disappear and then it’s up to the man upstairs.

I dropped Miss Fat Cat into the lowest gear possible and let my emergency spring brakes out. I usually start off in a higher gear, but not this time. My heart beat at an elevated rate as I eased her onto the hill. Perspiration rode my brow. Creeping down the decline at maybe 1 mile per hour, I could feel the slippery road surface from the tires right into my hands. If I went any faster, I would surely become another mangled storm statistic. I tried to keep in mind the slush from which I would gain traction at the bottom. I hoped the reports on the CB were correct.

I passed the crashed trucks on the way down, but couldn’t rubberneck it too much for fear of joining them. I caught a glimpse of a white late model Volvo in the mix. I talked the big Cat down the hill the whole way. “Come ‘on girl, I know you can do it.” There was no salt, no sand or cinders of any kind on this decline of treachery. My only way down was a steady hand, a “fully jaked” engine on the Caterpillar 500, a resistance to hitting the brakes and faith in God.

As I sensed the road evening out, I felt the wonderful slush they talked about. Me and the big Lady made it! I wanted to get out and kiss the big slurpee. The highway was still slippery and offered ice chunks to make the ride rough. The Welcome sign to West Virginia couldn’t have come soon enough and signaled better roads all the way into Pennsylvania. The remaining state road departments on the run had the interstate under control. I watched busy plows with salt spreaders clean up Old Man Winter’s gift. I got to my destination in one piece, only nineteen hours late. And yes, Natasha back at dispatch central said they wouldn’t count it against me. This trip took a total of thirty six hours to go 622 at an average of 17 miles per hour. I feel for the families who lost a family member, especially this close to Christmas. Wrecked cars and trucks can be fixed or be replaced. Injuries heal. Effects of some of those injuries can linger for a lifetime. But, lives are lost.

It’s been a crazy and bewildering few weeks of driving up and down the east coast in a variety of climates. This was the third snow storm I’ve been through, combined with a pleasant 82 degree stopover in South Florida. I thought about that as I sat in the truck stop here in Pennsylvania, peeling another seedless naval orange picked just over a week ago.

Did you say cariaaage?

On Thursday afternoon, December the 17, I found myself at the Pilot Travel Center in Hampton, New Jersey, right off I-78 in North Central NJ. My hometown of Bridgewater is a stone’s throw away. I could spend weeks here and not visit with all my friends. I still know a lot of people here, even though I've been gone nearly 8 years. Besides being away from my family and home, this is a part of the job that is especially hard for me. I find myself in places where there’s nothing more I’d rather do than see old friends, family or do some sightseeing. I love to sight see. There's a lot of "off the beaten track" places and things I want to see. Our country is full of them.

With the kind of business I’m in, moving time sensitive freight requires being ready in almost an instant to travel hundreds of miles, often without travel breaks longer than twenty minutes in effort to meet a tight delivery schedule. We move freight that can’t be put on a plane or that of which needs special handling. My day can, and usually does, change quite abruptly sending me packing down the road in a hurry. The other challenging aspect is that you can’t just drive a big truck everywhere. There are often road restrictions, meaning low overpasses and power lines I have to watch for. I don’t need to make a sling shot out of the electric line leading to your house! Many residential areas also have low hanging trees and autos parked on both sides of the street that prevent passage. So, that truck with a circle and a slash line through it doesn't mean they don't like you, it means that if you come this way, you might break something.

All that said, I still remain hopeful that I will be able to turn the tables of logic and visit my family and friends on the road. I’m still relatively new to this type of work, and I’m learning how to manage the company, my locations and my time.

As I was sniffing the Bridgewater air from Hampton, the “Price Is Right Theme” sounded on my cell phone, signaling that the company was calling with a load opportunity. The automated system’s female voice told me that pick up was in Edison, NJ at 17:12 hours (we follow Eastern Time in military fashion at all times) and delivery is in Atlanta, GA the following day at 13:15. The pay was good and I couldn’t hit “3” for accept fast enough. I looked at my watch (that keeps military time) and it said 16:00. Holy crap, I’ve got to go right now! With afternoon Central New Jersey traffic warming up, my anxiety was building. Basically, it was a flying leap into the driver’s seat and a needle threading around a bunch of loping trucks at the Pilot.

With Edison in my mirrors, it was time to steam like a freight train without brakes to Georgia.

