2 trucks from IA to FL ... got as far as O'Fallon, MO.

Alarm went off at 6 AM today. We hadn't contacted the pickup location so it wasn't going to be an early morning.

Breakfast was eggs, sausage and yogurt. Juice was orange, the apple juice looked like water and smelled formented.

After breakfast this AM I emailed the dispatcher before the office opened, they emailed me back right away. The area code was off one digit. I kind of thought that last night when we checked into the motel and saw the area code of the hotel.

At 7:30 I called the contacted and they said they would be there at 9 AM. So 9 AM it was. We had about a half hour drive from the motel. The guy was there already cleaning out our trucks when we got there. Clean, as in getting out the trash. All the side storage area's have stuff in them and I found out later that none of the keys work so I can't lock them.

This place was closing down so all trucks were moved somewhere. BB noticed hers had a IL plate on the front and an IN plate on the real ... he took off the IL. He didn't say how long he had had the truck but he had never noticed that. The guy that signed off made sure all the legals were in order.

The rental car place was right on the street between the pickup and the highway out of town so we used the rental car to shuttle one truck and then the other.

We had fueled the rental car this AM next to the motel but then put on about another 30 miles so it dropped off full even though we couldn't put in a full gallon. When BB stopped to fuel the rental car, I stopped and put in enough fuel that I hoped I would get to the next truckstop. Adding 10 gallons gave me another 30 miles range. I need to average 5.5 mpg to break even on fuel. And that is what the dash says I am getting. But that 10 gallons got me almost 90 miles, I was back to 1/4 tank when I fueled the 2nd time.

BB's pickup had a half a tank of fuel so that will help the bottom line. When I called dispatch, they asked if I could take a picture of one of the other trucks in the lot ... opps, I was already down the road. Need to start calling from the lot like the ask.

After we dropped the rental car, the next stop was 90 miles down the road at Wayland, MO. Flying J and Denny's With this truck I fuel at the truck islands and BB is fueling at the gas pumps. Denny's was fish for BB and a chicken philly and soup for me. Twice as much as I needed.

Today's driving was on a four-lane, non-interstate. At some point I noticed a scale on the on coming side of the road. Often, not always, on these types of highways, trucks coming from both directions are supposed to stop at the scale. I hadn't seen a sign before I saw the scale so I thought I had missed it. So I'm looking out my side window trying to see if I missed something and look back in my lane ... OPPS ... there is a pickup stopped in my travel lane about two care lengths ahead of me. I crank the steering wheel as I'm looking out my side window to see if there was anyone there. There wasn't and I missed the truck. I watched in my rear view mirror and they moved to the shoulder. BB hadn't seen what happened by remembered the pickup, she thought they looked like they wanted to take a left turn from the right lane. That would have been bad.

Next stop was Bowling Green, MO to use the rest room. When I came out I had walked right past the log books. BB noticed them and I bought a couple. Now that most drivers are on Electronic Logs, paper ones are getting hard to find. The companies do supply some but one company is out most of the time and the I don't like the ones the other company provides so I buy my own.

Tooo ... late to make it past St Louis tonight in the daylight. It's about 60 miles from O'Fallon, MO to O'Fallon, IL through St Louis. We were going to hit it right at rush hour so I guessed we'd need two hours to make it the 60 miles. We didn't have it, it would be dark.

No problem ... we will be getting to FL on Sat or Sunday and likely can't deliver until Monday. One of the reasons that this is not going to pay big $$.

Final stop is in O'Fallon at the Sleep Inn. A few good places to eat within walking distance.

There were a few pickups going from NC back to IL but they didn't stay on the board long. IA now has two to NC and one back to Greer. Am not going to do the math to see if they would have paid better. Something out of NC going to SD ... Rapid City.