1 bus heading to Pittsburg PA

... spending the night in Edwardsville/East St Louis IL

6 AM alarm, 7 AM breakfast on the weekend. We pick from a list and they bag it. Yogurt, pastry and juice.

All of 10 cars in the lot, no trucks. Hope it is enough to keep the doors open.

60 mph minimum on the OK toll road now. 80 max.

1st stop is in Tulsa at the Flying J. Car lot is full of trucks like usual. And a few cars that look like they are being lived in. We make our own parking spot for the couple of minutes we will be there. For as busy as this place is, there never seems to be much traffic coming or going from the lot.

Oyo, a new hotel chain, had taken over a large hotel in Tulsa. Today it was the only hotel that did not have any cars by it, other than the Pear Tree hotel which was boarded up. I was surprised by how many cars the small ma and pa places had. Maybe they are catering to the homeless now a days.

2nd stop is at the I-44 / Petro truck sop in Joplin. Besides an Iron Skillet Buffet, this place also has a Blimpie's Sub, DQ, Taco Bell / Pizza Hut. We went for Taco Bell. Once we had our food, we moved the bus to the 'back 40' to find a place in the sun. This place lists it has 475 parking spots. Not sure what they are doing here, where we usually park is now under construction with a new building.

Somewhere along I-44 today, we saw two semi's side by side, in the trees, heading the wrong direction. If they had been on our side of the road, it would make some sense that one pushed the other off and into the trees. But not sure how they got turned around, almost a complete U-turn. Traffic for that side of the highway was backed up for miles.

3rd stop was a rest area in Conway.

4th stop was a rest area in St Clair.

5th stop was at the Flying J for shelf food in Pontoon Beach. It was the closest food to the motel. We ended up with pizza again tonight. This time I only got one piece, and a Oreo ice cream sandwich. The last one. If there hadn't been one, I was planning on getting a Cinnabon.

We had to make our own parking spot here too, in the car lot. This place was also full of trucks.

Ah, almost full moon tonight. Clear night. Almost clear sky's all day.

No fuel stops today, all stops were 'off duty.' It helps with the hours and not having to do a shut down while on the road. I fueled the last thing last night and will again the first thing tomorrow. That should be my final fuel stop that I pay for.

6th and final stop was at the Sleep Inn in Edwardsville. When I tell the clerk that we have reservations, they say my name. I am the last person with reservations. It is 5:30 on a Saturday night and there are five cars in the lot of a 100+ room hotel.

We eat our food before going back out to get the rest of our luggage.

Load board

119

down from 141 yesterday. Surprise, the best ones are gone. But we expect they will keep adding more to the load board as parts come in.

Looking at the numbers from the load board for the last few years, it has made it down to -0- sometime between the 1st and the middle of the month the last four years. If we are going to get another trip in, we need to do it now. But we will see what there is and where they are going.

Last full day is tomorrow, another 500 miles. Not sure where we will stop yet. Depends on if we want to get up at 5 AM or 4 AM. The down side of heading east, changing the time zones.