1 tree truck heading to Effingham IN

... spending the night in Jeffersonville OH

Lots of changes today ... but we will (?) be home Saturday

Too much food last night, BB didn't sleep well but other than tired is feeling OK today.

Breakfast - sandwiches to nuke and yogurt. That was enough so I left my lasagna.

Later last night (or this morning) we found a place closer to my drop that had cars for about $25 less a day one way. National rental car. The Hertz in that area were cheaper too, but we already had a Hertz reserved at the airport so we kept that one just in case.

8 AM when they open, I call dispatch to get the Detroit trip ... it is a two legged trip. IF we take that one, we need to also take a truck from MI to VA. Wrong way so we pass. Off the phone I look at the 2nd leg, it would be a 300+ mile deadhead from one corner of the state to the other corner of the state, up in the UP.

Now we are at a loss. We can't get cars from anywhere else. Nothing new is getting put on the loadboard and we are up against the weekend. If we don't move soon, like within the hour, we will be stuck with whatever we take over the weekend and that will net us less money than paying $200 a day for a rental car.

Then we get a call back on our cheap National car. They have seen our reservation, we are on a list behind other people. They have very few one way cars.

We think we are being creative in looking at all the options. FL, to buy us time, New England, short runs to stay in the area ... nothing pays.

Finally we settle on the truck to IL. We can get a local rental car in Dayton when we pass through and there are a few trucks near Dayton that we could come back to get that would get us closer to home. But still, none of those drops have cars that will get us home. But we have a truck and a car ... to no where.

1st is 15 minutes down the road at the pickup in Creedmoor. My truck is 'outside the gate' so that is fewer trucks to look through. 1st one in line. We get our things moved and inspected and BB is gone with the rental car.

I finish getting the truck ready and then drive less than a mile to a Speedway. It is the only Speedway that I know of and use that gives me a company discount.

2nd stop - picking BB up at the Greensburo airport. I had told BB last night where I would meet her and now have forgotten. We have been to this airport dozens of times when we worked for the other company but it has been a while. As I am pulling in I am playing it by ear as to where to go. Lower levels have height restrictions so the upper level it is and that is where BB is. No other traffic at the time and a nice place to pull over.

The computer routes me a different way out that I wanted to go, but the roads are ever changing so we followed the computer. It added a couple of extra miles but it was a sure thing. I looked later and we could have gone my shorter way.

NC is slowly working on adding a new freeway (?) along our next route so we are having road construction backups. We know what to expect. But this time it said 'road work three miles ahead' and traffic was stopped. But stopped because some how a car was facing the wrong direction. I'm guessing it was hit and spun that way.

3rd stop is for fuel and food at the Loves and McD's in Lamburg.

Crowded. And people do no like to go park before eating, taking a shower or ... They just leave their trucks at the pump. And when you pull in, you can't always see that there are 8 pumps, or can't get to them.

We ate outside in the shade of our truck.

4th stop was the Oasis near Burnwell.

Coming up to Charleston, things got interesting. For us. We needed to decide what we were going to do about cars and work. BB though we only had a couple of miles before we had to decide which freeway to take. I knew we had about 20 miles. But she doesn't always work good under pressure, but before we got the 20 miles we found that staying our current route for the rest of the day was the shortest. I would not have guessed that.

So now instead of getting a local in Dayton, we are going to add another 10 miles to our trip and go through Cinncinnati and pick up a one way rental there. That is 250 miles before we need the car but there are no other one way rentals.

5th stop is for fuel and food at the Loves / Hardee's in Bidwell. One pump is empty so I am in and out in a couple of minutes. I am pretty sure I will need more fuel, but the next station will be to far down the road and I will be leaving fuel in the tank if I fill there.

BB orders while I fuel.

Then when we come out of the station I see a transporter ... so I have to talk to him. He has just had a nice three legged trip with about 20 miles between each leg. He tows and lives in Greensboro, where we just came from. BB and I were trying to fuel and eat in 30 minutes so I had to cut the conversation short.

5th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Jeffersonville.

Load board

US - 364

IA - 122

MN - 14

WI - 8