1 bus to Cincinnati OH

... spending the night in Kingman AZ

Waiting for a permit this AM so not in a big rush. (It came hours after we left)

Breakfast was a few pre-packaged items in a box on the counter, the only other thing was coffee. BB tried one, I settled for my left over potato salad.

When there was still no permit by 8 AM we left, permit finally came a little before 10 AM.

Yesterday when we were leaving Livermore, BB warned me that we would hit a slow down by Patterson. We didn't, but there 40+ acres of freshly burnt grass ... and three fire trucks still looking for hot spots. Today we saw a lot more burnt places, some were likely over 100 acres back into the hills. Very dry, green grass is long gone.

1st stop is in Lost Hills at the Loves, quick in and out. Usually we exit I-5 here but BB had looked at a map it it showed that the entrance to US-99 on the other end was closed. So we got back on I-5 and went down to Buttonwillow like we used to do. Going the way we did today has more stop lights coming into Bakersfield, plus I have to cross a rail road track. Other than that, both routes take us through the farm fields and past the fruit stands.

2nd stop is to eat at the Loves in Tahachapi at Subway. I wanted Loves as they seem to have a better idea of how to print from email. Seems like a simple thing until you ask someone to do it. I asked if they had gotten the email twice before we ate, and after we ate they had it printed for me when I asked again.

We looked at McD's, but they had a limited menu so over to Subway we went. And Subway seating was open where McD's was closed and they are both in the same truckstop. We ate indoors and were the only ones who did while we were there. Here I think the staff was wearing masks as were quite a few customers. Did see one older woman with a walker and bandaged up that I thought would have been a person who would be wearing a mask that wasn't.

3rd stop was at the Flying J in Barstow for the restrooms. This place has a huge auto lot so I parked there instead of with the trucks. And I'd been fighting to stay awake. Not really, but did hit the rumble strips a few times so I thought an Oreo ice cream sandwich would help. Now two and a half hours until our next stop.

4th stop was at a Shell station in Needles CA. Most times we stop at the Wagon Wheel but we didn't want to eat indoors or take it with us so we went to Subway ... again. The place also has a DQ. Here I didn't see any staff with masks and during the half hour we were there I saw two people go in/come out wearing masks. One was a 20 something gal who took the mask off as soon as she got in the car. Others that also got in the car were not wearing masks. Later there was an older (than I) man wearing a mask but the woman he was with was not. There was inside seating but we sat on a bench outside. I must have been hot, I finished off two of the small Simply Lemonades.

Scale was closed, one less slow down.

After many back and forth's we decided to stay at the Rodeway Inn. This may be the 1st (and last) one BB has stayed at. We have stayed at this location many times and know it was on the lower end of the Quality Inn's. Now it's a Rodeway, nothing else seems to have changed. But, because of covid, BB is still wiping the rooms down when we get there. And some places came up very dirty. So not only were they not doing extra cleaning, they didn't seem to be standard cleaning.

Someone has a Gyro trailer parked in the motel lot, the front desk said the place is open from 10-6. And we got here at 7 and had already eaten.

Nice people here, same people for the four ?? years we have been stopping here. But it may be time to move on. It wouldn't have been the 1st time this trip we would have past up a $50 motel and taken a $90 instead.

Load board is back up to 99. But we are likely done with over the road until the end of July at least for this company. I usually ride the shuttle the last week of every quarter for my local company but that doesn't interest me at all. More likely I will see what trips work for BB to follow me. We know a couple of other drivers do all there runs that way but we haven't been able to see how it pays.

Sounds like BB's aunt past yesterday. No one had given a time of death or a cause yet. Last we heard was that she had gone down hill and that anything they could try to do would be very invasive and that would at best stabilize her.