2 RV's to Greer SC (delivered)
... spending the night at Morton IL
I had woken up a couple of times during the night, one time I thought I had heard BB taking tums as she sometimes does. I finally wake up out of a deep sleep at 7:30 AM. 10 plus hours of sleep.
At some point BB tells me she had been taking her pills during the night because she had forgotten to the night before. It wasn't until we were packing up to leave that I realize that I also had forgotten to take my pills last night. I usually forget to take my pills about once every year or two. Now it has been twice in the last couple of weeks :( So far, I don't know of any other way I am loosing it.
We leave the hotel at 8:15, we each grab something on the way out. I had gabbed a cup of juice. Actually good juice this time.
Very light traffic for the end of rush hour near Knoxville.
Just before 9 AM, I started asking BB about taking the IN to MN trip ... then I realized that IN would be on eastern time and the office had been open for almost the last hour. BB checked and the trip was gone.
1st stop is for fuel at the Buc-ee's near Richmond. We also get food. It is near the cutoff for breakfast so a lot of choices are lunch items. Un-like most time, there are lines to check out. Lines are long and a person in the next line would not get closer than six feet from the person ahead of them. I thought people were going to start cutting in front of them but that didn't happen.
We decide to go through OH in case there are new trips that show up. As we are looking at everything, we realize that the weather is also an issue. There will be high winds in IN tomorrow and the shippers may not let anything move. Or we may not want to move.
There is also a short trip starting right off our route, but it is a chassis. And we might be able to pick up tonight but not be able to deliver it until tomorrow. It is most likely being picked up at a repair shop so I would rather not have to re-start it in the AM ... and even that little bit might delay us so that we have an extra day hotel or rental car, or both.
There are also trips in IA going to MN, lots of them. But again, there is going to be wind tomorrow and the shipper may not let them leave. We also did the math and we need to return our rental car first, then do the RV's.
There are also two rental trucks in northern MN, but they are now forecasted to have a blizzard. Weather.
2nd stop was Batesville at the rest area
3rd stop was the rest area near Oakwood
Traffic. That was my issue of the day. There were a couple of 10-20 mile stretches where the speed limit was 55 mph. I did, closer than anyone else. 45 mph zones? 70-80 mph was actual. That part was more annoying that a safety issue.
The only thing that did concern me was near the end of the day, there was a semi that had been following me at a distance for miles. Then he pulled out to pass, got right along side me and almost locked up his brakes, pulled back in behind me and it almost looked like he was going for the shoulder.
But he kept driving and the caught up to me again. This time he was only a few feet off my bumper, like I don't think anyone has been before. He stayed right there for maybe a couple of miles. I made sure not to speed up or slow down. He than passed and was gone. No idea what that was about.
BB had mentioned Bloomington for the night but I asked where the storms were likely to be. And based on the forecast, Morton had the same risk as Bloomington but was a few miles further so we headed there. And that is where we often eat and stay, we don't have a place in Bloomington where we have stayed more than once.
4th and final (?) stop of the night is the Quality Inn in Morton. We order food from the Cracker Barrel and then drive to get it.
We are watching the storms develop both on the TV and on our computers. We had been thinking about the storms when we picked this place and thinking about storms when we parked our car.
But when the tornado warning and sightings got to be about 10 miles from us, we decided to pack up and get out of here. We drove back to Bloomington. It is not quite a right angle from the storm but close. Not only was there a tornado but also hail. One of the storm chasers car got hit by a baseball sized stone and busted his front window.
Luckily, the storm just died out about the time we were leaving. The weather people were quite shocked to see that and played the radar over and over again.
5th stop was Bloomington. We parked in a closed Tractor Supply at the edge of town to watch the storm. But by then the storm had died out and the lighting show was also mostly gone.
Edited to add:
6th stop was the BP in Carlock for fuel. Just as we were back on the freeway heading back to the hotel and I heard BB gasp. I looked down at my gauges. We had 26 miles to 'E' and 20 miles to the hotel. We stopped at the first gas station.
7th stop was the Quality Inn in Morton ... again. We got unpacked again and settled in.
Load board
US - 280
IA - 31/28 (8 MN)
MN - 10
WI - 7
There are still two rental trucks in MN that are not in the above listed numbers and also one from IA going to IA that we are looking at. Mostly depends on the weather and timing.