No ice roads here

When Alex Debogorski left Fairbanks, Alaska, earlier this week, the temperature was minus-20 degrees. The "minus" is not a typo. Needless to say, Alex was impressed when he got to Louisville where the high today was expected to be 82 degrees. For those keeping score, that's a 102-degree difference.

I guess that's part of what you have to endure when you're an Ice Road Trucker.

I ran into Alex, who is a life member of OOIDA, at the Maxwell Technologies exhibit in the South Wing here at the truck show. I got a surprising answer when I asked him how the ice roads were this past season.

Alex Debogorski at MATS

"Alaska had the fifth coldest winter," he said, adding that the northern territories of Canada also experienced a healthy amount of thick ice. But to the south and into the middle of the continent, Manitoba for example, many routes became impassable due to an early thaw and unseasonably warm temps.

Alex certainly doesn't mind the cold, as long as he's able to start his truck. And he is in Louisville to endorse the Engine Start Module from Maxwell

"The colder it gets, the stronger it gets," Alex said.

While we aren't going to break any cold records this week in Louisville, there's plenty of winter left up north.