Remembering Our Ice Road Hero #CaturdayArt

Today's blog post is more personal than cat-related, but it's something that 's been weighing heavily on my heart all week and I needed to write about it.

Have you ever found yourself affected by a celebrity's death more than you ever would've expected? I've shed more than a few years this week over the tragic death of a man I never met yet I feel like I "knew".

My dad was a truck driver for nearly 40 years. "Driving truck" is in his blood, and having to give it up back in 2007 broke his heart. The same summer he retired Ice Road Truckers debuted on the History Channel, and even though Dad isn't much of a television watcher, IRT is appointment viewing for him. It's a show that for the last 10 years we've always watched together as a family. Driving heavily loaded vehicles across frozen lakes to remote locations up north might seem crazy but these guys (and girls!) are silent heroes delivering life-saving supplies to isolated communities.

Mudpie's Caturday Art tribute to our favorite Ice Road Trucker

Last Sunday afternoon one of our favorite drivers, Montana legend Darrell Ward was killed in a small plane crash returning home from a truck show in Dallas. Ironically, his next TV project was to be a documentary about the recovery of plane wrecks. He drove the most dangerous roads in the world in the dead of winter and died in a plane crash in August...it just seems so cruel. He was a blue collar hero, the kind of man this world needs more of, and now he's gone. Maybe I feel it so personally because he's the kind of man I was lucky enough to have been raised by.

Among the thousands of condolences left on Darrell's Facebook page are countless pictures of him posing with his fans, especially kids who looked up to him...maybe even future truck drivers because of him. Yet despite the fame that came because of the show, he came off as just a regular guy who lived to get behind the wheel of the trucks that keep our world running.

The show (and the roads) won't be the same without you, Darrell. I sure hope there are big rigs in Heaven.

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I'm attaching this video because it's such a beautiful tribute. The footage was taken at the truck show he was returning from when he died.