Gambling with Nevada
 

I booked this load from Quebec Canada to Nevada:

Line/haul: $5,900
Fuel surcharge: $1,068

To the truck: $1,068 + 73% of $5,900
Total to the truck: $5,375

Loaded miles: 2,925 miles
D/H from Sydney NS to the pickup: 587 miles

I got up at 4 am this morning to drive the remaining 2 hours to the shipper in Quebec. Moose warnings were everywhere but I got lucky and didn't see a single animal. Got to the shipper in Mont-Joli QC around 8 am and of course I was at the wrong gate. Had to drive around on some narrow city streets to get to the correct gate. They loaded me with 8 (!) small skids full of some metal parts and the total weight is 30,368 lbs. Each skid is only 46 inches long, so I had the forklift guy - who spoke 2 words of English - put 4 in front of the signal light on my trailer and the other 4 behind (in rows of 2). No tarping was requested (I had checked this before booking the load, as I don't carry tarps on my stepdeck).

I passed Montreal today (I hate this town) and shut down at the Flying J on the western side, in the suburb of Vaudreul. From here it's only 30 minutes to Ontario where everybody speaks English!

My delivery is in the town of Golconda, NV so when I pass Chicago IL I'll just stay on I-80 all the way to the town. After that it's a bit tricky... Here's directions to the consignee as written on my paperwork:

"take Exit #... off I-80, travel north 15 miles to end of payment, then 12 miles to the mine."

This is going to be interesting!

I got up at 5 am, grabbed coffee at the Flying J and was on Hwy 20 out of Montreal by 6. While driving towards Napanee, ON on 401, it occurred to me I might get a LTL shipment out of Canada to US. A half of my trailer is empty: despite what the agent said ("it's a full 48' load"), what I have is 8 skids each only 46" by 46" and 24" tall. The weight is 30,000 lbs so I still could take 19,000 lbs, in theory...

I stopped at the Flying J in Napanee, logged on to the Landstar Loadboard to see if there was any loads out of the Greater Toronto Area going west, but the search produced 0 results. I did see however a bunch of loads out of Nevada but the pickup time was Jan-03. I called the agent who posted one of the loads and told her I"d be in Nevada on Jan-05 and will have to do a 34 hr reset but if she has something on Jan-07 I'd be glad to move it for at least $2.35/mi to Landstar. She took my cell phone number and truck number and promised to call once an Ontario-bound freight pops up.

I drove from Montreal at the steady 1,270 RPM and 95 KM/H (59 mph) and my fuel gauge is still above 1/4. After I had that overpriced fueling in New Brunswick ($1.187 per liter or $4.48 per US gallon!) I was determined to make the fuel last as long as possible. My odometer now shows I'm more than 1,200 miles away from that Irving in NB and I hope to reach some truck stop in MI to get more fuel. No more diesel in Canada for me, at least for now!

I'm at the Duty Free on the border in Sarnia, ON and my Verizon USB stick already catches the US signal. I stopped here to check if my ACE is ready for crossing, and will sleep today somewhere in Michigan.

Happy New Year from Michigan, everybody!

-tracer

Speaking of gambling..... I won $3500 at Sierra Sids Casino (ta truckstop) in Reno back in May :)

It is 2000 miles from Capac, MI to Golconda, Nevada where I must deliver on January 5th. So, I had 4 days at my disposal. I checked Google Maps to see what truck stop was roughly 500 miles west of Capac. Walcott, IA caught my eye where the 'world's largest truck stop' is located. So, I set myself a goal to reach Iowa-80 by the end of Saturday, Jan-01. It'd be a perfect place to take a shower and do my laundry.

As usuall it took 2 people at the McDonald's to process my 'double espresso with hot water' request, and I left Capac at 9 am. As I drove west on I-69, I-94 and then I-80, the temperature started to drop. It was +4C or 39F in Capac, MI, -3C or 26F in Chicago, IL and by the time I reached Walcott, IA it became really chilly at -9C or 15F. The roads were all clear, with hardly any snow in the ditches, but a strong western wind started up after Chicago and it kept blowing head-on all the way to Iowa.

I planned to fuel up at Iowa-80 but the price was $3.31 per gallon, so I filled only 1 tank. Diesel might get cheaper further west, you never know ... In Capac, MI I got one tank too and it was 3.25 per gallon.

I have never been to the third floor at the Iowa-80 truck stop, but that's where you have to go to get showers and do your laundry. They also have great pictures of old trucks on the walls, and I ran into this old fuel pump on a stairway landing (see the pic). Don't you wish sometimes that at least for a month diesel became this cheap? Ah.. the good old days, when classic Peterbilts were the way to go and nobody cared about fuel mileage :)

When you get out to Wyoming,Utah you will find fuel for under $3.00 gallon.

It wasn't too long ago that I was whining about the price of fuel in ON and you told me it was cheap after fuel tax and HST rebates!

How much does that stick cost you? Does it work good? Does it work running down the road?

I'm with Sprint. I currently use the hotspot feature on my EVO (19.95/mo unlimited), but I previously had a standard USB stick. I paid $59.95/month (5gig limit). It worked great, and, yes, it works while driving down the highway. There were very few times I wasn't connected to the internet even though some times when out in the sticks it would be a very slow connection, but connected nonetheless.

I use Virgin Mobile...$40 a month unlimited and no contract.Works well every place I've been and yes it is slower depending on the area.

Since when? NE is the cheapest fuel on I80 these days.

When you pay your quarterly fuel tax, which Landstar will deduct you will see that the pump price means nothing, pay it at the pump or mail it in quarterly, NO difference