Toilet not working this AM, worked last night. Might have froze, it was down below 20 this AM and the motel is up on posts over an open garage. So we used a garbage can and filled it in the tub. Other than that a great room for twice the price.

I had parked on the north side of the building where no one else had parked, even when we came back after dark there was still no one there ... until this AM. A dozen Holland trucks are parked around me, with that many more coming ... I talked to one of the drivers. Some truck companies let the road drivers take their tractor to the motel to sleep for the day before they head back home the next night.

... did notice a puddle of liquid under my truck this AM. Not sure if it was mine or if it was from before I got here. Was also concerned because it was down to below 20, not 20 below, and I had not put any anti-gel in. But no issues.

Five miles to the Lowes. Didn't take long to find the guy I needed to talk to or to get signed off. He just walked once around the truck. The thing that took the longest was trying to put my plate over their plate with self locking nuts. Pain. I should have just replaced their plate for the trip.

Truck drops to empty as soon as I turn the first corner. A few miles down the road we stop at A Citco with one diesel pump at the side of the parking lot. Price wasn't bad, but saw fuel cheaper down the road. As with most foreign trucks, they are pretty gutless on the hills. This one was tacking 2,000 rpm's at 40 mph. But I wasn't going to go that slow. BB was reading on line to find out if something was wrong. Did find out how to work the cruise. This one locks out if you have something engaged (that isn't even an option on US trucks.)

Stopped at Concord at a Golden Correl. Very good food for a buffet, got my fill.

Somewhere along the road today I blew my horn at someone. Not out of rage, but because I had moved left one lane to go past an officer on the side of the road (it's the law in many states.) And someone pasted me on the right, just as the officer was walking to his car. I blew the horn, both to get the drivers and the officers attention.

Our car rental place was only a half mile from this Lowes, but there was not a sidewalk so I dropped BB off. As almost always, I put the truck in park as she was getting out. When I put it back in gear I got it in manual, first gear. Luckily there was a center turn lane when I turned left because I couldn't find the gears right away. The other night I forgot to put it in park when I picked her up from the rental place on the side of the road. Because it wasn't in park the horn went off when she opened the door. Gets people's attention.

I had not called ahead to this Lowes location so it took a while to find the correct person. Even then they thought they were signing for a truck coming back from the shop, not a new (to them) truck. It seemed like a long time, but we were in and out in 15 minutes.

Just as we were getting in the car to leave Lowes, BB looks at the board and there is ONE pickup from Shelby going to FL. We grab it. We aren't going to make a lot of money but we will keep warm :)

I hadn't even called on the truck from over the weekend because we wouldn't make any money and now we just grab one and go. This is the only thing new on the board for this area all day. There can be up to a half dozen on a good day. Our pickup is less than an hour from where we are now, and we come right past here when we head to FL so we'll just have this one - one day rental car on this end.

At this point we don't have a plan to get out of FL.

We stayed at the Comfort Inn and ate at the Shelby Family Restaurant. Place was almost empty but the food was good. The motel is right next to a 'mall.' Motels and restaurant still surround it. Looks pretty empty. Belks is the lone anchor, JCP and Sears are gone. A sporting store has taken over Sears within a few months. Looks like Marshalls, a Dollar Store and others took over JCP. It still has a movie theater ... and a Chik-fil-A inside. So it must still have some draw. They front desk clerk filled me in on some of the details.