No work, just a road trip to the office in IA.

BB had eye surgery last Monday and by Thursday wanted to try to drive our car/van. Things went OK so at noon I emailed the office of our local company. Within a couple of minutes I had gotten a call back, I didn't get to the phone and had to call them back. "9 AM Crookston?" was what the dispatcher said ... Ah, no.

My email had said I was available for METRO, Crookston is 300 miles away. Dispatch re-read my email and said 'sorry.' Guess they are really still looking for drivers to do the 'local' work. I haven't done that run since last year and not sure when I will again. This all was yesterday.

No call from dispatch today so at 9:30 I had called them back, still no metro work so I asked to be put back as NA for today. But available for metro all days next week. We will see how things go, we may end up doing a couple of 500 mile trips if they have some.

So we headed down to IA for their driver driver appreciation week activities. I didn't realize it until the way down today, but this counts as a 'safety meeting' for bonus pay. That is nice, as we haven't been getting the bonus pay for about nine months.

Almost there we start talking about the fact they may have run out of food, being Friday afternoon. We got there, I expected the lot to be full of cars. 1 PM and there is only one other couple there eating. The drivers training room has been converted to the food/gift room.

Everyone gets a t-shirt, cap, pen, pulled chicken/pork sandwich, pop, cookies, fruit cup, doughnut and chips. And that is before they start doing the drawings. Everyone that showed up has a chance at the drawings, not sure when they will be done. After we were done eating I went back in for a 2nd cookie and the person in charge wanted to load me up again. Someone has to eat it ... but I only took my cookie that was still more than I needed.

While we were sitting outside, another driver came past and asked about starting his RV. I did tell him both switches had to be on but I guess it didn't click with him. Later he came back and said he had had only one switch on.

There was another couple sitting out at the picnic benches and we talked most of the time we ate. Just he drives, they tow, he drives truck for a local farmer but no during harvest. The suggested we don't go to one dealer in CO as it takes 4 hours to get inspected. The also had a trip to Grand Junction. When they got to the drop, the driver went in to let them know they were there. The person from the dealer came back out with them and looked at the dash. A check engine light was on now that had not been on when the driver parked it.

They also had a few comments about their local dispatcher but they had never worked for them so I'm thinking it was all 2nd hand info.

The dealer would not accept the RV. Our driver had to do a 500 mile round trip to Denver to get the code cleared. Not sure why a back yard shop couldn't clear it. I'm guessing the driver was paid well to do this.

On our way back home, we decided to stop near Albert Lea and walk in the park.

Still no call from the local company about work for Monday so we are off for the weekend.

We stop at a cemetery at near Owattona and find a couple of more markers of those in one of my family trees.

Then we stopped at El Loro and picked up Mexican to go. They did have out door seating but we had already decided to eat at the hotel.

Final stop of the day is at Comfort Inn in Clinton Falls, next exit north of Owattona. Using rewards tonight :) We are on vacation. We get a corner suite.

We expect to do more walks in parks and cemeteries tomorrow but no more updates this weekend.

US - 158

IA - 18

MN - 2

WI -0-

The IA loadboard had gotten down to 3 before they started adding new ones. The longest pair now is 1,500 miles and is going to Windham Maine.

We likely will not be back on the road for the long haul company for another 3 weeks.