Friday, September 12, 2008

MR. HANDYMAN

We left French Camp, CA at 2:30am Thursday morning and headed north. With a stop to pick up some diet Pepsi for a caffeine rush, we were thankful to finally see the sun start rising in the east. It was an uneventful drive until we were in no man's land, between Redding and the Oregon border, when Craig noticed that the reefer alarm was flashing red. We found a place to pull over and went to investigate. No matter what he did to try and reset the reefer, it would not restart. Now, this was going to be a problem, because the Synergy drinks, that we carried within our trailer, are filled with living cultures of microorganisms. Yes, folks, live little creatures swimming around inside each and every bottle, and they needed to be kept refrigerated. Hard to do when the reefer refuses to cooperate.


A phone call is placed into road service to advice them of the dilemma and give them the alarm codes. They tell us to stay put, as the temp inside the trailer continues to rise, and they call into the Carrier reefer service line. A couple of minutes later we receive a phone call back saying that one of the fuses needs to be replaced. We would have to go 100 miles out of our way to the nearest service center in order to get it fixed. Couldn't we do it ourselves, Craig asks? They say it is entirely up to him, but if he would do that, they would be most appreciative, not to mention it would make our lives much easier than having these drinks rot in our trailer as we travel 100 miles away.


So Craig gets out his screwdriver, I get out our little step stool, Craig goes about removing the faulty fuse and replacing it with a new one, as he has me be the look out along the Interstate for wayward cars and trucks. Now, I'm thinking to myself, what would I do other than scream that there is an oncoming moving projectile at us. It's not like we had anywhere else we could move to get out of the way, but I stood guard, as if my steely gaze upon the drivers would divert them away from our path.

The new fuse worked, and the reefer hummed back into blowing it's cool air onto those pesky little microorganisms before they went to that big bacteria pond up in the sky. Off we went and made it as far as Coburg, OR where we attempted to get some sleep before getting up this morning and on the road by 12:30am. We arrived safely to make our delivery in Ridgefield, WA, and am happy to report that under black light examination all living things were still alive and kicking. On a side note, I read on the Internet, that people swear by these drinks. Drop me a line if you have ever tried them.


Right now we are headed to Hermiston, OR to Americold Storage to pick up our old friends, the frozen french fry. I'm very happy to say that after we pick up these fries, we can get back to a normal drive during the day and sleep at night routine. Thankfully, we will have more than enough time to make our delivery in San Bernadino, CA, Tuesday morning at 7am.

1 comment:

rosemary said...

Have not tried those particular drinks....and don't think i will thank you very much.

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