Cold Journey
I've been on a cold journey since my last entry. We did make a nice visit to Montana over Christmas, although NW Airlines made it quite an ordeal getting out there.
It took a couple of weeks into January before I took my first driveaway trip of the year. My companay usually puts me on the road as soon as I tell them I'm ready to head out, plus usually get a couple of calls to see if I can go out, but this time it took them more than a week before making an assignment.
When I called on Tuesday, 1/15/08, they first asked if I wanted to take one to Cherry Hill, NJ. Being really tired of driving to the northeast from VA, I asked if they had any other options. For the first time, they actually had another option. Did I want to take one from Daleville, VA to St. Joseph, MO? You bet! How nice it would be to finally be heading west again.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Early Weds. morning, I headed to Altec at Daleville to pick up a new IHC Workstar bucket unit. This was a 4-wheel drive automatic, but I found these new units are a little different than the equivalent 7400 series I've driven a lot. For one thing, the oil dipstick has been moved further out front and is very long. When I checked this one, the dip stick was sticking up out of the tube, and when put in would not register any oil. That left me to think it may have oil and the dip stick may not be registering properly. It took 30 minutes, but I got a couple of "mechanics" out of the plant (they don't work on the trucks, just the units on back) who really didn't know whether there was a problem or not. Plus, they said they didn't have any oil in the plant. Their checksheet had been signed off that the oil was OK.
I decided to go ahead and head out, but the oil situation was bothering me. The low oil alarm would come on briefly when the truck first started, but then would run good pressure. At the first fill up, I decided to put a quart of oil in, which didn't make any difference. I drove like that the rest of the day, and stopped in Dale, IN for the night. The next morning I bought a gallon of Oil and put most of it in before it did finally register. I took it on west like that.
As I was passing through St. Louis, dispatch called to tell me the truck had been re-directed to Aurora, CO, which was OK with me. I had luckily missed some snowy weather during the night and was in the driving west mood. Plus, this got me to thinking that if I got as far as CO, perhaps I should just go on to Choteau, MT and attend the funeral of our dear neighbor who had died unexpectedly on Tuesday.
My wife was off on a snow day and did some preliminary checking on airfares from DEN to GTF. She found a good fare, so that night when I stopped in Salina, KS, I did the final checking and committed to taking a flight on Saturday afternoon returning on Tuesday afternoon.
I delivered the truck on Friday afternoon then began a rather lenghy search for a reasonable motel to spend the night. That took me to Wadkins, CO, not far from the DEN airport. I killed some time Saturday morning by shopping at Wal Mart for a pair of pants suitable to wear to a funeral.
Spent a very cold weekend in Montana. It reached -20 on Monday, but I was warm in my little house. I think that's the lowest cold temperature I've ever experienced. Mike, my contractor, has been busy putting in a new bathroom, so I was able to check that and visit friends while back in town. I had a nice visit and attended June's funeral on Tuesday morning.
The flight back from GTF was 3 hours late because they had trouble landing due to snow. I finally got back to DEN about 9:00 PM, where I stayed for the night and began the 1,500 mile potential deadhead back home to VA. I was hoping dispatch would come up with a truck, but at that time they didn't have one.
On Weds., I drove across very windy Kansas. As I reached Kansas City, about 5:00 PM, dispatch called to see if I was interested in hanging a left and going northeast about 255 miles to Marshalltown, IA to pick up a truck for Martin, KY. That sounded good to me, so I headed up through cold, snowy, MO to Bethany, MO for the night. It was -4 on Thursday morning, but my little tow car started and I headed on to Marshalltown.
I arrived there about 11:30 AM, at a L E Myers shop where they were not expecting me. They said they would have brought the truck in for the night if they'd known I was coming. Since it had been -14 there over night, and the truck had been sitting for over 2 weeks, it wouldn't start. It was behind a big pile of snow. They plugged it up and hooked up a charger and let it sit while they moved some of the snow so they could get it out. This truck was what they called a pressure auger, the first of this type I'd driven. It was an IHC 7400 automatic.
In about 2 hours, it started and I began my journey to Martin, KY deep in southeastern KY. I stopped in Bloomington, IL for the night, where it was -5 the next morning. I worried all night about whether the truck would start and whether I should have just left it idling.
Since I couldn't sleep, I got a super early start about 6:00 on Friday morning. The truck did start OK, and I headed on to Martin, KY. I arrived there about 4:00 PM, where they guided me deep into the bowels of a mountain outside Martin. My chase car was totally covered with salt and mud and I had to find a place to spray it off before I could go too far.
I had an interesting drive through Appalachia and arrived home about 10:00 PM. I had driven about 2,200 truck miles and deadheaded another 1,200 miles and been gone for 10 days. That was my longest trip, with the most driving. But it had been a good trip, as driveaway trips go, and we'll see how good a paying trip it was.
