text: Our load was from Carson CA to Chicago. Picked up in CA on Monday and load due in IL Wednesday morning. We knew we were going to be driving into some bad weather, but we've spent whole winters in the NE and been in lots of snow and ice. Six years experience, each. My co-driver, Preston and I were well prepared, extra water, extra food, warm clothes, truck just fully serviced. We're good to go. We thought we'd beat the worst of it and make it to Chicago. Worst case we'd lay over in a hotel once we got there and wait for conditions to improve. I drive days and Preston drives nights. We switched shifts in St Robert MO. It had been raining since about Tulsa and the temperature had been steadily dropping, but still in the 40's. Watching the radar closely and saw the snow bands coming but still thought we could make it to Chicago before the worst of the storm hit. Just north of Bloomington IL, things go from meh to terrible in just a few miles. Preston started seeing jackknifed trucks everywhere. He's driving about 15-20 mph and it's still really sketchy. He decided he needed to get off the road. The Limestone Rest Area is 30 miles ahead and he decides that's where he's going to stop. Even that distance, took several hours, but he made it safely and parks on the shoulder at the rest area entrance. We're good. I hadn't slept very well even though I trust Preston's driving ability 100%, I knew what was ahead and how things can go south in a second, so I was up at about 0630 (normally 0800). I get up and come out of the sleeper and it's bad. Really bad. Really windy, blowing snow, truck is covered in ice. Preston is telling me how bad it was and I thank him for getting us safely off the road. What little traffic is still on I-55 is crawling. Shortly after, the state police close the interstate. We're good though, more than a quarter tank of fuel, plenty of food and water, safely off the road. That quarter tank will easily last 50-60 hours at idle. It is what it is, but we're safe and warm. These trucks at idle will build up soot in the diesel exhaust filter. After about 6-8 hours of idling they will run an automatic "re-gen" where the diesel engine runs up the idle and burns off the soot. So it starts it's re-gen, which is no big deal. Normally. About 15 minutes into the re-gen, alarms start going off. WTF? Low coolant alarm, overheat warning, engine shutdown warning. This isn't good. I think, eh, the grill probably has snow and ice blocking the airflow, probably not that bad. I get out to look and I see the bright red all over what snow hadn't been melted by the hot coolant, there's coolant all over the ground. This is bad. I take a look under the truck and under the hood, trying to determine where the leak is. Hoping maybe because it overheated, it just blew off some coolant. We'll add some and perhaps we'll be good. So we add coolant and start the truck back up. All the alarms are cleared, maybe we're okay. I get out to look and there's a steady stream of coolant coming out from right below the radiator. Maybe it is just a hose. By the time I get back in the truck all the alarms are going off again. Now we keep tons of stuff in the truck to make at least temporary repairs so we can get back on the road. If it's just a hose or a broken clamp or something, we can fix it. Then I think, if it's not something simple and I get down in the snow and get wet and colder and I can't fix it, at least temporarily, now I'm colder and wetter and we have no heat in the truck. Probably better not risk it. That turns out to be a great decision. We start calling for roadside assistance and or a tow. We also call back to our shop in CA, hoping they can find someone to assist as our prospects are pretty bleak. Best case was 24 hours, mostly I'm told we can't even put you on a waiting list. Starting to look serious rather than just inconvenient. California calls back, "got a wrecker coming for you, ETA 90 minutes". That's amazing, thanks for the help, I owe you a twelve pack! Several hours go by, it's down to about 45 degrees in the truck. I call the wrecker company for an update. State Police are commandeering wreckers to try to clear the road. We're working our way towards you but still over 20 miles away and there's trucks crashed and jackknifed everywhere. Currently no ETA. This sucks. The wrecker company dispatch tells me that we're at the worst rest area in the state and that there's no facilities. We're parked too far away to even see if there's a building or not. Google Maps shows there's a building. But the dispatcher is local, surely he would know. What if we walk the nearly 1⁄2 mile to the building and it's closed? Or not heated? If we expend all the energy, get colder and wetter walking over there and have to walk back, we're screwed. We'll wait. A couple more hours go by, down to 35 degrees in the truck. We're bundled up but still cold. Can't run the truck even briefly. This is really bad. About another hour goes by and we both, within about 5 minutes of each other, start uncontrollably shivering. We have to do something. We're about 5 miles south of Pontiac IL. Out of extreme positive thinking, I try Uber and Lyft both, yeah, that's not going to happen. I Google taxi's, yeah, no. I trythe. I try the CB radio for 20 minutes. No one even answers. I call the Pontiac police department and explain our situation. No, we're overwhelmed, try the State Police. I do, "sorry, nothing we can do, you're at a rest area, shelter inside the building." We gather up some supplies, I put plastic bags over my shoes to keep them dry, Preston has waterproof hiking shoes on. We're good. We set out for the rest area building and warm shelter. We hope. I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but this is my recollection... Now Preston is 30 years old and in decent shape. I'm 63, sadly a smoker and have put on far too much weight in 6 years of being on the road. But it's less than half a mile. I didn't even think about it, other than it's going to be cold. I might add here we live in Arizona, other than getting out to fuel or drop a trailer or the few other things we have to do when we're in cold weather, we don't really do cold. We're acclimated to the desert. About half way to the building, I realize I may be in trouble. The snow is shin deep, it's like 10 degrees. I'm already having trouble taking deep breaths because of the cold air. I ask Preston to slow down some, which he doesn't want to do, but thankfully he does. We keep walking, my chest starts hurting, I think to myself, not like heart attack pain, it's just because of the cold air. The building, shelter, is about another 100 yards. I got this. That last 100 yards was surreal, I don't want to say I saw my life flash before my eyes, but it was terrifying. I had to stop, I told him, "I don't think I'm going to make it". He was like whatever dude, it's right there. I felt like I was going to collapse. There's only a few times in my 63 years I can remember real fear. This was the top one. I prayed over the last 50 yards. Finally, inside, a coffee vending machine, something hot to drink. The best coffee I ever had in my life! It took me an hour to recover. I was embarrassed, how could I almost not be able to walk a 1⁄2 mile? I made a commitment to lose weight, excercise more and quit smoking. It took about 8 hours more for the wrecker to reach us. We got up to Batavia IL and a hotel finally at 0400. I passed out. Turns out it was the radiator, it had developed a leak. The next day we were back on the road.