blown sky high. Was just going to make it,with about 15 minutes to spare – but got caught in a DOT inspection. Took about an hour, give or take, so, completely aside from the 2 hours OOS I caught for not being able to count, I'm down for the day anyway. Let DM know – they're supposedly finding out if consignee is a 24/7 operation, or if I have to wait for Monday to deliver.
Talked to the troopers. Apparently VT9 is something of a highway. An inordinate number of fatals. Ergo, the DOT troopers spend a lot of time out here. Supposedly, in a reversal of normal statistics, most of the wrecks are caused by truckers.
That's understandable – this road is a bear. Narrow, twisty, and just a few miles back from here (about 24 miles from Brattleboro) is an interesting little bit of highway. Buzzing along on moderately flat terrain, you approach a grade warning sign. No biggie, right? Good thing I'm paranoid about hills. I kept approaching the grade... and approaching... Where the hell is the damn road? All I can see in front of me is most of southern New Hampshire. There's no percentage marked, but the DOT officers tell me it's 12 to 15% grade for about 200 meters – with a sharp bend at the bottom. It felt as though I was looking down the face of a vertical cliff. I downshifted from 7 to 3 in a hell of a hurry, and even that wasn't really enough – had to keep after the brakes, too. I'd hate like hell to drive this highway in the winter time. Wouldn't dare go faster than 10 or 15mph, and I'm not sure I'd take that hill at all.
I was contemplating a 34 this weekend anyway. Oh well. In either event, obviously I have problems counting hours and quarter hours or I'd not have got the OOS to begin with. Gonna cost me $150. I absolutely HAVE to get DDL. I can't keep on torquing myself with these quarter-hour mishaps (Tim called me the other day to point out a couple I hosed in August)
As I expected, consignee's closed over the weekend. New appointment is Monday at 05:00. Wow, a whole weekend in Brattleboro. If they have a Radio Shack or a computer store of some sort, I should be ok. Failing that, I hope to heaven the have a bookstore or library. 2+ days of Spider and Klondike might drive me over the edge.
On the good side – I'm parked right next to a nice little mountain stream. Ok, it's a bit bigger than “little” but it's not a river by any means- yet. Grabbed another gallon of mountain stream water for Herself and Damon.
Wind is blowing like hell. I'd put it at 30-40 kts, from nearly dead astern the way I'm parked – and it STILL sets the cab rockin' like there's a party goin' on inside.
Ambulance just went by westbound, lights going but no noise. I assume that they have similar protocols to Denver, and this is a transport over to Albany. Just a guess, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment