Snowin' and Blowin'

Sunday, December 4^th, 2011

      “Christ on a Cannondale! It's about time we saw some terrain.” These are words I imagines Lewis and Clark saying as they crossed out of the monotony (but easy miles) that is the Great Plains. I said that myself in hopes of emulating the intrepid explorers who were mapping a land already known to First nations and plenty of French fur trappers. But that is beside the point.

      Today, I ventured across North Dakota, much of it under the cover of darkness. I've heard rumors that this is where they keep all the clones of the U.S. government, so I'd just as soon not be spotted out here. Honestly though, going in the dark serves two purposes. The first purpose being is that it justifies my coffee habit. I figure, “Hey, I'm up before the freakin' SUN. I get to have coffee.” Granted, the sun never really stops working, but I'm only human. The second bonus to driving at night is that I don;t get as distracted by the scenery. In this case, there is so little to look at that ANYTHING more interesting than endless horizon becomes a target for scrutiny.

      Today for example, I became a cow spotter. I'd look for cows huddled together keeping warm in the blowing snow. There isn't much snow, but enough to blow around and make a huge cloud behind the truck when driving, much to the consternation of other motorists. My unspoken goal was to see every cow along the way, and wish them a better life the next go-round. At one point, I became so fixated on cows that everything cow-sized looked like a cow to me. Torn black plastic? A couple cows hunkering down in a fence corner. Couple big rocks in a field? Two cows hanging out with a little blanket of snow. I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong with me and this recent obsession with cows.

      Maybe it was because I was really craving cottage cheese. Here at the Town Pump in Billings, MT, they had a pint of it for sale in the store so I bought and ate all of it. Along with some butterscotch pudding! When was the last time you had that?

      On a more work related note, much of the job is spent calculating driving time and hours to get from here to there. I took that reset yesterday, because I was certain that I would not make it to Oregon in time for delivery even if I didn't rest. For some reason though I had some second thoughts about the timing. I somehow managed to recalculate the hours wrong. I was feeling a bit upset at myself for making a mistake, and not delivering on time. I certainly hold excellence in very high regard, especially in my work. So I drove for a while feeling a bit crap when it occurred to me that this re-calculation was wrong and that my original thought was correct. What a relief!

      All told, the time went by really quickly thanks to a couple snow storms up here. One gets so focused on driving that everything else just kinda goes by the wayside. My biggest scare came when passing a fuel truck going up a hill. You see, the roads out here are so vast that plowing almost always waits until the snow stops. I saw 2 plow trucks today (both working the same exit) in a 620 mile drive. This means that the highway usually has a single lane cleared, almost entirely from the action of big trucks driving by and blowing the snow off. This leaves the passing lane a mess more often than not. Packed snow, occasional gravel (as evidenced by being pelted by it every time some one passes you) and a rare bare spot make for a rough ride. So going up the hill, passing this fuel truck, the wind is still gusting. Thankfully I'm pretty heavy (hauling 22.5 tons of cooking spray) or else I might have been blown off the road. At least I felt that way. When you're driving a 53' by 13' sail, you can feel the wind push your trailer around. At 60 mph, not the best feeling in the world. That said, I passed the guy and made it Safely to Billings, where I will soon go to sleep :) Good night all!