The trip started off according to plan. I got to Maryland around 1:30 AM and snoozed for a few hours and got up around 4 to 430 AM. That was the last thing that went right. It was clear when I got on US 220 (the road that goes between I99 and I68) that there was unexpected precipitation. I was fortunate that I got into PA on 99 before things got worse. The whole winter storm was pretty much ice in PA, and there were cars off the road or accidents every quarter mile. I ended up averaging I would guess around 15mph across all of PA (it took 10-11 hours) because of crappy roads and accidents. This was a common sight.
As was this. He came from a fire truck at another accident a few hundred feet down the road (you can see all the cars were still single file). There weren't enough first response vehicles available for all the accidents. Most common was nobody available though.
At one point I stopped for a break. The ice was quite thick. My truck doesn't have LED bulbs, so thankfully the lights didn't ice up (more important later in the trip). It wasn't quite that thick in this picture (this was around a quarter inch), but when I stopped after getting off the highway in VT, the ice on the front of the truck was almost an inch thick. The hood (better representative of the precipitation) was at around 3/8" to at most 1/2"
After that I hit NY, which historically has been well plowed so I figured I would make up time there. Ha. In retrospect, NY had the best roads for the rest of the trip, but at the time I was extremely disappointed. I87 was only moving around 40mph. I90 towards MA wasn't cleared at all.
The Mass Pike was a trainwreck. There is a long hill on I90 that is a couple of miles long. There were a couple dozen cars that were sitting on the hill (going the opposite direction) that didn't make it. Thankfully I was going down. The Mass Pike was the beginning of "I don't know where the road, but thankfully I can still feel rumble strips when I get to the edge".
I took a video, but apparently the blogger website is broken and won't upload it.
As I approached I91, I figured it couldn't get worse. I was wrong. Parts of I91 were plowed, causing long traffic jams since MA apparently plows with the rigs side by side, and they don't actually drop the plow to the pavement, they left an inch plus on the road (I was literally directly behind them). Worst of all is that they plow at 12mph. Slower than just idling in my truck. The spots that I wasn't behind plowtrucks were completely untouched. Another interesting tidbit about MA is that they apparently plow their Scenic View lots before they plow their interstates. Several of those had been cleared.
Then came VT. VT has always been known for poor plowing, and they lived up to their billing. At this point, there was around 8-12 inches on the interstate. I had to drive the rest of the way with 4WD engaged. When I entered VT there was a long line of traffic from the 12mph trucks in MA. By exit 1, most of the line was gone. By exit 2, there were only a couple of us still trying. In an amusing anecdote, someone in a Honda Fit tried to get on the interstate at exit 2, which dumps you out on a hill. They only made it off the acceleration ramp far enough to slide off the other side. They made it literally maybe 500 feet. I was the only vehicle that made it up the hill, and I am guessing that is only because I hit the base at almost 50mph, which is insane when you consider the road conditions and the fact that I could only see about 20 feet. Something else that occurred to me as I crested the hill (going around 20 mph) is that I don't have a working flashlight or flares or anything in the truck, so if I hadn't made it there is no way to make the truck visible to plows. I only saw one plow truck in VT going the other direction.
NH was bad, but after VT it was a breath of fresh air. Route 9 to Keene had been plowed at least once and only had ~4-6" on it. Hubbard and South road hadn't been touched, but that was actually a blessing in disguise since there was no bank at the end.
We had around a foot, maybe a touch less when I got home, so the bank would have hit the underside of the truck.
All in all, the return trip took 29 hours. I left around 7PM on Saturday, and got home around midnight. I slept for 3 hours in MD, and another hour to maybe an hour and a half in PA, so I spent literally over 24 hours on the road. All things considered, while I am sick of sitting in the truck, I think it will suffice from a comfort perspective if I get a couple of cushions.
When I got up this morning we had around 16", and it was still coming down. We got 2" while I snowblowed enough to get out. As expected the bank at the end of the driveway was taller than the snowblower. Another frustrating thing is that even with all the gravel I put down this year, I am still breaking shear pins at a breakneck pace. I went through 6 of them this morning. It is much easier to clear though without the ruts.
We were supposed to get 2-4 during the day and another 4-6 tonight so I will probably not bother with the driveway tonight.
Well hind sight is 20-20
ReplyDeleteAt least you made it home safely. Can only get better from here.