November 20, 2006
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What Happened Around Here Today!
Some explanation: Sharalee called Curtis this morning and said she noticed some tumbleweeds under the truck as he left and she had heard they can catch fire. He said, ok and a couple of blocks later he called her back and said something like, “you know what you said about those tumbleweeds, you were right! The truck is on fire!”
I was meeting a friend for espresso and the cops had the road to the intersection blocked so I had to take a detour, what I could not see was that it was Curtis’ truck & Sharalee there with the fire trucks etc. So Sharalee sent me these pictures which I am sharing with you all. They are covered by insurance, nothing was damaged except the truck. They got a super special deal at Budget Rent a car/truck so Curtis can continue working. Thank God the truck didn’t blow up…
not that it really would have, but in the movies it does happen. 
Comments (5)
I remember when they first started putting catalytic converters on cars. They put a sticker on the sun visor warning people not to park where weeds could brush against the converter or it might start a fire; but I’d never heard of anything like that happening until now. I’m glad everyone’s OK.
WOW!! Glad they are OK and they have insurance. Even though we are in Texas where you’d think tumbleweeds would be fairly common, in our part of the state we mostly see what Blogdad calls ‘Texas tumble bags’; AKA Walmart plastic grocery bags blowing across the road. If I see any of the other kind, I’ll be more careful from now on…
Its a shame. Looks like a it was a nice truck. Glad its insured. That’s what insurance is for. Ya never know when one of those pesky tumbleweeds is coming your way. One thing – I’m not sure I want Sharalee calling me to tell me what “might” happen. :-
BTW – Sharalee says what caught on fire were tumbleweeds that had somehow worked their way up into the engine, not just the ones dragging under the truck. They don’t know how they got up there.
We call grocery bags “urban tumbleweeds.” We had a car once that sat pretty close to the ground. A couple of times it got plastic bags stuck to its catalytic converter. It didn’t satrt a fire, but we had to put up with a pretty bad smell until thay cooked off. Curtis’ tumbleweeds may have gotten nestled against his exhaust manifold. That’s about the hottest part one can normally touch.