We got about a good 6 inches of snow overnight in Spokane on Thursday, so when we awoke early Friday morning, we trudged our way into the driver's lounge to take showers and do laundry. While I was waiting for the clothes to dry, Craig took the opportunity to start our pick up and head over to the Wal Mart to buy himself some snow boots! Seems his feet didn't particularly like the loafers he was wearing while putting on chains on Snoqualmie Pass.
When all the housekeeping duties were completed, we took off for Wallula, WA to Tyson Meat to pick up our load. It wasn't scheduled to be completed until Saturday morning, but we had high hopes that it would be ready for us when we arrived. Just as we hoped, it was loaded and ready for pickup, but what we didn't like so much was maneuvering around the snow piles and slush that had built up on the Tyson property. Once hooked up to our loaded trailer, we couldn't find a place with bare ground to slide our tandems either. Craig, ever the optimist, drove off anyway, sure that we would find some place with a patch of bare asphalt.
Needless to say, we spent way too much time driving around with no luck, and finally just took matters into our own hands, prayed for the best, and did a quick slide near an on ramp to hwy 395 and were thankful that traffic was light. We had to laugh when we scaled out, as there had to be several hundred pounds of snow and ice built up on the scales, along with the ice that was clinging to our truck and trailer, but we scaled out legal and were on our way.
The roads were pretty good, however when we turned off onto Highway 14, along the Columbia River Gorge, the roads got a bit tricky with a major layer of ice on the road. Earlier in the day, they were restricting commerical trucks, but had lifted the ban by the time we got there. I'm not so sure they shouldn't have kept the restriction, or at least required chains as there was quite a bit of it where I was doing the white-knuckle death grip on my door and arm rest.
With Craig's great driving skills we make it to Biggs Junction and our next hurdle. The dreaded Pilot Truck Stop and trying to get fuel. As usual, it was packed, and it took us just over an hour to make our way in and out. We were looking forward to getting onto Hwy 97 where we knew the roads were suppose to be a bit better and they were. With no real time constraints on this load, we decided to call it a night at the rest stop between Shaniko and Madras, OR and await to see what the morning would bring us.
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