SICK TRUCKS AND ANOTHER TRADE-IN

Morton, Illinois

Not home this weekend, but that's turned out to be to my benefit, for once. The newer truck I got a little over a week ago got sick and they put me in an even newer one today. This time I could "hang around" (try, like, all weekend) because my load delivers right here in Morton Monday morning. Actually, truck 3402 got sick, got better for a day or so, then had a relapse this morning. I'll be happy to explain. Glad you asked!!

It started Wednesday, while I was enroute from some little burg in Pennsylvania, to my delivery in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with an eta set for Thursday morning. It sounded at first like a dog when you take its dinner bowl away from it -- a growling noise, otherwords, from the engine, which up to that time had purred like the Kitty-Cat it is. But not now. That growl soon enough turned into a dead miss. It felt exactly like a car with a bad spark plug wire and a dead cylinder. The "Check Engine" idiot light was on and blinking a bit now and then and my steed was losing power. Wouldn't hold 65 if there was even the slightest uphill grade and would take nearly forever to get up to speed from a stop.

Since diesel engines don't have spark plugs, or plug wires, the first thought that hit my head was "injector going bad." That's about the only thing that'll kill a cylinder in a diesel -- that, or a dropped valve, which is even worse news. So, I went into that famous "OH, SHIT" mode immediately. But I remembered then that I'd had a similar problem with an earlier truck and it turned out that the fuel filters had gotten waterlogged. I had them changed and everything was fine again. So, I made plans to stop at a truckstop where we're authorized to have repairs done and try that out, if our shop was agreeable.

They were, and I pulled it into the Northern Kentucky truckstop shop in short order. I was thinking that if I was lucky, I'd maybe just gotten some lousy fuel the previous day. That 80/20 fuel/water mix doesn't run too well in any engine, to be sure. So, they changed them both and I signed the tab and took the rest of my break. Next morning, I went across the street to the Pilot, where we fuel all the time, and topped it off. It held a  little over a hundred gallons,which is a half-tank, by Big Truck standards. Now we'd see about things!!

I headed toward Louisville, and I-65, and Bowling Green, eventually. The idiot light came back on and my rig did what is best described as a "slump" momentarily. It felt like I had one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake, at the same time, only I didn't, of course. Hmmmmmm. Not fixed?? The shop had told me to get it back to Morton if the filters didn't fix it. However, the idiot light was acting like what it's named for -- a total idiot! It would blink, stay steady a minute or two, go out for a few seconds, then blink again, like it was signaling some kind of insane Morse Code. Finally, after maybe a half-hour, the thing went out for good, the engine smoothed out and purred again, and I was saying, "Ahhhhhhhhh!" Had to run long enough to get the new, fresh fuel circulating, I reasoned.

And it stayed that way, purring along, all the way to my destination. Purred while I sat for over an hour in traffic that was stopped because there was freezing [expletive deleted] rain on the road and, naturally, a truck and car had collided and blocked the entire road. Purred when I finally got to the delivery, an hour and fifteen minutes late. Purred all night at a little mom 'n pop truckstop in the local area. And purred all the next day, when I picked up the load I brought up here and headed north and west with it. Fixed, I thought!! Ah-ha!!! I LOVE it when I'm right!!

And then, of course, the damned thing made a fool out of me this morning. Without warning, the light came on again and the slump was back, this time with a much heavier load. Now, there aren't any terribly steep hills in Illinois -- not like Kentucky, or Tennessee, for sure. But what high spots in the road there are made for a slower trip. Felt like I was going backward, half the time. But I persevered and I made it in here.

Talked to the shop foreman and he got a guy from a local Cat dealer to hook up his diagnostic laptop to the truck's ECM. He came back shaking his head. He wasn't whistling "Taps," but he didn't have to; I knew the news wasn't good. "Ya hear that 'tick' in the engine?" he asked. I listened intently and heard the sound he mentioned. "The engine's about to drop a valve, I think. You're lucky you got it up here." I agreed wholeheartedly. It would have to go to Peterbilt for several days, to fix the bad valve. Without that truck, I ain't got no bed, and I let them know. I also mentioned (just in passing, you understand) that 3402 wasn't the truck I was supposed to have gotten a week ago, anyway. My philosophy is that if you don't toot your own horn, don't expect anyone else to toot it for you! So I let out an air-horn-like blast, figuratively speaking.

