Wednesday December 10, 2008

Today was our travel day back to Rayford and then to our house in Dickinson. Stella needed to go to her office tomorrow, so we decided to just drive home after dropping the trailer off at Rayford.

When we woke up this morning we found about 1" of snow on the picnic table and on the truck. We knew that snow had been expected but it was not supposed to have been cold enough to make it stick, but we had the proof. We saw a lot of snow in the pastures and in sheltered areas all day long. It was quite cold too, probably in the upper 20's. When I started the truck, the thermometer showed 32 degrees and that was around 9 o'clock.

We didn't get away as early as we'd hoped to and hit Houston in the beginning of the rush hour traffic. We decided to come in on I-10 and by going that way we shaved an hour off our travel time. We didn't drive any faster than normal but maybe the cold wind hurried us along. We got into Rayford about 3:30 and it started snowing on us again. It had rained off and on from about Katy on, and because of the cold and snow, the only thing I connected outside was the electricity. We weren't staying anyway and I wanted to get on the road as soon as possible.

Along the way home, the snow turned back into rain which stayed with us all the way home. I guess the cold front had not completely caught up with us yet. We met Kim, Jeremy and the boys at Ryan's for supper. Of course, Tyler told me that I didn't have an excuse not to come over to their house now, so we had to go. When we got to their house, the weirdest thing happened! The truck, which we had been driving all day pulling the trailer and all, would not shut off when we got to Kim's house. It was weird because I even took the keys out, then tried everything I could think of to make the motor shut down but it wouldn't. I just locked the truck and came inside to get out of the snow, which had started again and was getting harder and harder. After staying for a short time, Jeremy came outside to see if he could think of anything to do when we got home, but we really didn't try real hard for fear that the truck wouldn't start again. We decided to just try to get on home with it when I found that it wouldn't go into gear but stayed locked in park. I found that if you turn the key back past the off position, the gauges on the dash would work but it still wouldn't go into gear. Then I turned the ignition key onto the run position, the truck would go into gear, but it had no power. Then I found that it would not go into reverse, so I knew there was something seriously wrong with the truck. Jeremy brought out his tool set and we found that by disconnecting both batteries and the alternator, we could make the motor stop by touching the battery cable to the terminal, apparently shorting out the ignition circuit. A diesel has no spark plugs or source of ignition, so something in this "shorting" method worked. We hooked everything back up and the truck started normally but again would not shut down. We used the same method to get it to shut down, and went back inside. Kim knows a man who owns a wrecker service. Charlie promised to have a tow truck at her house the first thing in the morning. I have an old friend that I recently ran into who is the Service Director for Ron Carter in Texas City. I will call him tomorrow to see about getting the truck fixed.

Jeremy took us home in the snowstorm. I've been telling everyone that we're going to have a bad winter this year after the storm hit. I guess a snow in December proves it!