Alligators Along the Highway

Have you ever seen an alligator along the side of the highway? No, I don't mean real live gators with reptilian eyes, and crunch-o-matic teeth. I mean those discarded black bits of disintegrated truck tires that you see along the breakdown lanes on the interstate highways.

Long-haul truckers usually refer to these rubber remnants as "alligators"; mostly because from a distance they can resemble alligators at rest.

I tell you this because we were attacked by one of these terrible lizard-like abominations along northbound I-95 in South Carolina, about 5 miles north of the Georgia line.

It was early May. We were headed from Florida to Maine. The day was sunny with temperatures hovering around 80 degrees. I'm driving in the right lane at about 62 mph on cruise control when an 18 wheeler passes the coach and slams into my lane about 3 feet in front of the coach. (I sometimes wonder how some truck drivers earn a CDL license.) I immediately released the cruise control. The exhaust brake engaged and I began to slow. The tractor-trailer was now about 8 to 10 feet in front of the coach and appeared to quickly swerve (like it was trying to avoid something).

Suddenly, a large strip of tire tread comes flying out from underneath the right rear wheels of the trailer. I had no time to react. My wife and I held on while the front right then the rear right of the coach shuddered violently.

Then the engine lost power. I was able to coast onto the breakdown lane and come to a stop. The diesel engine dies and would not start.

On most diesel engines there is a water separation filter. It is mounted low on the chassis. It has a knob you turn to release the water, if any. Well the alligator ripped off the knob and and the filter (always full of fuel) emptied. The engine lost prime.

After a call to our road service - Good Sam ERS - and a two hour wait a huge tow truck arrived. You can't have just any tow truck when your rig is 38 feet long and 27,000 pounds. We followed our home on wheels and tow truck 50 miles north to the repair shop where they replaced the filter. I turned the ignition key and . . . nothing. The 11 year old chassis batteries were dead. I guess running the emergency flashers for 3 hours did them in.

So, the technician jumped the battery. After several attempts, the engine started. I paid the bill and headed across town to the local campground where we spent the night.

The next morning I turned the ignition key and . . . nothing! Again! While the batteries would charge overnight while the rig was plugged in, what I didn't know was that the campground power had been out for several hours due to thunder storms. My 2,000 watt inverter had been running all the electric in the coach and now the 4 coach batteries were in need of charging!

So, I called the shop repair shop and waited for a tech to deliver and install two new chassis batteries.

By 10:00 AM we were back on the road and lighter by several hundred dollars. I ran the generator during our 5 hour and recharged the house batteries.

We also lost the chrome tip to our exhaust pipe. But, that's a story for another day.