I was told to go over to dispatch and tell Ish (a dispatcher whom I've known for almost as long as I've been with Star) to see what trucks they had available. I had all day to get moved over and that one would go to the Pete dealer Monday. Ish told me to take 3550. I got the keys and another check-out sheet from the shop, right before they closed and a few hours later, here I am, all moved into my new ride. This one's an early '07 model, a year newer than the other one. Same engine and tranny, and looks the same, but it's got a CD player in the dash, instead of a cassette, so I'll grab a few favorites when I get home again, and take them along with me. It seems to do well and be strong as an ox, but I won't hit the open road again until first of the week.

Let's just hope 3550 don't have terminal valve problems!

10-7

IT'S MOVING DAY AGAN -- FINALLY!!

I got a Qualcomm message this week that came totally out of the blue and was completely unexpected. I was headed to Bartonville, IL, 12 miles from our terminal, with a load and was maybe 175 miles away when the message came in and the thing started beeping, nagging me to answer it. I'm blocked from doing so while the truck is moving, so as soon as I stopped for a bathroom break, I clicked the "Next Message" key.

"Would you like to move into truck 36**?" it read.

Well -- duh!! Does it get dark at night? Does a bear sleep in the woods? Is our current president's last name Bush? Is the Pope a Catholic? HELL, yes!!! I'd been in that old relic I had way TOO long, as it was.

"You betcha!"  I sent back, then waited exactly eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds for the response to arrive.

"Okay. I'll have truck 36** ready for you in the A.M."

"That'll work out good," I replied. "Gonna use almost all my hours up on this trip anyway, so I'll be due a break."

It took about 3 more hours to get to Bartonville, working my way through Peoria-area afternoon rush hour traffic, and dump my loaded trailer in a door at the Caterpillar crossdock I delivered to. I quickly found an empty and sent my "Unloaded, Ready-To-Roll, Dispatch Me" message in. I was pre-planned, and the load didn't pick up till the next morning, at the same place where I was sitting. I didn't need an empty trailer to pick up a load at that crossdock, so I unhooked and bobtailed over to our yard in Morton. I cruised around the tractor lot, noting that the truck I was supposed to move into wasn't there yet, so I got something to eat, schmoozed awhile, to let my meal digest a little, then hit the bunk for a night's sleep.

The next morning, my new ride still wasn't on the lot, or in our shop, so I listened to the radio and waited. And waited. And waited. A little after ten, they sent me the loaded trailer number and suggested I go over and get the load. This dispatcher was the formal type, who called me "sir," so I knew it wasn't my own dispatcher at work. Hmmmmmm. Does this other guy even know about the newer truck I'm supposed to move into?? Dispatchers are notorious for not putting messages up for the other shifts, so that everyone will know what's going on. They like to keep drivers in the dark and apparently like to keep each other in the dark as well. Mushrooms. Human mushrooms. That's what we are in this business, seems like.

I told him that I was supposed to get a newer truck that morning, told him the number, and asked him if he knew when it would be ready for me to move into. Told him I had all my belongings and assorted junk packed up and ready to transfer. All but my satellite radio, that is, which I was still listening to. That would be the last item to be moved. He hadn't been told, just as I'd predicted.

I went into the dispatch kiosk and talked to him in person a few minutes. He found out from the shop foreman that the truck I was supposed to get was tied up at the local Peterbilt dealer and it had a bad turbocharger, which had been ordered and wouldn't be in until the following day. This was Thursday, the day that orientation lets out and the new drivers are assigned their trucks and first loads. If he took me off the load I was on, which went to Georgia, close to home for me, it was likely I wouldn't get another load going that way at all, so I couldn't wait a day. The replacement dispatcher told me to wait a minute, while he called my dispatcher, to see what he wanted to do about the situation.

I waited while he made the call, then talked to another guy in dispatch. When he came back to the window, he informed me that my dispatcher wanted me to stay on that load, as planned, and that they had truck 3402 available. The driver had quit his job just that morning and it was a lot newer than the one I had. They prefer to put the new drivers in the older trucks, so they wanted my relic for that.

What could I say?? It was quite a bit newer and I couldn't hang around, if I wanted to get home. Okay, I'll take it. I went to the shop, got the keys to it, and a check-out sheet, then went back to my old truck and began cruising around, looking for it. I found it after a five minute search, parked next to it, and climbed in to look things over. After letting a ton of air out of the seat and sliding it back so that I could get in the thing, I looked around at a disaster area.