Somewhere just beyond upstate South Carolina and the Georgia line at Lake Hartwell, the relentless rain that became the biggest snow storm I’ve seen in December in years had began. My delivery was at the Lenox Square Mall in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. If the name sounds like a place for hunters, it isn't. It's far from that. For those of you who are un-initiated, Buckhead and that Mall caters to the richest people in Georgia. The Governor’s Mansion is right up the street and people buy expensive homes on busy streets here so they can be seen. At the Lenox, the floors are Italian marble and the stores rival what you might find on Park Avenue in New York or Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. This is a place for the filthy with a snooty schnazola.

This was a special delivery and required taking the load off the truck by a power lift gate and carting it on the wooden pallet to the store in the mall. I pulled up to the delivery area at the mall and found 3 Mercedes Benzes, a Volvo and a BMW parked on the grid where I’m supposed to be. Some guy is sitting in a running S class from Stuttgart, so I let him have it with the air horn. I gave him a long, steady and loud blast. I got a bird in return. Well ok then, we'll just double park it like they do in New York, put the flashers on and off load it in the fire zone. Christmas Mall traffic can drive around me.

So, here I am, wheeling a pallet jack down the mall corridor and all of a sudden, I’m surrounded by mall security led by some guy who reminded me of a wedding planner. This dude was impeccably dressed with an earpiece and a walkie-talkie in hand. He gave me a thorough scolding for my cartage on sacred Mall floors. The reprimand included an inquisition of “Sir, did you NOT see the signage posted at the entrance? I replied that I didn't see a sign and inquired about a different entrance for deliveries. Martin Short shot back "you will HAVE to break that stack of boxes down and bring them in by hand carriAAAGE.” Hand carriAAAGE? What’s a hand carriAAAGE I inquired? "A carrAAAGE, a carrAAAGE, you put dhe boxis on it and wheel eet in." Oh...you mean a hand truck...gotcha. The planner's look made me feel as though I had committed some sort of transgression in this house of acquisition. I complied without discussion. I just wanted to be finished with the job. It was a long trip down the coast and I was wet, tired and hungry. At that point, I wasn't going to let some guy who talked funny take my day down any further.

Now, at the massive Petro Travel Center on I-285, I planned on resting for a bit. A dry change of clothing was in order, and perhaps a nice sit down meal at the Iron Skillet. I hadn’t had real sit down grub in a while. Whew, this would be a good opportunity to re-charge and get ready for the next mission.

The Qualcomm rattled off a series of places and scenarios I declined. I don’t have what they call “forced dispatch” so I can pretty much decide where I want to go…sort of. Sometimes, when the company has freight they really want to move, they will call me personally and apply some advanced sales techniques to secure a commitment to move the shipment. The Price is Right chimed on my phone and it wasn’t my little automated friend. It was Natasha, live and in person, making a case for a pick-up in Tennessee and delivery near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I responded with a “I don’t know, Natasha, there’s a major snow storm about to blow on up the coast going that way. Her response was “we will never hold it against you if weather prevents an on time delivery. How much will you do it for?” Well…since you asked, I offered my number , I’ll do it for $XXXX. Natasha sealed the deal with a “great, I’ll send the details on down the Qualcomm. Have a safe trip.”

This trip would turn out to be the longest 600 miles I have ever travelled. Winter weather loomed very large on this expedition and what seemed like a good deal, turned into a tribulation.

Upstate and The Rooney

When someone says “New York,” the top of mind thought is New York City, a place so great they had to name it twice. New York, New York. The Big Apple, the home of skyscrapers and everything metropolitan and then some. New York City has been mentioned many times as the unofficial capitol of the world. You can find someone from everywhere in the world here. Many people from other parts of the country don’t even know that there is another quite viable part of the Empire State. We’re not talking about a “Tale of Two Cities” but two completely separate cultures akin to different nations on separate continents. Most everyone in the region calls this bucolic wonderland, simply “Upstate”. I can’t think of two parts of one state that are so different, that it’s hard to believe that they actually reside within the same borders. Upstate New York could actually drop “New York” and just be called “Upstate” and everybody in the region would know what and where you’re talking about. It’s a good thing the capital of New York...ahem…the state...is located in Upstate, or else these hardy uplanders would be short shrifted in government representation.

There are essentially four regions to Upstate, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, The Finger Lakes and Western New York State, including Buffalo and I guess you could throw in Rochester way up there on the shores of Lake Ontario. Every one of these regions is filled with natural beauty and a combination of rolling hills, bona-fide mountains and farm themed country sides that make you want to sing Old MacDonald.

