Holliday on Ice

 

It snowed yesterday. It was just flurries really, “snow showers.” It was only bad in isolated areas and I didn't have any trouble driving. They said the flurries would continue overnight, but with “no significant accumulation.” I didn't worry about it and woke up at my usual time (for the hour that I needed to be in Indy that particular morning) but something prompted me to look out the door in the morning. Holly Cow! There was at least two inches on the porch, I could see that the roadway was covered in white and it was still coming down hard. I forewent my relaxed internet browsing session that I usually do each morning with coffee and hopped right to it, to give myself more time. I was out the door twenty minutes early.

A pickup truck passed as I was cleaning off the windows of my car. When I got down to the road I saw that it had been the very first vehicle to put tracks in the snow. It was early in the morning but I'd expected there to have been more traffic than that. That also meant that the snow plows hadn't been up my road yet at all. They're usually pretty good about making a quick pass and dumping sand on the worst of the curves and the hills, but not this morning. It was pretty slick stuff too. Creeping down the big hill as I was I still almost slid into the stop sign at the end.

Old 37 didn't look to have been much more heavily traveled and the plows hadn't hit it yet either. There was no way that I was going to try my usual route up Sample road, with it's long steep hill. I doubted that I'd make it up it. I turned the opposite direction and stayed in the bottom, getting to the highway across Mel Curry road. [go to Google Maps and search “Dolan, Indiana.” Put it on “Satellite” and follow Old 37 north to see “the forest road” that I often take home in the evening. To see where I live follow Robinson Rd. until you get to Butler Winery, near the end, then go back north. I'm the second house on the north side of the road after the turn.]

I'd expected the highway to have been plowed, and I guess it had been, one lane, but even that one was a mess. I guess the storm caught Monroe County by surprise too. I hoped it would get better when I got to Morgan County, and it was, marginally. It wasn't until I got to Indianapolis that any real effort had been made to clear the roads though.

I was just a little early for a normal morning but I didn't think that was enough to help me make my appointment at 8:00 in Columbus, Ohio. No problem though, as the weather is a legitimate excuse to be late, and since the storm hadn't been predicted they couldn't chide me for not having allowed extra time. But as it turned out the interstate was clear, helped by the fact that it hadn't snowed as hard to the east. I even had time to stop and fuel, and still got to the receiver 15 minutes early, or right on time in other words.

The other day they predicted freezing rain so I did leave early. I was pleased that it wasn't actually raining at all, let alone freezing rain. I figured that I'd run into it on my way west though, toward Springfield, IL. Sure enough I did, but it still wasn't freezing, just raining. I'd relaxed about it and was cruising down sparsely traveled Interstate 72, listening to some funky blues on WEFT out of Champaign when I notice that I was gaining fast on a very slow vehicle. “Damn, what's he going so slow for?” I wondered and started looking around for a cause. That's when I realized the roadway was in fact covered with ice; and here I was in a big truck going 65 mph! “Oh shit!”

It's a good thing there wasn't any other traffic around us. I let off of the accelerator and eased over, ever so carefully, into the left lane, throwing on my flashers. I came up along side the other car, still losing speed, and gently gave it a little fuel so that I could get by him quickly, then slid back over into the granny lane to creep along like he was doing. I don't think he appreciated me passing him, but there was no way in hell I was going to touch my brakes if I didn't have to! That turned out to have just been a particularly bad patch. The ice continued to be a factor, but mostly in the form of ice pellets on an otherwise wet roadway. With caution I was still early to the receiver.

So yes, it's truly winter time here. The highs are only supposed to be in the single digits this weekend. Last year I made it through the entire season on one tank of propane, but then I'd been out on the road until February, with the thermostat buried in the low fifties except for during my monthly home time. I'm definitely going to need more this winter. Still, it's much better being home.

 

Spun Sugar

 

A “freezing fog” blanketed the landscape. It didn't effect the roadway, thank goodness, but it wrapped a layer of fine frost around every branch and twig making the trees look fragile, like they were made of spun sugar and would crumble at the slightest touch, or melt if they got wet.

