1 pickup to Shakopee

... spending the night at Alexandria MN

Pffff

Alarm at 5 AM central time. I had told the shipper we would be there at 7 AM.

Both of us ate too much food last night and neither of us slept well. At one point I woke up wet with sweat which is very, very unusual. So for breakfast both of us had yogurt and grabbed something for later.

1st stop - the shipper. We were expecting a almost vacant lot. Instead this place looks to be going in full swing, stuff and people everywhere. At five minutes to 7, I text my contact to see if he is at the lot yet. Yes he is, but they are having a safety meeting that will last about 15 minutes. I would have been nice to know that last night.

We are parked outside the door where it looks like the safety meeting is going on and as soon as it is over I text the person again. He responds each time I text him, for a while. Then an hour goes by without any truck. Then no response to my text. Finally after we have been sitting there two hours I call him. My contact has someone else that handles the actual work and that person was given my information.

When I hang up I see someone in the distance answer their phone. They stop what they are doing and head to their truck and motion to another driver to come with them. Within 10 minutes of that phone call I have my truck and all paperwork is signed. If only that could have happened two hours ago. Two long hours ago.

Dispatch had asked me yesterday to get a list of all trucks in the lot, that is part of the reason we thought this place was almost empty. While we are waiting for people to come out of their safety meeting we drive around looking for my truck and taking pictures of the numbers on the other trucks. Then I start to realize that these trucks are not ready to ship so I stop. Later when they do go get my truck it is from somewhere else on the lot that we can not see, so my list is worth nothing at the moment.

During our two hours we have lots of time to people watch, trucks coming and going. There are trucks here later that were not on the lot when I was looking. Then for a while we were watching the crew load up wagons. And they were putting anything in them that would fit and then lifting the whole wagon onto a flatbed trailer. One wagon had tubing, the next one was getting loaded with wood, tarps, safety cones, whatever they were done with.

Somewhere in the background I heard that there next work was in Louisiana.

Finally at 9:30 we are ready to go. Good news for the morning was I had over a half a tank of fuel, but only a range of 150 miles. By now I was able to do my pre-trip in the daylight (but another two hours of sleep would have been good)

When I left the shipper I hoped I could make it to Dickenson before I put in fuel. Then Bismarck, then Jamestown. I ended up making it all the way to Valley City. 316 miles :)

2nd stop (for me) - Loves for fuel and food in Valley City. It's new, I haven't even seen it before. There are only two cars at the pumps so I go in and first use the restroom, it's been over four hours. My current mpg was still under 10 so I was looking at the current a few times and it seemed to be running from 16 to 18 mpg so I used 20 mpg as to not put in too much fuel. That didn't work. When I left the station I already had a range of 20 miles more than I needed. (by the time I stop tonight it will be 100 miles more than I needed)

This AM I had eaten a breakfast bar that I had picked up this AM just to stay awake. It is now 2 PM so I grab a sandwich off the shelf to save time. This is a used truck so I will be eating in it. The sandwich was a chicken salad sandwich. I have had bread and butter sandwiches that had more flavor, not a fan.

When I go through Fargo, it is 3 PM right as I cross the I-29. Later I will see that BB texted me at 3:05 from one mile south on I-29 at the Flying J. She says she will be in Alex before 4 PM ... ??? ... that would be 100 mph.

3rd stop - I get to the rest area by Alex before 4:30 and before BB. When I text her, she calls ... she connects her phone to the car so it is handsfree.

She is DONE.

I had texted her asking if she wanted to stop in St Cloud, 1 hour. Maple Grove, an hour and a half. Or Plymouth which would be two hours. Dropping today is out, even for me. It has been a long day.

When BB gets to the rest area a few minutes behind me she tells me she didn't take time to stop eat. She's just been eating snacks that she had in the car. So we head two exists down to Alexandria.

4th stop is Alexandria. Jimmy Johns. We walk up to the door that says 'drive thru only,' but someone walks in ahead of us so I open the door. No, that person was a delivery driver. Drive thru only. So I drive the car and BB looks for hotels. I've been watching the only Choice hotel in town from before it was a Choice Hotel. It had been a Country Inn and Suites and was getting very bad reviews. Now that it is a choice hotel it is not getting any better. 'Run, don't walk, away from here.' 'Rotten.'

So we end up staying at the Best Western across the parking lot from the Jimmy Johns. It is 5 PM and we are shutting down. If we hadn't had that two hour delay this AM we would have made it two Plymouth by dark and may have even pushed on to delivery and beyond. But between the sitting waiting and the driving 75 mph it all takes it's toll.

Load board

US - 453

IA - 234/232

MN - 5

WI - 6

Lots of work on the load board. Lots of work for the auction dispatcher, lots that we would like to do if it would work. But most likely we are off until next Tuesday and then if the weather agrees, we will head back to CA.