1 bus to Denver CO

... spending the night at Livermore CA

BB didn't even go down to look at breakfast. I went down and got juice and a pastry. I had thought about going across the street to Carl Jr's (Hardee's) for a hot breakfast but didn't.

We waited until 11 AM check out time to check out. Then drove to ... In-n-Out for a burger. Sat in the lot and ate it.

From there we headed to the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery in Santa Nella. I have one new grave to find. The online info was wrong, but we found it. Lots of lawn work being done and one funeral. One van of family (1-2 people?) and the bugle and one other military person. Keeping it small.

We spent about a half hour walking, part of it was after we had found the grave.

From there we headed to a cemetery in Turlock. We had been there before, but now I have added more people to my tree/forest.

When we get to the cemetery, I take a shot in the dark as to where it may be. Near the other markers we found.

BB doesn't like that idea, so we head back to the office. I go in for a map. I do have locations on about two dozen people. Now with the map it narrows our search to a small city lot sized area to search for each person. We spend about a half hour walking and looking before BB gets tired.

Leaving now will get us about half way back to Livermore before it is time to call dispatch.

I call. Denver for us it is. The bus company had released a bunch of buses. And then put them back on hold before the end of the day.

To Denver we are going to take I-80, and it is two hours up to our motel in Rocklin in the dark. I decide to stay in Livermore at the Best Western or La Quinta depending on who has parking when we get there.

We fuel the car and fuel ourselves. We stop at Jimmy Johns.

Then we head to the bus. We get there about a half hour before the dispatcher but that gives me time to check out the bus and be waiting. Security now starts earlier than they used to so we can get on the grounds earlier.

I find the bus but I can't start it. ??? I final start it the 'back up' way. No issues doing that so I am missing something. After we have done all of my pre-trip and I am driving the bus to the office, I see what I missed :) So I shut the bus off and re-start. Not an issue.

Usually the dispatcher hand types the bills of lading at the bus office. Today everything was pre-typed and he just handed my paperwork out the window to me.

We are ready to go.

BB wanted to get a copy of the paperwork when she dropped the rental car because of all the changes we have made in the last week. , But they now close an hour earlier than they used to.

Less than 10 miles from the pickup we are at the Best Western. They still have room to park a bus. They have four truck parking spots but I came in from the wrong direction so it takes a couple of tries to get backed in correctly.

We have a free night from BW that has to be used before February and they will take it without making a reservation through their main office.

Now we are trying to figure out the cheapest way out of Denver. 900 miles home so we aren't going to try to make it in one day.

We could have waited here in CA another day but this way we only have to do 400 miles a day and we are heading home. We have been here a week. Not all a bad thing. It would have been better if it had been planned. Like we planned to stay in the SE for January a couple of years ago. If we had planned on staying in CA we would have been watching the load board and been moving trucks when there wasn't a bus to move. But by looking at the buses in the lot, we could have been moving CA buses almost daily this week.

Load board

US - 285

IA - 140

MN - 3

WI - 9

We are moving. Finally. We'll see how the pay works out. Likely better than me driving solo to Winnemucca last month.