OldTroubador's blog post - What a Difference a Week Makes

After almost seven years behind the wheel, it still amazes me how, in a couple of days of driving, all of one's surroundings can change. Dramatically.
I am sitting in a truck stop outside Lafayette, LA on a Sunday afternoon. It is overcast today, but warm and humid. My air conditioner is on, as much for drying the air in my truck as it is to keep things cool. The last couple of weeks have been spent east of the Mississippi. I've been driving around the many winter storms when I could, or been sitting waiting for the roads to be cleared. It seems that, over the years, most of my time has been spent zigzagging north and south along east-west freight lanes. This year, the reverse seems to be the case – I am working my way east and west along northbound or southbound freight lanes. Winter's icy grip has taken hold almost everywhere this winter; just a day ago, I saw snow decorating Mississippi's famous mangolia trees. By all accounts, this winter has been a harsh one, even compared to last year's, maybe harsher. Even though I haven't been called to go to Boston and I was able to get out of the Buffalo region before their huge storm, I have been deviled by the snow and ice since the middle of November and am ready for spring to burst forth in all its glory. But I am here in Louisiana now, where the trees are starting to green, the sego lilies are starting to bloom, and the crappie and channel catfish will soon be moving to the shallows to spawn.
As I sit here, I reflect back on how, just a few days ago, I was struggling with unplowed roads, icy slush, and biting cold. And I remember a trip I took, just shy of two months ago.

Back in January, I was parked in Marion, Illinois with a load headed for one of the southern suburbs of Chicago. When I awoke and started driving early that day, the temperature was 21 degrees, with a stiff breeze blowing from the northwest. The temperature stayed steady for a while, as I drove through the hills of southern Illinois. I did hit a couple of snow squalls that reduced visibility to mere feet and my speed to just a few miles an hour. After a mile or so, the weather cleared, and I dropped the hammer. I knew that cold air was somewhere to my north, so I was keeping an eye on my thermometer. After travelling about 120 miles, the temperature had fallen to 7 degrees; 60 miles after that, it was zero. The wind was really moving through here too, pushing the Freebird around on a whim.
The wind can be a tricky thing to deal with. Back in the hills, driving through the cuts, the wind swirls – there is no telling which way it is going to push your truck. Many is the time that I have been steering into the wind going through a place like this when suddenly, the wind changes direction and hits the 'Bird from the other side. Quick reactions are needed to keep from being shoved too far in the direction we are now drifting, whether off the road or into the next lane. Other times, while driving, I will be countersteering into the wind and a hill, a line of trees, an overpass, or even a passing truck will block the wind and then those same reactions are necessary to maintain lane integrity. Of course, as soon as the wind block is gone, the wind broadsides the truck again and the countersteering begins anew.
Another thing that is a bit of a hazard is the snow. Even if the snow isn't falling, when the winds are this strong, they pick up the loose snow laying on the ground and blow it across the road. Where there are wind breaks, the snow swirls across the pavement, serpentines of white powder, silent sirens mesmerizing the driver, calling to him to watch their dance and not the road. When a car or a truck drives through these places, the effect is magnified, as the wake of the passing vehicle intensifies the dance. And sometimes, the swirling snow is thick enough to cause vertigo, for the eye will follow the strongest signal it receives. And if the snow blots out the lines on the road, the mind will follow the eye; it takes a lot of concentration to find the visual clues from the highway and ignore the sirens' death song.
Although I love the Freebird and have praised the work Freightliner has done over the years to improve their product, I do have to complain about the fit of the doors, to a degree. As the wind was blowing from my left, I could feel the wind coming in between the door and the frame; this kept the temperature inside a little colder than I wanted, even with both heaters running hard. And when there was snow in the air, I could feel it coming in with the wind, hitting me on the arm and the side of my face.
As I drove north, and the thermometer kept falling, the land flattened out into the huge cornfields of northern Illinois. The wind was straight out of the west, the snow blowing straight across the highway. In some places, it did manage to stick to the road, making small patches of ice. In others, it just blew into the fields to the east. Looking across these fields, I could see billowing clouds of snow that were being driven by the wind. Where there were trees lining the fields, I watched as snow devils whirled their dervish way across the white landscape.
I arrived in Elwood, Illinois to make my drop off and, even parked, the wind continued to torment me. Snow from a previous storm was piled high on the roofs of the warehouses and trailers parked there. That devil wind was taking this snow and blowing it across the parking lot causing a near white out. I had on my heaviest coat and gloves, but the wind cut through them like a scythe. The snow froze to my beard, my exhalations froze to my mustache, and the snow blew inside my collar to freeze against my neck. By now, the temperature was -5 degrees and the wind was blowing about 35 miles per hour. This old southern boy was miserable.
I dropped my loaded trailer where told and went to grab an empty. The sub-zero temperatures thickened the grease, making it difficult to crank the landing gear up and down. The handle to pull the release pin on the fifth wheel did not want to budge and the icy air clawed and burned at the inside of my lungs.
I finally left Elwood and drove up to Romeoville to make my pick up. After waiting four hours, my trailer was ready and I rolled out of there, headed even further north to Minnesota. Three more days like this were ahead of me as I made my delivery north and west of St. Paul/Minneapolis, continued to my pick up, and finally drove south, through Wisconsin, out of this icy hell.
