We left Friday at about 3:30 to 4 pm and got on I-80 toward Lefty and Carter's. (We had never met Lefty & Carter, but we have had a great interaction on the Wooden Boat Forum...)
I set the cruise control to 55 mph and let it run slow...LOL....
We stopped at a roadside rest and went inside the trailer and had some lunch. After a while we were ready to continue our journey.
Earlier as we had driven, I had felt the brakes release the "grab" (srongly) when I let the foot of the brake.
As I sat there I decided to re-adjust the trailer brakes. I turned the right hand knob all the way to where I was told to put it.
I turned the other knob to where it started to get orange and the lights went off... NO response with anything.
It was after hours so I called Randy, the owner of the trailer "store". He didn't know what was going on and asked me to wait a bit while he called his mechanics.
As I waited for his call, I asked the trucker who pulled next to me if he knew what was going on. The man came to look at my truck but didn't speak English and could not help me.
I called Husband thousands of miles away. He told me to check the fuse. I opened the fuse box and became overwhelmed as there was at least 50 fuses. I could not believe a truck could have that many fuses...
Randy called me back and told me to check and make sure that the connecting jack was firmly pushed to it's recepticle in the truck... I did and it went in just a quarter hair more. The green ligt came on and I was able to adjust the brakes...
Oho...Carter just called us for breakfast...Will be back in a bit...
..........
So...We left the rest stop and drove nother hour and a half and stopped at a Flying J truck stop in Lamar, about 140 miles from our starting point.
What a huge and impressive truck stop. Anything you might want, was available...and inexpensively to boot...
The ground was nice and level. We filled our water tank 1/3rd of a way and settled for the night. The air was getting very cold as the sun had allready settled. I had the lights on for about 15 minutes and they faded off.
We had no lights and no heat. I had tried to get the heater on while we had the lights on, but to no avail...
We settled on our beds under every blankets we have. It was miserable....I love heat and this was physically painful...
I didn't sleep. I just suffered...
Got up and moving early... Drove accross the state of PA on I-80. The closer we got to CT, the busier the traffic got.
Lefty came and got us from a nearby gars station. I followed him to their home in the woods.
What a wonderful, spacious and beautiful place they have. Wild turkey flock, consisting of three males and seven females roam the grounds. Here are also a couple of lone male turkeys who live outside of the flock...
We were amazed to see the male turkeys chase the females up into the trees. They fly and settle on a branch about fourty feet up. Only then the males take to the wing...
We were sitting on the couch and Carter said to look behind me....I did and look and behold, there was a group of deer...maybe about 10-12 of them. They walked near the house and were very peacefully moving along...no hurry...just walking at a slow and easy gate...
Well, back to our arrival. The lights were still not working. I thought they should have as the battery should have been charged up by the truck as we drove.
I called Randy who connected us to Larry, his mechanic. As I was talking to Larry, Lefty looked at the battery and found that the battery was empty...cracked...and all the acid had leaked on to the bottom of the battery case.
Larry said, he had never seen anything like that before.
We had a wonderful evening with Lefty and Carter. Lefty made a lobster dinner with HUGE fresh lobsters and all kinds of good foods....
Lefty even offered his lobster's tail to me. I ate it too... I'm not bashful when it comes to good food...
