1 trash truck to Richwoods MO

... spending the night at Cedar Falls IA

No call at 7:30 AM so I assumed the local dispatcher had their trips covered.

Some time later I went out to shovel and it was still raining so I went back inside. We don't need a skating rink on our driveway.

Finally at 9:30 dispatch called about the St Louis. We took it. Nothing new on the load board or from emails. yet. It will get us south.

Now we have a plan so we need to shovel. It shovels pretty easily, the snow now has a crush over it so it is not blowing around. BB was out and helped so it wasn't too bad. I didn't time it, but a good workout.

We don't have a time table so we end up getting out of town closer to noon.

1st stop is the office to pick up paperwork. It almost looked like the dispatcher brought along the office paperwork so they could change it if I wanted more money. This drop is 60 miles from the airport out on someone's farm.

2nd stop is a clinic so I can get my lab work done in case we are gone for 2-3 weeks.

Gas in Owatonna was $2.69 but we will end up fueling in Dodge Center where it is $.50 a gallon more.

3rd stop is the shipper in Dodge Center. Almost no cars where driveaway drivers can park. This place is self serve and when I grab my key I see this company has seven more trucks waiting to be picked up.

We had only seen two Freightliners when we pulled in but it was neither of them. Mine was in the third row and as far as I could see those were the only three that were not cabovers.

After trying to start it once, I was able to find the battery shut off inside the cab. Then it started right off. We did see that some of the trucks are plugged in.

No issues today. It just takes time to do all the paperwork and get things where they are supposed to be. While I'm doing this BB goes and fuels the car. I have enough fuel for today. I have two tanks and it shows about 1/2 full.

There are a few ways to go on this trip. We will take US-218 as soon as we get to it. Straight south out of Dodge Center. There is a road that keeps going south when we get to the freeway but I've never been on it with anything so we stick to the state and US highways.

4th stop is the Loves in Floyd. Originally it was to decide how far we were going to go yet tonight. But I realize I should be putting in anti-gel before I fuel tomorrow so I buy it here. We decide it will still be light when we get to Waterloo so we head out. Actually we have been staying in Cedar Falls, it's 'twin city.'

Roads have been mostly clear today, all clear after leaving MN. But this is a rough ride, it is as bad as the cab over trucks, I was expecting a much better ride from a Freightliner. One of the storage area's keeps popping out so I finally just threw it in the dash. I haven't hit my head yet but this seat sits lower.

5th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Cedar Rapids. On one of our last stays we walked next door to the Kwik Star/Trip for food. There is nothing else in the area yet.

But tonight we have a car. BB wanted Mexican but we would have to order through a delivery service to order online. So I tried calling a couple of times, no answer. So we drove over. Closed Mondays (today.) Nearby there was also an Oriental place, closed Monday's. So we ended up at Culver's but no treats today.

Load board

US - 245

IA - 45

MN - 6

WI - 7

MO -0-

Tomorrow our plan is to stop for fuel about 10 miles down the road (instead of next door) and then fuel again in Wayland MO. That should get me to my drop. We should have about 7 hours to the drop including stops.

From there we are not sure if we will head directly back or stay in the St Louis area. It should stay about 40 degrees warmer than MN.

There were not any new RV's added today and no auction trucks at all listed. Nothing very attractive for us right now. It would be nice to keep heading south but we have our car and don't want to drive it any further that we are.