WI TO OTTAWA, ONT. DAY 1

Woke at 5am to go to Green Bay O.C. to deal with customs stuff. Hoping to come from my bunk and see the snow had ended I was disappointed to see a white-out on all sides of the idling truck. The truck should idle all night if the temperature is below 20 and pushing my outside temp. button I now found out it was 6 degrees. I told myself I had to go even if I drove 10 m.p.h. for 11 hrs today. The 23 or so miles to Green Bay took about an hour and a half. Thankfully the terrain was flat and not hilly, so as to avoid (but not eliminate) the possibility of a jackknife. This occurs when the weight in the trailer has greater momentum than the slower moving tractor, and the trailer swings around hitting the tractor (and anything else in its 53' path. The trailer, which could weigh as much as 45,000 lbs. is like a massive swinging bat that will lit the tractor like a ball. I learned in trucking to always be grateful for the positives going for the situation--snow but no hills; rain but no snow; deer but no moose etc...At Green bay I spoke to the broker, faxed the customs info and did what I had to do so that at the border I would be able to go through. I was to cross at Sault Saint Marie, MI--the least used crossing in the Midwest off of MI's N.P. I estimated it would take me 8 hrs to travel the 300 or so miles putting me there at 1500 (3pm). All transportation industry uses the 24-hr clock to avoid any confusion. Average speed this whole day was about 35 mph. MI is an interesting state. Mostly everything associated with the state is located in the lower peninsula. The "U.P." (upper peninsula) is extremely rural and rugged country. Crossing from WI into the U.P takes place in Menominee. MI. One then travels on the Western shore of lake Huron up to Sault-St. Marie, MI into Sault-St. Marie ONT. Going through Hiawatha state park in MI, I experienced the worst weather I've ever driven in. Complete ice and heavy snow slowed me to a crawl of 15 mph for about a hundred miles. When I finally reached the border I was 9 hrs into driving and had clocked about 280 miles on the odometer. In normal weather conditions the limit, 11 hours of driving on interstates will take me about 620 miles. This would be a big day. 400 miles or less is a small day. I was exhausted at this point from straining to keep the truck on the road all day. I still had 3 hours to go until I blew out my 11 and it was getting dark. On the radio other drivers had advised me that there were truck stops between here and Sudbury. My goal was to get to Sudbury. A large industrial city--the biggest city in Ontario between Sault and Ottawa. My decisions were made for me, however, when I found out the trans-Canadian highway (Rt. 17) was closed due to ice conditions! Rather than just pulling to the side of the road, which is against company policy, I decided to stop in a little one horse town called Gary Mines, ONT. I pulled into a hotel parking lit and ran into the German restaurant if I could spend the night after I ate. The waitress said sure. I enjoyed an excellent meal of hunter's schnitzel and read a local paper. I went to bed worried about the load and the weather hoping the storm would pass. Today was the end of the second day under this storm, which seemed to be following me.