My truck tricked itself...

...into thinking it was out of fuel. That's right cruising down the road enjoying the beauty of the Ocoee River and putttt putttt sputter done! This was 2pm Sunday and fortunately I was right at a spot where I could get off the road. I had a feeling what had happened right away because I was on a long downhill portion of road and only had(I was pretty sure) about ten gallons left in the tank. Basically the fuel had run to the front of the tank and the fuel pickup had started pulling air. I hitch hiked(around 7 miles) back up the road to a gas station and bought 3 one gallon fuel cans(the biggest they had) and filled them then thumbed a ride back to the truck. Dumped them in and repeated the round trip hoping to get enough fuel to the pickup that the truck would start despite still being on a slope. However one of the fun things about diesel engines is once they get air in the fuel intake system they are very hard to start so no luck. Since it was Sunday I decided to just relax and worry about getting help Monday. I was right next to the river in a gorgeous spot so I watched the rafts and kayakers go by, made dinner and slept great! Started making calls this morning and finally got a tow truck around 1:30pm. They towed me up to a Dodge dealer(figured if anybody knew how to fix a truck it would be them) who before the truck was even unhooked tried to sell me a fuel pump. I had the driver keep it on the tow truck and he took me back to the shop he worked for. Long story short it had air in the system but once it was on level ground it started up, ran like crud for a few minutes then voilla-fixed. They only charged me $125 for a 20-25 mile tow, disconnecting and reconnecting the drive shaft for the tow, and putting it on the diagnostic computer just to make sure everything was good with the truck. At a time when it would have been very easy to be taken advantage of I was fortunate to deal with honest people. I hit the road and filled up at the first station I saw and sure enough when I "ran out" of fuel I had just over ten gallons left. Darn gravity! It was a fun experience though. I was in great spot overnight with beautiful scenery all around. I met some nice people while thumbing it and dealt with honest folks getting back going again. In the picture of the woods I put up the river is to the left and the walls of the canyon go up on the right. At night the stars were out up above and it was great. I was lucky as well that this is a road I know well since I have camped and rafted here 4 or 5 times since 1997. All in all for breaking down, far from home and all alone, I had a great time. Crazy perhaps but I look at it as part of the adventure. I'm in a campground tonight and then tomorrow I am going to visit a winery just up the road called Savanah Oaks Winery which I found several years ago while camping up here. They have some really good wines and so I think I will buy a few bottles before heading south. I plan on being in Georgia for a few days then I will probably be back in Florida and maybe even Sarasota by the weekend. All subject to change of course! Well that's it from here but I hope your weekend was as fun as mine and that your week is great as well. Take care, Jim