In the 1980’s, a group of us from the aforementioned legendary group of friends made an annual pilgrimage from New Jersey to a blue grass festival on Rooney Mountain, near the hamlet of Deposit. The event’s motto was “This Ain’t No Picnic” and was dubbed The Rooney Fest. The best way to describe where this music fest took place is to say it was somewhere north of Binghamton and south of Syracuse. Eccentricity was the theme of this festival that took place faithfully on the first weekend of August annually. I had a t-shirt from every one. We would caravan up on a Thursday prior to stake out our usual camping spot to be occupied until late Sunday. Every year it was four days of music and mud. Rain never failed to fall in any given year. The Colonial Campers always set up in the big field by setting up an actual living room complete with colonial furniture…lamps, coffee and end tables included. The whole arrangement was placed on a large oval rug and power supplied by a portable gas generator under a rather large blue tarp.

We always camped next to the Santori brothers from Garden State Fireworks. Every year they brought a “Treasure Chest” filled with commercial grade fireworks. This is where I had lessons in being a pyrotechnic. A few of us would trek across the big field with cast iron mortar tubes, shovels…and the Treasure Chest. After the trenches were dug, the mortar tubes were carefully placed in the ground and back filled with dirt to insure a sturdy launch. The fireworks themselves were called “4 inchers”, cylindrical bombs about 12 to 14 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. One would drop the firework in the tube and pull the long wick out. With about 6 loaded tubes, the first was lit and just as you would yell “fore” after a hearty golf swing, the yell here was “fire in the hole!” At that time, the fuse would burn down quickly and you would feel that vibrating concussion as the missile left the tube and headed for the heavens, exploding with colorful delight accompanied by a chorus of ooohs and ahhhs from the audience. I learned at that point why Pyros are kind of crazy. The feeling of the concussion so close at hand is indescribable. It makes you nuts. Once in a while one of the fireworks would mis-fire and go off early, raining down fire and ashes from about twenty feet overhead. One had to be mindful of the possibility of burning clothing and hair. Occupational hazards as they may be.

The long Rooney weekend would end by everyone deliberately wetting down the area in front of the stage with coolers and buckets of cow wash water to make the perfect mud to dance in. I have a picture of a fellow dancing in the mud with a cardboard cut-out of Marilyn Monroe. One dandy guy and girl were dancing with watermelon rind helmets fashioned with duct tape holding the cranial contraption together. Such Kodak moments. Go figure. Those two are probably parents today, trying to explain normal behavior to their children. After the mud dance, it was time to mud it on home.

All good things must come to an end, and so too did the Rooney Fest. Seems one participant wandered off from the party one night and drowned in a nearby cow pond. As is the case in today’s world, the law suits flew and the beloved festival was shot down like a dead duck for future generations. So sad.

Other times in the 80’s, we camped out at our old pal Cindy Chuvala’s 75 acre farm near Rhinebeck, New York in the Catskills. Windham Hill Mountain was quite visible in the distance. We positioned our tents and RVs in a wide open meadow and swam in the crystal clear Catskill Creek on the southern border to her property. A fun event was building a mammoth bond fire and baking fresh ears of Silver Queen corn in the wood coals…husk and all. The nights were filled by sitting around eating corn and telling stories.
The drive on the New York Thruway straight across Upstate is unspoiled for the most part clear clean across from Buffalo to Albany. Ride north to the Adirondacks to Plattsburgh and you’ll find some of the most scenic roads in America. My friend Bob Stoekert owns a campground near Plattsburgh near Lake Champlain, across from Vermont and a stone’s throw from Canada. Bob will be more than happy to tell you all about the benefits of camping in Upstate. I’m looking forward to trying out his corner of the world.

As I left Syracuse to pick up a load headed to Ohio, I was treated to some of the most scenic winding country roads I’ve ever seen in Upstate. The sky was overcast and the landscape was blanketed by a fresh overnight snow fall…not a lot…maybe an inch, just enough to make it all look so seasonal. Wispy gray smoke wafting from chimneys in the chilly morning air could probably be traced back to a cozy hearth. I passed through the village of Woodstock and thought of another mud-fest I was too young to attend many years ago. I could picture myself hiking into the countryside with an axe on shoulder in search of a fresh and perfect Christmas tree.

So, I vote heartily for Upstate. Don’t miss this crown jewel of the Northeast. I’ll will return.