1 boom truck to Carthage NC

... spending the night at Holbrook AZ

... I guess I am not a trucker ...

Yesterday my truck would not go over 53 mph. Then last night I looked on the auction listing of the truck and saw it was a 13 speed. I was driving it as a 9 speed. :)

I never found 13th gear. Then. Had to look it up on YouTube.

Spent last night at the Comfort Inn in Barstow. It was closer to fuel and the shop and for that we paid another $40 for our hotel room.

Breakfast was good. Bacon and some other bacon like meat, plus real (?) eggs and potatoes.

This AM I called and got my permits when the TX office opened. We are supposed to deal with the CA location but they won't be open until after I have left the building.

Then I called the AZ Port of Entry and they will accept a copy of the permit on a phone or tablet/notebook. So we do not need to wait for permits to be printed.

When we get out to do the morning truck inspection, I go back to take a picture of all the lights that were not working ... yesterday. Today they are all working ?? But, the truck was low on oil so we need to deal with that at the truckstop.

Across the freeway to the TA truck stop. I try to start my pump but the '2' is not working on the pump keypad so I can't fill in the needed info. So I go into the main truckstop building where they think I am trying to by gas ...

Then they send me to the diesel office and my card still doesn't work. I haven't tried it since Monday when it quit working. So then I had to find BB who was in the main building looking for me. She planned ahead and kept money on her card instead of moving it all to the bank.

Finally got diesel, DEF and oil. This, plus the AM inspection, took 45 minutes.

Wow, now that I know how, this truck will go 65 mph ... then I see the sign. Trucks three axels and over, 55 mph.

2nd stop today was the rest area near Essex. BB finally throws away my sandwich from yesterday. Sort of. There were a lot of crows hopping around, so she unwrapped the sandwich and put it in the trash on top the wrapper. One crow carried the whole sandwich away at one time.

Saw two trucks in CA today that had stalled right in the travel lane. By the time we got there, the cops had each cones off so traffic was down to one lane.

2nd stop was in Kingman at the Petro for fuel and food.

... now I am a trucker. I / we started the fuel pump with BB's card. I put the fuel nozzle in and started it and turned around and the nozzle came out still pumping. High speed. Not sure how many gallons it can pump before it hits the ground. I know a slow gas pump can fill my one gallon can in seconds.

I got soaked. Lightly, but from my cap to my boots.

I had told BB when we were starting the pump to be careful where she stepped because there was diesel all over on the ground. That was before I made the mess bigger. I'm guessing someone else had the same issue. I had no issue earlier today at the TA, I put the nozzle in and walked away like I have done 100's and 100's of times in the last 20 years. So I don't think it was me, or the truck. I think it was their nozzle or hose.

BB finds napkins so I can dry hands off.

When we got there, there was a truck that had pulled ahead after fueling. He was still there when I was done, so I backed out. As soon as I backed out, someone else pulled in, by the time we had our food, that truck was backing out and the original truck was still sitting there. This part of the truckstop is the size of my living room, where can someone spend that much time?

We ate in the truck, it's well, well used. And I made phone calls so this was another 45 minute stop.

Coming back to the truck, I found out that my door handle, six feet off the ground was soaked with fuel. After we got going down the road, I noticed that my mirror was dripping with fuel.

Around Flagstaff the sanding trucks were out. They are supposed to be getting snow overnight in the higher elevations. We might get some snow tomorrow when we are driving.

By now we have been in this truck for <> 400 miles. Every so often we had head this clunking against the cab. We each think it is coming from our side of the truck. We look while we are driving, we look over the outside of the cab when we are stopped ... Finally we realize that BB is hitting the electronic door lock with her foot when she has them up. That is why we each thought it was on our side of the truck, because it was, it was locking/unlocking both doors. Only took 400 miles and dozens ... 100+ clicks to figure it out.

Hmmm ... we didn't adjust to changes. Because my truck would only go 53 mph, we knew we could not make it to NM today. But after we knew it could/should go faster, we did not change how far we would get today so we got the NM trip for tomorrow. So now we will be shutting down in Hollbrook early because that is the last hotel before NM.

3rd stop was at a rest area near Parks. Out houses and trucks only. From here I called my local dispatcher because no one had answered their phone or replied to my messages and I need to start using my fuel card instead of BB's. They were able to give me a 2nd number and name who did answer. They can see EVERYTHING on line that happens with that card. They explained the why and the 2nd decline had nothing to do with the first. My card should be working, we will see tomorrow.

BB got a call from the RV dispatcher, they still need drivers. Will we be back next week? We don't know.

The carrier is paying me as if I was getting 3+ mpg. We were hoping it would get better than that. Now that we have fueled twice it looks like we are, we should only have to fuel once a day so that will save me some log book time.

4th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Holbrook. Things change. I like to drive down these old 'Route 40' towns and see what has changed. Lots. One restaurant that hadn't been opened in 20 years is now open again. Other's have closed. Others seem closed but there are still new cars there.

The Quality Inn has added truck parking in the back since last time and it was close to full when we got there at about 4 PM.

We go next door for food at the Bienvenidos. Good food. BB had a green chili burger and fried carrots and I had a Hawaiian burger and house cut fries. And a piece of KeyLime pie to go. We each only at half of our burger and saved the rest for breakfast. This place usually doesn't have much for breakfast.

I tried to print out my NM permit for tomorrow but things were not working and the desk clerk has only been there a month and doesn't know or doesn't have access to much of anything. We will deal with it tomorrow.

Today I counted transporters. We saw 39 other no-tow transporters that we could tell for sure. I'm guessing there was at least that many that we saw but they didn't have placards, etc so we knew for sure. We only saw one transporter hauling their car and none towing. (And there are a very vocal group of drivers who insist that the ONLY way to make money in driveaway is to tow)

I have a FB group and have the settings so some things won't get posted unless I OK them. One of those things yesterday was someone asking 'Any of you have a driveaway for sale' ... it didn't get posted and I didn't ask.

Load board

US - 222

IA - 41/38

MN - 1

WI - 9

AZ - 11

Tomorrow ... we will try to make it to Amarillo, 500+ miles. Day is all planned out.