Trip from Hell!!!

To recap, first we had the bumper ordeal in Joplin. Then the wild hog incident. Then the ac quit working. Next I get a bladder infection. The apu acted up. We were told the ac was fixed, drove two miles and it quit. On our third day of trying to get it fixed now. The gps we just bought malfunctioned and had to be exchanged.
Hopefully all the bad stuff is over for awhile. Seriously, three days for an ac?

Needing a Dr on the Road

Ive been having pain for a couple of days but was hoping if I drank a lot of liquids it would go away. It did not and last night the pain kept me up all night. This morning was unbearable so we headed over to a walk in clinic here in El Paso and I got two prescriptions for a bladder infection. Ive had this before and it has always been the most painful experience Ive ever had. Including childbirth. Thankfully the medicine works quickly so I wont have to suffer anymore.

Now we have to head back over to Border International to get the ac repair completed that they started yesterday. They had an outside shop make a hose for the truck and turns out they made it wrong. Hopefully they will get it done today so we can get back to work.

Wild hogs and no AC

This poor piggy didn't stand a chance!

What an eventful drive! John started his drive from Oklahoma City. He was only driving 260 miles for the night. The route took him from I44 to US 277 thru Texas. With 50 miles left to go I was sound asleep in the back when I was awoken by him carrying on about something in the road. I came up front to see what was going on and he was pulled over on the shoulder looking in his mirror behind us. I said whats wrong? He said he hit something in the road, he didnt know what it was, maybe a bear. I dont know if they have bears in Texas or not and I never felt or heard anything so I told him he was crazy, he didnt hit anything. He insisted he did. This was at 2:30 in the morning, pitch black outside, not a town around for 30 miles, no houses, nothing. Just us. He starts backing the truck up and goes probably a tenth of a mile and stops. There! See it!

I looked in his mirror and sure enough, there was something laying there. He backed up again till we were right next to it and we were both staring down at it trying to figure out what it was. It really did look like a bear. Finally we noticed the long snout and decided it was a wild boar. We have them in Florida also.

We sat there a bit trying to decide what to do next. We were looking around the area and realized how isolated it was there. It was a very creepy feeling and I was imagining all kinds of craziness. He got the flashlight and said he was going to have to check the truck and make sure it was okay to drive. I kept a close watch out the windows and mirrors in case someone or something tried to sneak up on him. After checking the truck out he put on gloves and grabbed a leg of the hog and drug it off the road so no one else would hit it.

He got back in and said the only damage he could see in the dark was the bumper was bashed in. We both looked at each other and cracked up laughing. Wow, how lucky were we? Thank goodness we didnt get the bumper in Joplin it would have been a complete waste of money! He took off driving and it was 50 miles before we found a lighted truck parking area.

After checking the truck in the lights we only found the dent in the bumper. The oilpan has a small dent in it but shouldnt be a problem. There are pig guts and gore all under the truck. Really nasty. Going to need a major truck wash. We are going to sleep a few hours and head out in the daylight.

Bummer...no Bumper

We made it to Joplin today and visited the Chrome Shop Mafia for the first time. They had our bumper waiting on us, we paid for it and they loaded it into our truck. Their shop is closed on the weekends so we were going across the street to the Petro to have it installed.

We had to wait 3 hours to get called into a service bay and I told John that before they removed the old one, hold the new one up in front of it and make sure all the bolt holes lined up. Just as I feared, it wasnt a match. We had to rebox it, and get it back across the street before they closed. Luckily we got there five minutes before closing time and got our money refunded. We were so bummed out. This bumper thing has become like a treasure hunt. We keep following all the clues and thinking we got it, but it always turns out that we dont.

After we left there, I drove 200 miles to Oklahoma City, stopped and fueled up. Grabbed a mini pizza and a boston creme donut at the Loves and then John took over driving. He's planning to drive about 230 miles tonight and stop somewhere in Texas. We will finish our drive to El Paso tomorrow. Delivery isn't until Monday morning. I love these weekend loads where we make good money but have plenty of time to get the load there.

A couple of new things we have discovered recently. Podcasts and audio books. John has been making use of the Podcasts. We both downloaded a Podcast App onto our android phones. I found Motor Trend Podcast for John and loaded up his player. We plug the phone into the truck stereo so the sound comes through the truck speakers. He can listen to that car talk for hours!

 I download library books to my smartphone. I've only done the regular books until this week. I finally got an audiobook downloaded and play it while I'm driving. I didn't think I would be able to focus on it, but suprisingly I can. It's a little strange having someone read you a story, but after awhile, you get used to it. It helps to pass the time while driving. I can only listen for a couple of hours, then I have to switch to Sirius Radio. I have a few channels that I listen to pretty regularly. Road Dawg Trucking, 70,s  Highway Country, Tiffany Granath on Playboy and Howard Stern. Oh yeah and HLN news. Sometimes I don't listen to anything, just enjoy the peace and quiet!

