OldTroubador's blog post - The Day After Christmas

Twas the day after Christmas, heading back out on the road
Going to Missouri, with an aluminum load.
I woke up at a TA truck stop just east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The preceding week had been on the rough side. My Christmas break had been two weeks ago. Although the time spent with my daughter was special, both she and her mother had pretty bad head and chest colds; this limited our time together to just a few hours a day. I did manage to get a couple presents for Katelyn to be put under the tree and she gave me something too – you guessed it, I got her cold. That had hit me hard over the weekend and the next couple of days to the point where I could only manage to drive about 350 miles a day. I made all my pick ups and deliveries on time, but it was all I could do to get the job done.
I had started back running on a Wednesday and a run from Texas brought me east into Georgia; I then headed to the Augusta, GA area to pick up a load that eventually put me on I-81 north to the Albany, NY area.. From there it was back down I-81 to Knoxville, then back up I-81 to York, PA where I delivered on Christmas Day. The weather during all this had been dark, dreary, and damp – snow showers and rain, chilly miserable weather. The load to Knoxville couldn't deliver until 3:30 pm on Christmas Eve; between that and a 7 pm pick up that night, I didn't get shut down until 2 am on Christmas. After my 10 hour break, I was back on the road, delivering in York some five hours later. My new load assignment was sent to me and I headed for the TA truck stop where I caught a shower and the headed to the restaurant for the all you can eat holiday buffet. Then it was back to the truck where I curled up in the bunk, awaiting the promise of a new day.
And what a day!!! When I awoke, the sky was clear and the air was crisp with just the first hint of dawn peeking over the horizon. With my coffee in hand, I did my pre-trip inspections and made ready to leave. I pointed the Freebird toward Harrisburg, picked up I-83 south for a few miles, then PA283 east toward the town of Lancaster. As I headed down I-83, the eastern sky was a bright orange, back-lighting the bare trees. Every limb, every branch, every twig was darkly etched against the brightening sky. Over my head, was raspberry and pink as the morning began to arch over Pennsylvania's capitol city.
The turn east took my through a few small suburbs of Harrisburg then into the rich farmland of the Susquehanna Valley that supported the dairy farms of that area. The eastern sky was now a bright lemon yellow coming over the first ridgeline ahead. A light frost hung in the air here and a few wisps of light fog lifted gently from the ponds that I passed. Crossing the ridge and into the next valley, smoke from wood stoves and fireplaces wafted through the valley, reflecting a dusky red glow from the wakening day. Way overhead, and miles ahead, the contrails of airplanes etched short white lines in the sky, holiday travelers headed south to warmer climes.
To either side of the highway, what a few months ago had been cornfields stretched for miles. They were now stubble after the harvest, a light brown five o'clock shadow on the land. On some farms, the shorn cornfields alternated with strips of green grass. It was from these the farmers had taken the hay they then stored to augment the feed stock of corn silage. Set back off the highway, closer to the local roads, were large white farmhouses, built at a time when large families were needed to tend the fields and cattle. Near these were the huge barns, housing the herds of Holsteins over the winter months with hay storage in the spacious areas above. Both sets of buildings were usually over a hundred years old, built solid to withstand the ravages of time, just like the families. They sat on foundations of stone, taken from the fields themselves, chiseled and fitted together. Nestled against the barns were the silos, where the fermented and chopped corn, cobs, and greens were stored, then transferred to the feeding trays inside. A few were stone and brick, but most were aluminum, reflecting the sun's rays. And past these stood the outbuildings – the work sheds and the maintenance sheds for all the equipment needed to run the farms.
Small streams ran through the area, running full with the run off of early season snows and all the rain that had fallen over the preceding couple of weeks. Hawks perched on fenceposts and power poles, scanning the grass for their breakfasts; a couple of harriers could be seen gliding just a few feet off the ground, relying on their keen eyes and lightning fast reflexes to pluck their meals out of the grass.
I came to my exit, geared down and rolled down the ramp. I made a left turn onto the access road and braked to a stop at the guardhouse/scalehouse for the huge Alcoa plant. After getting my instructions, I backed onto the dock and went inside to check in with the shipping crew. An hour or so later, I again crossed the scales and signed my paperwork acknowledging the receipt of eleven rolls of thin plate aluminum. I was to haul these to a plant just west of St. Louis, MO, where they would be turned into cans to feed the Anheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis. I eased back up onto the highway and headed west to Harrisburg.
