"Low Coolant" the dashboard display flashed. It actually happened TWO more times. The first one occurred at Walcott, Iowa at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, where I'd stopped to eat lunch. I came back out to the truck and and just a split second after the motor started here came the warning. To make a long story short, it turned out that the first reservoir was defective even though it was a new part from Freightliner. That got replaced, and I thought all was well and good.

Not to be. Later that evening I was traveling along the Indiana Turnpike when I discovered courtesy of another driver that the tail lights on the trailer I was pulling had completely stopped working, making it necessary for me to drive a distance with my emergency flashers flashing so people coming up behind me could see the back of my truck. I stopped at the T/A truck stop shop at Stony Ridge, Ohio the next day and got them to fix it. When I was starting the truck back up to pull it into their shop, once again the "low coolant" warning flashed and the alarm beeper sounded (that sucker is loud!!!). The fellow looked at it after he fixed the trailer's tail lights (which turned out to be a broken wire) and he found that one of the caps on the reservoir was not properly seated with its rubber gasket.

It turned out that the receiver could not receive the load on Friday (I'm sure they were closed due to it being "Good Friday), so the delivery was rescheduled till early Monday morning. My fleet manager had me come to the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area where they were going to have me drop the trailer, but later Friday she said that freight was light and she didn't have another load for me to pull, so I had to stay hooked to the one I have. I've been sitting at the Carlisle, Pennsylvania Flying J truck stop since very early Friday morning.

Since I am in Carlisle, I called the "Visual Addictions" tattoo shop and talked to the owner to see if he could hook me up with a tattoo, but it turns out he was all booked up, which I expected. So, I've been sitting here in my truck playing on the Internet most of the time. That's the way things go sometimes.

If I ever make it over to New Jersey I'll unload there first thing Monday morning.

¶ 3:16 AM