Between Vero Beach and Tampa here in Florida is a road called State Road 60 that joins the two towns together, about 3 hours apart. We find ourselves on this route regularly to pick up and deliver our grandson. Well, we met his mother on SR60 last night and a few hours later along the same route 3 souls passed into eternity.
A selfish 22 year old woman was heading westbound and kept passing people at 100 mph. A mile before her demise, she almost crashed head-on into an 18-wheeler, a man smashed on his brakes so she could slide back into her lane before being hit by the truck. The kid has just left the last of 4 passing zones on this 2-lane highway and was within seconds of encountering the 4-lane portion of the highway for the rest of her ride home (15-20 minutes). Did she chill out for the next 30 seconds after having almost crashed into a semi? No, she did it again, tried to pass someone else and crashed her Ford Flex head on into an F150 killing the grand-parents of the little 3-year old boy in the back seat. He lives.
Deadly crash happened in unincorporated Lake Wales on State Road 60 East.
www.clickorlando.com
A few days earlier I was put under a time constraint to pickup our grandson at the half-way point. Traffic was chaotic with the flow of traffic going from 45 to 80 and everywhere in between for much of the run. I limited myself to 75 and worked through the slower cars slowly. After the first passing lane I had no traffic of consequence in front of me and arrived at Jimmy's Truck Stop 10 minutes early. I went inside and picked up a corndog for the boy and some gator bites for the run back to grandma.
While my grandson was biting down on his corndog, I offered him a piece of gator which looked like a chicken tender. He loved it! So the corn dog went back into the wrapper and we shared the gator but saved some for grandma! She liked it too as did my youngest daughter. Have to buy a bigger order next time!
Best in Florida!! Best Gator Nuggets in Florida With our secrete Gator sauce. Food is the best companion!! Located on the way to your destination, The Jimmy’s Truck Stop offers a unique quick, and stomach-satisfying food experience that allows you to enjoy the vibrant atmosphere of traveling by...
jimmystruckstop.com
On that run, the truck barely kicked over when I started her back up after going inside the truck stop and noticed during the whole trip that the alternator was at full output almost the entire time. The next morning the battery's state of charge was 64%, that's replacement territory! The battery at the time was 39 months and 39K miles and 1200 hours. So I put her on the tender for about 15 hours and the battery was now 100% but still cranked over slow. So this morning on the way back from the doctor, I fired up the Torque Pro app on my phone and noticed that the throttle at idle was 18%. Could this be causing the hard starting? As for the low battery, it's possible that leaving the OBDII adapter in drew it down along with the short runs and sitting for a few weeks.
So the moral to these stories is, slow down, stay healthy and love your loved ones. And most importantly, if you don't know the Lord the bible's way, get to know him and walk with him because you don't know when your last day on this side of the grass will be.
My back injury is finally getting the attention that it needs. Hopefully I can resume work on the axle soon but it is heating up outside, spring is here and summer is right around the corner!