1 straight truck heading to IN

1 straight truck heading to WI (Monday)

... spending the night at Elkhart IN

We leave out at our usual 7:30, today without breakfast.

1st stop is the office to pick up my truck. One of the shuttle vans are gone so they are taking drivers somewhere to head out today. The other driver going to Elkhart has not left. There is also one bus going to Rock Island (that they did not ask me about) and paperwork for another Carol Stream trash truck. There is other paperwork but I did not look at that.

No issue with the truck. Other than it is cold this AM. My hands freeze in the few minutes it takes to tape one placard on and I sit in the cab to warm up before putting the other placard on. Today's truck is a little cabover and I can check the tranny fluid without flipping the cab up but not the engine oil on this one. So I get to do the flip. No issue, just a pain.

After I start my truck I pull ahead so I can get better pictures of the truck, then forget to take those pictures until I am on the side street. So I stop there and take my four pictures.

The fuel tank is almost full but this is a small truck so it has a small tank. I have no idea how far I will get when I start out today.

BB stops after an hour at the rest area in Menomonie.

2nd stop - We both stop at the rest area near Black River Falls. Once my fuel started dropping I had not planned on stopping here, but then I realized that I had never checked under the fuel cap to see which size nozzle it would take. So I stopped here and checked. It will take the big nozzle so I can stop at Pilot.

I am just pulling out as BB is pulling in. I do not see her, but she sees me

3rd stop is at the Pilot in Mauston for fuel. When I pull in all fuel islands are full and all but one does not have someone waiting. I pick that line. By the time I fuel, no one is waiting and at least one is empty. Timing. BB does not stop here.

4th stop - Culvers in De Forest. BB has gotten there ahead of me. The parking lot is full but the drive thru is going fast ? Not sure where all the people are, there was no line waiting to order. As we were waiting, we saw a couple of people come back because their order was short. Sounds familiar.

Arby's across the street from Culvers is almost empty. Culver's really has a local following and we are one of those. No treats for us today, someone had left some really good brownies and cookies at our house besides the Girl Scout cookies we are not done with. So we have treats.

I had ordered both a cup of chili and a cup of soup. I got a small and one was still too much. It is cold enough today that we put the soup in the trunk for later.

BB pulls off at the next exit to get some of the cheap Fleet Farm fuel.

5th stop is the TA in Hampshire for fuel. The fuel pumps pump so fast that it is kicking off all the time. Because it is always doing it, I do not know when it is full so I top it off good. I figure I got 240 miles on the first fill and it was below the 1/4 needed left in the truck so by fueling in Hampshire it is 210 miles so I hope I do not need to add more before delivery.

BB pulls in a couple of minutes behind me. I fuel and then back out as the person ahead of me hasn't left yet and I want to get to the car lot. I park and go in and get a receipt. Not sure what was going on but the pump would not take my rewards card so I had to give up those $.12 today. Not worth walking in to prepay for.

I suggest BB make a hotel reservation now but she wants to follow me through Chicago and stop at the oasis on the IN side.

Not bad traffic, I just drive a little faster through the work zones than anywhere else in the country. It seems like everyone else is still going twice as fast as me.

6th stop is the Portage rest area. We park next to another transporter. They are driving a lumber delivery truck, we do not see the driver so no chance to talk to them.

We decide on the Sleep Inn, it is across the street from the Cracker Barrell.

7th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in Elkhart, we will be about five miles from my drop. We are dropping it at another transport company ??? Everyone is short of drivers?

As soon as we check in we order online at Cracker Barrell. Later we walk over, because of the layout of the roads it was a lot faster to walk than drive.

TOMORROW - We are going to work on East Coast time to give ourselves an extra hour of daylight.

About 8 AM we will drop.

By 9 AM we should have picked up the next truck

By 1 PM we should have delivered

By 6 PM we could be home? We will see how close those numbers are.

... by mid-afternoon we should know what we are going to do on Tuesday.