Well, it was a long challenging day. I got started around 9AM and ended at 7:30PM covering 454+ miles of country roads, stop and go, 20 MPH small towns and about 2 hours of free moving interstate.

About half way through the trip, I was on a rural highway when I met a truck hauling junk. We were both running around 55 and when I got about 50 yards away something that looked like a piece of wood fell off the truck and came cart wheeling towards me. There was nowhere to swerve so I just hit the brakes and tried to straddle it. About a millisecond after I saw it hit the road and flip a couple times, I heard a "clang" and realized it wasn't wood, it was a steel plate about 18" long and 6" wide and it was still flipping end over end towards the car. All I could do at this time was try to stop and watch out to duck if it flipped up and came through the windshield.

Lukily it hit the lower front of the car on the air dam at the left hand fog light. I heard a "thunk" "bong" as if it had bounced up and hit the rear spring. Again, no where to stop so I kept an eye on the gauges to make sure nothing was punctured.

As soon as I could, I stopped to check it out but couldn't really see anything. Will check more tomorrow in the daylight.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand:

This morning I started with the tank full to the rim, tire pressure at 30 and 34 front and rear. I didn't use the air conditioning and my speed averaged out to be around 45MPH.

Shall I post a picture of my gauges when I stopped or just let the guessing begin?

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250