My gambling with Nevada was finally over this morning when I left the Flying J in Winnemucca on Highway 95 and headed north to Boise, Idaho. It's one weird highway I"ll tell you that. You pass through 3 states (Nevada, Oregon, Idaho), you lose 1 hour due to the time zone change, and you drive through 3 speed limit zones: it's 70 MPH in Nevada, 55 in Oregon, and 65 in Idaho. All on the same highway. There's hardly any traffic and because you go through huge hills, the cell phone signal is spotty. I saw 2 or 3 signs "Chains Required when Lights Flashing" but I got lucky as the temp was above freezing. I had to watch for ice though. The Oregon section was quite hilly and in one spot there was a downgrade and then a sharp turn to the left. As expected there was a tractor-trailer in the right hand side ditch, with the truck totally folded backwards, and now pointing to the direction it came from. I guess it was icy early in the morning and he was going too fast down the hill - was probably loaded too - and the truck just glided into the ditch when he tried to negotiate the sharp left. In my International, the outside air thermometer is right above my head where my CB is. I got into the habit of checking it often when the temperature is close to freezing, like it was this morning. That's one way to avoid ending up in a ditch..
I didn't see any truck stops but in Jordan Valley OR there is a Shell where trucks can stop on the right shoulder and right next to it is a small espresso coffee shop where I got a perfect 16 oz double shot Americano.
I now have a Chevy 4x4 pickup truck on my deck and of course the broker never bothered to tell me that I'd need loading ramps to get it on! The "shipper" where I went to pick it up in Boise was a regular OFFICE building and the truck was just parked in the parking lot. The guy with the paperwork came out of the office, we chatted for a while and then he called a tilt-n-load tow truck (rollback) who put the pickup on my lower deck for 60 bucks. The guy paid
I"m not sure how I'm going to load the bigger truck (Ford F650) on Monday and how they will take the both vehicles off in Canada. But my Pick 2 is at a CAT dealer so I hope they have some kind of a dock there... I'll have to unload the pickup truck and load the big F650 first and get its front axle somehow on the upper deck: otherwise I won't have enough space. The Chevy has 12 feet between the tires, so it's appr. 14 long from the front bumper to the rear.
For now I'm taking 2 days off - the Ford is not ready to be picked up till Monday and it's just under 4 hours between Boise and Pocatello.