I knew that since the other driver had just quit, that our shop wouldn't have had the time to clean it up as yet, so I was expecting it to be somewhat dirty, but my God -- nothing like what I encountered!! It was littered everywhere and looked like a rolling garbage dump!! Cardboard boxes, plastic bags, coffee cups, old logbooks, clothing items -- you name it, and every nook and cranny I looked in was filled with the previous driver's garbage. Food cans and packages were all over the place. Apparently he'd rigged up a microwave and left the shadetree "wiring harness" for it in place in the storage space below the bunk, right in my way, so that I didn't have room for my tools and other supplies I keep down there. My God in Heaven!! Was this unknown former driver a packrat, or what??!! I don't think he ever threw a thing away, the entire time he had the truck!!! My work was cut out for me.

It was obvious that I'd have to clean up his clutter before I could even move my own stuff in, so I cranked the engine and drove it around to the front of the shop, where our dumpster is, and went to work. I worked hard and fast, too, because I had to get moved in, go get the load, then head out and put some distance behind me before I hit my break. And I would have to stop, too. The distance was too great to log in just 11 hours. Plus, I was going to be tired, I knew. I was getting tired just looking at the mess I was working on.

It took me an extra hour and a half, to clean out that packrat's nest, so I could move my own gear onboard. I had the shop get that wire from hell out of my luggage bay and I filled half the dumpster with the former driver's garbage. Filled two boxes with the food he'd left behind and took it in the shop, for anyone to take what they wanted. I didn't have room for it, with my own stuff in place, and I don't cook on the road. I eat sandwiches and get hot meals in truckstop restaurants when I have the time. Have cooler, will travel. That's my motto.

It took me until after 2 P.M. to get my stuff situated onboard, get the checkout sheet done, take it and the permit book to Safety, so they could make sure everything was up to date, then fuel, and leave the yard to get my load. I signed my bills and hooked up to my loaded caboose in record time, then hit the highway southward. There was some minor damage I noted, and the left sleeper extender was totally AWOL, as in missing, not there, etc., but other than that, the truck was solid. The engine purred like the "Kitty-Cat" it is and this is the quietest truck I've ever seen in my entire career. Very little engine clatter and roar, compared to the older ones. You still get the turbo roar when you push it hard in the lower gears, but that's common with all trucks nowadays.

The steering took a little getting used to, as always -- no two trucks are exactly alike; they all have their own little "personalities." The transmission is different and I'm still getting used to it. It has a higher gear ratio. You have to start out in 2nd gear with light and moderate loads, instead of in 3rd, like the old ones. The shift RPM points are different, too, and I'm still getting used to that as well; I still grind a gear now and then, or lug it occasionally, but before the next week is out, I'll have it down to a routine thing again. After all, it's the same old 13-speed tranny; just different internally.

I got that load delivered in Griffin, Georgia, got my homebound load, which picks up Monday and delivers Tuesday in Pennsylvania, and got in here yesterday morning. I had another small problem at the truckstop when I was dropping my trailer for the weekend. The fifth wheel release is totally different on these newer trucks. It's an easy-pulling hand release on the driver's side, as opposed to the old ones, on the opposite side, which liked to stick and jam and required the use of a puller tool, unless you enjoy getting grease all over you while you yank, tug and curse the thing!

The problem is that I like to have never figured out how to get the danged thing to lock in the disengaged position!! Pull out and let go. Bang! It slams back into the engaged position. Pull out. Bang! Pull out. Bang! Curse fluently. There's a trick to it, I surmised. Well, what the hell is the trick, I wondered? Finally, I pulled it out, held it in that position, and stooped under it, to study the nomenclature of the beast. Ah-ha!! I get it now!  Pull it out, hold it toward the front, and ease it back until the notch in the lever engages the front of the slot it slides in. Voila!! Locked in the disengaged position!! Well -- now ain't that special!! So easy it plumb evaded me!! I'll have to remember that trick, from now on.