 

My Old Friend

 

Dawn, my trusty companion. There's snow on the ground and this morning I noticed it lighten, almost glow, an electric blue, before I realized that the sky was brightening as well. I was traveling up US 31 through Northern Indiana and wondered if I'd get a repeat of yesterday's dawn in Central Illinois. But no, although the land is essentially flat I was in a mildly hilly region, near the Wabash River, and Indiana has more forest in general anyway, so the horizon was obscured from view. The part of Illinois I was traversing yesterday was totally flat, with little or no forest cover. The horizon there was the end of the earth. I didn't notice the snow glowing but a band of orange ringed me worldwide; stronger and wider to the southeast, surely, but continuous nonetheless. Then, when the sun actually rose, a red giant in my mirror, the snow turned orange, its shadows a deep blue.

Light supplies the magnificence in my life, shadow the mystery; and it's all (strange) beautiful.

 

Mishaps and Mayhem

 

I'd just passed a black pickup truck with Colorado plates, its bed loaded with stuff, when I suddenly heard a hissing sound and seemed to be loosing power. “What the...” I exclaimed and scanned the dash for any warning lights, or meters off their tolerance as I threw on my right turn signal to indicate that I was going for the shoulder. I didn't see anything out of sorts on the dash, but when I looked in my mirror to make sure there wasn't anything on the shoulder I hadn't noticed I saw the side of my trailer already there, jutting out at an angle. That was supposed to be behind me! I really had no choice but to move on over onto the shoulder, since I was loosing speed fast, but that meant letting the trailer drift off of the pavement, over a downgrade. I prayed it wasn't steep enough to tip me over. I came to a stop upright.

Traffic was moving over to the left lane, avoiding me like the plague, so it was easy to jump out of the truck into the roar and wind. It was immediately obvious what had happened: The air line to the trailer parking brakes had become disconnected.

Flash/Flash: Commercial vehicles use an air brake system, powered by an on board air compressor. This allows both monitoring of the air pressure necessary to run safely, and easy hook up between the power unit and trailing equipment through hoses connected by “glad hands.” The “service brake” only applies pressure when you step on the brake pedal, but the “parking brake” is kept off by pressure. As soon as pressure is lost it engages. So, when the parking brake air line came loose from my trailer its brakes locked up and the wheels began dragging.

I re-hooked the glad hands and then straightened my rig out on the shoulder of the road. I was going to get out and inspect the tires and equipment, but as I watched my mirrors I saw something horrible. That pickup truck that I'd passed was off of the road! It had gone down the hill and up the embankment on the other side and was stopped by the fence that lines the freeway right-of-way. I jumped out of the truck again with the intention of running up there to see if anyone was hurt and to give them the insurance information, but as I rounded the front of my tractor they started to move. They got back onto the highway with no problem. I stood next to the traffic as they came by in an effort both to say that I was sorry, and to let them know that I was available, but they just drove on. Whew, dodged a bullet there! I'm especially glad that they were okay, but even so they might have caused me lots of trouble.

It's those damned intermodal shipping containers. You know, the ones that can come overseas on a ship, then be loaded onto a railway car and finally set on a chassis to be pulled by a truck. I hate them. Twice I've had the corner of the chassis hook the air lines in a tight turn and then break them when the rig straightened out again, and I've even had a glad hand become disconnected before. It had been the service line that time, which meant that when I applied the breaks nothing happened on the trailer, the rig was stopped by the tractor alone. I hadn't known anything was wrong until I was stopped at a traffic light. With my foot continually on the brake the air kept rushing out the disconnected line and before the light turned green I got the low air pressure warning. I was almost back to the yard when that happened and with good air management I made it without the brakes locking up.

So OK, I'd been warned. But I thought that was just an anomaly, a freak incident. It never occurred to me that it could happen again and I never considered what would happen if it was the emergency brake line that came loose, at highway speed. From now on when I hook to a container my policy is to use cable ties to bind the glad hands into place, which is what I did that day on the side of the road, and to inspect the air line connections on whatever trailing equipment I'm pulling every time that I stop. Driving a truck is an ongoing process of learning new things to watch out for.

