(no subject)
Every roadtrip needs one really major, expensive, strand-you-in-the-middle-of-nowhere vehicle breakdown, right?
If that's the case, we've now had ours.
Sunday afternoon we headed west from Inyokern (yeah, we'd never heard of it either) and were planning to pull through to San Francisco in the following 24 hours. We got about 40 miles up the road, to Lake Isabella, when I looked down at the map and noticed that hey, rather than going south to Bakersfield on 178 and then cutting back north again, why not take 155 straight across to 99? It cut off two sides of a triangle, and given that we were tired and fuel prices in California are ridiculous, it seemed like a good choice.
We were wrong. We were so very, very wrong.
Less than a mile up the road, the engine temperature gauge started reading hot. Not surprising, since we were going more or less straight UP a mountain, and our rig is heavy. We pulled over, let it cool for a while, and kept going once the gauge got back down into the normal range. We drove another mile, the road kept going straight up, the engine temperature kept rising, and we started thinking about turning around. However, when you're 40 feet long, your truck has a horrendously wide turning radius, and you're on a twisty mountain road with no shoulder? Yeah. Not so much.
We came to a short straightaway about a mile after that, and stopped in the road to let the engine cool while we tried to figure out a way to turn around. Amy eventually decided that she could probably do it if she used a couple of driveways for maneuvering room, I got out to stop traffic so she could start trying to pull the rig around... and that was when we discovered that transmission fluid was pouring out of the truck at a rather frightening rate.
As it happened, the driveways we'd been planning to use to turn around belonged to several members of the local sheriff's department's volunteer search-and-rescue crew, who promptly came out to help us. They spent an hour directing traffic around us while we tried to get through to our roadside assistance company, and when that proved impossible, one of them called a flatbed for the truck and brought his own truck around to tow the trailer to their storage facility in the nearby town. They let us stay there for the three days it took to get the truck fixed, asked the pastor of a nearby church to keep an eye on us, arranged for a patrol car to swing through periodically, and told us to call them if we needed a ride or any help getting back on the road.
I have never in my life met a kinder bunch of people than those men. It could have been an absolutely horrifying experience, especially when we weren't able to get through to our roadside assistance company -- who will be getting a nastygram rather shortly -- but they stepped in and did what was necessary to get us and our rig safely into down and to a repair shop, and then made sure we would be okay until the truck was fixed. Amy and I are going to be sending thank-you notes tomorrow, and we're very seriously considering making a donation to the search-and-rescue department once we're a little more financially stable.
Three days and $1200 later, we're back on the road. We were lucky; the transmission just needed a new seal and some minor repairs, and we were finally able to get a transmission temperature gauge installed, which we've wanted since we first started encountering mountains on this trip. We made it to Bakersfield this afternoon and are stopping here for a week while we get caught up on work, and then we'll pull through to San Francisco.
If that's the case, we've now had ours.
Sunday afternoon we headed west from Inyokern (yeah, we'd never heard of it either) and were planning to pull through to San Francisco in the following 24 hours. We got about 40 miles up the road, to Lake Isabella, when I looked down at the map and noticed that hey, rather than going south to Bakersfield on 178 and then cutting back north again, why not take 155 straight across to 99? It cut off two sides of a triangle, and given that we were tired and fuel prices in California are ridiculous, it seemed like a good choice.
We were wrong. We were so very, very wrong.
Less than a mile up the road, the engine temperature gauge started reading hot. Not surprising, since we were going more or less straight UP a mountain, and our rig is heavy. We pulled over, let it cool for a while, and kept going once the gauge got back down into the normal range. We drove another mile, the road kept going straight up, the engine temperature kept rising, and we started thinking about turning around. However, when you're 40 feet long, your truck has a horrendously wide turning radius, and you're on a twisty mountain road with no shoulder? Yeah. Not so much.
We came to a short straightaway about a mile after that, and stopped in the road to let the engine cool while we tried to figure out a way to turn around. Amy eventually decided that she could probably do it if she used a couple of driveways for maneuvering room, I got out to stop traffic so she could start trying to pull the rig around... and that was when we discovered that transmission fluid was pouring out of the truck at a rather frightening rate.
As it happened, the driveways we'd been planning to use to turn around belonged to several members of the local sheriff's department's volunteer search-and-rescue crew, who promptly came out to help us. They spent an hour directing traffic around us while we tried to get through to our roadside assistance company, and when that proved impossible, one of them called a flatbed for the truck and brought his own truck around to tow the trailer to their storage facility in the nearby town. They let us stay there for the three days it took to get the truck fixed, asked the pastor of a nearby church to keep an eye on us, arranged for a patrol car to swing through periodically, and told us to call them if we needed a ride or any help getting back on the road.
I have never in my life met a kinder bunch of people than those men. It could have been an absolutely horrifying experience, especially when we weren't able to get through to our roadside assistance company -- who will be getting a nastygram rather shortly -- but they stepped in and did what was necessary to get us and our rig safely into down and to a repair shop, and then made sure we would be okay until the truck was fixed. Amy and I are going to be sending thank-you notes tomorrow, and we're very seriously considering making a donation to the search-and-rescue department once we're a little more financially stable.
Three days and $1200 later, we're back on the road. We were lucky; the transmission just needed a new seal and some minor repairs, and we were finally able to get a transmission temperature gauge installed, which we've wanted since we first started encountering mountains on this trip. We made it to Bakersfield this afternoon and are stopping here for a week while we get caught up on work, and then we'll pull through to San Francisco.