1 Tree truck to Menomonee Falls WI (Delivered)

... spending the night at Bloomington MN

Breakfast, eggs, no sausage but the do have biscuits and gravy. Plus yogurt and juice.

BB and I got talking this AM about last night. Someone had said they had been waiting an hour because no one was at the front desk of the hotel. When I called the boss, someone came to the desk in a couple of minutes. That person said they had been outside clearing the ice build up.

Mmmm ... both BB and I had noticed, but didn't say anything to the desk clerk. She was wearing thin 'slippers,' no jacket, cap, gloves. And she didn't look like she had just changed (in that less than two minutes.) She also didn't look the least bit cold, when we walked in with jackets, caps, gloves we were still cold by the time we got to the desk and much later. The story does not add up.

We left the hotel about 7:30, about sun up.

1st stop was back at last nights drop. The truck was still un-locked so I threw the plastic pouch in the passenger door and we headed out. 30+ minutes lost.

(added later) Actually the 2nd stop was back at the Culvers parking lot. I called to get a dentist appointment. That took a little longer as Google would not show me there was anyone in the building where my dentist is so I had to look it up by name instead of using a map. The dentist did have openings for Monday but in case we find weekend work we will need Monday to get home. So I made my appt for Tuesday AM.

2nd stop was at Lake Mills, less than an hour down the road. BB has not slept well the last few nights and has been up early, now she is not feeling well and wants me to ask her each time we are getting to a rest area if she needs to stop. Most places the rest area's are 30 miles apart. This could be a long day.

It should be about noon when we get to La Crosse so BB was looking for deli's in La Crosse. Not much there, Jimmy John's, Jersey Mike's are listed as deli's.

Then I realize where we are right now. A couple of miles from Mauston. We will just grab our food here for later ... or eat it now.

When we get off the freeway our street is closed. A semi is blocking the lanes of traffic and is over the curb into on coming traffic. It's a small town, not much traffic. We take a right turn and then cut through parking lots until we can get back on the street.

3rd stop is the Log Cabin Deli in Mauston. Good food. Today's special was the Cuban so BB got that. I want to get here on a Thursday. Lasagna.

No stopping every half hour after all. No terrible drivers either. Saw a few cars that didn't look until after they were changing lanes and then didn't but no accidents.

4th stop is St Charles for fuel at Loves. It is cold. The temp doesn't get above -0- until sometime the afternoon. My phone says it was -17 this AM at home. Tonight someone posted on FB the wind chills in ND. -59 in one place, lots of places lower than -50. And there is a 'hot' RV that needs to go to Minot. Maybe not something we will do right now.

5th stop is the shipper in Forest City to pick up our car. As long as we were there we also picked up our new legals for driving. They didn't seem happy that we were not also picking up. Not sure what is going on. Our load board shows about 70 trips. I did a rough estimate and I think the lot holds about 400-450. The lot is about 3/4 full, so there is about 300 RV's ready to ship. Or so it looks to me.

BB stops in Northwood on the way back so that she will return the car on 3/4 for fuel. The same as she picked it up. When the weather was warmer she had been getting about 50 mpg. But that dropped once the temps dropped.

When she drops at the airport there is no one to check her rental car in so she does not get a receipt. I was driving slow so I went straight to the airport when I got there. She wasn't ready so I circled once. And I saw our car coming out of the ramp heading to the shop. But as of three hours later they still have not 'received' our car so we do not yet have a receipt online. We have had that happen before. Finally a week later they call and ask how long we are keeping the car ... poor record keeping.

Wow, this area has changed. I used to bring trucks and buses down here to a repair shop. It was all commercial businesses then. Now it is new hotels, new offices and flat land.

6th and final stop is the Cambria by the airport and Mall of America. It is close and it has laundry. We aren't going home right now, that someone is still feeling just as sick but their temp is gone. This place has a restaurant so we are set.

The parking lot is full. Maybe we should have looked elsewhere. They still had rooms but the parking lot is packed. They must let people use their parking lot for a park and fly. Somehow we did find an empty spot almost by the main door.

Lots of people coming and going, using the elevator, checking in, checking out. Just lots and lots of people. I'm sure none of them are sick, right?

We are on the fifth floor, we do use the stairs some but also use the elevator some. We need to get all of our clothes in to be washed before we head out again.

As soon as we are checked in we head down for food. They are out of most items on the menu so we each get a cheese burger. We even ask how big it is and it doesn't register. We each got an 8 oz burger. If he had said half pound we would have split it. Too much food but we each ate ours plus the fries/rings.

When BB goes to do the wash she finds out it is ... free. But she isn't up for staying up all night so only one load tonight.

We did not line up any work for tomorrow as BB wants to know how she feels before lining up work. So that means only the RV's. The auction trucks would have been lined up today. And the auction trucks is what she had done all the math on.

Load board

US - 271

IA - 70/64

LOG (like)

7:30 - leave Comfort Inn in Waukesha WI

8:00 - drop paperwork at last nights drop in Menomonie Falls WI

9:00 - Lake Mills WI - rest area

11:00 - Mauston WI - Log Cabin Deli

1:00 - St Charles MN - Loves for fuel

3:00 - Forest City IA - pickup our car

5:00 - MSP - drop rental car

5:30 - Bloomington MN - Cambria Hotel - get food from onsite hotel.