*            *            *

Followers of my previous blog, The Reluctant Trucker will have heard me bitch repeatedly about the “anal retentive” micromanaging ways of the company that I work for. They've achieved new heights in this regard and I just have to share this with you. First some back-story: Though I drive out of Plainfield (Indianapolis) I generally do B-Service (preventative maintenance) at our terminal in Louisville, KY. Twice I was scheduled to go down there but that proved inconvenient for my fleet manager so it was twice postponed. Finally, on Dec. the 23rd I was put into the shop at Stoops Freightliner in Indianapolis for B-Service. I got screwed royally in the process and it came back to bite my fleet manager in the ass too.

On the 23rd that's all that I did that day, put my truck in the shop, which I didn't get paid for. On top of that we got both Xmas and Xmas eve off, though I only got paid for the holiday itself. The paycheck for that week was barely better than what I used to bring home when I worked for $4.50 an hour! (Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for the extra time off, which I used to visit Morris in rehab and both of my folks on the north side.) Then they kept my truck for the entire next week waiting for parts both because of the holidays, which disrupted service, and because my truck is an International and was in a Freightliner shop (go figure). I used a loaner truck on Monday, then was down on Tuesday. Wednesday I had to drive all the way to Indy just to get another loaner truck for Thursday, also not paid for. Friday of course was New Year's Day so I didn't work then, but did get paid (like it was a short run). So I had another lousy week and on top of that I had to go up Sunday to get my truck out of the shop as they'd be closed early Monday morning when I needed it. It turned cold and the truck wouldn't start. More uncompensated work.

So, it's a new year and I needed the 2010 IFTA sticker for my tractor. IFTA stands for International Fuel Tax Association, the solution to having to pay taxes in every state or province that you operate in (some of you may be old enough to remember the “green stamp” license plates that trucks used to have). If I'd done B-Service in Louisville then they would have put the new sticker on then. Well, it so happens that one of the places that I deliver to regularly is just across the street from our terminal in Columbus, OH. It's a place where I'm not even allowed on the dock so there was no work for me to do, and they regularly take their sweet time there so after I'd backed into the door I walked over to the terminal to get the sticker. I just thought I'd be proactive.

The guy at the parts desk whipped out a Service Request Form and slapped it down on the counter in front of me. “I need the date, your unit number, and hub. Put 'IFTA' down here.”

I should have known, they want the “hub,” the mileage, for just about everything. “I'm in the dock over at SLS. I guess I'll swing back by when I'm unloaded,” I said, then added, “I know I won't be able to put the sticker on yet, it being so cold.” I've done this before.

“Oh, yes we can,” returned the dude, “We have to put it on for you.”

This was new, but it didn't surprise me. “How long will it take?” I asked. The guy tossed his head as if to say, “No time at all.”

I felt apprehensive on my way back to the truck. There was no hurry to get the sticker, there's a general extension until March, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to mess with it that day, with a three and a half hour drive back to Plainfield once I got unloaded. Sears, where I was delivering, takes an hour lunch at 11:30 so I resolved that if I beat that then I would go get the sticker. I was pleased to see my trailer sink under the weight of the clamp truck as I approached my rig. They were at work unloading me; good.

I beat the lunch break by 15 minutes so after checking out I pulled across the street to the terminal. I went up to the parts desk with my Service Request completely filled out. The parts guy clattered around on his keyboard a little, then said, “Whaaat the fuuuuck?” He clattered around some more then looked at me and said, “You've got three B-Serv's pending and then double everything they're going to do listed here!?” I explained the situation and he said, “OK, give me a minute.”

To make an already overlong story shorter it took an hour, much clattering on the keyboard and several phone calls before the guy finally told me to get lost, that I wasn't going to get my pretty new sticker that day. It's a good thing it wasn't February 28th or I'd have had to stay until who knows when the problem would be resolved. I don't know, I used to put the sticker on myself, once upon a time.

