Today started early as we delivered to Western State Envelope in Butler, WI. The last time we were here.... this is what it looked like....
And here we are today, just two months later....
I was surprised, as we rolled through Wisconsin, the number of people in shorts and short sleeves and a few that were laying out in the sun!
I had on jeans and my sweatshirt. My southern blood is still with me and although the temperature was in the 60's... the sweatshirt was still on!
As we were being unloaded, the qualcomm beeps and tells us we are suppose to pick up in Aurora, IL on 3/18 at 5:00 am. Aurora, IL is about 100 or so miles from where we are. We are picking up at a Con-Way yard, so we can drop the trailer and bobtail around the town, if we wish.
The preplan says we have to deliver this in Clyde, OH around noon on 3/18 as well.
So being in no real hurry... we headed on south to Aurora, IL. I wasn't real thrilled due to having a bad experience in North Aurora, IL with a 12' 4" bridge once before. The older the town... the shorter the bridges!
We arrived in Aurora and dropped the trailer. It's not normal for us to be able to get around, without the extra 53' behind us, so we decided to explore the town a little. We were only 3 miles from downtown and they have a river boat casino. Naturally, I wanted to walk in there. I've been to several on land, but never one of these that are "riverboats".
This is Hollywood Casino in Aurora, IL... the riverboat didn't get in the picture, but the funny thing is... the river boat part isn't even a real river boat! No one told me this. Once you walked in the front door... you didn't know if you were on the land part or the part that is built out into the water.
-$20 later... I walked out.... back to the safety of my big red mobile home.
The bag pipe players were showing up at the local Irish Pub for St. Patrick's Day celebration!
This is the original Aurora Fire Department. I love the look of this building!
This is just a building that are renovating... we were taken back by the ladder on the building.
After a couple of hours walking around, we decided to head back to the yard so Trapper could get some sleep... 4:00 am was going to come early.
Needless to say his "night" was cut short when the phone rang at 9:30 pm... I knew that wasn't good when I saw area code 417... uh oh... Joplin was calling.
We had been unassigned from our 5:00 am load and reassigned a load to pick up at 4:00 am in La Salle, IL. I was playing on the computer and heard Trapper say, "Yea, ok, that's fine... we're here at the yard, that'll work. Send me the info on the qualcomm."
As he was still trying to wake up... I look at the qualcomm and had to break the news to him that we were in Aurora, IL and this load was to pick up in La Salle, IL.... 100 miles away! I hate it when I have to do that!
So... we were off.... the plan changed, the mindset changed... that fast!
I'll only add the abbreviated version from here....
Arrived in LaSalle, IL with 3 hours to sleep... slept 2.5 hours.
Dropped trailer and picked up loaded trailer.
Met our relay in Altoona, IL
Dispatched to Corydon, IA to pick up load and deliver in Topton, PA on Friday around noon.
Whew! No play time now. The log book looks like a polygraph with all the up's and down's on it.
This is how you end up running nights... our legal breaks are ending up being during the day, so we're running at night but hopefully once we get to PA... we'll make it back to the day shift!
Although I don't drive, I just ride... this stretch of interstate completely threw me off. We're both tired and when I looked up I see... to my left traffic we are meeting and the lanes we are in... then to my right I see more traffic we are meeting and beyond those lanes are more lanes going in the same direction we are!
This could mess a person up quick!
We're stopping tonight at the IOWA80 truck stop. I can't wait to see this place!
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