1 truck heading to Houston TX (delivered)

... spending the night at Albert Lea MN

Alarm at 6 AM, ready to leave at 7 AM. Brought our stuff out to the car and then went in to get our grab bag. They must make them one at a time because it took a while even though we said we would be right back in. The person who checked us out could have kept talking as long as we would stand there ...

1st stop is in Tonkawa at the Pilot for fuel, we think the price may only go up from here.

The toll booth at Emporia had a real person at it.

2nd stop is for food at the Spangles in Emporia. It is not even 11 AM but we ate early and eating later would mean an extra stop. I had a Philly and BB had a grilled chicken. DIFFERENT. I think the only thing on their menu that was 'standard fare' was the fountain drinks. Everything else had a Spangles twist to it. Good food. I was surprised that I could eat a Philly while driving but I did OK. I ended up with a Philly because every burger was 1/3 pound. Except for the kids meal. I do not need that much food and neither do most other people.

Next door to Spangles is a motel that is now the Clarion. It is closed already. It had been under many names since it's hay day as a Holiday Inn. Heard it was completely redone and reopened as a Clarion right before Covid. Now it is still listed as a Clarion, but the doors are closed until ??? The former Motel 6 next door is now the Emporia Inn.

The Spangles building had been under a few names also but now has been a Spangles for a few years. It is a local chain.

When I reset my miles per gallon near Houston, my first reading was 65 mpg. That lasted a minute and then dropped, eventually to about 45 mpg. Today that dropped to 40 mpg before going back up. It looked like 400 miles from our drop should be close enough to leave it near 'E.' That put our final fuel in Pleasant Valley MO. Gas Buddy said fuel should be $1.50 at the QT.

When we got close, we could see the price was $1.69. BB re-checked, the price of $1.50 was last updated three hours ago. By that time we were past the Amaco that was still listed as $1.50 but BB didn't want to turn around. So $1.69 it was. Final fuel.

Dispatch from my local company called so BB picked up and I talked on speaker. After the last time they called I had emailed them that I was NA. But for some reason today I did not show as being NA. So they called. Nope, I am in OK still, I am not available in MN.

3rd stop - Fuel at the QT in Pleasant Valley.

4th stop was the rest area in Oseola IA

5th stop was in Dows at the Arbey's. Big meal at lunch so I got a reuben.

It is getting dark. Sunday night was the only night in a while that we haven't driven until after dark. I hope it's not the new normal.

6th stop was in Forest City to pick up our car. Lot is mostly empty.

7th and final stop is in Albert Lea at the Comfort Inn. We wanted to get this far so that would could make it to the airport by 9:30 without getting up before daylight. This will save one day on our rental car. And we used about $50 less in car fuel than planned so the trip numbers are going up.

Nothing new on the IA load board until well after noon. And a lot of the trips that did show up were gone by the time BB hit re-fresh. So far there has been one pair of RV's going to GA. But that leaves us 5 days to go 1,000 miles. If we take something now we want the west coast. And that will still be four plus days to go 1,800 miles.

We did listen in to the company meeting. Seems that there was one big claim this month that hurt the company, other than that we are having a great year. A tow away driver had his pickup and trailer stolen and it hasn't been recovered yet. So it stays on the books as a claim to be off set if the unit is ever found.

I didn't hear anything from the farm today so we are planning on heading back out. We hope there is something we can speak for tomorrow. Then we will pick it up Thursday morning and head out.

Covid - Our house guests went in this AM to get tested, they should know on Thursday. So we are not planning on going in the house while we are in town. We may call the shop and get our van if it is ready and we may drop off some supplies at the house. On the steps, ring the door bell and run.

We did see some RV's heading out this evening. Now they are easy to pick out. They have started wrapping the fronts to reduce rock chips for the winter.

Not much of note on the drive. Speed limit was 75 mph most of the way. No real slow downs anywhere.

Load board

US - 140

IA - 12

MN - 2

WI - 1

Tomorrow we will 'grab and go' our breakfast. Drop our rental car. Pick up a few supplies. Then head back to Albert Lea for the night. BB needs to do some laundry once we check back in to the motel. Hopefully we have found a run to leave with on Thursday AM.

We are using rewards points for our motels now. As of a couple of days ago we had 450,000 points. The cheapest rooms at the lower motels are 8,000 points. We can get rooms at the chains we stay at for 10,000 points, sometimes 12 or 16,000 points. At 10,000 points we have enough points for 45 free nights. We need to use some.