While I was waiting a driver came up with an empty jug looking for some windshield washing fluid. He was made to fill out a Service Request Form. The poor guy had to go back out to his truck to get his hub. After the driver finally had his fluid the parts guy wadded up the Service Request and threw it in the trash. If anything was entered into the computer I didn't catch it.

 

Strange and Wonderful

 

I was having trouble with the motorists. On my way home from South Bend, traveling down US 31 I was trying to maximize my speed, to get back as soon as possible. There was a car that just wasn't going to let me pass. Gaining on him steadily I'd take the left lane and then there we'd sit, going exactly the same speed with me just barely behind. My truck is governed so I couldn't go any faster. My only option was to move back over into the granny lane which can be tricky if other cars have moved up behind us. Pissed off at me for taking up the hammer lane they'll line up behind the car that I was trying to pass giving me nowhere to go. I'd then have to slow way down and let things clear out to my right and then get over, which isn't so bad, I'd have to slow down anyway or I'd have been way to close to that other car.

So I slowed way down, put a lot of space between me the guy I was trying to pass, then resummed cruise control at my top speed hoping that the other guy would keep his speed up. Not so; I'd gain on him steadily and then when I tried to pass he sped up again. I tried several times. Sometimes I think people do that unconsciously and when you demonstrate to them that you are going faster than they really care to go they'll let you by. Not this guy. I don't know whether he was being stupid or malicious, but he obviously wasn't going to let me by.

I could have just stayed out there in the hammer lane and perhaps he would have eventually relented, but then I would have held up traffic behind us and there's no telling if it would have even worked. Or I might have been able to keep up my speed by tailgating the jerk. Every time that I'd try to pass I'd think, “What, you want me on your ass?” But besides being rude that would be extremely dangerous; not that there aren't thousands of truck drivers out there who would be happy to take either of those options, regardless of the possible consequences. No, I eventually dropped back and reset my cruise control to a slower speed. No biggie.

Taking off from a stoplight my enemy was able to get far enough ahead of me that I wasn't going to have to worry about him for awhile and stepped up my speed again. I was empty and could take off fairly quickly, but still had to run through the gears, much slower than a car from a dead stop. I was quicker than a loaded truck, though, and passed one who had been at the light ahead of me as he struggled to gain speed. Further down the road I looked in my mirror and saw the truck gaining on me. As he pulled into the passing lane I turned off the cruise and slowed, to help him get by me. I just can't understand these guys who make a passing truck work for every inch. I, for one, don't want to drive along with another truck a few feet to my left.

I kept off of it until enough space had opened between us for a comfortable following distance and then resumed my speed. I'll be damned if the truck wasn't now going slower than I was before he'd passed me. I've seen it before, but I still find it hard to believe. You have to understand that besides the childish ego need to be first that seems to animate many drivers, of all stripes, in the trucking industry the company that I work for is known as one of the slowest on the road. Everyone else feels that they have to be in front of a company truck, no matter the cost or the circumstances; the conditioned response in what I term “Pavlov's Drivers.” One failed attempt to try to re-pass this guy was sufficient to tell me that I never would. I dropped back and “took my place” behind him. Again, no biggie, it was only a matter of minutes that I'd have saved, and one ill timed stop light could easily erase those gains anyway.

A little later down the road there seemed to be something gumming up the traffic. It could be that my new nemesis had caught up to the old, though if so why the big truck didn't use the extra speed that he did have, that I only wished that I'd had, to pull away I don't know. I don't honestly know what the problem was but traffic was being held up and I found myself in the midst of a pack of impatient cars, one of my least favorite places to be.

I was trying to maintain my space cushion and wishing that things would clear up when I noticed a bird winging its way toward the highway from off the shoulder. It was a medium sized bird, about the size of a crow, but more slender, and dark but not black. Its shape was unique, though I couldn't identify it at the oblique angle from which I was seeing it. It flew into the open space in front of me and proceeded to continue down the highway as if it were another car in line. I could see then that it was some kind of a duck. It kept flapping its wings and heading down the highway.

