Post
by JEBar » Tue Aug 23, 2022 7:33 pm
well, we prefer boring drives and, thankfully, until today all of our drives on this trip have been .... that string snapped today during our 6 hr 38 min, 370.2 mile drive .... I-24 coming into Nashville has 2 lanes in both directions .... we were in the right hand, east bound lane running in a pretty good size pack of vehicles .... they were all passing us and the flow of traffic was smooth .... a small rollback wrecker a vehicle tied down on its bed and a second being towed backwards with the rear wheels off the ground and the front nose down passed us .... he had to be running 70 or better mph .... after getting a few vehicles ahead of us in the inside lane, smoke started boiling out from under the vehicle being towed .... the surrounding drivers all started taking totally uncoordinated evasive actions ..... lets just say its a minor miracle that nobody made contact ..... no clue how many long seconds later there were a total of 8 or so vehicles between us and the rollback ..... when sparks began to fly out from under the towed vehicle all of them hit the brakes .... as the rollback pulled away the sparks changed to flames .... much to my dismay nobody tried to get to the rollback to warn the driver ..... by then other drivers were running on both left and right shoulders .... when it became evident that none were going to try and alert the driver, I tried my best to weave our rig through to where I could get a clear path to him .... by the time we broke free wind pushed flames were shooting out of the entire front of the vehicle .... my efforts to catch the rollback ended the instant burning chunks of rubber hoses, tires and who knows what else begin flying across the interstate ..... it was then that the driver slammed on the brakes and headed for the right shoulder .... I saw him literally jump out of his truck, grab an extinguisher and run toward the fire .... that was the last I saw .... there is no doubt in my mind that his fire extinguisher wasn't anywhere near large enough to handle the fire
later on I-40 in the gorge between Knoxville and Asheville, our truck's electric motor fan that kicks in when the engine temp hits 200 degrees on a long pull stopped working .... never had a problem with it before .... the gorge has steep grades and almost nowhere to pull off the road .... had to fall back on an old standby .... open the windows, shut down the truck's AC, set the heater to blow the hottest possible temp and lower the engine coolant through manipulating the heater fan .... that was tough .... made it to the East Asheville KOA .... parked our camper, auto leveled it, hooked up the electric and took off in our truck to an independent garage we've used in years past .... they were closing for the day .... took all the info and will call us in the morning ..... if they can't work it in, they will try to find a mobile repair service for us
yep, far from a boring day