So now I'll leave out tomorrow in a newer truck, finally. Maybe I'll get an even newer one by next year and not stay stuck in this one forever. That's a real possibility as my company is buying a different model Peterbilt now and will eventually replace the entire fleet with the new 279 models. Then I'll have to get used to a danged narrow cab again, like the old 377's were, when I first started with the company. But that'll likely be 3 years or more in happening, since that's how long the lease cycle is in my company. In the meantime, I'll take the newer 387's as long as they have them and I'll miss all that room when they finally go.

Truck 3402 again, if any of you see me on the road in the near future.

10-7

A LITTLE "SUPER" DIVERSION FROM MY USUAL CHATTER

It's very rare for me to talk about sports in this blog, but this time I just can't help myself. So, even if you hate football, please indulge me on this occasion. It is the Super Bowl, after all!

From The Sports Desk

You've gotta hand it to those Manning brothers -- they sure know how to create excitement on a football field. Last year, in Super Bowl XLI (that's "41," for those that don't get the Roman numerals), it was brother Peyton's aerial circus in action, methodically dismantling the Chicago Bears. A team of destiny, the Indianapolis Colts, clobbering an upstart, "Cinderella" team, just as they were expected to do. Peyton Manning took his passing artistry to the highest of levels and wowed the crowd on multiple occasions. The better team won that game, hands-down.

This year, in the forty-second Super contest, it was just the opposite scenario. Peyton's younger brother, Eli Manning, was the general in charge of the upstart New York Giants, a wild card team, of all things, who faced the much-touted New England Patriots. The Patriots were coming off an undefeated regular season and playoff series, where they had vanquished every team who stood in their way. 18-0, going into last night's game, and it looked like nobody could stop these Pats from matching the undefeated season of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, so long ago. After all they had Tom Brady at the helm; every bit as skilled and savvy on the field as either of the Mannings are, and perhaps even better, according to some. And Brady had that awesome team at his disposal; a team composed of some of the league's most stellar players. The Patriots had everything going for them all season long. This game was to be the icing on the cake -- a reward for an incredible, so-rarely-seen season. How could they lose?

But lose they did, 17-14, spoiling the perfect season and a fourth Super Bowl ring for the players. In spite of all the Patriots' many weapons and against all the odds, those pesky Giants just refused to go away. Within those sixty minutes on that field the Giants reversed things and they morphed from an upstart and became the real team of destiny on Sunday night.

You might have seen this coming, if you were paying attention to the final game of the regular season, in which these same two teams had met. In that essentially meaningless game, with both teams having secured berths in the playoffs, the Giants gave the Patriots all they could handle before the Pats finally won out. I know what all the prognosticators said -- that it didn't mean anything, that the Patriots were saving their best for the playoffs, and blah, blah, blah. I didn't pay that much attention myself, at that time. But that game was a preview of last night's game, I believe. A forecast of things yet to come. The New York Giants were a team that was peaking at the perfect time. Beware.

Although Eli Manning shined in Super Bowl XLII, he wasn't the key to the Giants' victory. Give that one to New York's defense, which almost entirely shut down the mighty Patriot machine throughout the game, holding them to a mere 14 points; a dismally low score by Patriot standards. With Giants defenders right in his face all night, Brady was knocked totally out of his usual smooth rythym, many of his passes going awry and landing harmlessly on the turf, instead of in the receiver's hands. New York blitzes penetrated seemingly at will, knocking Brady on his bottom, or sacking him on several occasions. And isn't that the simplest rule of good defense? "The quarterback can't pass, if he's flat on his ass!" And so Brady was, many more times than he expected to be.

The Giants also shut down the New England running game well, downing the running backs well short of first-down yardage, and penetrating deep enough to down them behind the line of scrimmage many times. New England had its moments, to be sure. A great team always does. But the Giants 'D' did just what it had to, keeping them out of the end zone and holding down the score. The board stayed locked at 7-3, Patriots, until the fourth quarter, in fact.  

The other key to winning, for the Giants, was their offensive line, which protected Manning and kept him from suffering the same fate as his Patriot counterpart when it mattered the most. Because of them, Eli was able to pass for his first touchdown in the fourth quarter, giving New York the lead for the first time, at 10-7.

That lead would be swapped a total of three times in the fourth quarter, setting a new Super Bowl record. The Patriots answered back, making it 14-10, and eating up most of the clock in doing so. With time growing short, Eli Manning marched his team downfield one last time and tossed a picture-perfect strike to Plaxico Burress in the end zone. Burress, the Giant's leading receiver, had been neutralized all game long by the New England coverage, but he got wide-open for the score that would prove to be the winning one. After a not-so-great night, he was great when he had to be, and when it counted most.

