6:00 AM Tuesday I start my trip to grand junction Colorado to get my CDL license. I am in upstate New York at Glen Falls which is an hour north of Albany and I’m hoping traffic will still be light by the time I get to Albany, this in fact is the case. It is a beautiful sunny cool day perfect for traveling.
minute will take me down Rt88 in New York to 86 to I-90 to I-71 to I-70 the rest of the way to Grand Junction.
Route 88 and 86 is a very scenic road it’s not quite as direct is taking 90 out of Albany but I think it is well worth the extra time. This time of year the trees are just starting to leave out. This Route runs through farm country the soil here is very dark rich bottom soil. The fields are in various stages of their growth cycle, some fields are freshly plowed other fields have well-established grass some fields are plowed ground with little green shoots coming up all in a row and some fields are still brown with last year’s stubble.
by Tuesday night I was in Ohio and it had started to rain. The rain suddenly got harder I think there’s even a little bit of hail mixed in with it, at this point I wouldn’t actually collect brain it was more like driving underwater I could see the back and of the truck ahead of me, I couldn’t see the front end of the truck! this was the heaviest rain I’ve ever driven through. I never saw any of the signs for the exit, but I saw the exit sign that he was in the process of getting off the exit when the rain stopped, so I said okay let’s keep driving while not a time I got to the other and of the interchange I was once again driving underwater! He continued to rain like this for over half an hour. When the rain stopped you could see that the clouds were very low, on the CB one trucker was saying how he wished he had his weather radio so he could find out if there any tornadoes with this storm. Another trucker answered no tornadoes jest brain. No sooner had he gotten off the microphone and then I experienced and around us gust of wind, it howled and just about bloow me off the road.
Day 2, after waking up in Western Ohio (I went to sleep here also)I once again started on my way (buoy its flat here). when I got to St. Louis as usual and there was construction on the highway downtown, so I joined in a game of bearal pinball. What is bearal pinball you ask? First you take a five lane highway downtown and then you drop a 55 gal. blue barrel off the back of a truck. Now I was driving along minding my own business when I saw lots of smoke and break lights a quarter-mile ahead of me at the same time on the CB it was announced that there was a blue construction barrel bouncing around in the road. I slowd down and watched as a blue barrel bownced from car to truck to guardrail back to car! The whole time and cars were skiding, vearing across lanes of traffic. When it came my turn to play, the barrel was rolling across the road and going to pass well behind me however the car in front of me apparently didn’t have the same perspective and slammed on his brakes which forced me to slam on my brakes which forced the guy behind me to slam on his brakes which now allowed the barrel to roll into the side of his truck. As the traffic reorganized itself I could see in my rearview mirror that the traffic behind me was still getting to play pinball. but and I got to Kansas City I was running late in not able to stop at the Golden Ox in the historic cattle yards of Kansas City. They have the best stake I’ve ever had at a restaurant! they take a really good cut of beef and cook it over a charcoal fire, not a gas fire! A well may be on the return trip.
now I’ve said many times before Kansas is not flat, Ohio is flat, Illinois is flat Indiana is flat, Kansas is not!