ANOTHER WINTER DRIVING ADVENTURE

SEEN IN DULUTH...

A NEW KIND OF PLOW AND SALTER...

ESSENTIALLY A PLOW TRUCK PULLING A  SALTER TRAILER WITH A WING PLOW

Wednesday, 8:30 AM.  9 degrees F at the ferry dock, 8 on the back porch.  Wind NNW, light with slightly stronger gusts. The sky is overcast and the humidity 73%.  The barometer is more or less steady, now at 30.13".  The forecast calls for cold temperatures today and tomorrow, then a week long warming trend with highs in the high twenties and thirties.  Weather will be a mix of overcast skies and snow flurries, with a few partly cloudy or sunny days.  The snow storm is over, having given us four or five inches of new snow, drifted heavier in many places.  I would characterize it as a wannabe blizzard.

   The roads were awful yesterday for both directions of our trip to Duluth; heavy snow, blowing, blizzard- like conditions, and temperatures in the twenties, creating slick roads and poor visibility. Had I been able to follow a plow truck all the way I would have done so, but not if it were the type of rig we saw in Duluth, a plow and salter truck pulling a trailer loaded with salt and a wing plow, all of which swung  back and forth to plow and salt a double lane.  

   We had never seen this apparatus before. I suppose it has been used on freeways but was not in our experience.  It would be very difficult, I think very dangerous, to follow it down the roads as it swung in and out behind the lead truck.  The driver needs terrific peripheral vision, that's for sure, and a great deal of driving skill.

   We witnessed a series of accidents in Duluth, which is at the end of the big lake where the storms seem to always be exaggerated by ice, fog and steep bluffs.  A very large SUV spun out right in front of us, doing a 180 degree spin and stopped only by its hitting a curb.  Luckily all were low speed accidents that didn't look too serous.  On the return trip it was often difficult to locate the proper lane on unplowed three lane sections of US Hwy. 2 .  

   Two hundred miles of white-knuckle driving will satisfy my desire for winter adventure for a couple of days at least.