I arrived in South Bend on Sunday night and was up early on Monday morning to catch a taxi to Middlebury. That’s where NRC Modification is and that’s where our truck was being renovated. Sometime during the night, it started to snow. It wasn’t too bad but the road weren’t in the greatest shape this early in the morning. The driver took his time and we made it to Middlebury in about 50 minutes…and the TRUCK IS BEAUTIFUL! They did an amazing job pulling together everything that Cindy had asked for (and a few things she didn’t).
After wrapping things up, I took off about 10:30am for the 14 hour drive back to Virginia. I made it as far as Charleston, WV and pulled over to spend the night at our usual hotel. I had heard reports of the weather changing (snow in the area) but it wasn’t supposed to arrive until late the next day. If I was up early, I’d miss it.
I was up early and on the road by 7am. By the time I made Beckley, it had begun to snow. And in less than 5 miles, the weather went from light snow to complete white out conditions just as I was merging onto I-64 at the I-77 split. I rounded the curve at a moderate speed, being very aware of the weather, and attempting to slow down even more. The truck, however, was not as cooperative and I ended up going sideways down the interstate. As I straightened it up and began to down shift, the speed reduction sent me into another spin. All in all, I lost control of the truck about 5 times on treacherous, snow packed roads in the mountains. I was glad that no one else was with me. I finally got it on the shoulder of the interstate in snow that had not yet been driven in and sat there for a few minutes. I called Cindy to let her know what was up and then David and Kylie to see if they could check out road conditions on the internet for me.
As it turned out, I was in the middle of a very bad snow storm (like I needed a weatherman to tell me that) but I was also on the very edge of the storm…and Sandstone Mountain was ahead of me (I’ve written about this “seven miles to hell” in a previous post – November 19, 2006). I took it slow, practiced some thousand year old advice – “pray without ceasing” – and continued toward the Mountain. Once I made it to the top of Sandstone, the journey down was very smooth.
In spite of the bad weather, I was home at noon!