1 bus dropped in Granite City/St Louis, IL.

... spending the night at HOME.

Long / short day.

Bacon, good bacon. Still the thin stuff but it had flavor. And yogurt was one of those 'fruit on the bottom' kinds. It would turn out having to hold me until evening.

A lot more snow than was forecast. Scrapped off easy, the snow did. But we must have shut down just at the wrong time as there was a lot of ice on our windows from the car being warm inside and the snow melting.

Roads were ice here. Maps showed the same for the route home to MN. Never made it over 50 mph the first hour. Most of the time was at 45 mph and we could still feel the car sliding under us. Later on the two lane we were down to 25 mph.

Made it to Forest City. When we at Forest City I noticed a guy carrying two inspection reports in, looked like him and his wife run together also. And for the first time in a long time we saw people in the training room. New hires. Looks like the dispatchers have a new job. (Kind of like my other company)

Not much snow there so both the car and van were easily moved. We took the car first as our shuttle to drop off the rental car. Stopped in Clear Lake to fuel the rental car at the Flying J. Noticed there were four RV's parked there, one was getting a jump. Must have been there overnight.

No issue with dropping the rental car and we were headed back to the lot. What we thought would take two hours took over three hours ... and I am supposed to have a car to the shop by 3 PM.

Dropped off BB at the van and as soon is it was running and cleaned off I was gone.

An hour down the road I realized that for sure I was not going to make it to the dealer and stopped to call them. Instead of saying they could just move things around, they want me to come in tomorrow instead. ?? Oh well.

IF, IF I hadn't stopped to call and if I had been driving 65 mph I would have made it. But the car vibrates so bad that I was keeping it at 60 mph. Ice wasn't really an issue after I got back on the freeway after leaving Forest City. It was now after noon and the sun and chemicals had had time to work.

Got home and shoveled, driveway was mostly done by the time BB got home. Windshield looked good and BB didn't say anything so the hood must have stayed down.

Load board is down to 25, 2 OR and 2 WA are the west coast runs. Just as long as there is work once I pass my DOT. Still dragging a little so not likely to want to head out Saturday yet ... even if we can.

Sent my paperwork in last night, am paid by tonight. Yep, round trips pay :)

We drive home, don't fly. Have only flown once since BB started coming with five years ago. Price isn't really much of a factor for me, but here is how things would have compared on this trip.

$40 - Transportation to the airport

$616 - Flight home

$20 - Transportation home from airport

... and two cars would have still been in IA.

VS

$240 - Two day rental

$80 - Motel

$ - Gas

... both cars home