1 bus to Grand Rapids MI

... spending the night at Tucumcari NM ... 

Awake and up at 5:30, breakfast doesn't start until 7. Breakfast is yogurt, fruit and pastries. Plus juice an coffee. Most places have yogurt so I'm good. Miss the eggs though.

When I checked out this AM I asked the owner/manager about the Italian place being closed. He said they closed two days ago because the bars had to close and they also had a bar and decided to close the whole thing. Hopefully they want to re-open in two weeks but that seems awful quick to know if shutting them did any good.

Because of the loud wining of the bus yesterday, I was looking at anything that could have been causing it. And I did find that according to the computer, my transmission is 2 qts low. Shows fine on the stick, but ...

We tried to find this type of fluid for the last bus and never did. This time we looked for the people who service this brand of transmissions. (Last time it wasn't a transmission issue, and it was a different brand of transmission) There is one place in town where we are that services these transmission. They don't open until 8 AM. I call before heading down, they do carry what I need in one gallon jugs.

1st stop. Five miles down the street at a parts store. They have both the fluid and a funnel. Almost $60 and I should get it all paid back. I pour in two quarts and the computer now says 'OK.' We are ready to go. Now we know where to find it.

The Hopi Truck Stop at the edge of town has redone all their truck fuel pumps and now has a sign that says '1 Nine.' No idea what that means. I guess it used to be a really nice place. It is on the reservation and had a cafe, 2 fast food places, barbershop, plus other stores. Then they got a manger that drove it into the ground and now are trying to come back. Only Burger King and a knife shop are in the place now.

No problem at the scale, the person in the booth just took a few seconds trying to read my paperwork from six feet away before waving me on.

2nd stop is the Flying J in Jamestown just to use the rest room.

3rd stop is the Flying J in Albuquerque for fuel and food. I used to fuel at the airport but that is a few miles out of route. And I have fueled at the Loves, but their pump is in the car island. At the Flying J the pumps are all by themselves out back. Denied. My credit card is denied, and again, and again, and again. We had this same problem last time. We have to take a video of the error message on the screen because the phone number you need to call stays on the screen for less than a second.

So we video, and watch it again and again until we have the complete number. I call. They claim no issue with the pump. I finally tell them I am going to another location. After I hang up I try a second credit card. It starts. I think that was the issue last time also. For some reason this pump does not like my main credit card. There is no record either at the owners / phone persons location or from my credit card that the transaction was denied. Only on the pump. Now if I can only remember that next time I stop here ... next year.

So another half hour to fuel. Only a few minutes to fuel, the rest being frustrated.

We had planned on eating at one of the food trucks that hang near the truck stop but when we drove in, I had seem that Denny's had patio seating. So we went to Denny's. This location is built a little different and there is an area for a dozen tables under cover outside. No inside seating.

The host seated us right away and gave us our menu's. And we waited as four servers waited on six other tables. Finally the host showed her face at the door and BB got her attention. It had been 20 minutes and no one had waited on us. The host took our order and we waited ... again. Other people came and were being taken care of right away. We finally flagged down another server. OH, I guess the host had given this person our order but never said who or where we were. From then on the service got better but we were seated for over an hour. Which has happened before at a Denny's.

Oh yeah, and I bit my tongue twice.

BB is out of water so we buy another 24 pack and lug it out to the bus.

Bus was mostly fine the 1st leg this AM, then a little louder the 2nd leg. Not sure if being low on fluid had anything to do with the noise or not. Either it is not deafening anymore or we have gone partially deaf. The noise is still there at times but not as loud. And I have been checking the computer every time we stop now.

4th stop is the rest area west of Santa Rosa. BB walked to the restroom, I did not. The guy in the truck next to me just took care of his business right in the parking lot (I did not)

A few miles down the road I had seen a cop in my peripheral vision and then noticed a car cross ways in my right side ditch. Two people were out of the car and it didn't look damaged and at first I wasn't sure how it got there. I looked in my left mirror to see of the cop was coming back, he wasn't. But I did notice gravel all over the road. Then I noticed two semi's and an RV on the shoulder and soon a cop coming with it's lights one. My guess ... is the car had come across the median, the semis/RV's just missed it. All happened just minutes before we were there.

Lots of roadwork at our next exit. Traffic has moved to the west lane and west shoulder. Some truck coming out of the truckstop gets in the old lane ... until he realized we are heading for a head on and I have a cement barrier on my side.

5th and almost final. We stop at the Love's for Arby's. Late lunch so we don't get much for food but I buy liquids and BB buys fruit for breakfast. This time I park with the cars because there were no cars in the parking lot so lots of room for me.

Final, final stop is the Quality Inn in Tucumcari a couple of miles down the road. BB was looking at motels last night and notice there was no food listed at this motel anymore so I called. Nope, the restaurant had closed in December last year. Four motels with no food for miles. There had been a Denny's until it moved into the Flying J five or so years ago. Then this place had the only food ... and now it doesn't.

Cops were here when we got here, heard them tell the desk clerk that 'He left.' Not many cars in the lot and only saw less than a half dozen reservations on the counter at the front desk. Not like Barstow. No wonder the restaurant closed.

Today I saw 10 of the Amazion Prime delivery vans, 2 UPS vans and one plain white one. Also lots of RV's, stacks of trucks and other stuff in transport.

Covid numbers are up again today, deaths are still staying the same.

Loadboard

US - 146

IA - 46

MN - 2

WI - 1