Trans Am as seen by Broke Down 69

None whatsoever.

Oh read on my friend.

It is a trick sleeping in a covered wagon rolling along at 65 mph

 

Track 2 Days 3-6

Well this post is positively going to drip with irony because Broke Down is, well, broke down...allow me to elaborate.

When last I left you I was about to be unloaded in Pennsylvania and already had a load waiting for pickup in Virginia headed for Oklahoma. A good long run with a lot of seat time for your loyal correspondent to get more experience and confidence. That was the plan.

It all started out pretty well, a short 285 mile hop down to Winchester, Virginia to get loaded up. Did have some trouble out of my Garmin, which is a wonderful time management and communication device but it absolutely sucks at navigation. Fortunately in this case I was able to sort things out and arrived about 40 minutes early. Guards sent me to park and wait but I had hardly backed in when they said to move to my dock for loading. Awesome, I'm thinking, going to get this thing done and get moving pretty quick. The lumpers got me loaded in about 45 minutes and I was about to back under the trailer...I had to drop and pull...when I put her in reverse nothing happened. Hmm, this isn't good, I'm thinking but I put her in drive to pull up a bit to see if that would help and, you guessed it...nothing happened again. Well actually something did at this point, I got all sorts of alarms, warning lights and other signs of the coming apocalypse going off all over the place. Think about that scene in Apollo 13...the "Houston we have a problem" scene right after that space capsule threw a rod and it'll give you some idea of what I was dealing with. Now, I'm over my head and I decided it was time to bring my coach into this so I calmly turned to the sleeper and with resolute strength in my voice said "Er, umm boss, sir, your majesty and grand imperial poobah I think we may have a minor issue here. He wakes up asks a few questions while surveying the seizure inducing light show on the dash and says " I ain't got a problem, you're in the big seat, figure it out." Whereupon he appeared to go back right back to sleep.

Now it occurred to me he was right. Here was a chance to deal, alone, with an issue that was sure to come up sooner or later so I pulled out my book and started to sort it all out. I sent the appropriate messages to the appropriate people. Alerted the shipper to the issue and waited on instructions from on high.

Now I know there's a lot of you out there who have been waiting on a good ol' bashing and here it comes.

Road Assist. You will never, ever, meet a more incompetent bunch of nincompoops collected in one place short of The United States Congress. Words fail me to describe the morons working the phones there. They would have to go to college for four years just to reach the level of crap for brains. The first question the first idiot asked me was was there anything I could do about it. Well yes, now that you mention it I could get out and yell at it. (Snicker from the back was my first indication that maybe I wasn't flying completely solo on this after all.) Now I'm on hold...for half an hour. Ok. I can deal with it.

Next idiot up. "What seems to be the issue with the transmission" he asked?

"It won't go into gear." I replied.

"I need you to be more specific." Says the moron of the moment.

"I simply can't be. I push the button nothing happens. Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?"

On hold. Again. Ten minutes later, "We'll get back to you shortly."

Two hours later, still nothing and now the yard manager is up my rear wanting me out of the way.
So I send another message that I need to get the hell out of the way and perhaps the could put down the crackpipe long enough to get me a tow. A few minutes later I get a message to find a local company to tow us to the dealership in Hagarstown, Maryland. Took me less than ten minutes to make that happen. Unfortunately by the time the driver gets there we are just short of time to get there before they close the gates so we get a hotel room Sat-Sun in Winchester and make plans to be at the dealership at 9am today to get it looked over. Again, Road Assist screwed it up and didn't let them know we were coming (I should have handled that also) and we sit all day waiting but find ourselves in a differen hotel waiting to go wait some more tomorrow.

So to recap my experiences so far, I've driven just short of 800 miles, spent one shift in the sleeper and three nights in a hotel, backed a trailer eactly twice and am about to lose my ever loving mind with Road Assist. Hopefully the issue will be minor And we'll be able to get one more load in before I have to be back in Olathe not later than Sunday.

I'll keep y'all posted as I can.