 Good morning everybody, from right beside that water tower. We're in Brainerd, Minnesota. I'm gonna run over to Pillager, Minnesota, which is the next town to the west from here. I'm gonna grab some lumber, throw it on my empty step deck behind me, tie it down and go home. Just tie down my load. There it is, put 46,000 pounds of wood and it's hardwood too. Like it's kind of jagged, got sharp edges. So I put corner protectors. I don't usually put corner protectors on lumber loads, but I was kind of worried about these straps or this wood eating through my straps, even though I'm not going too far. By the looks of it, I'm just taking this to our yard and we're gonna have a city guy deliver it into Winnipeg on Monday. We'll see if that plan changes. I don't mind delivering it, but we have other plans for me next week. Gotta go home for a couple of days first. Well, what next week worry about next week, right? Let's finish up this week. This is the Lakes of Detroit or Detroit Lakes, however you wanna pronounce it, Minnesota. I still haven't figured out why. You may have told me in the comments section last time, maybe I missed that one. I go through the comments every day, but why do they call it Detroit Lakes if it's in Minnesota? Why isn't it called Minnesota Lakes or like Minneapolis Lakes? Why is it Detroit Lakes? And where are the lakes? I don't see any lakes around here. The lumber I've got on my trailer is being delivered next week. Someone else will be delivering it for me. I just confirmed it. So I'll bring it to our yard and leave it there for whoever is gonna take care of that. I've gotta grab an empty step and head over to Winnipeg. We're gonna be going up north next week. Really far north, further north yet than I've ever been. I keep breaking my own records. They keep sending me further and further north, like edging me towards the ice roads. I know their plan. They're edging me closer and closer, closer, all of a sudden they're gonna be like, oh, come on, it's just a little further. It's just down the ice. The old blue is not going on the ice roads. Old blue is not going on those winter roads. Those roads destroy, they can destroy trucks if you're not careful. They're very rough. It's way too pretty to go up there. So no ice roads, no winter roads, but we're going pretty much to the end of the road. Remember last time we went up north, we went across on that ferry to, what was that reserve called again, Fort Something? Fort, Fort Nelson? No, forget it right now. Oh yeah, we took the ferry across. Remember we got stranded there for a couple of days. We're going further north than that, norther. So that should be interesting. They talked me into it, twisted my arm with a few nickels. They were pretty shiny, so I said, okay. Okay, for a couple of shiny nickels, we'll go up there. I'm going to look at the forecast though first. I don't want to get stranded up there again. We're on US Highway 10. We're going to meet up with Interstate 29 in Fargo. I'm going to go to the Blue Beacon and see if there's a long lineup. If there's not too long of a lineup, we're going to get in line and wash old blue. If there's too long of a lineup, I'm just going to say, nah, never mind. I just go home and wash it myself at the shop. I just, I know I don't do as good of a job, but, hey, when I do it, it is a lot cheaper. There's that, but you get what you pay for. If you pay nothing for it and do it yourself, it's not done as good. Pull me home. It's not the heaviest we've ever been, but we're probably sitting at about and just under 80,000 pounds. We're gonna go all out either. Like I never floor it. I want this engine to last a long time yet. It's to three million kilometers or two million miles on this truck. And I want to get it to five million kilometers or three million miles and then make my decision, which will probably be to completely overhaul it, rebuild the engine and completely paint everything, take everything off the frame, sandblast, and paint the frame, paint the truck, stretch the frame out about 24 inches, and we'll have a brand new truck again, right? That's what I'm thinking. Just gonna get some money put in the bank. I've got a family to think of at home. I can't go blowing all my money on fancy shiny things for the truck, though I'd love to. Gotta make sure we got a roof over our heads, food on our plates, and money in the bank for if anything ever, you know, suddenly goes downhill. Or if they decide to shut the world down again for a cold. You know, if that happens, gotta make sure that we're not gonna get ourselves in like trouble and need food and stuff, right? So once I have a comfortable big old nest egg in the bank somewhere, then we'll start pouring money into old blue. Now we're just gonna keep doing the little things, you know? Couple of trucks in line, that's okay, but if there's like a long lineup, no thank you. All right for this guy. Be white straight self. Oh, and this guy's trying to come out the entrance. That's another reason. Lined up all the way out here. I'm just gonna do a quick little loop. See behind the building to see if there's a huge long lineup or not. They sort of have it snaking around there. Well, thank you. I'm not staying here for an hour waiting for a truck wash. That's too bad. Oh well. I kind of figured there would be a long lineup today. It's a Friday when I'm filming this. The weather's nice, the sun's out. Not surprised that there's a big long lineup. Not a problem, I can do it myself. It's just not gonna be done quite as good, but who knows? If I had the time, I could do it even better. So when I go home, I don't usually have a lot of time. There's a lot of other things I need to get done. Don't mess up traffic anymore than I have to. Yeah, this is a bad time to come in here. Friday a rush hour. Only take 130 gallons or something. Well, the fuel price gap has definitely been closing between Canada and the United States, between Manitoba and North Dakota. In Manitoba, just up the road in St. Agath, fuel at the Flying J is $1.779 per liter, Canadian. Here with the conversion rate from $4.449 USD per US gallon, that equals $1.574 per liter, Canadian. So that's a difference of 20 and a half cents per liter from here to Canada. Remember, it was as high as a 50 cent gap per liter that you would say fueling in the US. What was that last month? Now I'm saving 20 and a half cents. I just rounded up to 21 cents. Saving 21 cents per liter. I bought 560 liters today. So 21 cents times, well, you know, let's stick with 21 and a half cents since if half a cent is a thing, times 560 liters, I saved $114.80 today. So it's not like I'm saving $300 a tank anymore. So the gap is closing. That's good. Still considerably cheaper here in the US. Had I just driven an hour up the road, I would have had to spend an extra $114 for the same amount of fuel. Some people even said it's the exact same fuel, comes from the same refinery. Crazy, right? Yeah, let's go home. Grab myself a couple of hot dogs. We're getting home kind of late. Made herself supper, I'm sure. Close to like 10 o'clock. We'll see how fast I can get old blue parked. Not taking everything home that I usually do. I usually wash everything, like the floor towels, bedding. This week, I'm just taking just the necessities home. I just want to get home. It's late already. It's probably about 11 o'clock, about 10 30. I wanted to be home a lot earlier, but it is what it is, and what it is, is trucking. Oh, boo, you did good. You had a good week. Yeah, I had fun too. Hope you have a good weekend. Have to get to some new shoes soon. Shoes are getting a little bit warm, okay? You like some new shoes? Me too. I'd hoping to get new tires on it this fall. I think I've been saying. Quite expensive though. I have two already behind the bar. Just got to get six more. And these tires are not cheap. They're about $1,000 each. And I need six more of them. And not only that, I also need new steers this fall as well. So all new shoes. And that's, well, nowadays, the price of tires have gone up so much. I mean, they'll probably be under $1,000 each. I still haven't gotten the invoice from those two tires. It's taken forever to process it through the account. I keep calling and saying, hey, what's going on here? But the final price, I mean, I know it's about $1,000 a tire. So that'd be what, $8,000 back here, plus $1,000 each up there. About $10,000 worth of rubber on this truck this year. And I'm going to have to set up some kind of like trucker Josh fund. I need tires. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Everybody's got the same expenses as me. I'm not special. I just let you know what they are. Cause those of you who don't drive a truck probably don't realize how expensive it is to run these things. So I like to let you know, it's expensive. It's expensive. It's about as expensive as you would think it would be plus twice that, but boy, is it fun.