1 City Bus to Coralville IA

... spending the night in Laramie WY

We are save in our motel, but Friday the 13th isn't over yet ...

Breakfast, this place has the good juice and a different type of sausage (turkey maybe?) Before we got back to our room I got a call from a driver from the other company. He was starting on his taxes and had some questions. I had trained him in last summer and he's called a few times.

It wasn't a long conversation but any little thing seems to throw us off. We are on a tight schedule so we ended up leaving a few minutes later than usual. So it was a few minutes lighter. We also had forgotten to bring our first bags down when we came down for breakfast. We have so many bags that we can't carry them all in one trip and we don't leave anything in the bus because it can't be locked.

DEF gauge hadn't gone up last night after I filled but when I turned the battery back on this AM it was showing full.

Not much for 'rush hour' traffic in SLC on a Friday AM. Going up the hills I was able to pass some of the trucks but not others. This bus does not have a lot of power. Gets down to 35 mph on some of the hills. Makes for a long day.

1st stop is Evanston, Port of Entry. I get the new person. I walked them through as much as I could until the next agent was free and then they stood there for the rest of it. I've done this enough times that I have a good idea what they will be looking for, but every state, weight station and agent is different. They did need to the know the weight of the bus and I had taken a picture of that before I walked in so that was good. Otherwise the agent can guess, or can make me go out and drive across the scale. I have had to do that before, here.

Other than that everything was on my paperwork, I just have to find that page. One of the things they were looking for I did not have because the states plate I run on doesn't issue it. I've been through that before so I tried to stay ahead of them. $20 and I was good to go.

Had thought of calling ahead to see if Terribles A&W was open again but BB decided she wanted to eat at the Mexican place at the Clarion Hotel.

2nd stop is Rock Springs at the Clarion. Not sure the name of the restaurant, but it was busy and good. I think it took us less time there than it did last time at the 'fast food' place, Del Taco, across the parking lot. And the food was much better here.

... but someone was coming out the drive when I got there and I had to go over the curb to get in. No damage, I just try not to do that, it's a fail on a test.

I did call the drop twice and left a message, then called the bus dispatcher about how much fuel to leave in the bus. Then when I went to key the notes into my phone I realized they were already there. I could have looked at my notes instead of calling.

The big dig east of Rock Springs. We got a real good look at the machine, but no picture.

Still a lot of junk laying in the ditches from the big wreck a couple of weeks ago. One place there was a tire, axle and gear case. Likely was buried in the snow when they were picking stuff up and no one has been back yet.

3rd stop was at the TA in Rawlins. Heading west we stop at the Flying J, heading east it is the TA. Faster to not have to cross the freeway.

Before BB got to the door of the TA, someone in a pickup stopped and asked her something. Then before I got to the restroom someone ask me if Coralville was part of Greyhound ... then walking back out a 3rd person asked if we were picking up for Greyhound. Guess the Greyhound was a couple hours late and they were looking for a bus ... any bus. But they must not have had to wait too long, before we got to our next stop the Greyhound passed us ...

One of the overhead signs said to 'slow down' ... I am ... I am running at 55 mph all day unless I am going up a hill.

Online weather said freezing fog past Laramie so we decided to not go past Laramie tonight.

4th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Laramie. By now no travel is advised between Laramie and Cheyenne. And still snow forecast in NE, now all the way to Des Moines. Shutting down for a day would delay us but anything less than that should be OK.

We decided it was an order in night. Pizza Hut, pizza and cookie :)

... our usual spot, the Iron Skillet, had a fairly empty lot tonight. Same with the Flying J this AM back in Tooele. I don't think we have ever seen it with no RV's, tractors, anything, parked in the RV area.

I had never parked a bus at this Comfort Inn before. Getting in was no problem, we'll see about getting out in the AM.

Loadboard is down to 11. We have pretty much decided we are off the road for now. I'll work for the local company but we'll see how that goes. That means riding in a van for 5 hours with others every day I work. Which means being closer than six feet from someone.

As long as we get 200 miles tomorrow we should still be able to be in Des Moines Sunday night. Even if we don't make it that far we might still be able to make a Monday delivery.

WY freeway was closed for a little bit tonight then open again when we looked later. NE freeway is closed ... until further notice.