We Made It

When I was younger I used to have dreams of driving up an increasingly steep on-ramp. The ramp would continue to straighten endlessly into a completely vertical angle but I'd somehow be able to keep from falling backwards long enough to keep climbing. At times, the drive from MN to TX was very much like those dreams.

As many of you know I bought a cargo truck to move my stuff and not spend a bunch of cash on a uhaul. The truck performed very well, I didn't have any breakdowns but I did have a couple of close-calls, or well "incidents". On the day we left I checked the air pressure on the rear tires and noticed the inside tires of the dually's had no air. I put in as much as I could but the compressor at the store only managed to get about 75 psi on tires that should have 100. I considered getting them checked out but I decided that since the truck had been unused for a while before I bought it, they probably got deflated on their own. I'd bought new tires up front so I knew those would be fine. Luckily the tires were never an issue, but about a quarter of the way here I lost my headlights for a couple of seconds. I can't express how scary it was to get caught off guard and have the headlights die, then bear down on complete darkness at 65 mph on a 15 ton beast, even for a few seconds. By the time I'd managed to pull over the lights had come back, but I had to make another decision about whether/how to continue. Lizzy decided that she could drive in front of me so I could pull over safely if the lights happened to go out again. She did, but the rest of the trip the lights were fine.

A couple of times I did some serious white knuckle driving as I drove through cramped construction zones with concrete barriers directly to my right, a row of semi's to my left, and uneven pavement below. All this with a steering wheel that had far more "play" in it than any newbie truck driver would be comfortable with. Oh, and the air breaks lost almost all pressure a couple of times I had to brake particularly hard.

I've driven that I35 route several times and let me tell you, we are all far removed from the danger that is driving when we sit in our cushioned, sound dampened, seemingly protective car frames--especially when all is running as it should be. Driving that truck gave me a new perspective and respect for highways and truckers.

But hey, we're here and we're safe. Would I do it again? I think if it were just me, and I weren't carrying all my own stuff in the back, I would. 8-)

There it is 9 speed turbo diesel with a 22 ft box, and full 11R22.5 tires that semis use