Monday, June 23

3:30 p.m.

Duncan, S.C.

Right as we pulled into the Pilot station, I heard a loud explosion come from the truck. It sounded as if every tire had exploded, and I nearly flew out of the back bunk to see Sheila shaking and nervous. We were hit by a lightning bolt, she said. A storm had been coalescing as we got closer to the fuel station and we could hear lighting crack around the truck as we pulled into the exit. But neither of us paid attention to how close the noise was because there was little rain and the sun was shining.

The lightning fried the entire electric system in the truck. Sheila couldn't get the lights, blinkers, air conditioning or wind-shield wipers to work. The lightning also knocked out the fuel pumps we were pulling into, and Sheila could have easily gotten struck had she been pumping diesel. Sheila, who had been gripping the steering wheel when it struck, said her hands tingled for 30 minutes. When Sheila called her dispatcher in Chattanooga to tell them what had happened, he told us we could not continue on our route to Atlanta. We would have to take the truck in for repair at a place a little over 10 miles down the interstate, and another truck would have to come get our load for delivery.

4:00 p.m.

Once we got to the Freightliner dealership, we were told the truck needed a new computer system, which they could only get in the morning. We weren't the only truck drivers broken down. Four other solemn-faced drivers were hovering around the mechanics when we came in. Some of the drivers had been there for more than three days, stuck. Sheila said breaking down in the middle of nowhere is just part the job, but it is never a pleasant experience.

When she is driving, she gets paid 37 cents a mile. But when the truck breaks down, she only gets $50 a day.

We waited at the dealership for more than four hours before another Covenant truck came to get Sheila's load and we could go the Super 8 hotel down the road to sleep. I finally got a dinner and a shower and slept like a baby.

Tuesday, June 24

8:30 a.m.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, Sheila woke up with welts all over her arms. The Super 8, where all the truckers are sent to spend the night, had bed bugs. Sheila had been scratching large red lumps on her body since she woke up, and Clara Belle has bites all over her stomach. For the lay person, bed bugs are small nocturnal insects that live inside mattresses and feast on human blood. Fun. Right.

When Sheila went to the front desk to tell them our room was infested, the font-desk attendant handed her a spray for bed bugs and rubbing alcohol. The hotel employees weren't much help, but we demanded that they let us wash our clothes so we didn't carry any of the bugs back to the truck.

12:30 p.m.

The Freightliner mechanics are still working on the truck. They say it might be late tonight or tomorrow morning before we can leave. It's a waiting game. We got moved to a different room, but I feel sick about being in this motel. We have no transportation and the only food in walking distance is KFC. Sheila's cell phone is on its last bar and in any minute we will loose contact with the outside world.

4:00 p.m.

The Freightliner mechanics came to pick us up from the hotel so we could go to the shop and check on the truck. The new computer was put in the truck, but it still was broken. We had no headlights, windshield wipers or turn signals. When we walked up to the waiting room in the shop we met several drivers who had broken down in Greenville last night. Sitting in the musky waiting room, we talked for a couple hours about the changes in the industry. They all had different backgrounds and perspectives but agreed that things were not like they used to be. The joys of trucking - covering hundreds of miles of open road, visiting friends scattered across the country and meeting new and interesting people - are fading.

7:00 p.m.

After the mechanics had gone home and there was no chance of the truck being fixed tonight, Sheila and I agreed to get a taxi from the repair shop to a decent restaurant. Anything sounded better than fast food, and we agreed to go to Ruby Tuesday. It was wonderful to sit at a clean table and eat a good meal. The restaurant was inside a mall, and when we were finished eating, we wandered through stores for a few hours, trying to delay our return to the hotel.

11:00 p.m.

We were both afraid to go to bed. There was no telling whether little bugs were crawling inside our mattresses waiting to bite us during the night.