“What made that run even more memorable was the fact that after I unloaded at Worthington, I was turning into the Pilot at Sioux Fall, when the engine ran out of fuel. I coasted to fuel island. Yanked the old filter off. Filled the spare, and put it on. The engine started right up, thank God.”
The one time I nearly ran out of fuel was in Nebraska.
I was headed east with a dry load and planned to stop at the first fuel stop in Nebraska to fill up.
Unfortunately both east and west exits were closed for construction.
I gritted my teeth and did some figuring.
I thought I could make it to Grand Island.
I thought wrong.
As soon as the engine sound changed I hit the breakdown lane and killed the engine. I was still 20 miles from Grand Island.
Luckily the 25 gal reefer tank was full.
Imagine yourself on the side of the interstate draining a reefer tank into a 2 liter soda bottle and pouring it into the tractor tanks.
Luck was with me because once I had put all the fuel into the tractor tanks it started right up.
My scariest load was a load of pillows I picked up in Cincinnati headed for Dallas.
Floor to ceiling, side to side 10,000 pounds of pillows.
I decided to drive the night through.
The wind was playing hell with my light load, shoving me all over the place. Wind coming from every direction.
Not another soul on the road.
While I was unloading in Dallas I used their break room. They had the weather channel on.
It seems I had driven right through the path of a swarm of 9 tornadoes.
Made my sammich hard to swallow.
Wow! That must have been before cell phones, because if it wasn’t, even if you didn’t have one, some driver that did would have probably been hollerin on the “noise box” about it.
In recent years the cell phones send out emergency alerts. That’s a big help.
If the run’s time table would allow it, I regularly would drive at night to zip through the big cities, maybe find coops closed as well. I’m stuck with elogs now, so I’m forced to follow its restraints. But I’ve got a good boss, and I like the truck, and the variety of runs (lowboy, stepdeck, end dump, dry van).
About 11 yrs ago I thought I was going to end up at the bottom of the TN River near Decatur AL. I was empty with a 53 dry van, northbound I-65 and it was gusty, but not real bad. I was almost halfway across the bridge when a big gust out of the west really rocked me. A flat behind me yelled, “driver, your left trailer tires came up off the road!” Nobody was beside me so I moved over to the hammer lane until I was over the river. And I then released my death grip on the steering wheel.