2 RV's, 1 to Reno NV, 1 to Davis CA

... spending the night at Omaha NE

Because of the weather, we hadn't planned on getting going very early. But at the last minute we did set the alarm so we were up and just about ready to roll at 7:30. Made a couple of stops before leaving town.

Roads weren't bad, or good. Enough patchy spots of ice to not set the cruise.

We are just south of town when I see a bus that should be there, but I don't get a real good look at it. Then about a minute later, I see a 2nd bus. CA is shipping buses to MN again :) Those runs really pay good, not down time, no 2nd rental car.

But ... it is not very often that I get what I see being moved. :(

One quick stop at a rest area near Owattona.

In most places the left lane was clear, but I stayed in the right lane as I didn't want semi's passing me on the right, on the ice, with the wind from that side. Once we got to IA the left lane was not clear. And then once we got off the freeway the road was mostly hard pack.

Stopped at Kwik Star/Trip to fuel so the tank is full when it sits for a week or two. It is cold. A couple of degrees on either side of +5 all morning, with a stiff wind.

Dispatch now has new rules for making after hours pick-ups. For most of the last year there just wasn't any after hours pickups. Not sure we will be doing any after hours pickups until the weather is warmer and the days are longer.

They took our temps and gave us our paperwork, and said 'hurry back.'

Both RV's were easy to find, and there was one plowed spot to park our van.

Cold. I guess I haven't spent much time outside this year at these temps with the wind. My fingers didn't get warm until I was eating lunch an hour later. This RV doesn't have screws for the license plate so instead of using my own, I use cable ties. The 1st one just snapped when I tried to bend it. I was more careful with the next two and they have stayed.

No issues but it took our usual hour to do our inspection.

Because of the bad roads, we stayed on the better roads down through Garner and then to Clear Lake.

Gas is back down at Pilot so we fuel there and then park and eat inside. I think +10 degrees and sun and no wind is our limit. Not +5 and a stiff wind so we ate inside.

Just as we were getting to Pilot I got the dreaded call, issues on the farm again. But I am on the road, so someone else will be dealing with it.

Subway was our food.

Next stop was Ankeny at the rest area. Depending on how bad the roads were, we may have been shutting down in Ankeny. But the wind seems to have died down and the temps are going up so we will keep going.

My 'anti'crash' software on the RV kicked off almost right away so no cruise. It re-sets every time I restart the RV but all I managed to get was one mile before it kicked off again.

We saw a few trucks and cars in the ditch but not as many as I had expected. It sounds like east of Des Moines was worse than where we are heading west of Des Moines. Did see one set of pups where the 2nd pump had both sets of right tires up in the air. All that was holding in from tipping over was that it was embedded in the 1st pump because of how it was twisted.

Then a stop at Adair. I had gotten another phone call so I listened to that instead of using the restroom. From here we made a hotel reservation at a 'new' (to us) hotel in Omaha. As the other hotel does not allow anything larger than cars in their lot anymore.

We knew when we got into Omaha that we were going to have to get across traffic in the 1st two miles. So when the two highways merged we go over four lanes ... and then the two furthest ones ended or exited so we had to move back left again :) But we got where we were going.

This Comfort Inn is some kind of event center so there is lots of room for parking. The map only showed a Burger King across the street. But once we are here we see the hotel has an in house bar and restaurant and there is a pizza place in the gas station next door.

When we get in, there are a few people in one group ahead of us. It seems they are trying to fit 16 (or so) people in as few of rooms as possible. Finally one of the staff takes some of them up to see a room and then we are helped.

As soon as we are in our room we call down to the restaurant and order. Food was ready quickly but when we were ready to go back up to our room. There was a line ... and we are on the 7th floor. Usually we do the stairs, one floor up or two floors down. Today it was 7 floors up. I'm usually winded by the top of the 2nd flight of stairs but I did OK today.

Weather ... I-80 is closed in WY when we left home this AM. Some places there were rolling closures and other places just closed. Tonight ??? Same. Don't know if it ever did open today. The forecast for one area is bad through Saturday. So we will see how far we get.

And now there is bad weather supposed to hit eastern Nebraska tomorrow. So our plan for tomorrow is to stop every 60 miles instead of the usual two hours. And we hope that 60 miles doesn't take the two hours.

I did call the bus dispatcher saying we hoped to be available on Tuesday. Sounds like he is already backed up with drivers waiting for work. Maybe we will spend a few days in CA again?

Not good. When I tried to start my laptop tonight I was getting blue screen error messages. I did order a new lap top already, but I hadn't planned on bringing that one on the road with me.

Load board

US - 324

IA - 134

MN - 6

WI -0-

25 of the trips on the IA board are from today, about 20 more than yesterday.

2 of the new ones are going to Greer SC. Where we like to go on the southeast to get return trips.