2 RV's to North Canton OH

... spending the night in Walcott IA

No alarm.

But still up shortly after 6 AM. Breakfast was yogurt and a cup of tangerines.

Shortly after we are up, I / we both get calls from the dispatcher in OH. They can see I am coming, they want to know where I am now. Sorry, their main account is new chassis. Very rough ride and not going to where we want to go. Most of the load board right now is going about 500 miles. We would get there on Saturday and have to wait until Monday to deliver. The pay wouldn't even cover the three nights motel.

Right when we are going to leave at 8 AM, I get paid for my last trip. ??? Usually it takes a day or day and a half to get paid. So I look at the email. I have only gotten paid for the basics. So I email them back and then head out.

1st stop is in Northfield at the Flying J for car fuel.

Back on the road I get a call from central dispatch, they too see I am heading to Ohio. I quickly tell them we will deliver and need to be back in MN on Monday. They say Thank You.

We remember the road construction on the side road so we take a different route through Joyce.

2nd stop is the RV lot. We get our paperwork and find our RVs, do our inspections and are ready to roll in 45 minutes. Lots of cars stashed here. And in one spot the cars are each taking up a spot and a half. Finally found a 3/4 spot and made if fit.

When I drop off our paperwork in the office, I see the head dispatcher, the one who I had talked to yesterday. Told him we couldn't make any of the runs work that we had talked about. Some of the rental cars were $600 a day. He said he used to drive for four different companies when he was a driver. (So he knows how it works)

3rd stop is the Flying J in Clear Lake for fuel and food.

4th stop is the Casey's in Center Point for a restroom.

Now my local dispatchers are calling. I call them back from the stop. They have a truck going to Omaha, sorry I am already working. It would be a nice lead in to taking an IA trip.

5th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Walcott. Food is next door at Grandma's. We had talked about ordering breakfast but it wasn't listed online. Then it wouldn't let us order on line anyway so we walked next door and ordered. Then walked across the street to Pilot for water. We hadn't taken the time to stop to buy a case so we are buying a few bottles at a time.

We both save half our food for breakfast. This place has -0- breakfast.

Load board

US - 541

IA - 277

MN - 8

WI - 12

BB is busy looking at I-80 in WY just for fun. It was closed this AM and was going to open around noon-2 PM. Now it was closed again at 6 PM. We got through clear sailing both ways.

I did get paid for my downtime and some transportation. I did not get paid for the service fee for ordering my permit from an outside company. I would have thought that was SOP. Company pays when we order where we are supposed to. It is not a free service. So I am out $30 but ran legal. Not going to complain, this is by far the best paying trip we have ever done.

Nothing showed up on the load board today that works for us. We still have a day and a half before we will be past where the work comes out of in IN.

Not sure I mentioned this before. Back one of the first days with the last bus I messed up my finger. The door / lid for the engine in the back is similar to the sliding doors in a van but instead up and down. One time when I went to close the door, as it was going in, into position I was far enough back that only my middle finger was still on the door. One finger was not enough to close the door so the finger bent back. Ouch. But now just a few days later I am able to bend it, close it like a fist again.

Tomorrow. We have about 500 miles to the drop. Closest hotel with a decent review is the Hilton Airport. Under $100 so I think that is where we will stay. It will work great for the rental car, almost across the street.