2 RV's to Rancho Cucamonga CA (both delivered)

... spending the night at Livermore CA

We are heading to Houston

... with a truck, tomorrow.

Today's breakfast was the same as before Covid. Except you had to say what you wanted and they would hand it to you, but same selection.

BB was up an hour before the alarm would have gone off. She is still on 'home' time. Today we get going at 7 AM instead of 7:30. 60 miles to go this AM.

When I went to check out this AM they had issues. Luckily the boss was there and saw what the issue was. The desk clerk last night had just used the credit card of file, I had not given her mine. And the card on file has an expired date. No issue if you know what you are looking at.

If this is rush hour traffic in LA, they won't need to build any more roads for quite a few years. We were going close to the posted the whole 60 miles. A lot of down hill this AM. I didn't even try to keep the RPS's down. Cruise had the speed at 65 mph but the RPS's were at 4,000.

Google Maps :( On our phones, when you zoom in the detail gets better, but the highway numbers stay the same size. Small. I had written down 5b and it was exit 58. Luckily I had written down the name too. And I could have told by how long it would take to get there.

1st stop was a Shell station for final fuel. Small place. Likely won't stop here again. Also, my on my 1st pump it wouldn't accept which grade of fuel I wanted. I guess I had to hit the button harder than the half a dozen times I did. So I moved pumps. Now my credit card wouldn't work so I had to go inside. Nice people. One came out to check on me after I moved pumps. Understood what was going on and got me going. Only opps was I didn't ask for a receipt at the pump. The one I got inside did not have the price and gallons on it so I had to write that info in.

2nd stop was the rental car place a few blocks away. After BB picked up the car, we loaded what we could from the RV's to the car.

3rd stop was the drop 2 miles away from the rental car place. Different routine but nice people. We left my RV and went back to pick up BB's. Now we wait. It took about 45 minutes to inspect mine. About the same to do BB's but the times mostly overlapped.

They are picky. They noted a lot of issues at first I didn't think anything of them, too minor. But then I talked to claims and from now on I will just be taking pictures of any notes the customer makes of anything on the outside of the RV. This time it was 'scratches.' Some places I could find them, others I just took a picture of the area. Also both RV's at chips in the windshield. Those we found. Pin sized, but they were there. Same type scratches on BB's RV.

Making calls and taking pictures took some extra time before we were ready to go.

4th stop. Just a half a block down the street from the dealer was another gas station. Next time we will likely stop here. This time BB wanted to be fueled before we picked up the rental car. Now that we know the area, we may do it different. Today we stop here leaving town for BB to use the restroom.

5th stop was a In-and-Out Burger, still in Rancho Cucamonga. Each got a double double. Not the easiest to eat in the car but I had put my jacket down as a bib and it was a good thing I did.

CA-210, I-210, I-5.

Almost missed the turn again near Burkley. The four main lanes of highway keep going straight and two new lanes are the exit lanes. This time it was much easier to get over with a car than it was one time in rush hour with a 60 foot bus :)

Local dispatch called but I was driving and didn't pick up. I had planned on calling them back when we stopped at a rest area. But an hour later they call again so BB puts them on speaker phone so I can talk to them. Nice local run to IA but I am in CA. Maybe next time.

Usually I have been calling the bus dispatcher as soon as I drop. But he was sure he had something so I was going to call him when he usually knows about buses. But an hour before that he is calling me. That does not happen often. I'm getting a tree truck to Houston TX. AND he asks if I will be picking it up tomorrow. Yes. I was going to ask it could wait until tomorrow. All sounds good. BB is writing down what we need to know. Only miss one question. How much fuel to leave in the unit. I will have to call sometime in the next two days.

By not leaving tonight, I will have enough hours to make it to Houston without a shut down.

5th and final stops are in Livermore. 1st we stop at Jimmy Johns and then the Quality Inn for the night. Plan had been to stop in Santa Nella where we usually stop leaving town. Motels are cheaper there. But we looked at the one here in Livermore and it was $50 less than what we have paid sometimes. And it is about 2 miles from our pickup in the AM. Rental car has to be back by 8:30 so we will be up and going early.

Lots of time to look at options and make plans. At first it didn't look like we would make much (any) money on this next leg, but we usually do a 'worst case scenario. Biggest problem is that we are three days from home when we drop. It's nice when we are a day or less. Also cars out of TX are almost as bad as out of Seattle. Not cheap.

Right now there is a truck out of Dallas coming back to WI. Hopefully something different by Monday.

Got the news today that another friend of the family has died. He was 91. He grew up about 3 miles from my Dad, so his parents knew my grand parents. He knew my parents. Their kids knew us, our kids played with his grandkids when they were young.

Loadboard

US - 170

IA - 16

MN - 5

WI - 3

35 out of TX, but TX is a big state and only one is going over a 1,000 miles. The one to WI.