1 RV to Mount Vernon IN

... spending the night at O'Fallon IL

Up at 6 AM, breakfast at 6:30 AM (2 yogurt) and on the road at 7 AM.

1st stop - the shipper in Forest City. We get to the office right at 8 AM, they greet us but it's a few minutes before anyone brings us our paperwork. And we get some log books, I have been using my own because we ran out of company logs.

No one else in the lot today. This lot is pretty empty. The 'over-flow' lot is getting full. Someone had made a comment on the company FB page about that and their comment got deleted. (Glad I'm not on there anymore)

Short walk to the RV, we didn't need to drive to find it. It is a little chilly this AM, we had to scrape the windows off at the hotel this AM. It takes us about 45 minutes to do our/BB's inspection. I did sit in the car part of that time as not to interfere with her routine.

2nd stop if the Pilot in Clear Lake for fuel. BB's pump kept shutting off but we knew how big the tank is and how much fuel the gauge showed. Se we kept adding until the gallons were close.

Hmmm. The window washer bucket at Pilot was frozen solid, all five gallons of it. Sure didn't seem that cold.

After we left the station I turned the radio on to the farm / country station. Somewhere during a farm update the announcer commented that it was colder the night before. Monday morning it was 13 degrees when he was heading to work. That helps explain why the bucket was frozen ... and then close to 80 again by this weekend there.

Not much farm work being done this AM, still lots to be done.

3rd stop is for food at Arbey's in Evansdale/Waterloo. As we were walking across the lot, I picked up a six inch nail. They are working on the roof and not being very careful, I guess.

I had a French Dip today. It had about 1/4 the meat I remember being on that sandwich. Should have taken a picture. Where you order it shows the meat hanging off the side, today's meat was about the size of a hotdog. (and it was the boss making it, so he should know how much goes on it)

As I was pulling in here, my phone rang, it was my local dispatch. When I called them back they said there was an issue with my logs but I couldn't follow what they wanted.

4th stop was the Pilot in Mount Pleasant for fuel. I was only down a 1/4 but we aren't planning of fueling again before BB's drop and fuel in IL/IN is a lot more.

While here I looked at my logs and see what I had done. The only issue was that I had only included one day's log, not every day's log. But these are the same logs as we send to the long haul company every week so I just sent them that email and they can print out what they need. Otherwise I did offer to come in on Monday and straighten it out.

In Hannibal there is a hotel that had been a Holiday Inn (?) and it has had a lot of names since that, slowly going down hill. For a while there was no sign with a name, just an 'open' sign. Then for the last six months or so it has been closed. Today it has a new sign. Ramada/Baymont. I have never seen those two names paired together on a single hotel before and can't guess the reason why.

5th stop is the Loves in New London for the rest room. From here we decide we are early enough that we can make it to O'Fallon IL instead of O'Fallon MO.

Some traffic mid-St Louis but not bad. Much better to have the sun in my mirror than directly in my eyes in rush hour traffic. Even with this much traffic I was able to find the bus garage where I have dropped a couple of buses.

For the whole 50 miles through St Louis I was able to see BB, she was leading today. Most of the time there was only a couple of cars between us and then they would pass ... can't drive the speed limit for too many minutes.

6th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in O'Fallon IL. We have stayed here before, now BB says that is not, in itself, a good reason to stay again. We could see the lack up upkeep at the front counter, in the elevator, the halls. The parking lot looks newly done, maybe they are starting to fix it up? This place does have three marked spots for semi' and twice that for pickups with trailers plus lots more parking.

The room is OK, so is the price :) But it is the old style with the curved wall sticking into the room from the shower.

This place does share the parking lot with an IHOP but we drove across the streets to Stake and (no) Shake. Shake machine is down, so no shakes, and I don't need one. I get my usual garlic burger. BB likes to get their chicken but it wasn't on the menu and she didn't want to ask. So a burger for her too.

The only thing of interest new on the load board today was one from IA to Brainard MN. It would have been nice to have done a shorter one but by the time we saw it, we would have committed to something else.

Local dispatch did email me early AM saying they still had the one to Fort Atkinson that they had mentioned before ... and that it was NOT an Autocar. Not sure why they didn't mention it yesterday, we might have done it. Then we would have been back soon enough to do the Brainard. But nothing out of IA is staying on the load board long. There are enough drivers to move 50+ a day, every day when needed. Most of those drivers are watching the board now and grabbing as fast as they can.

Load board

US - 210

IA - 4/1

MN - 12

WI - 2

We have about two hours to the drop for tomorrow AM, Then we have 650 miles home, not paid. Not sure if we will find anything that we can both pick up and drop by Friday PM. It won't be something going back to MN. If we pick up anything we will not be home until Saturday. There is one RV in IN but we would not get that to the drop until Saturday. I have dropped there before so I may call them and ask if nothing else shows up.

Last time something showed up closer to us than the Winamac as soon as we took the Winamac ... we'll see what happens.