Never thought I'd use a CB to......

My wife, daughter and her boy friend were in Cherokee Nc yesterday on a mountain daytrip in the Ford Windstar mini van with my CB and luckily had just over a half tank of fuel when we pulled into town.
We though we'd get gas because we'd seen that Bryson City had no fuel left except one gas station with a very long line of cars waiting on every pump.
That was the 1st alarm.

So we were going to fill up in Cherokee just in case we encountered more gas outages.
Turns out the only single place that had gas in that town had 30 cars waiting at every pump.
I was like we need to get the hell out of here now.
So we headed towards Atlanta on 441 S and luckily down at the flea markets we found cars waiting on gas.
They had 5 cars waiting at every pump and we didn't pass the chance at getting fuel.
They told me inside they would be out of gas in 1 hr.

Anyway here are some pics from the road. We have got to stop and eat at Nabers Drive in just out of Bryson City NC.
Its right on the river.

 

That's ironic that you were going to the same area Timin770.
Do you drive a day cab and come home every day?

I'd love to live up that way if I could find a way to make a living.
No matter what I do unless I drive way out of the way I have to go through Atlanta to go to the mountains.
I'd want to be somewhere away from all of the tourist traffic though.

Hopefully the fuel crisis will return to normal soon.

 

My sister was going to travel from Alabama to Highlands NC last week for vacation but wisely decided not to go.

I wanted to go to Murphy NC this weekend but was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find gas to get back.

 

Yea that probably was wise. I just imagine some folks had to sleep in their cars around Cherokee last weekend if they arrived their on an empty tank.

 

Sounds like a few good runs there.

Have you ever had problems with brakes getting hot in the mountains?
I sure would hate to blow a brake line anywhere but especially the mountains. Almost instantly secondary air drops to zero, alarm comes on with very little brakes available.
And I suppose the emergency brake would soon come on.

 

I blew a brake line to the left front tandem once in maxed out loaded dump truck probably 63,650 or there about's.
I was hauling 20 ton loads of Crusher Run (GAB same thing) a couple miles away filling in new curves in a subdivision.
I was coming up on a green light on a medium downhill and it changed to red at the last second and the car in front of me stopped so I had to hit the brakes extra hard.
I always stay back a ways for reasons such as last second light changes.
When I hit the brakes all I got was a soft pedal, very minimal brakes and an alarm.
2ndary air went to zero instantly.

I checked my right mirror for cars, nothing was there so I hit the turn lane and got slowed almost to a stop just past the car at the light and pulled the brake on. That was my first experience with a blown brake line and I've been around trucks all my life and rode with my dad since I was knee high to a grasshopper every chance I got.

I have thought about that many times what I could have done had there been no turn lane. I should have pulled the brake but it all happened so fast.
People should be trained to pull that brake if that happens.

Just the other day I noticed air dropping on my gauge while I was holding the brake steady. This also would not be a good thing in the mountains. In fact in the mountains I would recommend pulling over immediately if air pressure dropping with steady brake pressure.

So I got home built up the air, raised the bed, chocked the wheels, cut off the truck, put a board from the seat down to the brake's to apply them and got out and listened for an air leak.
Well...... it was too slow to hear So! I lowered the bed and got out my hose masher for lack of a better word and clamped off the supply line to the brake chambers one at a time until I got to the one that stopped the needle from dropping on the air gauge inside the cab.
It was too late to get a brake chamber but I spotted the culprit and got one the next morning.