US–212

SATURDAY
It is so good to have our gray truck back! We are currently somewhere in the Midwest, on a load we can't talk about yet, if you know what I mean.

As some of you know, my wife used to be my co-driver. Now that we have children, she has to work close to home, naturally. She works in a mini-storage office, just on Saturdays. Some of her customers are truck drivers. She surprised one trucker/customer when she indicated that she was familiar with the highway that drivers frequently take to save 60+ miles from the dip in I-90 : Montana to South Dakota: US-212, US-85 & SD-34.

Anyway, that was a segment of my route from yesterday. It was/is 220 miles from Crow Agency, Montana to Whitewood, South Dakota Via these non-Interstate highways. Most of it is two-lane highway, with a few towns & turns, but you really don't have to slow down that often. We have been through here many times over the years. I always try to make my phone calls before I exit I-90, in Montana, as there are significant stretches of zero cell coverage.

The day prior, my friend sent me a picture of Highway 212. It was ice-covered & virtually impassable. I was delighted to find that almost all of it had melted by the time I got there. The sunshine was beautiful. Interstate 90 in South Dakota, however, still had stretches of extreme slipperiness. I passed by a wreck on the other side of the interstate, involving two cars. Police had just arrived. One car was flipped on its roof.

Old Man winter is still pounding parts of the Midwest today. (Sunday). It hasn't been so bad for us. We seem to be able to dodge the worst of it. Dumb luck. I included a picture of a captured traffic camera incident near St. Louis. Yikes.