To El Paso with a side trip to Joplin

Hope this load goes well. Its pretty heavy for our truck. 10200 pounds. But the miles are good 1756 loaded. Just a little nervous due to yesterdays truck problems. I hate breaking down. It is soooo stressful.
If all goes well we plan to stop off in Joplin at the Chrome Mafia shop and see if we can get a new chrome bumper.
Our load doesnt deliver till Monday so we have plenty of time. Keeping fingers crossed!

Off to Alabama..or not

We delivered in Ohio this morning and had our next load within an hour. Nice load picking up in Ohio and going almost 700 miles to Alabama. The pickup was almost deadly for John. The docks were so close together the truck next to us almost ran over him when he was lowering our dolly legs. The other driver said he never saw him. Broad daylight and John wearing a bright yellow shirt. Very scary!

Luckily it turned out okay and I headed out to Alabama. Truck was running great I had the cruise on and was doing about 60 mph. 165 miles into the trip the cruise kicked off, the truck slowed down and finally died, engine light came on. I managed to get onto the shoulder and tried restarting. No luck. Called our carrier. They were going to send a tow truck to take us to the International shop 25 miles away.

 I tried starting it again and this time it started and we made it to the shop. Repair only took half an hour but we had to give our load up since we werent sure how long it would take. Turned out to be an ecm idb fuse harness shorting out. New one and $200 we were good to go but now our sleep schedule is messed up so we are not accepting any loads till in the morning. Time for some gooood sleep!

Happy 30th Anniversary to Us!!

From our wedding May 14, 1982

Yesterday was our 30th Anniversary. Surprisingly John forgot. I don't think he's ever forgotten before, and this was kind of a milestone anniversary, but oh well, I don't really make a big deal out of birthdays, anniversarys and all that stuff. If you love someone, dont wait for a holiday to tell them. Show them with your actions year round.

 Greeting cards dont really mean anything to me. Just words someone put on paper and people get guilted into spending money for. I'm much happier with being taken out for a good meal, skip the card. I remember way back, John had a dozen roses sent to me at the office I worked at. I was so mad at him for spending that much money on flowers that were only going to last a couple of days. I told him to please never do that again. Guess I'm not a typical girl, which is probably why I love the job we do now. Typical girls aren't crazy about becoming truck drivers :)

 We just got back on the road today after being at home for a week. It was unplanned time off but our last load took us within 150 miles of home so we decided since we were that close to go ahead and get some more work done to the truck. There is an International shop in Ocala, Fl that we really like. We've been wanting to replace our front bumper with a nice new shiny one. The shop there supplies the fire department with bumpers that also fit our truck and if the bumpers come in with any blemishes no matter how small, the fire department rejects them and orders new ones. So then the shop has to turn them in to insurance or warranty or however they d o it and about 3 months later the bumpers are released to be sold or sent to scrap. We found one there that is a perfect fit for our truck and only has the smallest of a scratch that most people would never see and they will sell it to us for half the cost of a brand new one. So, $400 instead of almost $900.

 We thought we were going to get lucky and get it put on while we were at home, but it didn't work out. The bumper hasn't been released by the warranty company yet, so maybe next time we go home . We also had an air hose installed inside the cab of the truck so now I can blow the sleeper and the cab out and get it clean like never before. We have a MaltiPoo (Maltese Poodle) that travels with us and he doesn't shed, but loses hair like a human and between me and him, there tends to be quite a few loose hairs that are pretty easy to deal with now that I have the air hose.

 We also had an airline installed on the air tank outside of the truck so that John can hook a hose to it and air up our tires if they are low. The other thing we had done was to have a metal transfer plate made to carry with us. It's just a flat heavy duty plate that can be used anytime we have to do a swap with another truck. We drive a straight truck, so if you back two trucks up to each other there is always a little gap between them. You can't get a pallet jack across the gap, the wheels would fall down in the gap and get stuck. So that is what we will use the plate for. All about making our lives easier.

 We just recently did a swap with another truck. They had picked up the load, which was only one pallet, about a thousand pounds. They made it about 25 miles down the road and discovered the bearing was going out to their drive shaft so they stopped off at a truck stop and let our carrier know that they werent going to be able to finish the load. The carrier called us since we were only 25 miles away and offered the load to us.

It was a good load about 750 loaded miles, only problem was, we didn't have the transfer plate. Carrier says no problem, head on over and we'll figure it out. So we get there and back the two trucks together. The other truck had a piece of heavy plywood that he laid down to drive the pallet jack over. It looked like it might work, but it didn't. As soon as the wheels of the jack got over the area where the gap was, they crashed through and everything came to a screeching halt. The jack was stuck. The freight shifted forward and spilled all into the floor of our truck. You should have seen the look on everyone's faces.

 About two hours later, the load was on our truck after being restacked piece by piece by John and the other driver. I couldn't help because it was pieces of steel and each piece weighed about 55 pounds That incident is what made us decide we were getting a plate made asap. It's kind of funny now but John was certainly not laughing at the time. It was in Texas and it was so hot and muggy. His shirt was wringing wet with sweat by the time he got done. Now all we have to do is wait for another truck to break down and we can try out our new plate...just kidding, I really don't wish that on anybody. Breaking down sucks!! We've got two loads booked right now. We will deliver the one we're on now in the morning and then take another to Ohio.