Calling Dr. Bombay!

Or maybe that's Freud I'm needing.

I had a pretty vivid dream that even now, sixteen hours later, I remember. For whatever reason, I had to drive Dad's old hot rod, the 1949 F6 Ford. It only had a partial load of wheat, but I still had to take it to town. There was some completely logical reason - I was going to bring it back out the next day - but that part escapes me.

So, I'm cruising along and the old warrior was just chuckling along. In fact, I wasn't even on the gas, and it was running right at 55mph. Since the normal speed limit was a far safer 45mph on gravel, particularly considering the aged, weatherchecked tires, well, this was beginning to concern me. Also, the road was becoming more and more neglected. Not only were the road ditches covered in weeds and overhanging trees, the road itself was gradually becoming covered in vegetation that needed mowing.

And here I am just cruising through all this crap effortlessly.

I started down a slight grade when I noticed little rivulets of water running down the road, cutting tiny paths in the dirt between the grass and weeds.

So traction was gonna be an issue. Didn't seem to bother the ol' girl, she just kept chuckling on.

I could see my corner was coming up, but I could in no way shut this thing down in time. I went through the interection and with some effort brought the faithful steed to a stop. I was gonna have to back up.

Suddenly, a girl appeared at my window to help me - I didn't need her help, I had a perfectly funtional mirror, but I accepted her commands.

Then the alarm went off.

When I got to work, my truck's batteries were really down, and I had to spend about a half hour jumping the thing to get 'er to go.

The trailer I hooked to has issues - it's feeding application air back out a bleeder valve in the dash. Can't hear any air leaks outside, and it's the trailer, but it's weird. Some sort of valve somewhere is screwed. I also started dragging a chain that had partially fallen out of a box behind my crane.

Ea.ch of these instances required that I stop and mess around for ten or fifteen.

Then, as I was passing a chicken hauler, I heard a disturbance on the radio. Since we were running away from channel 19, I switched to hear what he had to say. He thought I had a flat tire on that trailer.

I was about ten miles from a tire repair shop, so I kept on. I had one that was down to fifty or sixty pounds. We pump 'em to a hundred. So, I aired it up.

Then road construction help me up for at least an hour total today. I pulled into Bismarck ND with about a half hour to spare before I'd completely have to be off the road, and my logbook is screaming foul.

My tire was still up, and we'll see if the Mighty Binder starts in the morning.

Wish I was able to finish that dream, dammit.