With the score now 17-14, Giants, 29 seconds on the clock and with all three time-outs intact, Brady mounted one last drive, using those time-outs wisely and going with a no-huddle offense. They made it almost to the Giants' 20-yard line, but there the New York defense rose to the occasion once more. Brady couldn't connect on a single pass in four tries and the ball went back to the Giants on downs with one second left on the clock. After a premature celebration on the field was cleared, the lines formed for a last time, Manning went to his knee, and the latest Super Bowl went into the history books. It was over. New York had pulled off the most unlikely of upsets and one of the greatest ones in this writer's memory. And one of the hardest-fought and best Super Bowls I've seen in years.

Lighting has struck twice in a row for the Manning family. Will Archie Manning and his two sons become the greatest family dynasty in NFL history? I don't know what the future holds, but I can say that they're well on their way to becoming just that.

10-7

MINI-VACATION AND A LEGENDARY DAWG

"Whaaaat?" you ask. "What is the Dawg doing home on a Monday and why haven't we heard from him all weekend, as usual??" "Is he sick? Is he on vacation? What's goin' on here?"

In answer, let me say that, no, I'm not sick and as for the vacation, not yet (although this may count as a little "mini-vacation," sort of). Y'see, it's all in the nature of my load, which doesn't deliver until Wednesday afternoon, over in North Carolina. And it's an appointment load, which means that I can't deliver it early, so I'm "stuck" here at home until time to make my way east for the delivery. Not the worst place to be stuck, by any means.

Of course the downside of all this is that I'm not making a dime sitting around here, but nothing's perfect, is it? Slow time of the year and you get cut a little slack now and then, in the winter. I'll take it while I can get it. That's my philosophy. I'll be busting my posterior again before you know it, once things pick up in another month or so.

So, I'm taking life easy, hanging curtain rods for my mom, and installing the custom footpegs and shifter peg on Velvet which match her new custom handgrips. No pictures yet; that'll have to wait until I can get her outside in the sunshine again, in good light for quality pics. It was sunny while ago, while I was helping mom, but it's turned gloomy now and looks like rain, which is predicted tomorrow, so looks like little, if any, chance to give her some winter exercise. Ah, well, spring is coming -- sometime.

This load came from Iowa and picked up at an oddball hour, late Friday night. By the time I got it and began rolling east and southward, it was Saturday morning already. Too far to make K-Town legally, and I got my sleep shot to hell Friday anyway, so I took my required break and made it in here Sunday morning. Schmoozed around all day yesterday and didn't get a thing done -- not even this entry. Okay -- I got lazy. I confess! But I'm usually anything but lazy, so I feel like I'd earned my little slothful diversion and nobody was gonna deprive me of it! So there!!! I watched a new DVD I bought in the bargain bin of a truckstop and still got another one for tonight. Good ol' guy stuff; action flicks. Plenty of fast jet airplanes, bombs going off, and hot babes in skimpy outfits. Love it!! No wimpy chick flicks this time; just guy stuff. Sorry, girls, but I gotta be me sometimes!

Which brings me to. . . the part of this entry that inspired its title. Namely, the little known things about your favorite Dawg that you didn't know. Things that my own mom never knew. I mean, this was top secret for years and we're talking Super-Duper Top Secret. So danged secret that I didn't even know anything about it!! Until now. So here it goes -- the Legend of The Dawg -- a legend in his own mind!

**  You never see the Dawg, but he can see you. If you do see the Dawg, you might be only seconds away from death!

**  The Dawg doesn't need a gun, or a bow in order to go hunting. He can merely glance at a game animal and it will immediately commit suicide. When the Dawg does use weapons to hunt, he calls in an air strike with cruise missiles and takes out the whole side of a hill at once. He bags enough to fill twenty or thirty freezers.

**  The Dawg never conducts searches on the web. He stares it down until he gets the information he wants.

**   When the Dawg hangs curtain rods, he makes his own out of 3/4" chrome moly tubing, welded to titanium alloy gusset plates. These are then bolted to the wall with case-hardened, aircraft-quality fasteners. He's never had a single rod to come down yet.

**  Never get behind the Dawg when he accelerates his pickup truck away from a traffic light. The heat from the jet blast has been known to melt the plastic bumpers of cars behind him.

