1 Bus to Farmington MN (delivered)

... spending the night in home

2 RV's to North Canton OH (tomorrow)

Breakfast was a nuked sandwich, yogurt and juice.

At 7:30 AM we are ready to go. I do my pre-trip and add the last half gallon of water to the bus. But when I try to start the bus ... nothing. This isn't my first bus so I just walk to the back and start the bus. No issue.

From there it is two hours to pick up our car. This is our first north south highway and the wind is really rocking us around.

1st stop is the storage lot in Forest City. Instead of fewer buses in the employee lot as overflow there are more. 250 RV's in our lot and still more in waiting. It has been over a month of 200+ on the load board daily.

I still have not heard back from my dispatcher so I call the truck wash in Lakeville to see if they are still in business. The phone is no longer in service. So I call a nearby Holiday Gas Station. They know the story and give me the new number. Yes, they are open so I have a place to wash if needed.

Then I call dispatch ... from the lot. They have a lot of trips that they are still paying extra for the older trips. I took down the names of the towns where there were two RV's going between 700 and 1,000 miles. We'll do the math later.

2nd stop is the Holiday Station for fuel. I had hoped I won't need to add any more, but the gauge dropped below 1/4 near Forest City.

When I get to the station I first call dispatch, I am now five miles from the drop and need to know if the bus needs to be washed.

Then I fuel, 20 gallons. That gets the gauge over 1/4 again.

By now I hear back from the dispatch, no wash.

One more call to the shipper. The check engine light that was on all day yesterday and still this AM ... went off 20 miles before the fuel stop. Now the only warning on it that the engine door isn't shut. It is shut, but the computer things not. That is why the bus wouldn't start from the front is my guess.

3rd stop is the drop. The first person I see is one of the people on my list to talk to. He does a quick walk around then asked if I had any issues ... not now.

Turns out these buses were leased. One of the owners of the bank that leased them is also part owner of this bus company. Keeping the money in the family I guess.

In less than 15 minutes I have my signature and am gone.

BB is starved. So we head to the closest food. Freddies in Farmington. Mine was great. They forgot the hot sauce on BB's sandwich so we had to go back. She got a new sandwich with hot sauce, very little.

Then home.

I had three calls to make. My barber ... a recording says he is in the hospital. About my van ... it is still in the 'to do' lot. So no reason to call about my rototiller, I have no way to move it.

We 'finally' look at all trips on the load board. The math doesn't work for any of the trips dispatch wants moved. The worst were the RV's going to MD, cars are $600 a day. The SC/NC runs look good but we would have to leave today to make it work. We need a few hours off.

We decide on two RV's going to OH. A car back is $200 for two days. Right now there is nothing coming back to MN, WI or IA from that area.

Plan is to be back on Monday or before.

Load board

US - 523

IA - 254

MN - 11

WI - 14