2 RV's, 1 heading to Ocala, 1 heading to Nokomis (delivered)

1 Tree truck to Menomonee Falls WI (Tuesday)

... spending the night at Brooksville FL

Breakfast - no 'hot food' at a Comfort Inn? So I just grabbed a yogurt and some juice and took the yogurt with for later. BB and I ended up splitting the other half of my sandwich from last night. After BB finished her half and I was just about to finish mine, she asked "Didn't you order a chicken Philly?"

:)

I had eaten 3/4ths of it over two days and hadn't even thought of that ... they gave me beef instead of chicken. It was still good.

East coast time - we pull out of the hotel at 7:30 their time. We head to the airport to pick up a rental. It is an 'international' airport but smaller than a farm shed. I drop BB off at the door and then park in case they do not have a car. As soon as she gives the OK I head to the Pilot to stage my RV to pickup later.

1st stop - the Pilot in Ocala. It is about 10 miles south of town but Ocala is still their address. BB gets there about 10 minutes after me and we head back to the hotel to pick up her RV.

2nd stop is back at the Comfort Inn to pick up BB's RV.

No left turn so we take a left through another business so that we are doing a U-turn where they didn't want us taking a left turn.

3rd stop is for final fuel at a Race Trac in Ocala for BB's RV.

4th stop is the RV dealer a mile down the road. Lots of new RV's waiting to be inspected including another person from our company. BB asks where to go to check in and they say wait by her RV. Same as last time we were here, it does not take them long to inspect. They had a half dozen RV's and travel trailers inspected including us in about a half hour.

5th stop is back at the Pilot to pick up my RV. BB follows most of the way and then pulls off at a rest area, I don't.

Yesterday on my prior fill of fuel I had lost 20 miles range from full to re-fill. When I did my final fuel I had put in enough fuel to get to my drop at 17 mpg plus one extra gallon. When I got to the motel last night I had 10 extra miles range past my drop. This AM with driving extra miles and on city streets I no longer was going to get to my drop without fueling. BUT I was hopeful so I did not fuel when I was at the truckstop.

My range slowly went up to 25 miles past my drop. When the fuel range gets down to 30 miles on these units it stops counting. I had about five miles to go. Nervous but not scared. It is a gas and BB is behind me.

6th stop is for fuel at a Speedway in Nokomis. I made it. I made $.08 more on my 'fuel adder' than BB did. I came in with a range of about 20 miles and BB got to her station with a range of a little over 30 miles so no extra fuel left in the RV's from us this time.

7th stop was the dealer about a mile back from the gas station. I've been here before but forgot where to park. When I finally walked in, they told me wait where I was until someone confirmed I was at the correct location. Soon someone was out looking at all of my paperwork, yes I am in the correct place. They must be having some kind of issue, that is not something that normally even comes up.

In and out of this place in 30 minutes also. I did talk to one of the inspectors a little, the temps will be getting down in the 40's in this part of FL tonight. Jacket weather I guess.

8th stop was at Gentile's Authentic Philadelphia Cheesesteaks. Not sure how BB finds these places. We just had a Philly last night. This one was good, last nights was better. But this one was chicken and I ate the whole thing in one sitting.

We are within a couple of miles of the beaches but we don't go. BB didn't pack for it (?) so we head back north. I did call the NC dispatcher but they did not answer, it just went to voicemail. They did have one truck I wanted to ask about but I was more interested in talking to them than I was in the truck I would ask about.

There are about the same number of auction trucks as usual but none in FL. But a few in the midwest that would have kept us busy if that is what we wanted.

An hour down the road after eating and BB and I are talking about where to fuel and where to stop for the night. Then she looks at the load board ...

There is a truck in FL going to WI ... and we are just about to a rest area exit. We don't even do the math, I just call. But somehow I get the phone on speaker and I can't hear it. But I do have dispatch on the phone and they stay until I get my phone figured out. We got the trip.

:)

We are about two hours from the truck, it is still north of us on the road we are on.

9th stop was the above rest area stop at Ruskin.

Within a few minutes we have my paperwork and we pull off the highway to call the pick up location and to fuel the rental car.

10th stop was the Race Trac in Riverview. When I called the shipper they answered right away, they knew which truck and they would set it out within a few minutes. I can pick it up anytime, but told them I would wait until tomorrow AM. I do not need to find anyone, just grab the truck and go.

Down side is it is a 'puddle jumper.' I had to Google that one. it will be interesting. It doesn't sound like it has anywhere for luggage except the cab. We have done that before but we will see how this one looks before returning the rental car. BB has sat in the middle before so we can fill the right part of the seat with luggage. We'll know tomorrow.

11th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Brooksville. It is the closest Choice hotel to the shipper. When we get there, there are two cops in the lot. Never a good sign. We check and get our room. This place looks to be an old, old Holiday in where the windows and doors are right next to each other. We see the signs for the former restaurant but it looks to have been closed for years.

After we are in the room for a while we go for a walk. A short walk. The last few days my knees have been starting to hurt, and BB isn't up for long walks right now so 15 minutes around the parking lot was enough for us. And then we saw it. The reason the cops were here. There had been a semi in the parking lot ... the semi had hit the corner of the roof of the hotel.

One of the reasons I wanted to pick up tomorrow was so that I could print out my paperwork at the hotel. I did get that done.

Then after calling a couple of places I order soup to go from a local family chain. Cheddar barley soup. BB is still full from lunch. So we drive a couple of miles to get my food, then we realize there is road construction and we need to head out of town another mile before we can make a u-turn to get back to the hotel.

Soup wasn't that good, glad they gave me crackers. If I had looked online before we went I would have also stopped at Duncan Donuts for a cookie. I didn't know they sold cookies.

Today the temps here were in the 60's. Nice. Back home in MN it wasn't so warm. The person staying at our house, their car wouldn't start yesterday AM and someone had to come and jump it. Once it was running they went to the MOA, and when they came out it wouldn't start again. This time it wouldn't jump either. Had to get a new battery.

It would have been nice to stay south :)

But we looked at the trips last night and with the price of rental cars and hotels being up this year the short trips there are would not pay. It would be a 'working vacation.'

Load board

US - 303

IA - 61/59

I've decided not to keep track of the MN and WI trips for now.

Tomorrow we plan on leaving the hotel by 7:30 after breakfast. That should get us to the shipper by 8 AM. IF we can get all of our stuff in the truck, we should get back to the airport around 9 AM. Not sure how much the rental place will charge us for not having the car back in 24 hours. That would have been the only reason to pick the truck up yet tonight. We should be able to get somewhere between Atlanta and Chattanooga tomorrow.

LOG (MN time)

6:30 - Leave Comfort Inn hotel in Ocala FL

7:00 - Drop BB at OCF to pickup Budget Rental car

7:15 - Spot my RV at Pilot in Ocala FL

7:45 - Drop BB back at hotel to pickup BB's RV

8:00 - BB RV fuels at Race Track Ocala FL

8:15 - Arrive at RV dealer in Ocala FL

9:15 - Arrive at Pilot to pickup my RV

11:30 - Fuel RV in Nokomis FL

11:45 - Arrive at RV dealer in Nokomis FL

12:30 - Arrive at Gentile's Philly's in Sarasota FL

1:15 - Leave Gentile's

2:15 - Arrive at rest area near Ruskin FL - Call dispatch

2:30 - Fuel at Race Trac in Riverview FL - Call shipper

4:00 - Arrive at Quality Inn in Brookville FL

5:30 - Pick up food from Beef O Brady's