One night in particular stands out. I was in central Minnesota, about an hour west of Minneapolis. I had parked for the night and walked inside to get a shower. As I walked back to my truck, to drop my my kit bag off, I realized that I had not done a good job of drying my beard. Halfway across the parking lot, my chin spinach was a solid mass of ice. After tossing my kit into the 'Bird, I walked to the other side of the lot, where there was a bistro I wanted to try. By the time I got there, the wind blown snow had clung to the ice. The hostess had to wait a few minutes for my beard to melt and my face to thaw before I could ask for a table. And I needed extra napkins to mop up the menu because I was still drip drying.
Fast forward a couple of days. I had worked my way south to Fort Smith, Arkansas. The air was still chilly, especially in the evening, but the days were sunny and almost warm. I had a 9pm delivery scheduled on Tuesday, so I swung by the yard for a few hours to visit with my manager and a couple other people. I ate supper, then headed over to my customer. I arrived half an hour early and was told to wait in the staging area, that someone would call me soon. After sitting for nearly six hours, I finally bumped the dock about 2:30 in the morning. The unloading did not take long and by 3:15, I was back at the yard. Two and a half hours of sleep later, I reported to maintenance to give them my keys and run down a list of minor problems I had with the Freebird. I then grabbed some coffee and headed over to see my manager for a bit. In addition to getting my truck serviced, she had also scheduled me for my annual physical. When all the business of my physical and the service call on my truck was done, I lay down to get some much needed sleep. The next day, I prepped the 'Bird for leaving and rolled out of the yard at about 1:30 in the afternoon; this completed a 34 hour break and I now had a clean log book to run with for the next few weeks.
The Freebird and I boogied east through Arkansas, rolled around the south side of Memphis, and cruised into a truck stop south of Birmingham, Alabama, where I had a spot reserved for us. The next morning, it was east again to Atlanta, then south through Macon, heading for Lake Park, Georgia, at the Florida line. The day was again bright and warm; the windows were down, the music was loud. Somewhere in the area of Tifton, I noticed that there were still lily pads on the surface of the ponds and small lakes on the sides of the road. Turtles were sitting on logs, sunning themselves. Feeding fish dimpled the surface of the water and herons stood still in the shallows, waiting for their next meal. Long before I got to Valdosta, Spanish moss was hanging from the live oak trees. The trees that were bare sported clumps of mistletoe, lending color here. Green was almost everywhere, and I could feel spring starting to stir and awaken.
When I arrived at my delivery, the sun was starting to set. The sky was still a bright blue, bright enough to hurt the eyes and there were just enough clouds for the sun to reflect all its colors. As I came to a stop at the guardhouse, a chorus of tree frogs could be heard in the woods on the other side of the fence line; a sure harbinger of spring and, after running through the northlands, a most welcome sound.
I rolled out of the warehouse half an hour later with an empty trailer, headed west through southern Georgia. I was due at a paper mill on the Georgia/Alabama line that night to be reloaded. The highway was a four lane, running through towns and cotton fields. I was chasing the last light of day as it slowly, reluctantly released its hold to the encroaching night. The first town was a fairly large one, the main street lined with manor homes, probably built after the Civil War. Live oak trees arched overhead, creating a green tunnel to drive through. More Spanish moss hung from their branches, swaying gently in the spring-like breeze. My windows were still open wide, to take advantage of the soft evening air. I turned down the stereo; somehow, Foghat echoing between the old brick homes seemed incongruous in this sleepy southern town. The gentle folks were probably sitting down to supper, soon to move to the veranda with glasses of sweet iced tea, or bourbon, to enjoy a warm evening out of doors before bedding down for the night.
As I continued west, the sun finally set for the night and darkness enveloped the land. Insects, large and small, speckled my windshield; they joined the layers of road salt that had not been completely scrubbed off the edges of the front glass. Tree frogs, spring peepers, could still be heard in the stands of trees off the road; a large, dark shape glided past, an owl searching for its evening hunting grounds. The shrill cries of killdeers and nightjars could be heard over the humming of the tires. Traffic faded away as the time grew later; soon, only myself and a few other trucks shared the road.
A couple hours from my earlier delivery, I arrived at the mill and went through the entry procedures. I was soon backed up to the loading dock and sat as seven rolls of Georgia-Pacific's finest were forklifted into my trailer. Then it was back out across the scales and time to check out with security. When all the paperwork was complete, and the proper notifications made that I had indeed picked up the load, I worked my way back to the main highway along ten miles of winding Georgia backroads. I hit the four lane and backtracked east to a small truckstop I had noticed on my way to the mill. I rolled in and parked the 'Bird for the night. There was a restaurant there, that was closed by this time, but the stop held the most important thing for me – coffee service that would be available to me when I awoke in the morning.
With the rising sun, I struck back out on the highway and then turned left onto another four lane that would take me north and west to Columbus, GA, where I would then connect with the interstate system. From there I continued north to the Midwest, back into the snowbelt and the biting cold. But I had the chance to spend a few days down south, where the air was as warm and soft as a Georgia belle's drawl. And I carried this warmth with me, an inner fire to help me through the next few thousand miles of winter.