Well,i'm at home again,until at least Monday-truck's been running hot lately,and i've had it at Carter Cat twice already to have it checked out,and there's nothing wrong with it. It runs at 200+ degrees all the time,bumps 220 on a hill...but there's nothing wrong with it,the fan,thermostats,water pump-working fine I kept telling Jeff it was running way too hot,and he sent me by Cat both times,and when they said there was nothing wrong when I left there Wednesday evening,after wasting a couple of hours,he told me to "put foot in 'er ass,it's on them now". So that's what I did - when it got up to 220 degrees going up the mountain on I-64 before you get into West Virginia,I never let off it-I kept saying something was wrong,it was running too hot,had been to Cat twice and they said ,in so many words,"no it ain't-our high-tech equipment says everything's fine,you're an idiot,now get the hell outa here!"

My theory was, it was the water pump-it's got 339,000 miles on it and never had a water pump put on it. I kind've figured it was just worn out from paddling all that water. I couldn't stand to keep driving the truck when I knew SOMETHING had to be wrong,so when I got in Friday morning Jeff told me to take it back to Cat,for the third time,he was gonna get a new water pump put on just for preventive maintenance( or maybe he was tired of hearing me whine about it!). So after I got unloaded in Roanoke I dropped it off at Cat again and went home.They said it would be ready Friday afternoon,and I was supposed to pick it up and get a load of pipes at the shop going to Monroeville,Pa. Before I got out of town good Jeff called me and said not to worry about picking the truck up-it had a blown head gasket. Didn't surprise me-I thought all along it had a blown head gasket At least I get to watch the new "Ice Road Truckers" Sunday night.

And speaking of hot-geez! Went outside to stake my tomatoes after my Mr. Stripey toppled over and broke and the heat was intense. It's 92 here now. I remember when I was a kid,out in a hay field picking up square bales out of the field ( round balers weren't invented then!) or working in tobacco on days like today-or hotter,for that matter- but I couldn't do it now