Today was one of my days to deliver mail for the post office. On a typical day, my commute takes approximately 40 minutes. I then sort the mail for my route for 3-4 hours before loading up the Jeep. You probably don’t think much about mail carriers and how your mail (letters and packages) gets into the mail box. But let me tell you, it isn’t as easy as it looks. Sorting the mail is difficult enough but consider what your mail carrier does to get you your mail each day. Try driving up to your mailbox in six inches of slush without knocking the box down and still being close enough to open, retrieve and deliver mail into the box. Now repeat that 380 times. It gets tricky on hills, busy roads, or where the customer has not plowed the snow away from the mail box. Remember that the next time you shovel your driveway.
Today, it took me about 7 hours to drive the route. Part of that is me needing to learn the route better. But the other part was the weather. In some places there was enough ice to make stopping a possible entry in the next Winter Olympics. That also provided the opportunity to do some “donuts” when there was no driveway to turn around in. All in all it went fairly well. But after finishing the route, I made a bad decision. With snow falling and the roads becoming slick, I decided that taking the highway was a better idea than risking the back roads. It wasn’t. Even with the “highly advanced” defroster system in the old Jeep, my windshield wipers kept icing up. At one point the driver’s side wiper accumulated a half inch of ice which kept the rubber blade from even touching the windshield.
What normally takes 40 minutes on the back roads took 1 1/4 hours on the highway. The drive up SR 45 to I-90 was bad enough. But after entering the highway, I found that the plows had not done anything to the road. Things weren’t too bad at first, but as visibility decreased and large tractor trailers zoomed past, it became more of a survival game. I ended up stopping at several exits along the way to clean the windshield and wipers. That helped immensely but if I could have done it over again, I would have chosen the back roads. The several drivers in the ditch along the highway would probably have agreed.
I really shouldn’t complain as the Lord kept me safe all the way home. I didn’t get stuck in the snow. I didn’t crash into anything. And I am safely home with a story to tell. And just think. I get to do this again twice next week!