1 tree truck to Springfield IL (Wednesday)

... spending the night at Santee SC

Breakfast - leftover steak and hotel eggs, plus juice. The stake was still good, the eggs were good too ... not sure if it was how they were made or because they sat in the steak grease :) The juice, my juice from Walmart that had been open for three days was better than the hotel's colored water.

We are ready to go, so we hit refresh on the computer for a few hours. Then I call down and get a late checkout so we can do the same thing for a couple of more hours.

We did take a 15 minute walk this AM, on the side walk near our hotel. But we couldn't walk very far without crossing a street and at the first street we crossed a school bus was not going to wait for us if we were in the walk or not. So BB ran and I may have felt the breeze ... (no, I did not take his plate number down)

Finally at 1 PM we check out.

1st stop is the Chick fil A. Drive thru as we had just left the hotel. Two rows for the drive thru and then we had to merge. When I should have merged, the next guy in the other line was looking at his phone and I was not going to chance it once it was clear he was not paying attention. Later I honked at him because an employee was almost up to his window coming from the front of the car trying to get him to move, to keep traffic moving.

We sat in the parking lot and ate. After we ate I looked at the math again and decided we would head to NC. The NC trip is out of route, but it is more paid miles, it doesn't involve a trailer ... and if you include going back to IA to pickup our car later on the other trip, the two are about equal. And it is new.

We head north. We have a few hours for dispatch to put more shipments out. They do put out one, but because of where we the deadhead would be equal to the paid miles. The truck is in Tampa going to GA.

NC puts out more trips but none that are better than what has been out there for a few days and there are still six of them left.

2nd stop is at the GA welcome center.

3rd stop is for fuel in Hardeeville at Parkers, it seems to be a local chain at a few of the exits. Gas is about a dime cheaper than at the Pilot next door. No stoplights at this exit so it takes a while to get on the street from either direction.

While we are here I call dispatch and get a trip from NC to IL. We now have a plan. We should pick up tomorrow about noon and deliver Friday AM. Not sure what we will do after we drop. We can drop auction trucks on Saturday but there has not been anything in our area for the last two days.

4th and final stop is Santee. First we go to the deli because we know they close at 7 PM. It is 6 PM and they are closed. So when I check in at the hotel I ask what hours the deli is open, '... until 7.' Not sure why the closed, they were still in there but the doors were locked and they waved us away.

The hotel tonight is the Best Western. BB spent hours (?) looking at hotel reviews. All the Choice hotels had either really bad reviews or were WAY over $100. This place is a one level hotel so we drive to our room and enter directly from the outside. There is a handicap parking spot in front of our room so BB wants to look at the room before we carry our things in. So we go in, it is not a handicap room. So we go and get our things and come back to ... the door ... the locked door. We can see the keys on the bed. Usually I am in charge of the keys but BB wanted to look at the room first so ..

We end up walking to the Huddle House and ordering breakfast to go. There was also a Taco Bell and a fish and steak place adjacent to the parking lot so lots of food. Huddle House was good tonight. We both had eggs, bacon and hashbrowns.

When we were done eating I went back to the office and was able to print my paperwork for tomorrows trip. This place had three computers in their business center, most places only have one computer. And it worked, so I am set.

Load board

US - 290

IA - 97

Tomorrow, we have about three hours to get to the shipper. We should be there about noon so we should be able to get five hours with the truck.

LOG like

1:00 - Leave Best Western in St Augustine FL

1:15 - St Augustine FL - Chic fil A

3:00 - St Marys GA - Rest area

4:30 - Hardeeville SC - Parkers for gas

6:00 - Santee SC - Best Western

6:30 - Santee SC - Huddle House