Just before getting into the Capitol City, I carved into an exit and dropped down onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the oldest superhighway in the United States, having opened in the 1930's. I cross the Susquehanna River, wide and shallow here. I cruise through the rolling hills, moving west past Harrisburg and then through Carlisle. The road is fairly gentle, but soon, I am grinding up a long grade. I hit the first two of the turnpike's tunnels at the top, well, nearly the top of the hill. There are two razorback ridges here, hundreds of feet above the road grade so the engineers who designed the highway decided to blast through the rock a pair of tunnels, separated by a quarter mile of open road. Out of the second tunnel, the Freebird and I ease down the backside, heading toward the Allegheny Mountains and the Laurel Highlands. Although the grades are steep and the curves are tight, this is still some of the prettiest running on the east coast. Dairy farms line the road, where the terrain allows. Some of the barns are pretty worn out through here, yet still serviceable. A couple have their roofs painted in Mail Pouch Tobacco logos. Topping the hills, you can look down into the valleys and see the farms or small communities nestled below. Drifting down the hillsides, looking into the valleys, it seems as if the ground is coming up to meet you. One can look ahead and see the larger towns at the exits ahead; at night, you can watch the headlights of the trucks and cars move through them, and the traffic lights that regulate their travels. As I drive, I see a hawk that has launched itself off a tree somewhere up the hillside to my left; it glides along the slope, across the roadway, then dives hard into the valley to my right.
The towns through here are nearly as familiar to me as my hometown: Breezewood, truck stop heaven as I-70 comes up from Hancock, MD. Bedford, I-99 going northeast to State College, home of Penn State University and it's connection to I80. South out of Bedford is US220, heading toward Cumberland, MD (a town which, someday, will be described in another blog). Somerset, PA and US219, north to US22 and the Flight 93 Memorial, south to Keyser's Ridge, MD. This stretch of highway has some of the worst weather along this route – if it's going to be snowing or raining anywhere, this is where it will happen. But not today, for the sun shines bright.
Past this part, we climb higher into the Highlands. Hillsides and ridges crowd both sides of the road as we follow the terrain up and down. The highway winds through towering cuts of rock; many have calved immense boulders that litter the ground. Others have been smoothed to negate this hazard. The cut we are going through now is red shale, shot through with thin green lines of what may be copper ore. Other cuts show the stratification to great affect; some of these are bent and twisted into impossible angles, attesting to the seismic forces that built the mountains. The trees cast shadows on the road, making a strobe affect as I drive through them. We soon cross over the Juniata River, not as big as the Susquehanna, but no less beautiful. It has carved a niche through here, both through the mountains and into peoples' lives. Not big enough for navigation, it's clear, cold water hosts a fine population of trout. Where the banks are flat, locals have built small camps to enjoy the wonderful fishing through here. Most of the time, the Juniata has carved deep into the rock; rocky riffles create deep pools behind them and ice covers the slow shallow waters along the banks. Numerous streams feed the river, coming off the mountains as the water rolls and tumbles, cascading down to join her. These streams and rivers will soon join the Youghiogheny and Mononghela Rivers to the west.
The side roads through these parts roll and tumble much like the streams, carrying people from valley to valley, town to town as they follow the watercourses. At one point, where the Juniata and turnpike cross, a two lane blacktop comes down from the north, dives under the highway and the over the river before climbing hard up the ridge to the south. Where it crosses the river, the bridge is built in the manner of the Tunkhannock Viaduct in Nicholson, a small town in the northeast part of the state (another future blog, perchance?). The driving through here, for the locals, is not for the faint of heart, especially when the snow flies.
The Freebird drifts down the far side of the Highlands, engine brake snarling, digging in her heels to hold back 21 tons of future beer cans as I foot the air brakes to get through the turns. Having been designed and built eighty some years ago, the road is tough on modern tractor-trailers - we are carrying twice as much weight and are twice as long as the rigs that originally ran this route. A few more miles, and we exit at New Stanton and head west. A fuel stop and fresh coffee and the two of us are headed for the northern tip of West Virginia – sixteen miles of highway squeezed into ten linear miles of land. This should tell you of the challenges ahead. After that, it is Ohio, Indiana, then Illinois, where we will come to a stop about eighteen miles from the Mighty Mississippi River and the state of Missouri. It is time to park the truck, grab a shower and a meal, then sit back and relax, and reminisce about a great day of driving through beautiful southern Pennsylvania.