A light in the darkness

It snowed last night.

Found a tiny bit on the truck hood when I got up this morning. A tiny bit--if I'd waited for daylight I might not have seen it. But snow. End of March. Almost in Kentucky.

Mine was the only truck I saw it on. I suspect I'm the only one who hadn't idled the truck during the night At 39 degrees I might have, if I'd wanted to sleep longer...

But I went my merry way instead. Got slowed down a bit about halfway to Tennessee. Nothing on my side of the road, but northbound traffic on the Interstate was blocked. All lanes.

A tractor-trailer was lying across the road.

On its side.

Burning.

The trailer was almost gone--the top of it, anyway. The tractor was still recognizable, its nose pressed against the rock wall, its wheels dangling in the air. A silhouette in the steady ball of flame that surrounded it.

Just like in the movies.

I only remember seeing the lights from one emergency vehicle. Don't know what it was except that it wasn't a police car. I didn't look for details. Just crawled on past until the road cleared ahead of me and went on.

Hoping the driver got out.

Trying not to imagine if he didn't.

(3/27)
I'm sitting in a rundown gravel parking lot outside a factory that's notorious for taking all night to get around to loading you. I haven't been able to call my wife in two days (long story). Might not tonight, either.

I was starting to get annoyed with the situation. So I sat down to update the journal. And wrote the above.

I think I'll stop complaining. For now.

Oh, yeah. That place.

Last time I was here it was snowing and miserable. Today it's raining and miserable.

On the other hand, it's still daylight out, and I found a pull-through parking space. Any time I'm not backing into a slot in the dark is a good end to a drive. Especially if it's not snowing.

I have now reached the point of pulling into truck stops and saying "oh, yeah. I remember this parking lot." There are some factories that fit in the same category.

Not to say the whole country is my back yard, mind you. I saw a bit more variety back when I was spending three and four weeks out here at a time, though even then I never got farther west than Texas. Now that I'm only out seven or eight days at once, I tend to get into ruts.

Illinois, New Jersey, and (oddly enough) Arkansas have started feeling kind of homelike lately. The Carolina's are pretty comfortable, too. Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Virginia's see a fair bit of me, along with Pennsylvania--but mostly because they're on the way to those other places.

I've gotten to where I casually speculate on how many new windmills I'll see as I pass through Indiana. Or if they've moved that dumpster that made backing into a certain dock so interesting. It's almost comforting.

Odd how one's neighborhood can grow.

Deep thoughts

Spring in Michigan. Still looks like winter. Doesn't sound like it, though. Or feel like it.

The truck stop here has no phone. My wife may not know I'm still alive until lunchtime tomorrow.

Nothing within walking distance worth walking to.

But the hog trucks have left the parking lot. So all's right with the world.

Some days that's as profound as it gets.

Road hog, beep beep...

700 miles today. Nearly 11 hours. On a day like this things can run together a bit. One thing did stand out, though.

A guy pulling a utility trailer up passed me about lunchtime. He swung back into the right lane about 100 feet ahead of me--and promptly slowed down about 3 mph.

It pretty short order (immediately, in fact) I started getting nervous about the tailgating potential. So I swung into the left lane myself.

He promptly sped up.

In about thirty seconds he was a safe distance ahead of me. And the traffic was building up behind me. So I swung back into the right lane behind him.

He promptly slowed back down.

I gritted my teeth for a minute or two, and then swung out again. And he sped up again.

Three or four cars I swung back in. And he slowed down.

And so on.

I would have been happier if I'd thought he was doing it on purpose. But I suspected he just wasn't watching his speed. When I pulled out to pass he'd suddenly notice he'd slowed down. Then he'd speed up just enough to keep ahead. And as soon as I was behind him again, he'd let his mind wander once more.

Less than fun. And for all I could tell, slowing down would just slow him down too. Sigh.

At length I tried to pass one more time. He pulled away from me again. But this time he kept his speed up. I watched until he was a good six seconds way, and then pulled back in. And this time he stayed a safe distance ahead.

