*or maybe "Global Warming-Here and Now!" I stayed home Monday because it was snowing everywhere, even on Other Dog. Road was still covered Tuesday morning- I would have been OK with giving it another day, but when I called headquarters I got the impression they wanted me to get going. So I did. Road was crappy until I got out to 501. Fence looks pretty bad at Winfall, I thought they fixed that. Snow plow at the shop- it did a good job though, that piece of beam on the forklift. Everybody was pushing when I got there, they had the old pickup with a plow on it- I didn't even know it still ran- and the little International tractor with the bucket on it. I-64 was good, but I saw a little flurry headed east at Low Moor. There's where all that guard rail is torn down, just across the W.V. line a little ways. Going up Sandstone mountain. Unloading in Gallipolis, Ohio. Some old trailers made into a part of the building. Never seen that before, but it looks pretty neat. Then I had to go to Haverhill, Oh. to pick up an exchanger and a crate- only 4,500 lbs. Normally I would like that, but i'd rather have had 45,000 lbs. on this trip. Rt. 7 didn't look too good. ...and it soon looked worse- A cold looking crow on a light pole. I stopped at a little truckstop in Coal Grove Oh. because Randy (dispatcher Randy, not randyp, Y, or M) called and said they weren't going to load me until 4pm. Meanwhile, it's snowing hard...getting deeper...and deeper... More snow ahead! Then they said they'd load me at 1pm. When I got to the chemical plant to load, the man that loaded me said the load had been ready since the day before! Apparently they don't take snow removal too seriously at the chemical plant. After I got loaded and strapped down the guy said there was a big spot all the way down at the end of this road where I could turn around. He said doing that would be better than backing through the intersection to get out. So I drove down there, and the spot wasn't all that big, and everything was snow covered so I couldn't tell if there were hidden obstacles, and I was afraid i'd get stuck, so I went on around the corner looking for a better spot. Then I got all the way to the next corner and it looked like a ditch on the left and a yellow metal pole on the right- it would have been tight getting around the pole anyway, and I was afraid to get over to the left very far- because everything was covered in snow,and it looked like a ditch there. So...I backed all the way back, blindsiding around the corner now, and all the way back, right past where I started from, through the intersection, then turned left and out the gate. Random Oreo picture, just to see who's still awake. Dammit!..more snow ahead, even after Oreos, rt.52 in Ohio. The W.V. Turnpike was good, but when 64 split off at Beckley it was the usual deal, part of the right lane was clear, all the way to the Va. line. Instead of going down 220 to go to Salem I went over to Lee-Hi and spent the night. I saw this truck pull in before I went to bed. He never even went into the lot to see if there were parking spaces, he just stopped right there. The last parking spot is where the Marten truck is and he had the entrance partially blocked. Next morning part of his bumper was laying out in the parking lot. Later, that same day, i'm unloading in Salem, Va. I've got to get turned around up in here some kind of way and back in that door because it's too slick to get their fork lift out side. I guess they figure it's not as slick for me. So I pulled down there, and backed over yonder, pulled up, backed around, got turned around. Then I went to Bedford, Va. to pick up a load of shot at Wheelabrator. It's in 55 gallon drums, on pallets. Had to be tarped too, and it was still only 10 degrees. Peaks of Otter, from the road going into Wheelabrator. The white thing on top of that mountain over there is a weather station. It was ran by the U.S. Navy at one time, and manned 24 hours a day,every day. It might still be a Navy facility, i'm not sure, but an article in the paper a few years ago said it was no longer manned full time, it was mostly remotely operated by computers. I've been by it on the Blue Ridge Parkway before, it looks like a giant golf ball on top of the mountain.