It took a couple of weeks into January before I took my first driveaway trip of the year. My companay usually puts me on the road as soon as I tell them I'm ready to head out, plus usually get a couple of calls to see if I can go out, but this time it took them more than a week before making an assignment.
When I called on Tuesday, 1/15/08, they first asked if I wanted to take one to Cherry Hill, NJ. Being really tired of driving to the northeast from VA, I asked if they had any other options. For the first time, they actually had another option. Did I want to take one from Daleville, VA to St. Joseph, MO? You bet! How nice it would be to finally be heading west again.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008Early Weds. morning, I headed to Altec at Daleville to pick up a new IHC Workstar bucket unit. This was a 4-wheel drive automatic, but I found these new units are a little different than the equivalent 7400 series I've driven a lot. For one thing, the oil dipstick has been moved further out front and is very long. When I checked this one, the dip stick was sticking up out of the tube, and when put in would not register any oil. That left me to think it may have oil and the dip stick may not be registering properly. It took 30 minutes, but I got a couple of "mechanics" out of the plant (they don't work on the trucks, just the units on back) who really didn't know whether there was a problem or not. Plus, they said they didn't have any oil in the plant. Their checksheet had been signed off that the oil was OK.
I decided to go ahead and head out, but the oil situation was bothering me. The low oil alarm would come on briefly when the truck first started, but then would run good pressure. At the first fill up, I decided to put a quart of oil in, which didn't make any difference. I drove like that the rest of the day, and stopped in Dale, IN for the night. The next morning I bought a gallon of Oil and put most of it in before it did finally register. I took it on west like that.
As I was passing through St. Louis, dispatch called to tell me the truck had been re-directed to Aurora, CO, which was OK with me. I had luckily missed some snowy weather during the night and was in the driving west mood. Plus, this got me to thinking that if I got as far as CO, perhaps I should just go on to Choteau, MT and attend the funeral of our dear neighbor who had died unexpectedly on Tuesday.
My wife was off on a snow day and did some preliminary checking on airfares from DEN to GTF. She found a good fare, so that night when I stopped in Salina, KS, I did the final checking and committed to taking a flight on Saturday afternoon returning on Tuesday afternoon.
I delivered the truck on Friday afternoon then began a rather lenghy search for a reasonable motel to spend the night. That took me to Wadkins, CO, not far from the DEN airport. I killed some time Saturday morning by shopping at Wal Mart for a pair of pants suitable to wear to a funeral.
Spent a very cold weekend in Montana. It reached -20 on Monday, but I was warm in my little house. I think that's the lowest cold temperature I've ever experienced. Mike, my contractor, has been busy putting in a new bathroom, so I was able to check that and visit friends while back in town. I had a nice visit and attended June's funeral on Tuesday morning.
The flight back from GTF was 3 hours late because they had trouble landing due to snow. I finally got back to DEN about 9:00 PM, where I stayed for the night and began the 1,500 mile potential deadhead back home to VA. I was hoping dispatch would come up with a truck, but at that time they didn't have one.
On Weds., I drove across very windy Kansas. As I reached Kansas City, about 5:00 PM, dispatch called to see if I was interested in hanging a left and going northeast about 255 miles to Marshalltown, IA to pick up a truck for Martin, KY. That sounded good to me, so I headed up through cold, snowy, MO to Bethany, MO for the night. It was -4 on Thursday morning, but my little tow car started and I headed on to Marshalltown.
I arrived there about 11:30 AM, at a L E Myers shop where they were not expecting me. They said they would have brought the truck in for the night if they'd known I was coming. Since it had been -14 there over night, and the truck had been sitting for over 2 weeks, it wouldn't start. It was behind a big pile of snow. They plugged it up and hooked up a charger and let it sit while they moved some of the snow so they could get it out. This truck was what they called a pressure auger, the first of this type I'd driven. It was an IHC 7400 automatic.
In about 2 hours, it started and I began my journey to Martin, KY deep in southeastern KY. I stopped in Bloomington, IL for the night, where it was -5 the next morning. I worried all night about whether the truck would start and whether I should have just left it idling.
Since I couldn't sleep, I got a super early start about 6:00 on Friday morning. The truck did start OK, and I headed on to Martin, KY. I arrived there about 4:00 PM, where they guided me deep into the bowels of a mountain outside Martin. My chase car was totally covered with salt and mud and I had to find a place to spray it off before I could go too far.
I had an interesting drive through Appalachia and arrived home about 10:00 PM. I had driven about 2,200 truck miles and deadheaded another 1,200 miles and been gone for 10 days. That was my longest trip, with the most driving. But it had been a good trip, as driveaway trips go, and we'll see how good a paying trip it was.
posted by Harry | 3:42 PM
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