1 trash truck to Guttenberg IA (Tuesday)

... spending the night at Gothenburg NE

No timetable, no alarm.

At 8:30 we head down for breakfast. There is still food but there are also 'No taking food from dining area' signs. So we only take what fits in our pockets, fruit cups and fruit ... and carry our juice/coffee in cups.

When we get back to our room I call my local dispatcher, it was Monday morning and they were not ready to work of future trips but they asked the other dispatchers if they had anything. One did. In Gothenburg NE.

I know that place, without doing the math, I agree to take it. I thought they were only building small trash trucks at this location but this is another large one. A Peterbilt. I still take it and we get ready to head out. We have just enough time to get to the shipper before they close today.

Long miles between stops today and running at 70-75 mphs covers a lot of miles but makes for a long day.

1st stop is at the Trails End in Rock Port at the Subway for food. From there I tried calling the shipper but after the computer forwarding me a few times it hung up on me. This happened a couple of times before I called my dispatcher and gave me the 'how to' to get ahold of the remote location I was trying to reach.

I got a voicemail there also so I left a message.

An hour down the road I got a call back, they seemed to be unsure about my truck so they were going to call me back a 2nd time. By the time they had called back, we had checked motel prices and the cheapest hotel was in Gothenburg. No reason to rush to pick up the truck.

So when the shipper called back, I asked if they would rather I picked up the truck tonight or tomorrow. "Tomorrow would be better." So we are heading to the hotel.

WOW

Near York NE three irrigation circles had been blown over a few months ago. Now there are dozens, and miles of corn that has been disked down. Likely because of hail damage. Most fields have a few rows of corn that were not disked down. Some have been re-seeded in beans. At least that is what I looked like, the crops are pretty small for the last days of June.

BB decides we need to stop at a rest area so she looks in the book and sees we just past one ... might be why she thought of it? There was another rest area coming up but there was a Loves closer.

2nd stop was the Loves in Aurora for a rest break. I got out and stretched and then saw a transporter in the fuel islands. I went close enough to see that there wasn't a driver near it and to see who the carrier was. And then BB was back so we headed out again.

3rd and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Gothenburg. After we checked in we were planning on going across the street for food but they are closed on Mondays. So we ended up at T Walker's instead. Little diner, we called ahead and the food would be ready in 10 minutes.

We are out of vitamin C drops so we stopped at the local drug store on the way to pick up food. Small place with a drive thru. The only items for sale were on the far wall and under the counter, everything else was prescription but they had what we came for. For such a small place they had three times the staff our our local pharmacy near home at the grocery store.

When I walked into the diner I was asked if I was (my name.) This is a 24 table diner with other customers, I must have been only stranger they had talked to today. I had thought maybe they had recognized my voice but they called me by name before I said anything.

Food was good, we'll be back. (Better than the food across the street)

When we went to get food, we drove past the shipper. I saw a truck that looked like it was set out for an 'after hours' pickup, something that was not offered to me. But we did not see my truck, hopefully we see it tomorrow.

When we got to the hotel I saw that my local dispatch is already wanting me to do a ND trip next week. That is past when I have agreed to work. But ...

We have spent time looking at the trips on the load board and the trips and rental cars do not make us money. It may just be like last summer where we stayed close to home and did short trips.

The longest trip is to Medford OR. A rental car will cost us over $1,000. Other trips are not much better.

Load board

US - 252

IA - 105

MN - 11

Tomorrow we will pick up early and get most of the 500+ miles and then drop Wednesday AM. From there we are about three hours from either Forest City or Dodge Center, our most likely pick up locations.

We have looked at renting a local car but prices are up even for locals over the 4th of July.