1 bus to Lake Charles LA

... spending the night at Sulphur, LA

Another alarm morning. I do have leftovers but walk with BB to check out the hotel breakfast. And I grab a western omelette and juice.

Back at the room I move all my leftovers from the styrofoam container to a paper plate ... THEN I realize there is no microwave in the hotel room ... and there had not been one in the breakfast area. :( So I put it back into the container and take it for lunch.

Today it is a little warmer as we check out. 36 instead of 35 degrees. And the heater is not working so BB can see her breath unless she is standing next to me. But it will be a warm sunny day so later we have the windows open.

Last night there were a half dozen trucks in the hotel lot, this AM they are all gone. We are the sleepy heads.

Coming through San Antonio, I-10 and I-35 run together for a short while ... then Opps ... "BB ... why are the mileage signs saying 150 miles to Laredo?" I was expecting I-35 to exit but it was I-10 that exited ... somewhere. Ahhh, what is a trip without at least one detour?

1st stop is in Luling at the rest area. From here I call the drop but have to leave a message. And I call one of the TX dispatchers. They have two trucks to near LA. At this point I am checking on pay and location. Don't want to be dropping on some back street in LA.

The drop looks to be an Enterprise Truck location. And the pay is about the same as the bus. Which is good if we are heading home but not so good with me just driving solo. AND it will take an extra day or two because of the weekend ... and because I am running tight on driving hours.

Dispatch tells me these are 'hot,' and I tell her that by the time I can pick it up, it will be Monday delivery. There were three of them today, one was gone within seconds/minutes. The other two stayed out for a few hours but are now gone. And we did not get them.

BB had looked a few times what our ETA was and saw that there was a slowdown. But we decided not to take the back roads, just stay on the freeway. When we hit the brakes, we had less than 10 miles to go to our exit. Our ETA was about 30 minutes. But it took us well over an hour to get that 10 miles. Three lanes of traffic down to one.

And by now it is after 1 PM and warm. I decided my leftovers are now trash :( I had a sampler last night and never even got to try the 2nd two items.

2nd stop was the Loves/Arby's in Katy TX. This is where all the make your own detour people are getting back on the freeway.

From here it was another two plus hours to the wash.

3rd stop was first the Flying J for fuel and DEF. I finally stuck the tank. I may have been OK but I put in another five gallons of fuel and topped off the DEF tank. Then went across the street to the Blue Beacon. We guessed 15 minutes a truck and we were pretty close. A little over an hour in line.

Never had this before. I'm in the single line where it splits to two. The guy behind me tries to cut between me and the truck ahead of me. I wave him off and then he wants me to pull ahead. I do ... but he still can't get behind me.

He then gets out of his truck and goes to talk to the wash staff ??? I'm thinking he was looking for a 'wash out bay.' Some locations have them. A special line for trucks that want their inside washed out but not the outside. This one did not, so he just has to wait. He was just pulling in as I was pulling out so I did pick the correct line.

Now it is going to be dark by the time we get to the hotel. Sun is just setting and we have another half hour to go.

4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Sulphur. I had not looked at a map closely. And BB didn't look close enough to see there was a Best Western right across the street, next to food.

First we walk into the casino which is supposed to have food, but way to smokie blue for BB. Then we walk to the truck stop but by now it is almost 7 PM and all their hot food is gone. They direct us back to the casino ... no thanks.

BB didn't want to walk across the street in the dark. It is a four lane with no walk signal. But she is hungry. We end up at the Cracker Barrel instead of the Waffle House. I had breakfast, three eggs and bacon. BB had fish.

While we were sitting there, the TX dispatcher puts out five trucks going to Las Vegas. Four days to do a two day trip? We'll talk about it. It's likely either that or dead head home.

Load board

US - 87

IA - 5/4

MN -0-

WI - 2

Last time we were here, BB and I did our usual meet up after she picked up the car at the airport. Tomorrow we are going to drop BB to get the car and she will come back past the hotel and pick up luggage while I drop. Subject to change.

IF, IF we decide to grab one of the Las Vegas trucks, it is about five hours back to Dallas. So we would only have a couple of hours left tomorrow to drive before dark. And that would use a lot of my driving hours. We will see. Maybe we will end up in Orlando instead.