1 tank truck to Sparks NV

... spending the night at Fletcher NC

... long frustrating morning.

Spent last night at the Comfort Inn in Asheville NC.

Last night, dispatch put a nice trip on the load board <> after they are closed, and someone took it right away. Then later, the TX dispatcher put lots of non-TX trips out ... some that would work for us.

At 8 AM, I called the main dispatchers to see about the nice trip from last night. 'It's gone.' I was hoping someone had just put it on hold overnight. Nope.

Then before 7:30 mid-west time, I looked again to the TX trips and they were all gone. Someone was calling at getting trips before that dispatcher usually starts answering the phone.

After hitting refresh on the load board every few minutes for most of three hours, we finally decided to head for home.

We check out and with the car already running ... BB looks again at the load board.

That really nice trip is back on the load board ... I call right away ... I don't have any paper ready to write on so I don't remember what I am getting paid. But I got the trip.

A minute ago we were heading home and planning on doing some local work before Christmas. Now we have work that will take us back across the country and then maybe something back again.

As long as we are still at the hotel, I print out my paperwork before we leave the parking lot. But I forget to call the shipper so I stop at the first rest area a few miles down the street. All they want to know is what time I will be there.

1st stop is at Landrum for fuel and food. Shell gas and Burger King. My rewards card doesn't work to well so I had to pay inside. This place turned on the pump for me and I went back in and paid. That doesn't happen very often anymore.

I hadn't looked at where we were dropping the rental car, so we kind of came in from that direction so I'd be familiar with the streets. We get to the customer and I meet my contact in the parking lot. That was the good news.

Bad news was they were still working on the truck but it should be ready in a half hour. Almost two hours later, the guy sees me again ... he had told the person working on it to bring it to me. They didn't.

Then I had to go back inside because they had left some Haz-mat signs on the truck. I wasn't going to take them off, I didn't know what else I may be hauling. It's empty. No issue.

Then I almost went back in again ... the seatbelt was as tight as a tiedown. When I tried pulling on it, the inside of the cab was coming off. Finally BB and I played with it enough that something happened and it came loose.

Finally we are ready to go. When BB says the rental place is next to the mall ... we've been there before. A few times. But we've been lot of places so sometimes the setting doesn't click right away.

3rd stop was the rental car place in Spartansburg. We switched the luggage out there. This truck has a nice sized area under the tank that holds are stuff. No lock so we still need to empty it daily.

4th stop, fuel. The truck had 1/4 of a tank at pickup so I thought we might make it to a truckstop but once the tank gets to an 1/8th I'm ready to stop. There is one ma-pa place before the hotel so we stop there. Hendersonville.

5th and final stop is the Clarion in Fletcher for the night. We could have made it to Asheville or stopped earlier at places we've stopped before but this one looked like it would have more truck parking and it does.

When we check in, we ask about laundry as we've been on the road two weeks now ... They move us to a room near the laundry. And it is out of order. They say they didn't know. Maybe tomorrow.

We eat at the inhouse restaurant, Blue Agave. Interesting as the waitress knew limited English. Good food. And plenty of it.

Back out at the truck, I had thought I was shutting the power off inside the cab. Instead I had turned on one of the tanker pumps. Opps. Glad I caught that before tomorrow AM. Battery would have been dead and the pump likely ruined.

By the end of the day, NC had 30 trips on the load board. Luckily nowhere better than where we are going.

This trip may not pay quite as well as the last cross country one, but the ride is nicer, the windshield wipers work, we shouldn't have issues starting it and it is clean inside. And it is an 'electronic-stick' shift. It's a pain getting up to speed as it goes through every gear, I don't always make the stop lights :) but it is nice not having to clutch.

Load board

US - 191

IA - 5/3

MN -0-

WI - 9

NC - 30

Plan is for 500 mile days. Mt Vernon IL, then Lincoln NE, Laramie WY, Wendover UT and delivery.