**  The Dawg has been known to melt the hearts of ladies with a single smile. That smile can have other very pleasant effects, too, but I can't describe them in this family-oriented journal. You single ladies will have to find out for yourselves. Any takers??

10-7

NO RELIEF FOR THE FROZEN

As I write these words, it's a brisk, invigorating 14 freakin' degrees outside and my cable TV and internet connection has gone blooey. Noise ("snow") on the tube, on every channel, and my cable modem could be declared legally insane, the way it's behaving -- one light blinking uselessly, the PC activity light on steady, with the computer turned off, and the damned thing won't shut down and go into standby mode at all. Totally crazy. I called the cable company and the gal there said something was "down" somewhere and to call back in a couple of hours. Apparently, there's nobody there to perform CATV surgery at 6 A.M. on a Sunday morning. Par for the course.

So, I went out to the truck to grab this trusty laptop, with the "instant internet" device I pay $60 per month for -- and nearly froze my butt off on that short trip!! Global warming?? Yeah. Right. Tell me another one, Al Gore!! Welcome to Alaska South, Nanook!! And the ice cap is melting?? The polar bears are in danger?? Hell, tell 'em all to head south, toward Tennessee. We got perfect weather for them down here this morning!! They can frolic, play and have all kinds of fun in this deep freeze. Hell, the damned cable equipment probably froze to death sometime last night! That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Back in my warm Dawg House now, it's much nicer, and after my fingers loosened up enough to type and my underwear thawed out a little, I've got this laptop fired up and am sitting here bitching to all of you about the weather. I can't help it. I am a decidedly warm weather person, to the core! And this sub-arctic deep freeze crap cramps my style tremendously. First day of winter comes and I'm like, "How long till spring??" That's me.  If I could, I'd cram all this cold air in a box and ship it back to Canada, one-way! We need a wall buillt on the Canadian border, too. Not to keep the Canucks out, but to keep all their cold air and snow up there, where it belongs!! They live there, they can deal with it. End of story.

I'm home for a little longer this week, because of a dental appointment tomorrow. Told dispatch this one would take a little longer than a routine appointment because it's my initial visit to a new dentist and he'll likely take umpteen x-rays, do a complete exam on me, and all sort of other time-consuming activities. So I swapped my loaded trailer for an empty one and will pick up a load somewhere around here, probably on Tuesday morning. My former dentist, Dr. Thomas Lane, whom I went to for the past twelve years or so, retired at the end of last year. I hated to see him go a lot, as he was about the best dentist I've ever had. But he's earned his retirement, after fifty-five years in practice, and I wish him all the best.

I was in South Carolina on Friday and if you couldn't tell that a presidential primary was about to happen, I'd adivse you to have your vision examined. Signs all over the place, most for Congressman Ron Paul, who won't get that many votes, but whose supporters like to stick signs up in every nook and cranny they can find. I saw Sen. John McCain's huge campaign bus roaming around in the Columbia area, as well as former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson's. Don't know if either candidate was "at home," so to speak, but I was a man on a mission, as usual, and in a hurry to get my load home and relay it to the other driver, so I couldn't stop and play autograph hound. No signs of any of the Democrat candidates, as their primary won't be held till next weekend. South Carolina has a weird wrinkle, in that each party's primary is held a week apart, instead of on the same day, like most states.

We have early voting in Tennesse, so I went and cast my ballot yesterday, because as a trucker, if I don't vote early, I won't get to vote at all. I'll be God-knows-where on Super Tuesday, when my state's regular primary is held. Not telling who I voted for until after the primary, to be fair about it. Those of you who are readers of my private political blog will learn of my choice later. Those of you who are not current readers, are conservative-minded, and would like to become readers, let me know and I'll add you to the reader list. If you're liberal-minded, that blog's not for you. Enough said.

Got to go brave the elements again and make a cigarette run and I'm also going to start up my Big Truck and let it run an hour or so, to keep the batteries up on it and make sure the fuel won't gel up in the lines. There's not a lot of wind here, thank God, so that helps with that particular issue, anyway. But I'm going to wait until it warms up a little bit. I'm rationing my smokes now, as I want to avoid "nicotine fits" if I run out. That's not a pretty sight to see and nobody would want to be around me if that happens!

Supposed to warm back up a little by tomorrow. We'll see.