So I pulled back into the right lane. And let the cars pass me in large numbers.

One driver gave me the finger as he went by. Of course. It's always our fault.

Careful drivers on every side

And here I thought it was spring.

The temperature dropped ten degrees from one side of Arkansas to the other. It was still in the 50's, though, so I shouldn't complain.

At one point I got slowed down a bit. Two cars had scattered pieces of each other across both lanes of the interstate. An ambulance on the scene, both cars on the side, debris everywhere.

One car appeared to have spun out, its driver's side door smashed in. The driver looked to be conscious, though.

The other seemed to have hit a tree. Maybe it had just stopped short of one, though—with the bushes surrounding it I couldn't tell for sure.

As I moved carefully past on the shoulder, two cars cut in front of me.

For the want of a nail...

Yesterday I did a little sketching.

Nothing impressive—a small landscape study. Tiny, really. But it's more than I've done in a while. I don't get much practice in. I usually don't have time.

This weekend I had plenty.

(warning: boring explanations ahead)

The load on the back wheels of a semi-tractor can vary from less than 10,000 lbs to some 34,000.* That's a lot of variation. So, many modern trucks have an air spring system that automatically adjusts itself to keep the suspension more or less balanced. Part of that system involves keeping the load divided evenly between the two drive axles. That part of the job is handled by a gadget about the size of my palm, called a leveling valve. When it stops working properly, Bad Things Happen.

As I drove down the road the other day, I started noticing a familiar obnoxious noise. A roaring sound that seemed to come from the transmission, every time I let off the gas (or the governor did the same). It was familiar because I've had a truck do this to me before. The leveling valve was over-inflating the air springs.

This had several effects on the truck. The two most obvious ones were:

• The tractor-trailer had the kind of ride you'd expect from something with absolutely no give in the suspension. Ever hear of a small wagon called a buckboard? How about a primitive bicycle called a boneshaker? But perhaps I exaggerate.
• The over-inflation of the bags messed up the weight distribution between the drive axles. It fact, it tried to lift one set off the ground. I don't thing it succeeded, but it did throw them out of line vertically. And that threw the drive shaft out of alignment. Thus all the noise. The fact that it also put strain on the entire drive train is just a bonus...

Obviously I needed to get the valve replaced. Unfortunately, by the time I could get in touch with the Breakdown Dept., the weekend had come upon us. And the company shops didn't have that part. They'd have to get it from the manufacturer. And this manufacturer's service centers don't open on the weekend.

The first fellow I talked to in Breakdown (on Friday night) told me to try a few tricks to get the valve working. I spent the next day trying them. The helped a bit. For a while. Then, about halfway through Saturday I was back where I started.

The fellow I spoke to Saturday told me to call back when I knew where I'd be on Monday. Then they would figure out where I could take the truck to get it fixed. Made sense. So I started east, shutting down that night in Atoka, Oklahoma.

Sometime that night I got an idea where I would be going next. So I called Breakdown and told the third guy I'd talked to about the problem and where I'd be Monday. He said, “Who told you to keep driving the truck in that condition? You STAY RIGHT THERE!”

Then he called the manufacturer's service department. Who called a local shop. Who sent a man in a service truck.

Who arrived late that night. And confirmed that I needed a new leveling valve. And that he didn't have one.

Sigh.

So someone came out yesterday and took my trailer on to its destination. And I sat here all day.

This morning I learned that the nearest service center that had a leveling valve in stock was in Oklahoma City. So the service truck went to get it. A hundred and twenty miles. Each way.

Sigh again.

So I sat most of the day today. I wandered around the Wal-Mart. I drew a picture. I reread both the books I brought with me this trip. I did other things I no longer remember.

And about dinnertime the man in the service truck returned. Half an hour later the truck was fixed. Soon after that I got a new load assignment and started north. I could have driven all night, but I don't like to do that. And I might have had trouble timing my pickup. So I found a truck stop at the Arkansas border and took my break.

A hundred miles or so, in two days. Because of a valve the size of my palm. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. I'll try to figure it out in the morning.
-----
*This assumes, of course, a legally loaded truck. Careless loading or a special permit can result in more weight back there.

