Road Trip, What an Adventure!!

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 9:24 pm

I had a boiler and two stoves to deliver in Pennsylvania and western NY. so I planned on delivering them and taking my dump trailer along, bringing back 4 or 5 tons of coal.

I set it all up to happen on Tuesday the 13th, and Wednesday the 14th. The weather was forcast to be bad, and on Monday I decided to push the trip back a day. Then that night, with the latest weather forcast, I realized I needed to go on Tuesday, as originally planned, to get ahead of the worst of the storm.

Well if I had not decided to delay the trip, I would have been ready for an early departure on Tuesday morning, but I didn't get the loading done on Monday, thinking I wasn't leaving untill wednesday...

So I got a late start on Tuesday, and traveled into the leading edge of the storm.. If I had waited a full day, I would have never completed the trip, roads got closed or impassible right behind me as I traveled.

I delivered the first stove in NW Pennsylvania, and while I waited for the purchaser to show [he was stuck behind a snowplow truck] The snow piled up 3"-4" on my truck in one hour.

From this point on it was about 4.5 hours of driving, rarely above 50 mph, and I never took the truck out of 4x4. I arrived at the new home of the second stove at about 11pm. We unloaded the stove, getting it in out of the snow and cold, and I hit the sack. 11 hours of white knuckle driving had worn me out!

When I had arrived on tuesday night, the driveway had been cleared of about 4" of snow, when we went out for breakfast, an addtional 6"-8" of additional snow had fallen overnight.

See photos below, then the next installment.

Greg L

Attachments

wednesdaymorning.jpg

Fresh snow falling overnight, the driveway had been cleared of ~4" of snow already, Check out the roof of the blue house. 12" + snow.

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tuesdaynight1.jpg

Another photo showing the load of coal stoves and a coal boiler. I was glad to have the extra weight in the truck.

.JPG | 42.6KB | tuesdaynight1.jpg
tuesdaynight.jpg

Truckload of coal-burners and heavy snow. The dump trailer came along to carry 4 tons of coal on the return trip

.JPG | 36.2KB | tuesdaynight.jpg
Last edited by LsFarm on Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 11:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.


 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 9:44 pm

On Wednesday morning the 14th, I got on the road mid morning, hoping that the road crews had cleared the roads, but no such luck, the truck stayed in 4x4 for the rest of the day. About another 5 hours of driving.

I was on I-81 just before it was closed north of Scranton Pa. The freeway was getting very bad, it was snowing so fast, it wasn't possible for the snowplows to keep up with snow removal. I saw semi's being towed up hills, semi's stuck on on and off-ramps.

When I left the freeway for a side road to get into north Carbondale, I was not ready for the road conditions. The road had not seen a snowplow truck since the previous winter. The two lane road had one track in the snow, and I had to make my own road through the snowdrifts several times when opposite-direction traffic came the other way. At times I was pushing snow with the front bumper and grill, I saw snow as high as the healights, but the snow never came up over the hood.

Upon arriving in Carbondale, and unloading the boiler, another well deserved rest.

The next day, I couldn't find a coal yard that was both open and had operating equipement. So I had to wait till Friday morning to get a load of coal and start back home.

I was routed off I-81 to a detour route, that went through Berwick Pa. So I stopped by LeisureLine's factory, and had a pleasant hour with Jerry.

Back on the road, I arrived home 10 hours later.

Quite a trip, much more of an adventure than I had expected.

Greg L

Attachments

doorwall.jpg

What doesn't show in the photo is the 6" layer of ice in the snow. There were several hours of freezing sleet that added up to about 6"-7" of hard ice, covered by another 4" of snow.

.JPG | 35KB | doorwall.jpg
Heavysnow1.jpg

Sidewalk, what sidewalk??

.JPG | 47.1KB | Heavysnow1.jpg
DeepSnow.jpg

Check out that waist-deep snow drift.

.JPG | 46.8KB | DeepSnow.jpg

 
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Post by Richard S. » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 10:02 pm

Consider youself lucky, there were few places where motorists were stranded overnight on the interstates. Parts of I-80 and I-81 were closed for days. It made no sense to me as to why they didn't shut them down when it became a problem. I believe it was I-78 that was complete gridlock and they were still allowing motorists on to the road.

The response after the storm was another complete disaster, parts of major highways being closed for days is not acceptable in my book. A day or two I could understand but parts of I-81 and I-80 didn't open up until Saturday. It was the first major snow event this year so I'll give them credit for that but it's still unacceptable.

 
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 10:12 pm

As I sat in the detour traffic-jam, I was thinking that keeping the road open but only for vehicles with 4wd, or chains. Like the way that western highway mountain passes are kept open.

I definetely am lucky, a few hours later and I'd have had to stay on the freeway overnight.

Greg L

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detour.jpg

There was 24+ miles of this start and stop traffic.

.JPG | 29.1KB | detour.jpg

 
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Post by Oo-v-oO » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 11:04 pm

Nice truck - that's just about exactly what I want, and my favorite color, too!

 
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 11:20 pm

If I'd had any lesser truck it wouldn't have happened. My empty weight of the truck is 7300#. With all the torque from the Cummins diesel, I could push through just about anything.

