I have to say, this has been a crazy two weeks. My last post was also from Dallas and I was lamenting about the lack of miles. Of course, this week has been no different. However it was not because the loads weren't there, it was because our truck had issue.
When we left Dallas last Friday, we had a load that was headed to San Francisco. When we were west of Albuquerque, they called and asked for us to take this load to Los Angeles instead and drop it there and pick up a load headed to Kansas City. I am assuming that they were going to have a solo driver pick up the San Francisco load there in Los Angeles and take it in. It sounded like we were going to be the first team into Los Angeles and they really needed someone to take the load to Kansas City. That worked out great for us because we didn't have to worry about getting stuck in Los Angeles over the weekend. It all worked out pretty good!
Then, our luck changed. Friday night, I woke up because I could tell we were stopped and J was talking on the phone. I got up to see what was going on only to find out that we were getting faults from our regen system. This is not good, considering the truck only had about 43,000 miles on it at the time. We ended up having to have another driver come pick up our load so we could get the truck into the shop. Luckily, we could still drive it, and we were only about 13 miles west of Flagstaff, AZ, so when I got up Saturday morning, J drove us back into Flagstaff and we parked at Little America. Now the really bad part of all of this, is that it is Saturday and the International shop is closed for the weekend. UGH!!
But! There is some good news in all of this! We have a friend that lives in Flagstaff, so I sent her a message to see if she was in town. I got in touch with her about mid-morning Saturday, and being the awesome friend that she is, she came and picked us up so we wouldn't be stuck in the truck all weekend. When she picked us up around 1400 hrs, we drove down to Sedona and had dinner. What a beautiful drive that is and we had never been there. Sunday we just hung out at her house and were lazy. It was awesome. Monday she had to go to Phoenix for the night so she dropped us off at our truck and we took it to the shop around 0730 Monday morning.
I guess around 1000 hrs Monday morning, we decided to get a rental car because it was sounding like it wouldn't be until Tuesday until they had the truck ready. Since our friend was going to be out of town, and there was the possibility that we would be stuck there another night, we stayed at her house again and watched her dogs. Champ, Decker and Adrian are the cutest things ever. Adrian, the Shepard, is definitely VERY vocal, but she is such a sweetheart. Decker is the quiet one. He is brindle and part Labrador. I think I would have stolen him if I thought I could get away with it. :) And then Champ is the small one, black and white, and is a little cuddle bug and loves to give you kisses. Since we don't have Smokey on the road with us, it sure was nice to get to spend the weekend with these guys. Here are some pictures of these three.
After we picked up the rental car, we ran back to the house, checked on the dogs and J took about an hour nap. Then, since we had a rental car, and the Grand Canyon was just a little over an hour away, we headed out to go see it. Neither J nor I had ever been, so this was a first for both of us. I knew it was going to be something incredible to see, but until you are standing by the railing at one of the overlooks, I don't think anyone actually realizes the magnitude of the Grand Canyon. It is called the Grand Canyon for a reason. It was simply breath taking and all I could do was just silently stare out across it. It was one of those moments when you just kinda realize how small you are in the grand scheme of things. We stopped at several overlooks, but since we got a late start, we didn't get to see all of it by any means. But we did find a great spot that we just sat down, enjoyed the view, blocked out all of the other people around and took a moment to take it all in and watch the sunset. The changing colors of the rocks when he sun hits them as it is setting is a true wonder. Here are a few pictures. These were just with my phone, but I think I got some pretty good ones, considering.
Tuesday, around 1100 hrs, we found out that the truck was ready so we got everything packed up, gave the dogs a treat and hugs and headed out to get the truck. When we got there we found out that they could not find the root of the problem. They got all of the faults cleared, but could not determine what caused the actual problem. Maybe it was a fluke thing, or maybe there is an underlying issue, but so far it has been running good and we have not received any more faults. As new as this truck is, I am really hoping that it was a fluke.
After we were all loaded up and had returned the rental car, they were going to have us bobtail down to Phoenix to wait for a load. We hadn't even made it out of Flagstaff, not even to the interstate and they called us back wanting us to pick up a load from a driver that had broken down in Clines Corners. So that is where we headed and delivered that load to Dallas around noon today and now just waiting on our load to be ready to go to Columbus.
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