Wednesday, December 1st It was still drizzling when I got up this morning. My alarm clock (cell phone) didn't wake me up because I set the ringer on vibrate; gee the instructions said it would still ring an alarm. Guess the instructions were wrong or they need better instructions! So I already behind schedule by the time I got up (about 2-hours late).
The further south I drove from Toledo, the worse the weather got--rain, then snow, then rain, etc. And high winds! I was going through the beginning stages of a snow storm that would dump 3-6 inches in northern Ohio as well as parts of Indiana and Illinois. By the afternoon, sunshine was everywhere in Kentucky and Tennessee.
My wife called me right before the kids went off to school (so I was able to say a quick hello to them) and said it had snowed about 2-inches overnight. The kids were thrilled as they would get to play in the snow. My wife reminded me to make sure I'm home Christmas weekend. So, I'll be driving 3-weeks out instead of 2-weeks before I get home. Bummer--I'll need to laundry on the road!
Right before Nashville, the CB started humming with an accident on our side of the freeway just ahead. I got off an exit (as did a number of vehicles) and did an end-run around the city. By the time I got back to where I needed to be going, I wasn't sure if I had saved time or actually lost time. In other words, they could've had the accident cleaned up and the freeway back to normal speeds by the time I made it back to the freeway.
Another accident involving just a tractor-trailer (from what I could tell) happened on the other side of the freeway heading towards Jackson, TN. At the bottom of a hill, the rig failed to make the turn and plowed right through the safety guardrail presumably into the oncoming lanes (by the time I arrived, I saw that they had the tractor upright (it looked in pretty good shape for taking out a guard rail--the frame caught most of the impact) but couldn't see the trailer anywhere--maybe it went down the other side of the freeway or it wasn't that damaged as well. I didn't see any skid marks as I went by. So the driver could have dozed off. However, I heard a report on the CB that his steering tie rod perhaps malfunctioned meaning he couldn't steer the rig at all. If that was the case, perhaps he slowed down as much as possible and didn't skid to totally lose control of the vehicle. In any event, traffic was backed-up in both lanes for at least 8-miles! My side of the freeway was zipping along at normal speeds. The other side of the freeway was at a complete standstill. Obviously some people were not at all happy at this turn of events. Others (mostly truckers who knew what was going on) were outside chatting away with other truckers to pass the time. And this scene went on for at least 8-miles! We (truckers heading in the other direction) were warning oncoming drivers who hadn't yet hit the "parking lot" to try and take an alternative route if they knew of one or stop at a rest area or truck stop and relax there while the wreck was cleaned up. If you ever encounter a major bottleneck in your road travels, roll down your window and ask a trucker. More than likely, he'll be able to tell you exactly what's going on and even give you possible ideas on what route to take depending on where you need to go.
Shortly thereafter, I stopped for lunch/supper and realized that I still could drive about one-half hour before shutting down for the day. And so I did. I've got 444 miles to go to make my 9:00 AM appointment tomorrow. If everything goes as planned, I should be there on time or perhaps even a early! Well I'll see how easy sleep comes to me at around 4:00 PM in the afternoon.
miles driven = 597
3:54:01 PM
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