Where to start?....
First, I would like to say thanks to all those people that helped out in this trip. As some of you know, I won this auction back in November and didn't receive my EUC clearance until January 24th. As a result, my free time had dried up considerably since then. I posted a "Help" thread, but at the last minute, my schedule broke, allowing me a day or two to make the trip. Thank you to: my wife for being understanding through my OD addiction, my friend John for taking off of work and driving from Indiana to ride along, Lane (citizensoldier) for assisting me in all things SS, deuceswild and joeczar for offering help in picking up the trailer for me in case I couldn't make it, and last but not least, Mike from GL for going above and beyond the call in being a true professional.
Now the trip....
We (John and I) left Chester at 8:30 pm Sunday with plans of driving straight through, loading up, and turning back for home in one shot. Well, we quickly found out that we are not as young as we once were. At 1:20 am, we arrived at Peru, Illinois (I-80) and the roads were bad enough to make us pull over and let the snow plows do their thing. Might as well get a hotel room and sleep for a bit, and a shower probably wouldn't hurt either. Back on the road three hours later to (what we thought at the time) heavy fog.
The fog let up for us at I-90/39. Cool, now to make some time! Yeah, right. About 70 miles from the I-90/94 split, it started to snow. Crud. And stick. Crud, crud. I called Mike (GL) to get the directions from I-94 to the DRMO lot, and he mentioned the weather station calling for 4"-6" of snow/ice before noon. Great. Mike then remarked that it was a good thing we were going to be there soon, as they would probably close the base in the afternoon due to the weather.
This would be a great time to mention to everyone that my friend John and his wife are expecting their first child in a few weeks. It was made very clear to the both of us by his wife, that if he was not back in Indiana by 6:00 pm Tuesday to attend a "child-birthing" class, he would be dead meat. The slaughter was not to end there though, as I would be next on the list of people to pay the ultimate price. So, even though it would seem that the objective was to recover this old military trailer, in Wisconsin, in February, such is not the case. Our main goal was to have him back home before our collective death warrants were signed.
Off of 94 and onto highway 21; nine more miles! Down to 30 mph in four wheel drive, roads are completely covered at this point. Turn into the main gate, get signed in, and get stuck behind a HEMMTT wrecker hauling a tan FMTV. Too bad we can't take pics! Make a left, then a right, to the DRMO lot.
Meet Mike in person at this point. Truly a great guy to work with. He takes us to the rear of the lot to load my trailer and FMJ's stuff. At this point, John is finding my impression of a "5 year old in a large toy store" quite humorous. I can barely keep the truck between the snow drifts because of all the neat stuff to look at! Wow, there are some great looking trucks coming up at this location. Piles of brand new M105 beds stacked 6 high, some M35A2's with convoy lights, 5 ton wreckers, M35A3s, etc.
Chain the load down after Mike uses a forklift to help us. The snow is really coming down at this point. The temptation is too great though, and I ask if we could look at some of the trucks. "Sure, no problem. Just stop by the office on your way out." Oh boy! Now some of you may have been to one of these lots before, and may be wondering why we are acting so silly about being there. I guess we don't get out enough or something. But it was quite fun running around looking at the trucks. Almost fun enough to forget about the snow and our 500 mile trip home. On yeah, we need to get going, and NOW!
Say good bye to Mike and thank him for his help. He mentions a thing called "thundersnow" and the fact that it is coming this direction. Think severe thunderstorm, but at 20 degrees. Nice. Time to head south. I called Lane to quickly let him know how we were doing.
Fuel up at I-94 and hit the road. Several wrecks, but none that shut the interstate down. One car on it's roof, a semi jack knifed in the slow lane, and a few others. It snowed until just north of Madison WI. Travel was nice till we hit the IL/WI border. Now, I've driven in fog before. Remember the fog on the way up? Well, now we hit FOG. I mean we are down to literally 100 feet visibility. Normally, I would not drive in conditions like this. Too dangerous. But knowing the trouble we would be in if we were not home on time was motivation enough for us. We turned on the CB, fell in line with some semi's, and continued south at a slow and steady pace. The fog finally let up south of Springfield IL. Close to 3.5 hours in the thickest fog I've ever seen. It will take me a week to get the pucker marks out of my seats in the truck!
St. Louis found us barreling along with the windows down at 74 degrees. What a difference! (Theres your global warming, Lane!)
Finally home at 9:30 pm, 1018.3 miles later. While there were quite a few "white knuckle" moments, it was one of the best adventures I've had in awhile.
Oh, here are the pics:
