2 RV's heading to AR - Springdale & Conway

... spending the night at Joplin MO

5:30 AM (?) the alarm goes off. We want to make sure we are at the office at 8 AM so we get headed down the road.

Breakfast, not a 'good food' day but what there is is good. (No bacon or ring sausage)

We are going to be a few minutes early but we still do not stop for gas, we want to get rolling.

1st stop - the office. There is a line waiting for the window to open. A couple of people do get the office side's attention but it is in regarding things the office already knows about.

One person got rear ended last night while they were stopped (I didn't hear if they were in the RV at the time or not)

The other person had the top of their RV lifted off. Not sure exactly what happened because their info isn't adding up because I likely do not have all the info. But they were leaving out last night and trying to stay out of the tornado warning area. But the wind still got them and opened the top of the pop-up RV, but not the way it was supposed to be opened.

Weather was the main reason we did not head out last night, we likely would have stayed right in the line of the storm. And hours ahead of time you do not know where the line of the storm is.

8 AM comes and goes and no one comes to help, finally the yard person hands out two peoples paperwork ... "What about us?" Sorry, they do not see our paperwork (It would have been nice if they had said that before handing paperwork to those at the end of the line)

Finally someone at a desk admits they have our paperwork and gives us our keys so we can do our inspections.

WOW ... wow. There is an area in our lot where a river must run through it. It looks like the water washed all the dirt away from the tires and then the tires sank into those holes. Like putting a rock on the beach and watching the sand wash away around it from the waves.

We do our inspections and go back to the office. It has been an hour and our paperwork still is not done. Today is Wednesday, we called in on this trip 48 hours ago.

Besides talking to the driver who lost their top, I also talked to two other drivers. One just came back from Conway ( :( 'our' other RV) and the other is heading to Springdale today. Might see him tomorrow. Did not ask either how they got out of there.

A couple of the drivers were complaining this AM. One was complaining about the fuel pay, BB commented to him once but what she said didn't seem to sink in so she said no more. The other person was upset because he had heard differently than what the office is paying extra on the trips.

We both have fuel but low ranges. We chance it.

I've noticed this a few places. Big four wheel drivers all hooked up ready to go. Between Forest City and the freeway there is one farm that has four 'new' four wheel drives hooked up ready to go. That is a lot of money. I've seen quite a few with 2 and 3 four wheel drivers ready to go.

2nd stop is in Williams for fuel at the Pilot. I come in under 30 miles range, BB had quite a bit more. But we both had enough for the first 70 miles.

3rd stop is in Osceola at the Arby's for lunch. It is snowing :) Forecast for Minot this AM is still up to 3 feet before this stops.

4th stop is the Pilot at Kearny for fuel. I only put in $10 to get to Nevada safely instead of with the low fuel light on. We have driven 60 mph a lot of today because of the wind. It also helps on the fuel. But my range would change if we start driving 65 mph instead of 60 mph.

Arby's in Kearny is burnt down, or burnt off. The roof part is gone. From here I call my drop again and get a real person. And I also call and get our AC set up to be installed on Monday as that is one day we will be home.

No issues with KC traffic.

5th stop is the Pilot in Nevada for fuel. I do the math and 11 gallons should get me to the airport tomorrow. I will need to add more to get to my drop if my range does not go up. But my pump stops at 9 gallons and it acts like it is full when I try to put more it. But as I head out, I see that I am only at 3/4 ??

Long enough day, we decide to stop in Joplin.

6th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Joplin. From here we walk a block down and get pizza from Old Chicago.

It is a good thing we didn't stop any sooner, we do not have a lot of time to spare tomorrow and still make my delivery. We will be up again at 5:30. We have about an hour and a half to BB's drop so any further would not have gained us anything either at the other end of the day.

... Late in the day I got a call about other work I do in the spring time. Usually it is slow here, this year there are 350 RV's on the board and a whole bunch we can see that are waiting to get moved to our lot when there is room.

Load board

US - 609

IA - 351/350

Plan is to drop at 9 AM, hopefully be rolling again by 10 AM. From there it is four hours with stops to the airport to pick up the car, so that makes 2 PM. Another hour including fueling to get back to my drop at 3 PM and they close at 4 PM. The next day is Good Friday, I did not ask if they were open ...