1 bus to Cincinnati OH

... spending the night in Joplin

No alarm, we both woke up between 6:30 and 7.

Breakfast ? Blueberry muffin or nothing. They did have their juice machine running. OJ or water.

TX inspection station is not open. OK scale is closed too. Might be the first time we have seen that closed.

1st stop is a truck stop in Weatherford. We have stopped here for CNG, fuel, food. Nice mom and pop places with a clothing/boot store inside.

Farming. I don't think I mentioned yesterday that grain is being harvested. Most of it seems to be done. Lots of hay being baled. We are now far enough east that the ground is green.

Swallows. Bridge swallows vs barn swallows. Under the freeway over passes there are hundreds of swallows. Not sure where they will find enough to eat. I'm not hitting that many bugs, not sure what else they eat.

2nd stop is at the Flying J in OKC. Not the cheapest but I am able to start the pump without going inside. At TA/Petro I have to go inside to start the DEF pump and again to get my receipt. Here I only have to go in once. Fuel isn't an issue anywhere because I am using the company fuel card.

First I start the pump with my personal credit card for DEF and put in about 4-1/2 gallons for 1,000 miles. Then I re-start the pump with the company card for diesel so I get the discount. I am able to fill without running any of either on the ground. This is my third fill. On the 1st and 3rd fill I got about 7 mpg. On the 2nd fill I got closer to 9 mpg. Not sure if I didn't get a good fill the 2nd time or if I had a good tail wind the whole day.

At 7 mpg I am going to do my last fuel about 400 miles from the drop instead of 300-350. I had thought I was only going to get about 6 mpg. I have been running pretty close to 60 mph the whole trip, not sure if that makes a difference.

3rd stop is at Freddy's in Tulsa near the Hard Rock Cafe. There are a lot of 'No Truck' signs but today I'm not a truck ;)

BB had chicken and I had a patty melt and custard. This may be the first time I have had some of their custard. Only three fruit choices, strawberry, pineapple and cherry. I got cherry. Sorry DQ ... this is better. We could have been out of there in 30 minutes but weren't.

Stayed on the correct road this time and made it to Joplin a couple of hours later. $10 in tolls. New travel oasis so now there are two west of Tulsa with McD's.

4th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in Joplin next to the Petro. Iron Skillet is open but the buffet is not. We took a half hour walk before going to eat. We looked at the stuff on the shelf, looked at the signs for DQ, Taco Bell and Godfathers. Finally ordered to go from a limited Iron Skillet menu.

Lots of food so we will likely be eating the 2nd half of it for breakfast tomorrow. BB had chicken and I had chicken alfrado.

The person at the front desk of the motel was older and was wearing a mask and used a Lysol wipe to handle the credit cards and paperwork. Lots of signs about Covid but the further from CA we get and as the days go by, fewer and fewer people are wearing masks. BB is trying to everytime we go in somewhere but even she forgets.

Loadboard dropped below 90 for the first time in three weeks today. Still nothing heading back home direction from OH. And not much gets put on the board on Saturdays.

Sent an email to my local company this AM but didn't hear anything back.

I'm not going to do this daily, but here is how Covid things looked in the news for Wednesday.

"Of the deaths announced Wednesday were four people in their 90s; seven in their 80s; five in their 70s; two in their 60s, and one person in their 30s with underlying health conditions. Sixteen of the 19 deaths announced Wednesday were residents of long-term care facilities."