Whips and chains. Well, that's half-true...

After my adventure in L.A. I retreated to our terminal. (Yes, we do have one--it's just not where I thought it was.)

They told me it might take a week or two to find me a load back east. My first day in California did not make that sound like a comforting prospect. Fortunately, they found me something the very next day.

Joyfully I fled to Colorado. Cheerfully I bedded down in the foothills of the Rockies. Happily I started further east the next morning.

Apprehensively I saw the electric signs telling me Vail Pass was getting snow.

A fairly light snowfall, I gathered. Not really a big problem. After all, Colorado gets lots of snow. They generally know how to handle it.

And that was my problem. One of the ways they handle it is with tire chains. And laws that require you to have them.

If you've ever tried to put tire chains on a car, you can probably sympathize with me. Putting them on an eighteen-wheeler? I've never done it. I hope never to have to do it. If the weather calls for it, I intend to admire the scenery until the weather no longer calls for it. And I gather I'm far from alone in that.

All well and good, except for one detail. States like Colorado don't insist you use chains--you can park if you want to. But they do require that you have them, just in case.

I didn't.

As you may recall, I wasn't expecting to be this far west. At all. I was therefore properly unequipped. And though the Company has a supply of chains stockpiled at various terminals, etc., I wasn't anywhere near any of those stockpiles.

And with those signs lit, it didn't matter whether the pass was snowed under or not. If a trooper stopped me and asked to see my chains, I would be up the creek. If I got surprised by a sudden blizzard and a trooper asked me to put them on, the creek would be Class IV whitewater.

Time to confess my sins.

I got on the phone and explained my plight. An hour or two later, they came back with the name of a place where I could buy a set on the Company's tab.* Half an hour later I was there. Two hours later, the paperwork was done.**

By that time the snow was cleared out of the pass and I didn't need the chains any more.

On the other hand, I'm legal for the rest of the year. In any state with chain laws (and some states back east have them). I'll haul them around til May or so, and--if I'm lucky--turn them in to the company without ever opening the bags and touching them. And maybe remember this next fall before it starts snowing.
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*For which I was most grateful. We're talking about over a thousand dollars worth of ironware here.

*They're not usually that slow. Honest.