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Liquid Sunshine
 Passing through Florida, heading to LA (the state, not the city). Yesterday I ran across some weird weather while heading north from Miami. Periods of torrential rain followed by the sun shining brightly through the rows of clouds marching across southern FL. Twice I got both at the same time, good old liquid sunshine. I was 6 or 7 when I first learned that term and have always loved being rained on in full sunlight.
Dropped my backhoes yesterday and , wonder of wonders, had a load all ready to get me back out of FL. Just hauling a flatbed truck and some lumber to Louisiana but it gets me out of FL without having to wait half the day for a load, as per usual SOP.
LATER…
Down for the night in Jackson, MS. Drove a lot of US highways to cut the corners off the interstates. More liquid sunshine and some regular rain, too. It was a good drive, except for having to wait 15 minutes while the cleared an flopped-over semi off of US49. No injuries, the CB scuttlebutt said. No next load for tomorrow. I’ll deliver this one in the AM and find a place to go down if I have to wait for a load through the house. I’m too far from home for them to let me deadhead, dammit! But I got this FL load quickly when I always had problems getting out of FL. Here’s to hoping the lucky streak continues. That is if two in a row can even be considered a streak…
A bit of personal history… When my old company was bought out by my current company we drove our old orange trucks for quite a while. Mostly they were in decent mechanical shape, at least the one I used was driven only regionally and had low miles for it’s age. The new company announced the purchase of new purple trucks to replace the old orange one but due to the fact that they still had to be converted by the local OC to specialized duty, it was most of a year before I was even close to getting a "new" truck.
Then one day, as I was heading for our operating center in NC, my orange truck started acting up. When I got there, they were finding oil in the water and vice versa and got me a spare truck while they decided if my old truck was worth being fixed (they did, and promptly sold it). The spare was older, rattier and much dirtier than mine, but I decided to move in and keep the sucker. For one simple reason, it had a lower truck number and the company was swapping old for new on a schedule based on the age of the truck (they were numbered consecutively), no matter who was driving it. I took the time to swap all my crap out of the old truck and ended up throwing away lots of crap on the idea that goes: "If I haven’t used it since I last swapped trucks, I don’t need it, toss it!"
Eventually, I got my current truck, a 2007 Columbia with a 2006 Detroit engine with all of 49 miles on it. I think finally assembly was in NC, but the truck was mostly built in Mexico. Being that it had sat in the yard for many months, it had a nice coat of dust on it, but it cleaned up nice at the next Streakin’ Beacon. I love this truck except for a few niggling details.
- Only one bunk. So much for comfort if the wife comes on the road with me.
- The passenger seat has absolutely no arms, adjustments or "air ride." It looks like an upholstered lawn chair and is less comfortable (see previous point).
- Whole lot of safety sensors that spit out their beeps, boops and rumbles at me. I guess that’s a good thing, just sounds annoying…
- Two words: Automatic Transmission! Fully automatic, no clutch pedal, limited "manual" shifting, can’t start in anything higher than 2nd gear… and I’ve got to rev to 800 rpm before the clutch kicks in. A real bitch when backing into a dock or a parking space. The truck does all sorts of "ride-em-cowboy" moves when I do slow speed reverse, especially "pushing" the heavy loaded spread axle stepdeck.
Actually, I’ve gotten used to the transmission in the year I’ve had it. So much so I wonder what will happen if I ever have to go back to a stick? But on the plus side, I can drive I40, from one side the the US to the other, without touching that accelerator once I’ve set the cruise control. It will upshift and downshift on any interstate mountain grade and the Detroit 515 HP has enough power to keep me from chugging uphill. So far I’m digging it.
Gotta go, need to hit the bunk…
Technorati Tags: trucking, truck
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Passing through Florida, heading to LA (the state, not the city). Yesterday I ran across some weird weather while heading north from Miami. Periods of torrential rain followed by the sun shining brightly through the rows of clouds marching across southern FL. Twice I got both at the same time, good old liquid sunshine. I was 6 or 7 when I first learned that term and have always loved being rained on in full sunlight.
Just a note to let you know that I (still) love reading these OTR posts. My son-in-law is doing local driving, moving shipping containers from one side of town to the other in D/FW. He wants to do long-haul, but not until the babies are a little (lot) older.
I’m LMAO about moving backhoes into a black hole…I guess the economy’s doing OK down there, unless they’re just sinking them off the coast to blockade a Cuban naval operation.
Thanks for still hanging out, I appreciate it.
I figure they’re using all the heavy equipment to either tear down the overpriced condos that no one wants, or they’ll be used to pick up the pieces after the next big hurricane…