It was going fast, but not fast enough for traffic. I thought at first that as I drew near it would swerve away but it didn't. It just kept right on following the road in front of me and I realized that if I wasn't going to hit it I'd have to slow down. So I did and traffic passed us by leaving us alone on the highway. Still it continued down the road, constantly varying its position, sometimes high, above my line of sight, sometimes low, just above its own shadow on the pavement; sometimes over on the median or back again to the shoulder but every time that I thought I might get past it it'd veer back over in front of me again. I was amazed at how fast those little wings were carrying it. I clocked it between 50 and 55 mph.

This went on for several miles. Whenever another car would pass I'd try to see if the occupants noticed this odd creature, but I couldn't tell if any did or not. No one slowed down to look in any case. Finally, just before we got to the Eel river my pilot bird veered off to the right. I wasn't able to distinguish any unique markings from behind so I tried to get a good look at the bird as I passed. All I could quickly identify were two white stripes along the bottom of the wing though. Looking at Peterson's Field Guide that would make it a Mallard, but I'm sure it wasn't. I'd have recognized a Mallard and this bird was larger than any Mallard I've seen before. Perhaps it was a Merganser? I'll probably never know, but it was a strange and wonderful event. After my traveling companion left me I was free of traffic until I got to Kokomo, so I owe it a debt of gratitude for that too.

(It was a female Mallard, duh. Ms Jonathan Livingston Duck. The best theory to date is that she was riding the compression wave in front of my truck. 6/5/10)

 

The Gauntlet

 

There are 16 traffic lights in the 47 mile stretch between my home and work. I have, on more than one occasion, caught all of them green except the last one, which doesn't really count since I turn there and the turn signal is on a sensor and won't change until there is a car waiting. I have, actually, been fortunate enough to roll through it on the skirts of the car that triggered the signal, but never on a morning when I'd made all the other lights.

Of course this only happens in the morning, between three and five o'clock; possibly five thirty. They are all trip lights, you see, like that last one; only there I'm the trigger. The lights will all stay green until someone comes along to alter the equation. The trick is to watch for the “changer,” and then to know how the light behaves once it's been tripped. They turn green again pretty quick, but they'll change back red quickly too, if someone else comes along. So it's balls out, pedal to the medal the whole way, until you're actually close to the light.

The character of the traffic changes each half an hour. You see; I don't have the same schedule every day. Sometimes I have to leave the house at 2:30 or 3:00, I usually leave around 4:00, but sometimes I get a break and don't have to leave until 5:00 or 5:30 (it's not a matter of sleeping in, I just stay up later the night before). Once I didn't have to leave the house until 7:00, but that was an anomaly. As the half hours progress there is more and more traffic. We used to say that in the wee hours there were only drunks and cops on the road. Once I started driving a truck I amended that to “drunks, cops and truckers.” Now I know that isn't true either. I'm a trucker still, but I'm not driving a truck at the time, I'm just on my way to work and it could as well be screen printing that I do. There is never a time without traffic in America.

The trip lights are pretty sophisticated and behave differently at different hours of the day. For instance: the left turn signal from IN 67 onto Ameriplex Parkway will interrupt oncoming traffic to give me a green arrow while keeping the cross traffic light red, if there isn't anyone waiting there, but only before 5:00. After 5:00 it changes to a cycle that necessitates a green for the cross traffic before I'll get a green arrow, even if there isn't anyone there. Likewise the two main lights in Mooresville are trip lights until 5:00, then they turn to a standard cycle and will turn red for me even if there isn't anyone waiting at the intersection.

Sometimes the lights malfunction, or seem to. There is one light at the entrance to a business park that will sometimes be on a standard cycle even in the wee hours of the morning, and it changes quickly. Usually lights like that allow for an extended green on the heavily traveled highway side, but not this one. It changes so quickly that it's nearly impossible to time it accurately to roll through a green, and there isn't even any traffic coming out of the business park. There's another one that I truly hate. It's at the entrance to a large strip mall, Heartland Crossing. When it malfunctions it goes to rush hour mode and makes you wait minutes while it gives a long green for the cross traffic, and then an extended green turn arrow for the oncoming traffic, all while there's not another car in sight. I have seen people run this light when it behaves like that. I've certainly been tempted to, but with my luck a cop would suddenly appear just as I did.

