Several times during my stay at the 301st we were tasked to do what we called, "drive-aways". We would be whisked off in a bus to someplace and pick up some one else's equipment and drive it to some place else. I am cryptic on purpose...these were usually classified and I don't know how long it is supposed to stay that way. Sometimes we had to train on special equipment before we could move it. It was a lot of fun.
On this particular drive-away, we picked up the vehicles and stuff at a depot and went to Sacramento to fuel up. We left in small groups (what the Transportation Corps lovingly refers to as "infiltration") and headed east. The weather was wet in the lower country but turned to a thick, wet snow as we climbed out of the valley and up towards the pass. The vehicle I was driving was a four wheel drive but didn't have any chains. As the snow piled up, I pulled off the freeway to find a service station that would carry snow chains in case I needed them. Unbeknownst to me, right after I got off the freeway, Caltrans closed it. Somehow I managed to get back on the freeway uphill of where they set up their closure. For the next few hours we crept over Donnor Pass at about 5 to 10 miles per hour. Several times along the way I stopped to help cars that were stuck in a snow bank or slipping so bad they couldn't go on. Sacramento to Reno is usually less than 4 hours in a truck. I left Sacramento around dusk and pulled into Sierra Sid's in Sparks at about 2230...you figure it out...and met up with the lead element of our convoy. My boss, our unit Truckmaster, told me to take what was there and push on to Winnemucca, arrangements had been made to stay there, including a security team to guard the vehicles.
Most of my platoon and some of the First platoon went with me. It is about a three hour drive to Winnemucca from Reno, we made pretty good time, the weather on this side of the pass was not too bad. We got to the motel about 0300 and settled all the drivers in for what was left of the night. I contacted the Truckmaster, still in Reno and found out that only about half of the convoy had made it to Reno. I was in Winnemucca with that half, minus Truck and a couple of guys with him. Part of the convoy was hunkered down in Auburn on the west side of the grade and part of the convoy heard the pass was closed and turned around and went back to the truck stop in Sacramento.
The Trenchcoat who was in charge of this 300 mile long convoy caught up with me and told us to stay put until everyone else caught up. So we caught up on our sleep, had a good breakfast in the coffee shop...lazed about...had a great lunch at one of the casinos...and about 1400 the last of the rag-tags showed up . We were still a long way from our destination but the Trenchcoat said go and so we goed. He liked the idea of arriving at our destination in the middle of the night. Apparently they had planned on a delay until dark in the original schedule so this way they didn't have to have 50 some vehicles jamming up a rest area waiting out the sunset.
We got to where we were going, had a late dinner, crashed in a local motel, boarded a bus that took us non-stop back to Fort Ord. The bus made the trip in a lot less time than we did...and the pass was open, too. I wonder if the Guiness Book of World Records has a category for the longes convoy?