1 tree truck to Kokomo IN (delivered)

1 RV to Garfield MN

... spending the night at Mauston WI

Late alarm, 7 AM local (8 central) We aren't picking up the car until 8:30.

We have an early AM text. We are grandparents again :)

Breakfast, grab bag. Pop Tarts, cookies and water. BB didn't have any. I had Pop Tarts and my own juice.

When we left to get the rental car, I noticed a pickup with no markings sitting by their tree trucks with someone in it. After dropping BB off at the car, I got back and parked behind that same pickup. It wasn't the guy who said he would sign last night, but it was the guy who was going to sign today. He'd been sitting there waiting while we got the car. Quick sign, no issues.

Now that we have the car we pack up our stuff at the hotel and head ... to get food. McD's for BB. I get a juice.

About an hour and a half to our next pickup.

We stop a mile or so before to put four gallons of gas in the car and to use the restroom.

That last mile and we are here to pickup. This is one of the few locations where our company actually owns property. Having never been here before, we go in the front door. Someone asks if they can help and they direct us to the drivers box outside. It's locked.

Back inside we find someone who works with our division. They give us the box code and a few pointers. We find our paperwork and then our RV. We do our quick inspection, load our luggage and BB heads to the airport.

I go in and ask a couple of more questions. When I come out there is another couple there picking up two RV's. Last week they picked them up direct from the shipper, after the delivered they flew back and are taking two more from here. I did hear the taxi driver say 'see you next week.' The two they are taking today are going to TX.

BB had given me verbal directions to get to the airport. A couple of times I was thinking of taking a U-turn because I had gone miles instead of blocks. But once I got to the US highway I knew were I was and where I was going. I have been to this airport a number of times over the last dozen years. I pick up BB and we are off.

The RV's come with a 1/4 tank of fuel and we are to leave them with a 1/4 of fuel. The only other thing of note is that the driver, me, is deducted $35 because someone else drove the RV from the shipper to this lot. That is about the same as I get pad for doing local work for my other company. So it's fair.

We drive for an hour and a half before we stop for fuel and food.

1st stop (with the RV) is the TA in Lake Station for Popeye's. I put in 66 gallons of fuel, IF I get 10 mpg, that will get me to the drop with the same fuel as I got. When I started today, I was getting 3 mpg. After I fuel, we park and get Popeye's and eat on a table outside.

From here I call the drop. They want to know which RV I am brining so they must have more on order. They are open until 4 PM so we should be able to drop tomorrow.

We had debated which way to go thru or around Chicago. The cheaper fuel would have been going around Chicago, but that adds another 50 miles. I have done it a number of times depending on the weather, time of day and road constructions. I had thought we would be OK on all three, but we found some road construction.

Maybe it is because I am sitting so high up, but this RV seems wider than a bus.

2nd stop is an oasis near Belvidere. We found a place to park, but when we came out the travel lane behind us was stopped and drivers were out of their trucks with no place to go. Not sure what happened. We could get out and did.

3rd and final stop is the Quality Inn in Mauston. We can't tell from the areal photo's if they have truck parking so we don't make a reservation until I am in their parking lot and have talked to them. If they hadn't had parking we would have gone across the street to the Best Western. They have lots of room, we have stayed there before and they have an in house restaurant.

Once we are in, we order from the Oriental place next door. When we go to pick it up, something is out of my routine and I end up leaving my credit card with them. They have to chase us once we are out the door to give it back to us.

Breakfast tomorrow is yogurt and a muffin. We know this so BB saves half her food for the AM. Yogurt sounds good to me so I ate all my food tonight.

Load board

US - 411

IA - 180

MN -0-

WI - 22

We spent plenty of time going over the timing of our day tomorrow. We should drop early afternoon and be home for the night.

Looking at the load board, we MAY call in first thing tomorrow and do almost the same trip again next week. There are trips heading to CA that we'd love to take but ...

And we may change our minds by tomorrow AM.

It looks like we will make roughly the same per day doing this three legged trip as we do on the CA trips. But on these shorter legs, we are moving up to five units in the time we move two longer ones. I still like the longer ones but I like a change also.