The first “malfunctioning” stop light is the last one before Mooresville and I have sometimes wondered if they aren't trying to break up traffic through town into discrete packs. But it's still miles from town and only happens every once in awhile. As far as what could be a purpose for the Heartland Crossing malfunction the only reason I can fathom is that it's somebody's idea of a cruel joke. Especially since I later realized that the light actually cycles through quite quickly during rush hour, it never acts like that except when I'm on my way to work in the wee hours of the morning.

It's a whole different ball game in the afternoon.

*      *      *

Back when they were repaving the White River bridge outside of Martinsville, a process that reduced the bridge to one lane for over a month, I used to wish that I knew of another way over the river other than going all the way down to Spencer. It obviously wasn't too inconvenient since I never brought up Google Maps and tried to find a way. Later, when Morris was in the hospital in Spencer and I went that way to visit him, I realized that IN 67 passes through Paragon.

Traveling north on IN 37, on the other side of the river, I always hail the sign that says “Paragon, so many miles that way” because once, long, long ago, I had a job out in the country on the other side of Paragon. I was working for Parker Pools and we were installing the very first of those one piece fiberglass, in ground pools to be sold in Indiana. My cars were all (junk) on the fritz at the time and Tom Parker, my boss, would pick me and my house guest Ed Slicer up at home. Ed and I would jump in the back of Tom's pickup truck full of tools and ride with the wind our hair all the way to the job site.

I remember that as a glorious summer; happily married and living in our own home beneath the eaves of a mature hardwood forest in the hills of Southern Indiana, with a beautiful two year old daughter and another child in the oven; working out doors with my hands, more physically and mentally fit than I'd ever been in my life. Getting to ride to work in the back of a pickup truck through the magnificent countryside was just icing on the cake.

So when I passed through Paragon again I said to myself, “Hmm, file that away until I need another alternate route across the White River.”

There was an accident in Martinsville today on my way home from work. There was a cop parked in the median with his lights flashing before the turn where IN 39 crosses the bridge, and traffic was backed up past the extensive turn lane onto the highway itself. Ah, a perfect time to explore that alternate route.

I hadn't remembered it being such a small, winding road; or the wonderful old architecture along the way, passing through townships that predate the great depression; it must have been a river thing. As for the river itself I thought it interesting that on the eastern side, just before the hills start there is a gate that can be shut to close the road. I imagine that the long piece of bottom land on the western side sometimes floods. Once over the river and into the hills it was so windy, with other roads branching off at organic angles, that I eventually got lost and ended up back north, almost to Martinsville again. I certainly didn't save any time and would rather have made it home sooner, but it was a beautiful, interesting drive and I don't regret it a bit. I've since been online and traced the route so I know how to do it next time, but regardless, the entire experience just brings home to me again how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful area.

 

Sunset in the Woods, Wind in the Fields

 

Bare trees on the forest road. Though I was in shadow the tops of neighboring hills still glowed red with the setting sun, visible intermittently through the boles and branches. As the road curved to the West the flaming sky shone from behind the inky structure of the forest; turning East the rising full moon swung recklessly through the tree tops.

I had another interesting optical illusion supplied by parallax recently: In the flat northern part of the state, on the way to Chicago, there are wind farms. Power transmission lines run through the middle of one. The towers are huge but still dwarfed by the enormous windmills and so, due to perspective look to be further away. What a shock when those far away power towers moved quickly in front of the, seemingly, closer windmills!

I find wind farms beautiful. Some give a confused aspect as a whole so I only focus on a few windmills at a time, enjoying the correspondence and or interaction of the turning blades, but some seem coherent and attractive all together. I doubt that aesthetics ever enter into the placement of the windmills, but it should.