RECIPE FOR DISASTER

All the while trying to get some sleep Wednesday, the rain fell, and as the rain fell, I had to wonder how it would effect us going over Snoqualmie Pass. I checked the forecast, and it was calling for light snowfall. Oh great.....I know we haven't had near the amount of snow we have had the last two years, but is it ever going to STOP snowing this year?

Our trailer was finally ready around 10pm, and with barely 10,000 pounds of home decorating items on board, we took off towards Spokane. As I mentioned previously, Craig did manage to eek out about 5 hours of sleep during the day, and I was already feeling the burning in my eyes. But I need not have worried because the adrenalin rush I would be soon experiencing, would keep me wide awake for a good couple of hours.

We stopped in North Bend, WA for a dose of caffeine, where the temperature was 44 degrees and it was raining pretty good. We took off thinking, "well this isn't so bad", and by the time we got about 10 miles up into the pass, it started snowing. Then it really started snowing, and hard. It was coming down so hard and so fast, the roads were completely covered, and as we drove further up the incline, we began to see trucks starting to slow down and loose traction. It was a bit like playing dodge ball as Craig carefully avoided trucks on all sides of us, as he kept our truck and trailer moving, knowing that if we came to a stop as well, we would never get moving again without help. The one time we could have really used a fully weighted trailer was now, and as the drive tries started slipping, and visibility got very limited, we inched our way up to the summit. There was no worries about being sleepy at that point, as all mental and physical pistons were on high alert.

Reaching the summit, we knew we just had to make it back down off the pass and we would be okay. It continued snowing, and with the wind blowing it directly into our path, it was at times hard to see where the road was, but we finally made it as the snow turned into sleet and then quickly into rain. Big sigh of relief there, and a prayer of thanks as the next Mother Nature element we began to face was high wind gusts, but after what we just faced, even that didn't seem so bad.

We arrived at our first stop a couple of hours early, and took advantage of the down time waiting to get unloaded by taking a quick nap. It took longer than expected before we were finally on our way to our last drop. Doing a quick check of the time, we knew we had to be in and out quickly in order to get back to the yard before Craig's 14hr clock ran out.

There was another TWT driver already in the dock, so Craig took off to help with the unload in hopes that we would get into the dock quicker. It worked, and within an hour we were unloaded and had just 60 minutes left to drive the 40 miles back to the yard. Craig then dropped the empty trailer and drove the truck to the shop where they would finally check into the engine fault light, the APU issue, and do a service on the truck.

Since they would have the truck the remainder of the day and possibly into Friday, the company put us up in their contract hotel in Spokane. Oh boy were we ready to head there! With very little solid sleep under our belts the past 48 hours, and knowing the comfy beds that awaited us, we were more than happy to pack up and head downtown for some well deserved rest and sleep!