HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR

A lot happened between the time Craig left to drop the french fries in the Company yard in Bloomington, and the time he finally made it back to French Camp. While I waited, I got to experience record breaking temperatures in Modesto. It reached 110 degrees, and made me realize what a great idea it was to move to Washington! But I digress, back to Craig and his adventure.

As I mentioned in the previous entry, he only had enough hours to get into Wheeler Ridge Saturday night, and made the final leg to Bloomington early Sunday morning. He had been forewarned not to have a lot of fuel on board, as the trailer he would be swapping his french fries with, was loaded down with more than a few six packs over 45,000 pounds.

Craig had noticed that after hooking up the trailer of beer, the engine wasn't starting as quickly as normally, and that the voltage meter was reading low. He made a mental note of it and then drove a mile down the road to a small truck stop to scale the load. Upon returning to the truck, it wouldn't start, but thankfully, with an APU, it would charge the battery up enough after 10 minutes to get it started again.

Craig was happy he scaled out legally, but knowing when he picked me up and my belongings, we would have to play the fuel stop/weigh station game, and plan accordingly so as to not have too much fuel on board when crossing the scales, but enough to at least get us to our next fuel stop. Now onto his next problem, and what he guessed to be the alternator.

He made it about 15 miles down the road to the TA truck stop in Ontario, where much to his surprise, there were no trucks ahead of him to be worked on. He was immediately directed into a work bay, and if they had the part, would be in and out in record time. That would be necessary if he was to make the delivery on the beer load in Walla Walla, WA Tuesday morning at 7am. No worries, they had the part and he was on his way and headed to French Camp by 9am.

By 4:30pm, I had arrived with my Mom and Nieces, and we proceeded to try and find a nice cool restaurant to have a bite to eat before I said my goodbyes. The record breaking temperatures made saying goodbye a little easier, but with promises to be back in about 6 weeks for another visit. With the APU blasting cold air inside the truck, Craig and I high tailed it inside. Yep, it's great to be back home again, and Craig absolutely loved the new hair cut too!