1 Refer to Marengo IL (delivered)

1 Tanker to Bismarck ND (Tuesday)

... spending the night at Elgin IL

Up without the alarm clock. I eat leftovers for breakfast as I do not plan on stopping for food once I am in the truck. We are rolling within minutes of our planned time.

Almost no rush hour this AM so our trip was what the computer/GPS had told us last night.

When we get to the dealer, I head into service because that is where I have always gone. The guy at the desk seems to know every customer by name except for me. And he tells me I am in the wrong spot and where to go.

But as soon as he is done with his line of customers he is over in the sales office making sure someone is helping me. They are, kind of. Everyone seems to know about the truck but they all seem to want to wait until the correct sales person is in at 9 AM. We had gotten there early because the drop closes at 4 PM and that only gives us one extra hour for all stops ... and traffic slow downs.

I'm still waiting for my truck when the salesperson does get to the office, he asks if I am waiting for a refer ... I am. Not sure how he knew I was 'the driver' as I didn't have any logoed clothing on today. In a few minutes my truck is still not ready and the salesperson goes to look for it.

Not a good sign, it looks like they have pulled it up to a shop door. What they tell me is they washed it before giving it to me. Nice to have a clean truck but I need those minutes to get to the drop.

It is 9:30 by the time we are ready to pull out, an hour after we got here. Only a couple of minor issues. Nothing that effects the driving.

It has been a long time since I have been to this dealer. We used to take our trucks here for service when I was a terminal manager in the early 1990's. Then I was often here when I first started driveaway as one of our main customers was a pizza company that used all Internationals. And sometimes they would brake down.

For this trip, I have to leave the fuel where I find it. So no free fuel. And I have to call dispatch with the trip miles and fuel level when I pickup and when I drop. So I call.

But the truck had been sitting on a hill and as soon as I pull out onto the street, the fuel level drops by a 1/16th. Not a lot, but still it is $10-20 of fuel.

No truck issues, my first stop is the rest area two hours down the road. I don't go in, I just quick check a couple of items and then BB calls so we know where each other are. BB is at a Kwik Trip at the prior exit getting food, she had not eaten this AM.

Road construction is almost in full swing already, going past Mauston is one of those places. No big issue for us, but the oncoming traffic had a seven mile backup. That would have mad this a tomorrow delivery.

Somewhere in the Wisconsin Dells area I see a trash truck on the side of the road. Looks new. I work for the only two places that move them so I did think of stopping. But I carry nothing with that could help them and I am on a very tight schedule. So I didn't stop, BB had saw them also.

Fuel is dropping faster than I thought so instead of fueling in Janesville, I'll be fueling most of an hour earlier in De Forest. By now my gauge is almost down to 'E' so my guess is I need to put in 3/4th of a tank of fuel. It is a 100 gallon tank so I'm guessing 75 gallons and I still have another 100+ miles to go.

When I stop for fuel, once the meter get's over $200 I call BB. I have already put in almost as much fuel as the shipper is paying for. If I put in much more, this will be the first trip where I have not gotten paid more for fuel than I have put in.

While I go into get my receipt, I also get a bottle of juice. It is getting warm today, lower 70's and I don't have any liquids with me.

My plan is to stop again at the truckstop at the drop exit and top off as I don't think I have put in enough fuel.

South of Madison there is a weigh scale that has truck specific signs. I'm watching way ahead to see if they are working today. When I pass the cameras, the sign a 1/4 of a mile ahead goes on that truck must exit. No one is there, there is nothing between me and that sign so to play it safe, I assume the sign is for me and exit.

And in the scale area, I do not get the bypass lane, I have to cross the scale in front of the office. Even once on the scale I have to sit there. I'm an empty truck, how hard can it be to see that I am not overweight? They do let me go, but it likely took an extra five minutes.

Another twenty miles down the road we saw ??? we don't know what it was for sure. It was a building on the shoulder/in the ditch. It looked like either a two part mobile home or office with the plastic facing the highway. But it had no tires under it. It was sitting flat on the ground. It was not supposed to be there. Too close to the road, not flat, no guard around it.

My fuel gauge had dropped to 3/4 by the time we get to the border. 40 miles later it is still at 3/4 so I don't stop. Five miles later we are at the drop and the gauge is still showing 3/4 which is more than I needed to leave but I'm thinking the gauge is stuck (?)

BB had looked at routes to get to the drop yesterday and was verballing telling me which ways we could go. Those are 'computer suggestions.' My way is logical. Stay on the freeway as long as possible with the fewest city street miles. My way added two extra miles, no extra time.

The person at the drop who is supposed to sign was going to leave at 4 PM. We get there a little after 3:30. (Oh, I did drive 70 mph and eat in the truck today. Used truck, 200,000+ miles on it, I don't need to keep it clean or babied)

We are in and out in 15 minutes and head back to the truckstop. No RV's out of IA so I call on the ND trip. This dispatcher does not say anything about a 2nd leg so we take the trip. I do a quick call to the shipper and they close in less than 10 minutes and we are still 20 minutes away. That extra half hour this AM we lost at the shipper would have gotten us down the road with our text truck.

Good news ... shipper opens at 5 AM :) I told him we'd be there closer to 8 AM.

We make reservations and head to our hotel. Once we are checked in, we head across the street to the Holiday Inn which has a Bennigan's in it. I had their potato soup and rueben balls. Very good, I couldn't eat everything and had to leave some food.

1st stop - Minneapolis at the shipper

2nd - Rest area, Black River Falls

3rd - TA in De Forest for fuel

4th - drop in Marengo

5th - Quality Inn / Bennigan's in Elgin

Load board (Weekend)

US - 174

IA - 3/0

MN - 7

WI - 6

Load board (Monday)

US - 232

IA - 5/3

MN - 7

WI - 7

The MN dispatcher has a short 100 mile trip, where was that on Friday when we sat home? Also the rental dispatcher has two MN to MN trips. We might grab one or both of they are still there in a couple of days.

Tomorrow we should be at the shipper by 8 AM and MAY, may get as far as Fargo by nightfall. We could make it back home Wednesday night but we will likely look for more work instead of heading home. We'd like to head west but if it doesn't happen this week, it likely won't happen until after the 4th. In a couple of weeks the fields should be getting dry and then we have a family picnic. And somewhere in there we need to see the dentist.