1 bus heading to Medford OR (delivered)

1 bus heading to Medford OR

... spending the night at Livermore CA

(The rest is written two days later)

Today is an 'up and rolling in an hour' day. I don't eat breakfast or even look into the breakfast area.

We are both tired. The AC or something was making a loud noise all night. And BB can't sleep without air moving, so neither of us slept (much.) I had slept early and then later I was finally able to get a pillow over my head in such a way that I couldn't hear the noise, but it was hard to lay that way.

Shortly after I pull out, I get a call from the driver that had called me last night. But I don't want to stop to talk so I keep driving until I have driven my first two hours.

1st stop - The TA truck stop in Redding. There is plenty of room in car area so I park there. I call the other driver, he had gotten sick overnight after we had talked. So he was running about one hour behind us. Not an issue.

My next stop was supposed to be the Flying J in Weed at exit 747. I saw a Pilot at exit 745 but kept going. When I got off at exit 747, there was nothing. I could see the town in a distance but nothing at the exit. No Flying J. BB texted me from the Pilot but I was going to be there in two minutes so I did not call or text her.

2nd stop - Pilot in Weed. BB is gone, we missed each other. The reasons I needed to stop at a truck stop was I needed an OR permit. I had ordered it last night but it had not come so I couldn't print it from the hotel.

And still no permit when I stopped at the TA. My contact had been working on and updating me. Now when I get to weed I have the permit ... but this Pilot is the first location that will not accept an email to print a permit. So I need to call the permit company back and have them fax the permit. The first time it didn't come through ... they likely forgot the (1) at the start of the fax number? But I finally got my permit.

Not good.

I have another message from the driver I have been talking to. He will not need a ride. He has taken a FL bus about 200 miles heading to OR before he realized he had the wrong bus. All that fuel and time is on him, and now he has to find his own way back.

Back on the road, the OR scale is closed. No one will be looking at my OR permit that people spent so much time getting for me.

By the time I got to Weed, I could tell I would need more fuel before delivering.

3rd stop is Central Point for CNG fuel. At the Pilot. I have fueled here before when taking a bus to Seattle a couple of years ago. Usually I have to worry about people using the pumps as a parking spot. This time two trucks were fueling and as soon as they were gone, I and another trucker pulled into the pumps.

I swipe my credit card and it took but then it asked for 'Data.' I left it blank and hit enter. Error and cancel. There was a service person on site so I asked them. They came over and when it got to the 'Data' question, he asked what my truck number was. The pump didn't care what was put in, it just could not be blank.

BB is up front in the car area and we talked but didn't see each other.

I call dispatch to tell them that one driver had canceled on me and I had not hear anything from the other driver. Dispatch knew about both. They knew one driver had took the wrong bus ... and the other driver had spent $400 on a flight. Not sure of their math but that is more than the pay on a 347 mile run. Base pay on most trips is about $.50 a mile. These buses are a little more but not that much.

4th stop is the drop in Medford. They have a gate and it is closed. I call my contact a couple of time and it goes direct to his phone, and voice mail. As I am looking up their main number, the gate opens.

The person is not my contact but they can sign. I get my part of the job done and everything packed up. Then they ask if any more buses are coming. I plead the 5th ... and say their should be two more, today or tomorrow.

I walk out their gate and meet up with BB

We are looking for close food. First it was Burger King but we sat there a few minutes and realized that it was about five minutes to move one space. We were right were we could exit so we did. We ended up at Sonic. Not quite as bad. We got our food and were rolling.

At some point we agreed to do another trip to Medford tomorrow.

It was 350 miles back to Livermore and we got back there late, but we wanted to be in position to head out in the AM.

5th stop - a rest area near Weed. Actually we had stopped at a scenic area a few miles before that to take a picture of Mount Shasta. I just pulled in to be off the freeway, took a picture out the car window and drove on.

When we got to the rest area we were both going to go in. But I couldn't find my mask. I kept looking until BB got back. This was bugging me on it's self, but also because I had lost my good pen between Redding and the drop. In the bus. Couldn't find it anywhere and now I can't find my mask. I don't realize until later that I could have gotten a much better photo of Mount Shasta from the rest area than the scenic area.

We leave. A while later BB is quizzing me on where I might have lost my mask. Well, I know I had it at the Bus drop because it had gotten stuck to the plastic I was tearing off the bus, so ...

... so I had tucked it inside my shirt, where it still was :)

6th stop - The next stop was a rest area near Dunnigan. Someone had a food truck but I wasn't sure how long the food would take ... and I wasn't sure if they had permission to be there. IF they were breaking that rule, what other rules do they break.

And we had already decided to stop at the Beach Hut in Vacaville.

7th stop was the Beach Hut - We have eaten here before and it was very good. Today there was only two people and it took a while to get our food. There was a line. I think last time I had a French Dip. I couldn't eat that in the car so I got a rueben sandwich. It was good but it had a whole lot of stuff on it besides meat and kraut.

And it was getting to be a long day. 12 hours of go, go. No real break.

8th stop was the Quality Inn in Livermore. We check in and get to our room. We've never had a problem with sounds or anything here. We didn't really get wound down before hitting the hay.

Load board

US - 372

IA - 117

MN - 10

WI - 17