You know you're in a small town when--

-you walk in the front door of the Wal-Mart and you can see the back wall.

--you are crossing the parking lot of said Wal-Mart and you walk past a pickup truck with a trailer. And in the back of the trailer are three dogs. And a horse. Saddled, bridled, ready to ride. Lariat hung on the saddle. Three more hanging on hooks in the trailer walls.

--you wander past a restaurant and look at the fliers taped to the window. And you wonder. What's a hog baying? You're invited to one next week.

I'm sitting in a truck stop parking lot, looking across the highway at cattle grazing on rolling hills. This is Atoka, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation. After reviewing the other things I saw before I settled down for the evening, I have come to the conclusion that I'm probably in a small town.

Believe it or not, this is not sarcastic. I live in Atlanta, and I'm comfortable there. But I grew up in a town like this. In Tennessee. It's almost like coming home.

Except for the hog baying. Not sure what to make of that...

What you do on a Friday night

The Pilot* in Benton, AR is within walking distance of a shopping center. This is a rare gift.

Not a mall. That's a really rare gift. But a Target and a Best Buy and a Petco and a few other stores. That's enough. Window shopping is as good a way to pass the time as many.

I've mentioned the difference between seeing the world and visiting it. It's a good thing window-shopping and people-watching can entertain me.

I don't bring my guitar—my wife gave it to me. At first I feared rough handling. Now I fear theft. Even with my present financial status, laptops are more expendable than expensive gifts from your wife.

Laptops are pretty common among truckers these days. And a lot of truck stops have wi-fi (though it's usually not free. Not yet, anyway.) WORLD OF WARCRAFT and its rivals take up a fair bit of truck-stop bandwidth. I usually write, myself. Each to his own.

Then there's satellite radio, of course. Just about any kind of music you care to name, anywhere you want. Or sports. Or talk. Or almost anything else. My trainer liked old-time radio plays. Me, too—sometimes I write them. But weird as it may seem, I don't often listen to them as I drive. Or music. Or much of anything else. I prefer to concentrate on my driving. Or on my listening. Both at once? No, thanks.

So I read. I write. I people-watch. I window-shop. And I probably think too much.

I certainly talk too much. I think I'll stop now. G'nite.
-----
*A truck stop chain. It qualifies as a “fuel-and-forget” type, but there are a lot of them, and they're usually pretty well run.

GPS: A small correction

Okay. So some GPS's are pretty neat.

I've discussed slip-seating. And how one of the disadvantages is that you're not in any one truck long enough to live in it. Well, one of the minor advantages is that sometimes you find things you can use, left by the last guy. Not food or clothing, of course, but sometimes something useful.

In this case, the last driver left his GPS stuck to the windshield. And it's not like I can leave the load somewhere and search the city for him. So I figured out how to work it. And I pay more attention to locking the door when I get out of the truck.

This one isn't perfect for truckers. For one thing, it wasn't made for semi's. There's been a bit of scandal lately about truck drivers mindlessly following GPS routing's under low bridges and through residential neighborhoods, etc. The units that know better are kind of pricey. This isn't one of them.

Then there's the display. Four inches across, maybe. A bit squintworthy anyway, even in a car. But a semi-tractor's cab is kind of big. Which means a GPS that's suction-cupped to the windshield is pretty far away. Not always fun to read.

But the display, tiny as it is, is still easier to follow at a glance than the one built into the truck's computer. And the controls make more sense. And it actually has controls—the one in the satcom is programmed by the company, and you don't have a say in where it tells you to go.

And the 3-D display actually works. It's amazing what a real refresh rate does for the view. The moving map really moves. You can tell what's coming.

Ah, but it's not mine. Perhaps just as well. It's like a TV in a sports bar, dragging your eyes away from your food or even your girl. Even if you don't care about sports. Maybe not too bad a thing in a bar. But when what you start ignoring is the road and the traffic, the consequences can go well beyond missing out on a second date.

Guess my feelings are still mixed.