The truck and trailer crossed the scales before loading coal at 11,300#.

Fully loaded with coal, at 19,950# the truck got 11mpg at 70+mph pushing against a 10-20mph headwind. and I could accelerate up any hill on I-80 west of I-81, That's a truck!! [it's not a stock hp engine, I have 'tweaked' it a bit :lol: ]

Greg L.

.

 
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Yanche
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Post by Yanche » Mon. Feb. 19, 2007 11:34 pm

Richard S. wrote:Consider youself lucky, there were few places where motorists were stranded overnight on the interstates. ...Snip.. I believe it was I-78 that was complete gridlock and they were still allowing motorists on to the road. ... Snip ... it's still unacceptable.
You are correct it was I78 west of Allentown, PA. It brought back 35 year old memories when I spent the night on I78 east of Harrisburg, PA stuck in wind driven snow along with hundreds of others. It was before the days of two way radios in state highway equipment. A PA owned road grader had been sent out to clean drifted snow from the previously cleared road. The snow storm had ended two days earlier. It got stuck in a drift and blocked the road. There were dozens of tractor trailers too. The road grader operator tried to get all the truckers to help shovel him out. They would have no part of it. It was still the time of big trucking companies and the drivers were on "over time". They had a 100 gallons of fuel and a sleeper cab. The rest of us were cold, hungry and no place to go to the bathroom. I was 23 and it was my first experience on how inconsiderate some can be. I was driving a company owned station wagon that happened to have a lot of packing foam. I got to know several young college co-eds that were driving a VW bug quite well that night. We alternately ran the heater and tried keeping warm under the packing foam. The next morning was a beautiful sunny day. A private helicopter with Hershey logos came and landed in the median. They handed out Hershey candy and said help would be on it's way. Four hours later a privately owned bulldozer slowly made it's way up the median and cleared the road. I never saw a single police officer. Apparently PA has yet to learn how to deal with winter road conditions and public safety. Yes, I know there are a lot of good people in PA but their state government doesn't seem to have it's act together.

Yanche


 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 12:32 am

Yanche wrote:Apparently PA has yet to learn how to deal with winter road conditions and public safety. .
Well I wouldn't go that far, we've had winter storms in the past worse than this one without any major issues so it's not as if they don't know how to deal with it. Somone dropped the ball on this one....

 
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Post by WNY » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 8:18 am

Yes, what a trip! Glad you made it! and thanks for all your hard work!!

The stove will be installed and working hopefully soon! :)

 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 10:37 am

Of all the forums I've been a member of I've never actually met anyone except for the one on 40 Lb Head but that doesn't really count because I already met most of them to begin with.

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 1:16 pm

I was pleased to meet four members of the forum on this trip: Gambler, WNY, Matthaus, and Jerry of LeisureLine. All upstanding folks.

Special thanks to WNY and Matthaus for the hospitality and letting me stay at their home instead of a motel.

Greg L

 
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Post by coaledsweat » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 1:37 pm

LsFarm wrote:Special thanks to WNY and Matthaus for the hospitality and letting me stay at their home instead of a motel.Greg L
Probably a lot warmer too. :)

 
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Post by ktm rider » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 4:42 pm

Greg,
Just wondering if they did the Ol' N.C.I.C. check before they let you stay! :) :) You can't be too careful. LOL!!

 
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Post by gambler » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 6:24 pm

Greg, it was a real pleasure to meet you. I just wish you would have had the time to B.S. about burning coal for a while. That weather was a bear!! The trip to that truck stop takes me about 30 min in good weather so I thought it might take 10 or 15 minutes longer that evening because of the snow. I never expected to have to follow that plow truck the last 15 or so miles at a neck breaking speed of 10 to 15 miles an hour. The trip for me took 1 hour and 15 minutes. instead of the 30 to 40 minutes that I had planned. The sad part about it was I caught up to that same plow truck on the way home but I only had to follow him for about 5 miles and he pulled over. Anyway I was glad that I met you and I am sorry that you had to wait for 45 min for me to get there. Glad you had a safe trip!!

 
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Post by Cap » Tue. Feb. 20, 2007 7:17 pm

We brew the storms up the right way here in PA buddy! 2" or 3" of snow with it melting the next day isn't the way we like our snow!

the kids and I had the best sledding in my life this past w/e. A simple open field blown free of the powder left with a sheet of crusted ice formed from 12 hrs of sleet. A gentle down slope and you were off with no way of stopping without dragging two feet or crashing yourself before ending up in the tree line.

I never in 45 yrs saw better conditions for sledding.

Attachments

IMG_1763.jpg

Andy & I trying the slope across the way.
Andy is 10. I'm just a BIG KID!

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IMG_1756.jpg

I never would of believed I could sled this hill if I didn't do it myself. Me on left!

.JPG | 112.1KB | IMG_1756.jpg
IMG_1751.jpg

Open field in Lehigh Twp, PA. The field was blown free of powder snow. Lehigh Gap in background.

.JPG | 100.2KB | IMG_1751.jpg


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