1 lawn truck to Burnsville MN (delivered)

2 RV's to Grand Junction CO (canceled)

2 RV's to California

... spending the night at Lincoln NE

No alarm, no breakfast. BB didn't remember that the car shop opened at 7:30 so she had paced herself to have time for breakfast, but then decided we'd eat later.

7:30, we pull out of the drive. A few blocks later I drop BB at the car shop. She pays the bill and returns home to pickup luggage.

I head to the drop, light traffic for rush hour on a Monday. Another two turn's to the drop after I am off the freeway. Easy and I know the area. Fuel is still on 1/4 when I get to the drop, so I left about an extra three gallons of fuel for them.

Someone is helping me within two minutes of walking in. I show them the cracked windshield, they look at it and them check with someone else. Not sure their plan but they accept the truck with a note on the bill of lading. They also have their check list to cover. All is good.

BB is there before they are done checking it in.

Local dispatch calls while I am being checked in so I call them back as soon as we are finished. I don't ask what they wanted me for. I just tell them I will be out of town for the next two weeks. I keep forgetting to call them as soon as I have other work so they can take me off their list.

Burnsville. I think there were only two Holiday Villages and Burnsville was one of them. It is being torn down. Cub had taken both locations over years ago but kept using the old buildings. This one was an odd shape for some reason. Cub will be back at that location was the new building is done.

We have two hours to talk about the what if's. Should we rent a local car and stay a day waiting for work? Should we grab the bus in PHX? Head to CA? Head to IA?

2nd stop of the day is the Wendy's in Owatonna for food. A little slow this AM. When I ordered I asked for 'candied bacon' on my sandwich. They have it on other sandwiches but they could not find how to add it on the computer. So I finally said forget it.

About 20 minutes before we get to the shipper, the head RV dispatcher calls. We might want to talk to them so BB puts it on speaker. Our drop can not handle all the RV's coming their way.

... would we be interested in taking RV's to a different, closer RV location in CO ... or ... and they list three other locations. I didn't follow the conversation. I was expecting him to want us to take a different CO location because no one wants to go there ... and IF we do that, then we can get one of the other trips.

No, we have our choice of where to go, no strings. One of those choices was CA. So we are trading a 1,000 mile trip for a 2,000 mile trip that ends us within an hour of where I pick up the buses :) :) :)

))) what did we do to deserve this? (((

So now BB only has a few minutes to cancel our CO rental car and make a new reservation in CA.

As this is going on, there has been a cop with a semi pulled over in the oncoming traffic. As soon as the truck is in the travel lane, the cop makes a u-turn and follows me, but does not pass. I'm doing just over 55 mph but they can have a lot of reasons to pull people over. At one point he was only about one car length off my bumper.

BB had made some comment about they pulling me over, I said no, there is only two of them. They will wait until the other three show up. (not sure where the 2nd one had come from by then)

Then all of a sudden, they pull to the shoulder and both make a u-turn. I thought they were going to hit each other the way they did it. Last I saw of them, they were one in each lane heading the other direction, without their lights on.

We have to wait a couple of minutes for our paperwork. The boss is doing it, not one of the other three dispatchers.

Sounds like the shipper wanted to get rid of some two year old units, they are new, never used, but old style. They had 90, the dealer in CO took 80 of them. Once they started coming they realized they did not want them all at once.

... and, to get them moved, dispatch had not been putting other trips on the load board. So now those trips are getting old and need to be moved ... but again ...

))) what did we do to deserve this? (((

I talked to four other drivers, (six total, two were couples) All were going to CO. How did we get picked to not go? But glad we did. Makes life much easier. Hope the bus dispatcher is still looking for drivers where we get there.

Small RV's but it still takes us an hour to do our inspections. It is 45 degrees today but a stiff wind. No issues with either of the RV's. But BB does ask if I have my tape with me, her RV is wrapped, poorly.

We both have free fuel. They used to charge us for anything over 1/4 tank. They aren't doing that now. So that helps. BB has a 1/2 tank and I have 3/4 tank, and we can run them to 'E' before putting in final fuel near the dealer.

Stiff wind will not do us any favors on the mpg. And we do get rocked around a little. We both have the same style RV but not the same chassis. BB has a Ford gas and I have a MB diesel.

3rd stop is the Loves in Ellsworth for fuel and food. We decide to split a philly burger. Good, but even half is plenty for each of us.

People are using the Loves parking lot to see the eclipse. One person even had their camera tripod set up there. We are leaving about 15 minutes before max eclipse for this area. There are still scattered clouds. An hour ago at the shipper it was completely cloud covered.

It was supposed to be 85% eclipse here but I didn't really notice when it happened. With the scattered clouds it would get darker every time a cloud went overhead.

Signs on the highway were all saying do not stop on the freeway to view eclipse.

4th stop was when BB pulled out to pass me. I had not seen her flash her headlights at me. Her wrap is coming off and we either need to tape it down or take it off. We re-taped it for now. Very poor job of putting it on. And no way to change that unless we take it all the way off and start over. So we tape where we can and hope it holds until the wind dies down. After that we should be good.

5th stop was the rest area in Adair.

6th stop was the Loves in Omaha for fuel. I am getting 13.1 even with the head wind. Hoping for better because I am getting paid based on 13.2 mpg.

7th and final stop was the Quality Inn in Lincoln. From there we walked to King Kong for gyro's. We each got a chicken, almost. Maybe it was only a half chicken each, but it was a lot of food.

That was our walk for the day. By the time we get back to the hotel it is almost 8 PM. Not much time to do things before lights out.

Load board

US - 262

IA - 32/29

MN - 8

WI - 4

Tomorrow we should make it to Laramie, about 490 miles. From there it is 507 miles to Wendover. And from Wendover to Rocklin CA it is another 508, so the stops are split pretty close.