And He Is Off

I had received a call from James this morning and he was still sitting waiting for the go ahead to depart. It would appear that there were a few more hoops to jump through prior to his permits being in order.

The bad part was that even with the permits the weather in north Texas is horrible. Ice storms are coating the highways and snow was in the forecast. From what James had heard from other truckers, the highways north towards Dallas were being closed down due to the unsafe driving conditions. The talk was that the roads were going to stay closed until about Saturday.

James was seriously thinking of just walking away from the truck and catching a flight back to Canada. Just sitting doing nothing is wearing heavily on him. The boss advised him that he would reimburse him somewhat for sitting last weekend, but with the weather being an act of God, it is unlikely there would be any payment for lost miles since Monday. So once again just sitting making no miles strikes at James pocketbook.

At about 1:15 pm James called back to say he was finally on the move and heading northbound. He has no idea how far he can travel before the road conditions shut him down, but at least he is moving a bit. I did do a search for road conditions in Texas and Oklahoma and it definitely does not look very promising. The rain falling is freezing and coating everything a couple inches thick. That does not bode well for the roadways themselves. The temperatures are right around freezing at around 30F so the ice is not likely to melt right away. I'm not sure if they actually use salt on the roadways or just use sand. If it is just sand then of course it won't be helping with the melting.

I'm just hoping James doesn't get stuck out in the middle of nowhere or worse yet parks in a ditch. Sometimes a little patience goes a long way to getting to your destination.