1 box truck to Ankeny IA

1 RV to Altoona IA (Thursday)

... spending the night at Iowa City IA

Spent last night at the Comfort Inn in Maumee. Breakfast this AM wasn't much. The cups they had for juice were maybe the syrup cups? I used a coffee cup for my juice.

The best trip on the load board this AM was still the one truck to Ankeny IA. At 9 AM eastern I called them and got the trip. We hadn't had any work lined up so we were running late, no alarm, doing our own thing. So it was closer to 9:30 when we pulled out.

Two hours later we are at the drop in Bristol IN. One of many lots. Two people ahead of us there. Both of their trucks were dead, someone had left the lights on. They are the drivers taking the other two trucks to IA. Didn't get a strait answer as to why they didn't take both trucks going to Ankeny.

We spent more time talking to them than inspecting. Mine started. By then their first one had started but they only had one set of jumper cables. They couldn't figure out how to jump the 2nd one as the battery is hidden somewhere. The driver finally got out the manual and figured out where to connect. But 15 minutes later it was still too dead to turn over.

We finally decided to leave. But not before they hit us up for a ride to Forest City if they could get work out of there. We never did hear anything from them so we don't know. If we haven't heard from them by the time we leave the drop they are on their own.

1st stop with the truck is in Goshen at Loves for fuel. There is a receipt in the truck that shows they put in $10 of fuel, that brought it off of flat 'E' but barely. Not knowing what mileage I might get, I put in 25 gallons. Fuel here is $3.39. BB filled the rental car here also.

2nd, not a stop, was picking BB up at the airport. In the past I have found a place to park in some business lot. She's told me to just park in the rental car lot so today I did. No gates, no one watching, and I'm only there long enough for her to check the car in. Today it gave me long enough to get my mirrors better adjusted.

3rd stop was the first Oasis on the toll road. Sbarro's. BB had pizza, I had ziti. Half hour break because that is how long it takes me to eat. Wouldn't need it today as I didn't start driving this truck until 11 AM.

Sometime this AM, IA dispatch put out RV's and there was one for Des Moines. BB called and grabbed it. That may be her only trip for the month. We had been looking at other options, other trips. One of our issues was that we were going to have to use this truck and put extra miles on it to get to the airport to get our rental car. That is the only location that is doing one ways right now.

Now that we have this trip, we will get a local rental ... right at the drop location :) and use it to go get and drop the RV and then go pick up the one way back to MN. All BB had to do for that one was change the time from 9 AM to 5 PM.

And this way we will be in town for our family thing and we will be in town for BB appointment next week.

Instead of looking at traffic before we get to Chicago, BB looks after we come to a stop. The GPS says it will be TWO HOURS shorter to get off of the freeway. I'm not buying it and stay on the freeway while she finds out why. We never did find out why, but after a few minutes and changing our destination the freeway was again the fastest.

... and then about the time traffic started moving ... we noticed a pickup with a travel trailer in the center lane ... or without a travel trailer. It had come unhooked. Based on traffic, he had to have been about five semi's ahead of us when it happened. The driver was just getting out of his truck and no one behind him was trying to get out of that lane yet.

Next stop for us was the Loves in Utica. Last time we were here there were two school buses full of kids in the store and the pumps were all full. Today there was one old guy pumping when we got there. Lots of room inside and out.

Just over two hours to the hotel so we need one more stop. Not much for hotels between Iowa City and Des Moines and we aren't going to make Des Moines.

So we stop at the welcome center in Davenport for a quick break. Park in the 'No Trucks - Tow Away' zone. But I never left my truck ... So not likely anyone would have towed me, but still could have gotten a ticket. Small lot, all truck parking is full.

Tonight we do the Comfort Inn in Iowa City. As soon as we check in, we go for a walk on the sidewalk. About a half hour. Then we get all of our stuff out of the back of the box truck because we don't have/don't use a lock on it. We move everything to the cab.

... and then we walk next door to the Kum and Go for some gourmet shelf food. BB had looked at places we could walk to and we could have stopped before we got to the hotel. But she wanted to get a walk in before it got dark ... and this was the cost.

I took the last shelve burger and she got a salad, but there was so little of it that she ate half my bun just for something to eat.

Our hotel room. It was missing shampoo so I decided to let the front desk know even though we do carry some. And that we were also missing half our towels and the smoke alarm. Didn't want them to be billing us for stuff that was never re-stocked.

Load board

US - 166

IA - 10

MN - 8

WI - 1

We don't usually like to get too far ahead on our work but there are three trucks near our house that would be easy money. I think I will call and see if we can do them ... and see if Monday is OK if we don't get them all done on Friday.

Before that ... we have about two hours before I drop in the AM. Then an hour to pickup the rental and get inspected. (And wait of others if they call??)

Then it is two hours to get the RV and two hours back. That should leave us an extra two hours for things to go ... not quite right. And if we have to. We can switch out cars tomorrow night and drop in the AM and still be back home shortly after noon. We'll see.