1 mixer to Dickenson ND, and headed home

... spending the night at home

Last night we had gotten in to the motel late so I didn't get everything done before bed that I had wanted to. And knew the alarm was going to go off at 6 AM so we would get to Dickenson before noon.

But BB and I talked for a bit before falling asleep. When I first got into bed, I rolled onto my left side and ... POP ... or at least that is what it felt like. Felt like my shoulder snapped out of joint. Painful if I moved the wrong way but not too painful to sleep.

... and we did talk for a while so we didn't end up getting our 8 hours of sleep, which will come back to us later.

In the AM call down to order breakfast at 6:30 so they would have plenty of time to make it before we needed to leave. 'Ready in five minutes.' ?? And it was. After I got mine, I showered before I ate so might wasn't real hot. But three strips of thick (good) bacon, plus eggs, hashbrowns and toast and juice. Really makes the price of this room cheap if you subtract out the breakfast.

Got going at 7:30 as planned. BB stopped for fuel and I headed out. I had thought I would make it to Bismarck with 80 miles of fuel to spare but I was 50 miles short of Bismarck at Steele when the low fuel light came on as I slowed on the exit ramp. In the old days I likely would have thought there was at least 20 miles left once it is flat on 'E' and if there was, I would have made it.

1st stop, TA/Shell in Steele ND for fuel. Not where I planned but I seemed to be using a lot more fuel than I expected. Yesterday I was getting 6.5 mpg so I took the miles I had left and used 6 mpg and put in two extra gallons to be safe. I was able to pay at the pump at a TA without a perks card. Doesn't happen often. But I still had to go inside to get a receipt. BB had stopped there also and called me when I couldn't pick up, then she was backing out of her parking spot when I tried waving her down. Quick chat and we were gone.

2nd stop, Tiger gas station in Dickenson. Even with all that extra fuel I put in, I am still down to 1/4 by the time I get here and have another few miles to go. And the gauge kind of bounces around so I put in another 2-1/2 gallons to go five more miles.

It should have been five more miles, ended up being nine because I was looking for Exit 58 and there wasn't one. I should have taken Exit 59 but had to drive to Exit 56 to get turned around. Besides the exit number I was also looking for Biz-94, but that does not show on Exit 59 coming from the east. It only shows that info coming from the west.

3rd stop. Found the drop and someone is trying to point me where they want me to go but I am too far away to figure out what they mean and park somewhere else until someone comes in a pick up and verbally tells me.

They do a quick check over, I get all my stuff out of the truck, they sign and we are ready to go. And as soon as I am out of the truck, someone is wiping down everything inside that I might have touched with Lysol wipes. They didn't say anything about it to me and no one here was wearing a mask so I didn't either. The inspection was done outside ... Opps just realized now that this AM I had thrown my motel receipt into my notebook on the dash of my truck. Shortly before the drop, the paper blew to the far side of the dash. It's still there and I am back in MN.

Even with the extra fuel I put in, the gauge still showed below 1/4 when I took the picture. The person who inspected it put the fuel level down as 1/2. Not sure they looked or if they looked at the DEF gauge.

Before we leave the lot, BB does the tiny scanner and gets a copy of the paperwork to the office as requested on all delivers for this shipper.

4th stop. Then we take the back streets until we get to where food is, we end up at Taco Bell ... for a long time. We get to the drive thru speaker and they tell us it will be a bit until they can take our order ... a few minutes later the same thing ... and again. A few of the cars at the end of the line came and left but we were never able to back out and couldn't see if we would be blocked in to go forward. I'm guessing we sat there 20-30 minutes, another thing to cut into our driving time today.

We did finally have our order taken and from then until we had our food was about the normal time. BB had a salad and I had a quesadilla and a pineapple freeze.

Now to head home ...

Going on in the back ground for the last couple of days is that it now looks like my father-in-law who ended up in the hospital a week ago may not have just had an infection, it is starting to look like his cancer is coming back. The cancer was to a stage 3 last time and he beat it but his health has gone down hill in every way since that. So there are lots of conversations going on that have nothing to do with work and some conversations that should have happened about work, didn't.

5th stop. Back at the TA/Shell in Steele for gas, rest room and logs. I had seen a six month package of logs without a price on shelf this AM when we were there and now I decided to by them. Once I get them home and look at them closer I see they are not quite what I wanted but we'll make it work. Now that most of the country has gone to the electronic log, paper ones are getting hard to find.

Somewhere along here our granddaughter calls looking for a set of keys she thinks she left in this car. And I hear BB tell her that we will be home tonight and she can look then, but it will be late. (so, OK, we are heading all the way home tonight.)

Before too late in the day it is decided that we are not going to grab any runs for over the weekend. That means no CA trips as we would have to leave Sat to be home by our vacation. And I also don't call the local dispatch. I had told them I was available this week. That usually means M-F. And I had said that if I wasn't already gone over the weekend I would be NA for the last two days of the month. Local dispatch didn't call me and I didn't call the.

But the RV company started putting loads on the board, including a bunch to within 30 miles of where I pick up the buses in CA. Here is where the late night last night comes in. No enough sleep and that means not ready to commit to heading out on a long trip.

A lot of the RV's are Cruise America

www.cruiseamerica.com/

At some point BB realizes she is behind on her paperwork and we can't take a trip until she is current, even if she hasn't been working. It's close to close of day for corp so that was the final 'we aren't going anywhere over the weekend' poing.

Father-in-law also plays into this picture, the unknown. But with the virus situation, we can't see him and there is nothing we can do if we are here. It is more do you want to be dealing with emotions and peripheral issues from home or miles away.

Somewhere around Bismarck or Jamestown the highway dept is raising the roads because of raising water. They were doing that five years ago when we were going this route and it seems they are having to do it again. One place there are a couple of farm sheds that now could be used for boat storage.

On a 20 mile section where they are rebuilding the freeway the speed limit was 60. So I am going 60. And I get someone who for a good part of that ways is coming right up to my bumper then backing off and coming right up to it again. After about 15 miles the guy starts swerving from the white line to the shoulder a few feet off my bumper and when when we get to entrance ramps it looks like he is going to pass on the right. All this while we can see we are following another group of traffic a quarter mile ahead of me.

Finally a couple of miles before the end of the construction we meet a cop and the guy backs off for the rest of the construction. Then 1st comes the 75 mph hour sign and he stays right on me, and as soon as there are no more cones he sails by me at 85+. I didn't look over at time and he kept going. His co-worker (same logo on the their trucks,) almost cut me off and there was no reason to get back into my lane that quickly. Didn't notice they did that with anyone else they past.

6th stop is the rest area in Moorhead MN

7th stop is at the Culver's in Alexandria. Drive thru line is long so we go inside. They do have in door seating but ours is to go. We each get a treat and we split a rueben.

By now BB is getting tired of sitting in the car but the conversation doesn't go much beyond that.

Finally 14 hours into our day, we both find out we are trying to get home yet tonight because we thought the other person wanted to. Interesting conversation.

8th stop, home again, save at last. 14 hours driving, 16 hours on the go. We are too old for this.

Loadboard

IA - 72

MN - 2

WI - 3