Break Down!

The truck broke down last night, just as Collin was trying to get to the truck shop in Buttonwillow, CA.
We had noticed an air leak on the last little descent of the Grapevine, heading north out of LA. It was intermittent so we were able to limp ahead a little further but when he tried to pull in, he got stuck behind some trucks stopped at the corner, and couldn't get it going again. At first we thought the brakes had locked up due to the air leak but that wasn't it. We blocked the intersection for at least a half hour, upsetting several truck drivers who couldn't speed around like they apparently desperately need to... I got the joy of flagging them down, trying to get their attention so they would slow down. (Yes, I was wearing a high viz vest, and waving a flash light.) 
What it turned out to be was the air line to the splitter on the shifter. We were stuck in high range, and didn't have any low gears for starting out from a complete stop. (Think of starting your manual transmission car in 4th or 5th gear...)
Thanks to Paul Wolfe for getting his tractor out to pull us put of the way, and the two young mechanics who crawled around under the truck to fix it, and only charged us $75. We were back on the move within 3 hours. 
We had been debating whether to push hard and try to get to Portland before 3pm today, or to take it easy. We had our answer after this incident... It was time to take it easy.