How Great The Yield From A Fertile Field

Random musings from an old farmer about life, agriculture, and faith

Sunday, March 01, 2015

Trip

Chores were finished and the van was packed.  We got on the road shortly after 9:00 A.M.  Our goal was to put in a big day and drive late into the evening and get through Atlanta (missing rush hour traffic) before we stopped for the night.  Then we could have a casual second day.

We hit snow just south of Champaign.  We were driving right into the tail of Winter Storm Octavia!  It snowed most of the day, so we were driving on snow covered roads, snow packed roads, slush covered roads, and finally ice covered roads.  In Kentucky and Tennessee we saw very few snow plows or salt trucks on the roads.  I think that in a similar storm, we would expect to see more snowplows in the city of Peoria than we saw in the entire state of Tennessee.  It was near Nashville that we hit ice and it was still icing/raining.  Fortunately the only people on the roads seemed to be travelers and trucks; the city of Nashville was shut down for the day.  They even closed the interstates just after we made it through town.  We kept plodding southeast thinking we would eventually drive out of it.  We didn't.  We drove on white ice, gray ice, and black ice. There were lots of cars in the ditch and accidents.  People don't know how to drive on snow or ice in the South.
In the hills around and south of Nashville, the shoulders were lined with semi's parked for the night.  Either they couldn't make it up the icy hills and they had to pull off, or they were afraid they would jack-knife trying to control their speed going downhill.  Tall heavily ice laden trees would occasionally fall over and reach the shoulder and sometimes even block the first lane of the interstate.  It took us three and a half hours to travel the last one hundred miles before we finally called it quits for the day at 7:30 in the evening.  We found a Super 8 and a Waffle House with only 500 miles down of a 1200 mile trip to show for our day.  So much for anticipating an easy second day!

Tuesday morning Northbound I-24 was still closed.  We got an early start and headed South.  The road had been salted overnight, but was still a little slick.  We averaged 45 MPH for the first hour and then gradually were able to drive the speed limit.  About the time we hit Georgia, it started raining.  And it rained all the rest of the drive down to Anna Maria Island.  We finally rolled into our condo parking lot at about 8:00 in the evening.  Tired from the most intense 1200 miles we've driven in a long time.

And definitely looking forward to a week and a half of rest and relaxation.

For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength.
Job 37:6


2 Comments:

At 5:46 PM, Blogger Christy Schrock said...

That's incredible! I sure hope you aren't all rested up just in time turn back around and drive through another one. Thankful to God for seeing you there safely.

 
At 11:12 AM, Blogger Jenny said...

Poor Dad... you don't even like wafflehouse! *grin*

 

Post a Comment

<< Home