Busy Week...Thankfully

Well, for a short week, it sure ended up being busy! We picked up in Indiana Wednesday morning and made it to Augusta, MI before the close of business and were able to get unloaded. We headed out to get some dinner but got a load offer going to Tennessee. We needed to get our new truck registration from our owners and they live in Tennessee but we knew Mary was at the post office trying to overnight the paperwork to us in Michigan at that moment! After several phone calls, she was able to retrieve the envelope from the post office so we headed out to pick up our load.


We picked up around 8 am in Holland, MI and delivered east of Nashville by 8 am the next morning. We took a nap, got a shower and something to eat and headed over to see Robert and Mary. They are super nice people and its always great to see them. We not only got our new registration and sticker, but also our DOT truck inspection and Robert got our AC checked out as it hadn't been working too well.


About and hour after leaving, we got a load offer picking up that night in Huntsville, AL and going to Traverse City, MI. We went to the International Big Bore plant and picked up a 13 liter diesel engine. It sure was pretty!! And huge. 3000 pounds of engine! We headed north and arrived at the truck shop around 2 Friday afternoon. It was pretty cool....everybody that worked in the shop came out to see it and ooh and aahh. LOL It was fun seeing all these guys all excited about an engine.


So, lunch at Applebees, play with the dogs and head closer to Lansing, hoping to be able to stop and sleep for the night. But, as I've always been told, there's no rest for the wicked, and sure enough we got a load offer picking up Friday night and delivering Saturday afternoon in North Carolina. So, off we went again.


Dana drove the first shift while I slept and I took over about 20 miles north of Marietta, OH. About 2 hours later, I noticed the voltage had dropped from about 13.8 to 12.0. I unplugged the Sirius radio, hoping it would help. It didn't. We drove from WV to NC, using no radio, AC, turning off the fridge, etc. We called our owner and let him know we would probably need a new alternator but were hoping to get this load finished (or we would lose $$). As soon as we unloaded and left the shipper, almost as if she knew, the truck's voltage dropped to 10, then 9....we stopped for fuel and our owner called with a repair shop about 8 miles from us that was expecting us. We limped the truck there, only able to drive about 45 mph (electronic transmission shifting) and she pretty much died in their lot. We got her in the garage and couldn't even put her in neutral, so we just shut her down.


We had already received a load offer for a mini for 0430 Monday morning. ( A mini is less than 100 miles) so we were glad to already be in a shop. About 2 hours later, we left with a new alternator and everything working again. We headed to the nearest Walmart lot, parked the truck, got dinner across the street and crashed. We were soooooooooo tired. We're about 100 miles from Myrtle Beach and seriously tempted to go there for the day, but we need to sit and let our clocks reset.


Thanks for checking in and thanks for leaving comments!! Stay tuned!!