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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

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We got home last night at 11:30. I was a very long and hard trip. The roads were extremely bad through Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Through Wyoming the winds were 60+ MPH and we saw lots of trucks blown over (Bad Driver), sometimes 3 or 4 in a row. The blowing snow made visibility almost none existing. In Utah there were more wrecks that you could count. It had snowed, then rained, and then snowed again and got cold and frozen. It made the roads covered with several inches of ice. After getting to the east side of Wyoming we ran out of the snow so we headed south and went through Colorado and Kansas to the terminal in Joplin Missouri. In Joplin I went to safety to settle for expenses for getting home. All that they would obligate themselves for was the cost of a bus ticket to get the driver home. Since the buses were not running (they started running Monday after I had reached Joplin) they agreed to pay the hotel cost as well. For your own knowledge they canceled everything as soon as I had my accident, my health insurance, the flex spending card, my access card. All money left on my flex spending card I lost even thought they had deducted it from my pay. I I didn’t get a ticket but CFI fired me anyway. I don’t have any hard feeling against CFI (the low life SOBs – kidding). I understand the system but it sucks and I choose not to be a part of it. Also because I was fired I don’t qualify for unemployment benefits.

I had chained but the roads had cleared. It had warmed up and the sun was shinning. We had driven for an hour on dry roads but it changed quickly. I suddenly found myself in an unfortunate combination of circumstances. I do believe that it could have happened to any driver. I am 60 years old and have been driving since I was 16 (not trucks) but about everything else and had never had an accident. It isn’t because I hadn’t earned one. I rode bikes for years and when I was young I also never took off from a stop on both wheels. I have had luck on my side as well as a lot of you that haven’t had an accident. A lot can happen very quickly. Just before we stopped for the night in Utah we passed a wreck involving a Semi and a car. I saw no damage on the semi but the car was off the road on its top. While eating the waitress said that it was a local girl in the accident and they didn’t expect her to make it. Who do you think is going to be at fault? This is what I don’t want to be involved with. It is a serious responsibility to be a driver.

We finally were able to make good time and get home. Over all we had 2500 miles to drive and it took us over a week to get home. We are glad to be home and into warmer weather. I don’t know what I am going to do. I really don’t want to go back to engineering.