Cassi Creek:
Yesterday I drove the second leg of a trip from Jefferson City MO to
home in Chuckey TN. I expected the leg
to take about hours. That would have resulted
in the journey’s end at about 1500 according to my trusty companion
Garmin.
The morning
began well. I was showered, packed, and loaded by 0600. The motel breakfast service opened at 0600
and I was the first guest to attack it.
0645 found me fed, gas topped off, and onto the interstate. Fog rapidly rolled in on the Ohio valley and
as I crossed the Ohio at Paducah drizzle began to be present in sufficient
amounts to require wipers.
When I filled
up with gas at Nashville, the roads were still mostly dry but the clouds
appeared ominous as they built in.
This is, I
know, a recap from last night’s post. It
was a highly dangerous leg of the trip that I don’t care to repeat again.
I-40 is old
highway across mountainous terrain. It
carries a tremendous amount of car traffic and a comparable volume of
tractor/trailer rigs. There are two rest
areas between Knoxville and Nashville.
These are 58 miles apart. I
stopped at the area nearest Nashville to stretch and then returned to the
road. The rain began within ten minutes.
and continued to Knoxville.
With combined
fog and torrential rains, visibility rapidly declined to about 50 feet. Those cars running without lights were nearly
invisible. Even more dangerous were
trucks with white trailers and only their lower taillights showing. Those trailers blend into the surrounding
rain and road spray. The relatively dim
lights are next to useless. In several cases,
I was unable to see such a rig in front of me until I was in that 50-foot
gap.
Along with
anyone possessed of a will to survive the highway’s risks, I had my emergency
flashers engaged and tried to keep up with the prevailing traffic. Demonstrating a truly dangerous ignorance,
three times I found a car in front of me suddenly stopping and remaining on the
traffic lanes.
When the
winds gusting at sufficient velocity to
affect the Pathfinder on a dry pavement, with ponding on the lower side of the
curves and in the valleys, just holding the road became problematic during the
worst of the storms. Factor in partially
resurfaced traffic lanes with a 1-2 inch drop from inner to outer lane. Changing lanes required planning and
concentration.
I pulled up
the radar loop for that location and time this morning. If I had been able to see what I was driving
into, I would have pulled off at a truck stock or any place where I could wait out
the storm.
The weather
delay resulted in two additional road hours.
I had just enough time to unload the Pathfinder before it began to rain
here.
I’ve driven
on laterite roads during monsoon storms.
I was delivering a jeep load of fragmentation grenades to a perimeter
bunker under blackout conditions when the jeep skidded off the road and landed
on its side in a ditch. I’ve driven across Colorado and Kansas in blizzard/ice
storm conditions. Yesterday’s trip was
near the top of my “I’d rather not repeat the experience” list. After that drive, mowing and trimming are
less odious.
Like any landing,
one can walk away from, ending up safely home makes the trip yesterday a good
one. Getting safely home is always good.
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