We received a decent load offer and accepted the load on Friday for a Monday pickup, which would get us back in the freight lanes. When we looked at the route for our pickup we realized that we would be driving right by a friends house so we reached out to see if we could spend some time with them over the weekend. We were really looking forward to this visit and then Murphy stepped in.
As usual in the winter I checked the weather for our route and realized an ice storm was heading our way. This changed our plans, we spent a short amount of time at our friend’s house and then moved over to be in position to pickup our load. Monday morning we looked out and were thankful, as it appeared that we had missed the worst of the ice storm. We were feeling pretty lucky at this point and thought maybe Murphy was going to leave us to our own devices.
With no problems we picked up our 570-mile load at 10:00 a.m. in the morning with a next day delivery at 8:00 a.m. This gave us plenty of time to negotiate the bad roads and make an on time delivery. I started out driving and found the roads to be relatively clear, the sky was bright and I was appreciative of the scene outside of my office window. I was able to drive our customary 58 mph for about 6 hours and then it was time to turn the driving over to Bob.
Bob continued on for a few miles before getting on I-55 and quickly ran into the anticipated ice on the roads. Murphy was back. We quickly realized that we had not missed the worst of the storm we were headed straight into the aftermath. In a short period of time Bob was down to driving five miles an hour before coming to a halt after driving only 120 miles. The traffic was creeping forward slowly for several hours until finally coming to a complete stop after six miles. Trying to sleep in a truck that is constantly starting and stopping is not easy. We were now in the midst of all the stopped vehicles on I-55 and Bob sat till it was my turn to sit and wait. Due to the type of load one of us had to be on duty at all times. Now Bob handed over the sitting to me and I memorized the rear end of the truck in front of me. By this time irritation would creep in and I had a hard time fighting it back. We were in a bad area for Internet so I had out my cross-stitch project and I was able to get a lot done.
I sat for many hours before the traffic started moving to my joy and we were ready to finish the last 200 miles of our trip. We had missed our delivery appointment by this time and it was moved out till four in the afternoon. Once I resumed driving to my dismay the DPF light on the dash lit up. My heart sunk clear down to my feet. This was the first time we had seen this light, as we have never had to do a parked REGEN. We had idled enough now we were going to learn about this new procedure.
I was on ice and on side roads as we had been routed off of the interstate. Trucks for as far as I could see forward and behind me with no place to pull over. I watched the DPF light as it changed from solid to blinking which is another reminder that we needed to stop and complete a REGEN. I continued on at a snails pace wondering where I was ever going to find a safe place to stop.
Finally we were back to the I-55 and in 15 miles was Memphis and I planned to pull into a truck stop and do the REGEN. Traffic once again slowed down to a crawl and I knew we were not going it to make Memphis so I pulled onto the access road, which was not being traveled to find the safest place to park. As I was making this maneuver the DPF light comes on solid and am I glad I was off of the interstate and pulled over. Bob read the procedure of how to do a parked REGEN and in eighteen minutes the REGEN was complete. We have 357,000 miles on our truck and I hope that this is the last parked REGEN we will go through the maneuvers to get the engine to perform. Bob found that the procedure to perform a parked REGEN is easy and both of us hope this is the last parked REGEN we will ask this engine to perform.
From the time the REGEN light came on till the red engine light came on was at least four hours so in normal conditions I could have stopped easily and completed the REGEN. If I had been able to get up to highway speeds I would have been able to complete our normal passive REGEN.
Our next turn took us on I-40 west and the interstate was in worse condition then I-55 and we stopped for many hours at a time. After 78 miles I handed the truck over to Bob and I headed back to the sleeper. Now the sun was setting once again and we were still at least 150 miles from out customer. The National Guard finally got control of the situation and we were once again routed off of the interstate and onto side roads that were clearer. We arrived at our customer late that night and were told we cannot take the load till in the morning. So our 570-mile load took almost 48 hours to deliver.
We spent over 24 hours on the ice and I know what level my frustration was at, I wondered how the solo drivers were handling it? Twice while it was my turn to sit the police came and beat on the trucks doors telling them to wake up and move forward. That forward was not even a mile before we once again stopped for a couple of hours. Here the police came again with sirens and beating on doors telling the sleeping drivers to get up and move forward. By this time it was getting light and I did not see any more police knocking on doors.
The key for us was patience as it was what it was and we were very grateful we had a well-stocked truck and all of the comforts of home. We also learned how far we could push a REGEN light and how quickly the truck performed the procedure.
Finally we delivered and we opened our door and firmly kicked Murphy to the curb.