10-7

SPRING BREAK?? YEAH -- WHILE I WAS GONE!!!

Hold On. . .You MUST CLICK for the song to play.

 

Boy, did the weather change in a week's time!! Last week, I was writing about the cold wave down in Louisiana where I had been and by the middle of this past week, I was running my air conditioner during the day!! I stayed south all week and it was like a miniature spring break, with temperatures in the 70's in Alabama and Georgia.

And all while I was on the road, of course. Now that I'm at home, on the weekend, it's turned nippy again and normal winter temperatures have returned. I was going to take Miss Velvet out for a mid-winter spin this afternoon, but the chilly wind put that idea on hold for awhile, probably till mid-March or so.

I predicted as much last week, while I was motorvating around the southeast. It'll be warm and pretty -- beautiful riding weather -- while I'm out and then just watch it turn cold, and/or rain when I get back home!! And so it did. It was pretty and warm enough yesterday, but I was worn-out from driving and winter is back today. My usual luck is still with me.

And of course, with the first glimmer of warmer weather those guys in the green and orange safety vests waste no time in breaking out their barrels and roping off a lane or two on the highways and so they have here. A section of I-640 that they worked on seemingly nearly forever looked to be about finished last weekend and I go through there Saturday only to find that they've got it all torn up again!!! And cops hovering around to make sure everyone sticks to that super-fast 45 mph speed limit!! I can't wait for spring, yet I dread it -- mixed emotions, for sure.

Used to be truckers had just two seasons -- winter and road construction. Now there's just construction, year-round. And they don't seem to git 'r done a bit faster, regardless of that. It's gone on so long in some places that the current workers' grandchildren will probably end up finishing it, twenty years or so from now. And by then it'll be obsolete and they'll have to start all over again! Nice country we've got here -- if they ever get through building it!!

I did manage to use my spare time working on Miss Velvet, since it's still too frigid outside to ride her as yet. Bought her some Christmas presents and spent a little  time prettying her up a little more. It's called "customizing," which is adding non-factory parts and accessories to make your bike something personal and not just a showroom motorcycle. Velvet now has her saddlebags, a sexy black bra on her fuel tank, a windshield, custom handgrips and a few other goodies. Here's the latest pics of my two-wheeled gal:

This is how she looked just a few days after I bought her last June

And here's how she looks in January of '08

That's all the bigger pics that AOL will let me embed in the body of this entry, so I've stuck three more in the box at the top, as you can see. One way or the other, I've got them all for you. Anyway, Velvet looks like a different bike from the showroom bike she was when I first "adopted" her. I might add some other things later on, when I can afford it. I'd like to put a more comfortable seat on her. But I'll have to cross that bridge a little later on.

10-7

BACK EAST AGAIN AND INTO A DEEP FREEZE

Back home again this weekend, for a short stay before I head back out later tonight. I was so far away that I didn't get home until yesterday. If I could have made it Friday, I'd have had a little more time, but things didn't work out that way for me.

I sat in the truckstop in Fort Worth until Wednesday morning, then got assigned a load that picked up a little more than 100 miles south, in Temple, Texas. I had been to the place before, some six years earlier, but had long forgotten which exit to take, so I had to get the directions again. Once I hopped off the interstate down there, I remembered where the place was and had no trouble finding it. Found that they've changed their entrance and the procedures are a bit different as well, but those are minor things, which caused no problems.

I dropped my empty and was hooked to my loaded box in short order. Going back north, I took the Dallas/35E fork in the highway this time, so I could hop on I-20 and head east, toward my destination in Louisiana. I learned that everything is bigger in Texas, including construction zones. Seemed like the one I went through was at least 50 miles long! I couldn't get a shot of the Big 'D' skyline, because the only reasonably close-up view of it is right in the middle of the 35E/I-20 interchange. Traffic was too hairy to risk a shot and the maze of ramps blocked most of the view anyway, so I didn't even attempt it. By the time I was on 20 and had changed directions, Dallas was in my rear-view mirror.

I played tag with some crazy Tex-Mex dude in a little six-wheeled delivery truck for a few miles, then lost him when I-635 split off and he went that way. He seemed to be enjoying our little "contest" as much as I was. Neither of us really got a clear advantage, so I put it down as a draw. When I attempted to bury him in traffic, using my larger size to block any attempts to cross over in front of me, he wormed his way out of it neatly. I didn't let him get me bottlenecked the same way at all. He was a little faster than me, but slower cars kept getting in his way, so he was never able to get that far ahead of me. We waved and smiled at each other as we parted company for good. Harmless thing, really, and a way to have a little fun and break the boredom of driving up for a few minutes.

