Another home trip experience
this weekend held to status quo with my trip home...
While heading down 290 towards Austin, about 10 miles east of Elgin I come upon this nasty traffic incident. a couple emergency crews just arrived and were just starting to set up cones. About 7 passerbys had pulled over and ran to the incident. In the west bound lanes I'm the second vehicle stopped and I just happened to be next to an EMS vehicle. I was also about 30 yards from the accident. They hadn't yet gotten the scene organized and both directions were stopped. Knowing this was bad by all the comotion I decide to shut the truck off. It wasn't that long before they decided to keep the west bound lanes shut down and just shuttle us down the inside east bound lane to get the highway open. Well, it was time to turn that 454 over, fire it up and get moving.... click, click, click. NOTHING! Oh sh!t, I'm thinking and almost in a panic state. Here I am in this old POS and blocking about 100 cars in front of a very serious highway accident. I wave at the emergency guy running the flag and tell him I cant get it started and I probably need a jump. He tells me to do what I need to as he didn't have time to help. I pop the hood, jump out, and run to the rear doors to dig through two piles of tires to find my jumper cables. I run back to the front to look things over and contemplate flagging down someone that had been bottled up behind me to assist in jumping the truck. I even considered tearing through my tools to get what I need to rip the battery out of the 'bird while it sits up on the trailer. Just about that time another EMS guy skips on up and talks to the flag man, they decide to move the ambulance/emergency vehicle about 1/2 a length so I can get to their battery. We hook the cables up I jump over my pile of weekend crap in the passeners seat so I can twist the ignition key. Nada. same thing. click, click, click. EMS guy lets me know I can do what I need to with the emergency vehicle to get it jumped. before he walks off I ask him what happened and he mentions something about a roll over and a group of kids getting ejected. Not good. Also about that time I hear Mr. Flagman's walkie talkie conversation: " He'll make one pass and then he'll be coming in. When you see him. Shut it down." Well, I knew life flight was on the way. I try 3-4 more times to adjust the cables to get a good connection to jump the truck. I even disconnect my trailer 7-way plug to reduce any possible electrical drain. nada. I'm running back and forth as fast as I can sweating and yelling the whole time. I now know I gotta get it started asap or I'll be stuck there along with the huge line of cars for up to an hour while life flight comes in to do their job. FINALLY it starts up. I run to the emerg vehicle, remove the cables, drop its hood, and move to the burb and pull the cables there. About this time I hear a faint thump, thump, thump up in the sky. Not wanting to waste any time I hussle over and throw the cables and the pair of pliers I had been using through my open pass door on top of my pile of crap in the seat. As I turn to run back and shut my hood my shorts pocket catches on the door frame pin (for the latch). I'm already moving with authority so it proceeds to completely bust open my pants by ripping off the button and zipper. Oh sh!t. I just grab my pants to hold them halfway up, shut the door, run to the front, slam the hood, and jump in. all the while my pants are ripped wide open and cars driving buy at 2mph. I'm in! I throw my arm out the window and wave frantically for someone to let me nose it to get moving by the accident. I drive by slowly and can see a few people in the grass and lots of stuff going on. I also end up driving over a bunch of the cones the EMS group had set up for the lanes. I'm outta there and driving. I have to pull over a few miles later to reconnect my 7-way. I notice no other traffic was passing. Seems they "shut 'er down".
I made it home ok to find the street completely full for a neighbor's graduation party. I just park the rig halfway in the street blocking traffic. I unload, double park the car in the street and wait 20 minutes for someone to ask me to move so they can get out. I had to jump the truck again to move it once a spot opened up.
I'm now showered and relaxed awaiting for hell day at work tomorrow.
oh, this wasn't too unlike my trip home after last event when I blew a trailer tire out 10 miles after leaving cresson and then a few hours later throwing the tread on my truck's left front about 40 miles from home while heading down I-35. Lots of issues there but I don't plan to revisit that one... or the bad fuel pump I had on the way up to the 1st MSR-C event and having to change that up on the skid pad that Saturday night
.... at least I didn't loop the car this weekend!
