1 trash truck to St Louis MO

... spending the night at Hannibal MO

Our goal was to pull out at 7 AM, we got going at 7:15.

Very minimal traffic for rush hour.

We spend part of the trip trying to find out which way we are going to leave town. BB with a map and me from memory. We ended up taking the longer route, but more familiar. Small towns, two lane road.

One and a half hours later we are at my pickup. It takes me long enough in the office that someone asks if I needed help ... no, it's just been a while, the routine is coming back to me.

Then I walk the lot looking for my truck. It was the 2nd to the last truck in line.

Beep, Beep, Beep. So I call dispatch, then they call this location. We are not to talk to anyone here. I am to drive the truck to the office area and wait. As soon as I hang up, I see that I have a check engine light on so I call dispatch back.

Beep, Bee ... as soon as start to move it stops beeping. Someone does come out of the office almost right away to look at the beeping. The truck just needs to build up pressure and the beeping will stop. Now I know.

But I need to wait for someone else to look at the check engine light. And I waited ... an hour. More phone calls. The person looking at it said it was 'old codes,' and cleared them. Hmmm if they were old codes, then someone should have taken care of this before I got here.

I found out real quick that this thing can not turn on a dime. A few times today I had to slow way down while turning to see if I was going to miss a sign or a pole.

This shipper's competitor is just down the street a couple of miles. They have 50-100 mixer trucks sitting waiting to be moved.

IOWA

Because of our delay, all plans for stops have changed for today.

1st stop is the Loves in Floyd for Subway. We order and then eat in the car.

2nd stop is the rest area near Cedar Rapids.

Somewhere after the 2nd stop it starts to rain harder. This truck does not have good mirrors and now with the rain I can see very little in the mirrors so I only pass when I have to. Between the water on the mirror and the road spray I feel like I am almost driving blind except for what is in front of me.

MISSOURI

3rd stop is the Flying J in Wayland for fuel. I call the drop, but the phone rolls to a customer service location somewhere. They take a message and will let the delivery location know.

When we are done fueling I talk to BB. We decide to stop in Hannibal instead of pushing on to St Louis.

When leaving, when I get to the stop sign I realize that I am missing one of my placards. I decide to make a U-turn and the road was clear ... when I start. When I am done someone passes behind me at highway speed.

I re-traced my path and found my placard next to the fuel pump. I had put the placard in the side window today because I am almost out of tape. I usually tape them to the outside of the truck. On this truck the glass is so tight to the frame I couldn't wedge it into the window and the glass must have gotten too damp for the tape to stick. But Whewww. All that is lost is a couple of minutes.

I find out later that this had made BB confused. She was making reservations and had seen me leave. Then when she was ready to leave she sees me again leaving. But doesn't know it is me, I have already left once and the second time she sees the truck does not have a placard on. She doesn't know until we get to the hotel that she was following the correct truck.

For a while this AM I thought that maybe the reason this fuel tank was not full was that they had put in enough fuel to get to the drop. But by the time I got to Wayland I was just about in the red, so I filled the 80 gallon tank. All fuel is billed back to the shipper so no incentive to bring the trucks in on fumes.

Another hour down the road ...

and we are at our 4th and final stop. The Quality Inn near Hannibal. Food is from Fiddlestiks. I have to call to order then we drive over. It is in the same parking lot as the hotel, but it is raining fairly heavy right then. The place is packed so we switch drivers and I go inside to pick up our order. Food is ready so I am back out before BB has time to drive around the building.

Good food. BB saves half of hers for breakfast. I have a cookie for breakfast. I took one bite out of it a couple of days ago and it was so sweet that that was all I could eat then. We will try again tomorrow. We may or may not pick up their breakfast bags on the way out.

We did see two other drivers picking up trucks this AM while we were there, plus a few trucks being dropped off. Then down the road we saw three transporters at a truckstop, but no placards so I don't know who they drive for.

Load board

US - 458

IA - 209-3

MN - 9

WI - 7

Today our state announce that anyone who wants a vaccine can get one, and BB wants one. So not sure how that is going to figure into when we work. We also have plans to be home for Easter in 10 days. So short trips for us. Plenty of long ones on the load board.

61 of the 209 trips are going to the west coast. CA, OR, WA and NV. All 61 are over 1,500 miles.

... and here we are doing a 500 mile run so I can keep my spot at my local company.

Tomorrow we have two hours to go to the drop. We should be dropped by 10 AM and heading home. Most likely that is what we will do, head directly back. If we do, we should be home around sun set.