This is turning into the load from Hell.
When I finally left the yard this morning I got about 5 miles down the road and received a call from dispatch. He said that someone had called and said that my trailer brakes were smoking. As I am pulling a wide load I can't see the trailer wheels. I quickly found a wide spot on the shoulder and pulled off to check it out.
It turned out to not be the brakes. When the mechanic had adjusted the trailer's air bag valve to lower the trailer he didn't set it correctly and the trailer dropped all the way down as I was driving. The smoke was from the tires rubbing on the trailer. Two tires were destroyed. Back to the yard.
I got the trailer tires replaced and then adjusted the air valve myself, not trusting the mechanic to do it. I left again.
I made it down to Bloomington, IL just as the sun set. I pulled into the truckstop parking lot, which is basically a large sheet of ice with some serious ruts and bumps. As I was pulling through to get to a parking space I hit a bad bump. The firetruck took a hop, snapped the two chains on it's rear. The sudden release of the downward pressure from the chains caused it to hop over towards the passenger side of the trailer. It almost came off the trailer. Almost. The back wheels on that side are only hanging on by a couple of tread widths. Scared the hell out of me as it would have flipped the whole rig on it's side had it come on over. Any idea how much force it takes to make a firetruck that weighs over 50,000 lbs hop? A helluva lot.
I detached, which was not easy on the ice. Pulled away from the now dropped deck, and went to start up the firetruck. I even found another driver willing to spot me while I backed the firetruck off the deck and drove it back on straight. Unfortunately the batteries are low in the firetruck and it wouldn't start. Damn!
You can't jump start one of these things. It has a built in battery charger but that requires 110V ac to charge the batteries. I have a generator but don't have a heavy duty extension cord to run out to the socket on the rear of the firetruck. Naturally the truckstop doesn't have them either.
Now I'm pretty much shit out of luck. I'll have to wait until morning and call my office to give them the wonderful news and find out what the hell they want me to do about it. Once again I won't be getting that early, sunrise start that I had planned.
This trip has pretty much turned to shit.