Yes Virginia, There Is A Winter Storm...

I don't know what made me think that we could escape the snow and ice by being in Virginia! I almost feel like that character in the old Lil Abner cartoons. You know the one I'm talking about? He always went around with a storm cloud over his head. I think the bad weather follows us. Of course, the fact that it was THIS cold in West Virginia on Tuesday...

That's 6 degrees, in case you can't read it!

probably only meant that it was 20 below back home in Wisconsin!

As you may have guessed by now, we never made it to Long Island. After the accident on Tuesday, we had to take the truck into the terminal in Chester, VA to be looked at. The damage wasn't bad and the truck WOULD have been drivable, but...while it was in the shop, a mechanic discovered that the catalytic converter was falling off. This had nothing to do with the accident, and it was the third time in the last couple months that the truck has been in the inspection bay, but the first time anyone had found THIS particular problem. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it? Anyway, the long and short of it was that the truck was tagged and we were told "you're not leaving here till that's fixed", so they had to hand off the load we were under to another driver. We weren't exactly brokenhearted over it. Long Island is interesting and all, but it is a bitch to drive there. So much of a bitch that Mr. Trucker's former company used to pay them a $50 bonus every time they had to drive into the New York City area. NOT his current company, unfortunately. 

So we got to spend the night at the terminal and go out for some chinese food. This morning we received another dispatch to pick up about 82 miles away in Chesapeake, VA. The dispatch arrived just as it started snowing. It snowed steadily the whole way to the pickup and the temperature hovered at right around 25 or so. Combine that with the fact that Virginia is just not set up to handle snow in the same way that, say, Wisconsin is, and you have some of the worst driving conditions I've seen.

I mean it's pretty and all, but...

VERY treacherous!

I'm glad that Mr. Trucker is such a careful and cautious individual! He's definitely the guy I want driving on THESE roads. 

We passed through Wakefield, VA, which bills itself as "The Peanut Capital of the World". 

Jimmy Carter, you ain't got nothin' on us!

Peanuts! Get your peanuts here!

We're getting loaded right now. Soon we'll be headed out and I'm praying for good weather and smooth driving conditions.

Today's Silly Sounding Place Name is so unlikely that I had to take a picture, so you don't think I made it up!

Disputanta, Virginia!