Friday - evening

 The day started at 5:40 am.  It just ended some 20 minutes ago, now almost 5:00 pm.  

Of course, that is not a typical work day for me, so some explanation is warranted.  

The issue started after I left the trailer washout, unbeknownst to me. It's about a 30 minute drive from the washout to the loading plant.  I did, indeed, look at the truck and trailer before I left the washout, there were no issues.  

I'm cruising down 59, maybe 15 minutes from the plant and a trooper comes racing up behind me with his lights on, gets in front of me as if pulling over the vehicle in front of me, who starts pulling over to the shoulder.

Nope, it wasn't for that person, he was for me.  Well, he wanted me to get into the U-turn lane and follow him.  ??  As soon as I stopped, I saw a lot of smoke coming up from the bottom of the truck.  Wait, what?  I wanted to get out and find out what's going on, the trooper wanted me to follow him instead. I was thinking, what if there is a fire going on under there? 

Well, I followed him several miles back to the inspection station.  I stopped over their pit, got out and saw diesel fuel gushing out all over the place, it was already pooling up in the pit it was coming out that fast.  I shut the thing off immediately.  He, however, was afraid the thing was going to catch on fire and burn their entire station down so instructed me to move the truck "over there!" immediately.  

Shutting the truck off shut off the flow of fuel coming out onto the ground and there was no fire.  Quick discussion, this trooper decided he was going to do an inspection on the entire truck ??  So, we did that and then went inside the office.  He handed me 3 business cards from 3 different mobile mechanics. 

I called my manager, who called the lead mechanic, who called me, got the numbers found one that was open and that was that.  Play the waiting game.  Well, the Troopers were a chatty bunch and one thing I have found with the various Troopers I have encountered, they love to talk politics.  So I just blurted it out about Biden, Trump etc and making it obvious I am not a Biden supporter.  I could tell by the way they were looking at me that they didn't want to open that potential Pandora's box if I were the opposite.

I mean, we talked for hours while they were doing truck inspections on and off.  They were also BBQ'ing chicken.  It was probably 2 hours and 20 minutes and they brought in a huge mess of cooked chicken, informed me that there is plenty there, please feel free to eat.  I hadn't eaten anything, I was hungry so I gladly wolfed down some chicken.  

The mechanics showed up, determined it was a busted fuel line, went to a local parts store, got replacement parts and had the truck up and running relatively quickly.  Thanked the troopers for their hospitality and the chicken and left.  Amazingly, I didn't have to wait long to get into the loading by and they started loading quickly. 38 minutes later they were done and I was drenching in sweat. 

It's hot out, the truck can't run while they are loading and it's just the feeling of sitting in an oven.  

I did get the one and only call today from the park: allen informed me that Robert once again did not come out to work as he had agreed. How shocking.  I didn't expect anyone to work yesterday, but there are still 2 days he hasn't done anything regardless.