At the eastern edge of Texas, the vast plains begin to give way to pine tree forests and the wetlands of Louisiana swamp country. A few miles out of Shreveport, after going around in a circle for ten minutes to correct a wrong turn I made, which had me headed north, instead of south, I was headed down I-49. Through Alexandria and on into Lafayette, where the real swamp and Cajun country starts. By the way, that's pronounced "Lah-fie-yet" with the authentic accent. Sort of like "Baa-tone-Roozh" (Baton Rouge). It's always fascinating to hear those Cajun voices on the CB down there. And there's a lot of them, as you might imagine.

The Wally-Mart DC (Distribution Center) where I was headed will take you at any time on the proper delivery date, as long as you're dropping and hooking, so I didn't have to stop and kill time until my pre-set delivery appointment rolled around. That was nice, for a change. I was in and out of there within a half-hour. There was no load right away, so I holed up in a nearby truckstop in Hammond and started my break. Load came through around nightfall, and I would load at a paper mill, back the way I'd already come, north of Baton Rouge.

Plenty of time for a break first, but I got little sleep at all. Just wasn't sleepy. I'd gotten my "nap out," so to speak, the previous two days, so I was in total Bug-Eye Mode that night. Wide awake and unable to move until my ten hours were up, around midnight, or thereabout. Well, I'd have all kinds of hours available, at least. And I could get all the way home Friday. Barely. By the skin of my teeth -- by stretching the hours in my logbook as tight as a drum. But that's okay; a driver's hours are made out of rubber anyway. No problem with stretching them. Only newbie drivers think that they're made of iron, and most of them learn the truth quickly enough.

Meanwhile, it had turned cold as whiz outside. Old Man Winter had come to pay his respects to the Southeast on Thursday morning. It had been 17 degrees in Shreveport at 7A.M. and it was on its way down into the upper 20's again where I was. Very cold indeed, for the Deep South. I heard later that it was only 45 degrees that morning in Key West, Florida -- a  new record low for that area and colder than it had gotten there since 1896. Global Warming? Ha! Not quite!! I think all this early snow, ice, and frigid air are Mother Nature's way of telling Mr. Gore and his pals that they're full of crap!

My conventional dry van trailer had turned into a reefer by the time I got to the paper mill and backed up to a utility dock, to clean it out. Only difference was that my box was missing the refrigeration unit on the front and the fuel tank underneath it. Other than that, it was just as cold inside that thing as any reefer can get, or at least that's the way it felt, at 2 A.M. Friday morning. I swept it out, shiveringly (if that's a word).

The brake shoes on my loaded box were frozen to the drums, but I managed to push and pull on the air supply knob a half-dozen times and rock the box back and forth until they finally broke loose with a clunking noise. The 43,000 pound weight of the load helped a lot. You learn fast that you don't set the trailer brake in below-freezing weather, when you're going to be parked for a longer period of time, especially when there's snow or ice on the pavement. Water freezes into ice and ice tends to bond brake shoes to brake drums and the damned thing won't move with the brakes locked up. Of course, it can't be helped when the trailer is dropped, so that's something that you just have to deal with all the time. I have had to beat the living crap out of the drums a few times with my trusty hammer, in order to "encourage" the shoes to release ("mechanical intimidation" is more like it, actually). Fortunately, it didn't require that sort of direct action on this occasion.

I got rolling, fueled up, and headed to the house. I got into Alabama before I crapped out. The lack of sleep was getting to me, big time, by then, and I saw that I wasn't going to make it home on Friday. It's just not worth the risk, when you're that tired and drowsy. It makes you a menace on the road, both to yourself and to everyone else who shares the road with you. So, I pulled into a rest area about 60 miles west of Birmingham and hit the bunk. Had no problem sleeping this time.

I rolled in here yesterday morning and will roll on to Cincinnati tonight. Another week closer to spring and the return of motorcycling weather!! Can't wait, but meantime, I'm doing a little customizing work on Miss Velvet, installing the custom handgrips I got her for Christmas. I'll get some pics of them when they're both installed.

10-7