1 chipper truck to Circle Pines MN, 1 rental car following

... spending the night at Rochelle IL ...

Went to bed early last night, mixed up on the time zones. Still slept until the alarm went off at 7 AM local (6 Central.) Muffins and juice was all they had for breakfast. BB had muffins, I had juice.

Fog, lots of fog this AM. Kicked the cruise off for a while but cars and trucks still kept sailing past at well above the posted.

1st stop - We were a couple of minutes late, I blame it on slowing down for the fog. One hour to get to the pick up location. The shipper was not there, but we found the keys where he said.

Who was there was a repair man. The driver that was going to leave yesterday could not, no tail lights on his chipper. So he had to wait the night and they were just working on it now. The other driver was sitting in his ? rental ? car and didn't look up or open the window until I was right next to the car. We only talked a couple of minutes. Later he did come over and said a few words to BB but that was it. On the phone most of the time. He was still there two hours later when we left and his truck was done before mine.

The reason I went and talked to him, was I needed to know if that was his truck the repair man was working on. Mine was blocked in by his truck and the repairman's truck ... and a bunch of employee cars and the cars weren't going anywhere. When the time came, BB guided me around the cars and out into the open.

... yes, the other drivers truck was done before mine. When I got there, one step was missing and I waited until that was repaired until I tried to start the truck. Tried ... click, click, click.

So I call dispatch and then the shipper. Had to jump the truck yesterday but when they were using it, it had started good. And we could see there were fairly new batteries in it. So the repair man jumped the truck when he got a chance.

Now that the truck was running, we could check the lights. No back up lights. I knew I had a bunch of scales to cross and I wasn't going to head out with a truck I knew was illegal. The repair guy found the problem right away ... but said no one carries those parts in stock. As I am calling dispatch, he is calling his office who says take the part I need off of the repair truck. He started working on that and then got a call, their shop had found the part in town and it would take '15 minutes' to go pick it up.

Close. The other driver thought one of his tires was low so the repair guy went and took care of that. He did finally get my truck done and waited until I had it restarted. One of my tires looked low too but not that I would have noticed if the other driver hadn't done something about his. I didn't do anything about mine.

I had allowed one hour for my inspection, we were there two hours. Good news, fuel and DEF are both full.

This chipper I am towing does not have 'flags' so I can not see I have anything behind me unless I take a hard right or left turn.

We head out, the truck is a Ford 5 speed stick shift. Stripped down as in no extras. No AC, no radio.

I'm just a few miles down the road when a version of the check engine light comes on, but goes off before I find a place to pull over. This happens a few more times so I soon ignore it. Within the first half hour I cross my first scale. I have to enter the scale area but get the bypass lane. Whew.

A few miles down the road I notice that the storage door on my truck that had been held shut with a bunggie cord is now hanging open. I ignore that too, except when I am going through road construction.

... then I look back and a second door is open, so I pull over on the shoulder and stop. I use my blue tape to anchor the 1st one shut and the 2nd one seems to have just com unlatched.

Indy isn't too bad, for me anyways.

We had talked about stopping in Brownsburg at McAllisters sandwich shop but once we were running late, I decided to go to Crawfordsville to where I knew there was a place to park and the food was fast.

So where past Indy, a red check engine light comes on ... I hit the shoulder and it goes off. So I pull back on the highway expecting the worst. Now I start watching my gauges as much as the road.

What I find is the auxiliary fan does not come on when it should. These bigger trucks have extra engine fans that should kick on when the temp gets too high. First time I was in one when it came on, scared me ... think it was in IL when another driver was giving me a ride to my next truck.

As I watch, I see a pattern. There are no numbers on the temp, just C and H. Cold and Hot. When the temp gets to 3/4 hot, the check engine type light comes on. I think that is the point when the extra fan should kick in and doesn't. When the fan does kick in, the temp drops and just under 1/2 the light goes out and then below 1/2 the fan shuts off. But the fan does not always kick on, not even a H.

So I start slowing when the temp gets close to H and then realize that if I run at 62, instead of 65 the gauge doesn't get to H. So I back off to 62 mph. That is about 2,100.

2nd stop Crawfordsville at the Pilot for Subway. I am just walking to the back of my truck when BB pulls in. My one chipper tire that looked low is really hot. And my fuel is down below half on about 150 miles. Neither are good.

I order my sandwich and eat in the rental car. We have decided to keep the car, it would have been about the same amount to return it in Cinci, and it would have been extra time. Plus then we would have to pick up our car and those couple of extra hours could me not dropping the truck until Thursday.

Once break is over, I fuel, 25 gallons for 150 miles. And I find the air to air up my tire. I pull over to air up and try the hose. It seems to have pressure but it looks like the tire is going down, not up. Finally when I decide it is not working, I stand up and see that ... $1.50 for four minutes of air. So I was letting air out of my tire instead of putting air in. I paid the $1.50. No working tire gauge and hard to tell looking at the tire, so I filled until the time ran out.

Back on the freeway ... just about right away the 2nd door flew open again so I stopped and taped that one shut also. I am running out of blue tape. Will need a new roll before my next trip.

Not too long into the trip a van got between BB and I ... then BB pulled off for cheap fuel. That van followed me for the next 100 miles at 60 mph. When I slowed, they slowed, when I switched lanes, they switched lanes. It was too the point that when we got to the rest area, I waited to the last minute before I turned on my blinker and exited to see if they really were following me .. they did not exit.

3rd stop is the rest area near Farmer City. Things are going 'well' now, but we decide not to make a motel reservation until we get to the motel.

This leg is mostly uneventful. BB stays right behind me the whole way. At one point there is road construction that slows us to 55 mph and then 45 over a bridge. That is the last sign we see, but the cones go on for another five miles. I kept it at 55 mph. I'm guessing no one behind me liked it but there were no more signs.

Coming out of the 45 mph, we were heading up a hill. As soon as I tried to speed up, the truck temp would go up. Back up to H. So I didn't get over 55 mph until I was up and over the hill. Then I got the truck up to 65 mph and the temp went down. Finally sometime in the next half hour, the fan finally kicked in.

I had not looked at the map so I didn't know where the motel was. Almost turned on the wrong street and someone got pretty close to rear ending BB because of it.

4th and final stop, Quality Inn in Rochelle. As soon as we are checked in, we drive the rental car to Culvers and eat in the motel.

I will likely fuel here in the AM as it could / should be my last fuel. I could fuel for less later but that would change where we stop and cost us an extra stop.

Plan is to fuel at 7 AM here, stop in 120 miles in Portage for a break. Stop again in 120 miles in Osseo to get food. I plan on eating in this dirty truck, it will save 15 minutes and I should be able to get to the drop in less than 8 hours so no 30 minute break needed. We will see how that goes. I have a scale about a half hour before my drop so I need to be legal. Always need to be legal.

Load board

US - 241

IA - 109

MN - 12

WI - 4