Yesterday we enjoyed a three-mile float trip on the Shenandoah River, not far from home. Darla's cousin and her cousin's husband joined us as we paddled two kayaks and a canoe on the trip, which featured the group's two men swinging into the river on a rope swing. Along the way we stopped for a shady snack time on a small rocky island. When we reached our takeout point, we carried the boats up to the area where we'd parked our truck.
I got in to pull the truck out for loading, and was greeted with a great ker-chunk and then nothing. After a few seconds, that was followed by some odd clicking noises, and I could see the clock reset and the radio on an AM station. We quickly determined that the battery was dead, although I'd not left anything on. Thankfully we had jumper cables in the other car, which was three miles away at the put-in point.
Two of our four hitched a multi-part ride to get that car and bring it back. After a good 30 minutes, they returned and we jumped the truck successfully. Following that, we made a 30-minute drive straight to an auto-parts store. A test of the battery there said to recharge the battery and re-test it. We gave another try at starting the truck after reaching the store, to no avail. So they took the battery inside to charge it, and they couldn't even get multiple chargers to accept the battery. That all fit with the employee's guess that a battery cell had died. As a result, I bought a new battery and everything works fine now.
Before our river expedition, just before the alarm clock went off, our local fire department was toned for a barn fire just outside of town. The two men of our group rose early, grabbed cameras and went to the scene, where we spent at least an hour getting photos. I'll post some as I get a chance. The barn was full of round hay bales, and it was a total loss when the fire department arrived on scene.
Typically such a fire is started by spontaneous combustion within the bales of hay. They are a pain to fight, since fire smolders for so long inside the bales. Usually local departments move the smoldering hay out into a field and spread the bales apart, where they're not threatening anything. The fire department wets the pile down and goes home, leaving it to smolder for an extended period of time. They may get called back out if it flares up again.
Posted by JRC at August 21, 2005 07:01 PM | TrackBack