Capleville, TN

I had a very short, but wonderful Christmas, and am now back at work. Well, the Christmas part was good. The whole leaving the family in the middle of opening presents on Christmas morning and barely being home long enough to pack my bags was not so good. But I was pleasantly surprised upon arriving at the truck and finding I had a load picking up in Cherokee, AL going to Columbia, SC that will get me back home today, hopefully. So, I've got that going for me, which is nice.

What I don't have going for me is a trailer with a securely attached service brake line. It's real fun to be driving seventy-four thousand pounds down the road at sixty-five miles per hour and watch as nothing happens when you press the brake pedal. I still had tractor brakes, but those aren't enough. I actually discovered this little issue Tuesday after I picked this trailer up. The air line from the tractor to the trailer disconnects from the trailer while I'm driving down the road, thus leaving me without trailer brakes. So, I have to pull over and reattach the air line every couple hours or so. Therein lies another problem. With the hose disconnected, if the brakes are applied, air will just leak out the hose and drain the air tanks. When the pressure in the tanks gets too low, the emergency spring brakes activate, locking the wheels. Anyway, with the help of the engine brake, I am able to gear down to about 10 mph, which is slow enough to use the brakes to stop. Good thing I'm dumping this piece of junk after I deliver.

I wanted to make sure I had as much time as possible to get home today, so I managed to find a truck stop that's five minutes from my delivery. I'll even get to sleep late. Beautiful.