 Good morning everybody, it's gonna be a good day. We're right here in Kanora where we left off last night. If you guys didn't see yesterday's video, you got some catching up to do. We're gonna go pick up our load and we're gonna head down to Brainerd. We have to pick up today and we have to unload today so it's gonna be a rush to get there. After that, we can sort of take it a little bit more easy and we gotta head down to Minneapolis to reload tomorrow. We've got a lot to do. Let's get to it. Seriously, where does all this dust come from? Last night, I wake up, there's dust again. Okay, rock and roll. Whole blue's ready to go, I'm ready to go. So get our load. It's a load of, I guess they'd call it engineered lumber. Finished lumber, we got to tarp it. That's no problem. The deer, up here on the right. Oh, a bunch of them, just off to the right here. Light left and 80 meters. It's even nicer when engineers build roads that are big enough for the vehicles that are going to be using it. Light left on, veterans drive. Highway 650 to man, slight left and 80 meters. Like I said, not cold, but hard left there, Karen. That's a right angle, that's a hard left. Play slightly, slightly hard left. We're not allowed to park at the petrol pass, though a lot of guys do anyways if nothing ever happens to them. And maybe nothing would happen to me if I parked there too, but there's signs all over there. Slight right on, trans-capita highway, highway 17A. Signs all over the petrol pass parking lots. There's no overnight parking, no truck parking. It's a very, very small lot. I've guys do it anyway, but I just... We are loaded, tarped and ready to go. Thanks to Jake over there, my coworkers who helped me tarp this up real quick. Really appreciated that. We got this done with two tarps. So there's one, two, and there's not much of an overlap here. You see that, I put four inches overlap. So I got the strap on here, holding this tarp down. And then got a little bit of a lower stack back here. So I put two straps over here just to stop the tarp from flapping too much in the wind. That's our load. He's also going to Brainerd to a different location though. And then we're gonna probably see each other again tomorrow for both reloading and track-a-peat. Okay. Okay. And just so you know, this cooler I bought, this cooler fridge, is working great. Very happy with it. Very happy. Ice cold water. Cold water. Oh, you can definitely tell the difference from my other cooler. This would be just cool water, which I thought was great already. Now, I got cold water. Happy with that purchase. We gotta go. But we gotta go. We have to unload today yet. And it's, oh, it's already, the day's already coming, going by. Don't wanna look like a traffic cone driving down the highway. I've got maybe 79,000 KGs on my steers. I've got 15,200 KGs on my drives. And 14,900 or about 15,000 KG on my tandem trailer. Yeah, about 78,000 pounds or so, that's what I'm thinking. Good states. We could still put a lot more on if we were staying in Canada, but not allowed to haul as much in the state. Coming up to one of our favorite blindside corners. All the tourists in the area now too, just flying through here. So we're turning right. And traffic coming from the left is coming from around the corner at, oh, who knows how fast. Supposed to be going 90 kilometers an hour. Most of them are going mock Jesus. Put the don't hit me flashers on. Since the beginning of time, so it looks like we're kind of moving ahead pretty steady and get to my customer. But I did call ahead, okay? In my defense, I did call ahead and I let them know, okay, here's the thing. I know you guys close at 430. I'm probably gonna be there at about 420 or 430 on the dot. What do you say? You wanna unload me today? Would you be so kind? Ask them real nice. Yeah, sure. Why not, Josh? Come on down. We'll get you unloaded. And they actually helped me. So I got here. I got in, got my tarps off, rolled up, got all my bungees put away, got my straps put away, and I was out of there in half an hour. Fastest time ever. They gave me a hand and helped out. So that was really awesome. So like I always say, you know, you just gotta ask. You have not because you ask not. I could have just been like, oh, well, I guess I shouldn't show up. It's rude to show up right before closing without calling, okay? I'll tell you that right now. Don't do that. Don't be that guy. I called. I called ahead and I said, okay, oh, it's, it's, man, I got lucky. And I got unloaded today. Empty flatbed behind me. So now I have to go to Shakopee, Minnesota on the southwest corner of Minneapolis for tomorrow. My appointment is at a beautiful 5 p.m. Tomorrow, that's a P, not an A, 5 p.m. As soon as I saw that message on my computer called my dispatcher, I was like, is that a typo, please? I don't mind if I got away till 5 p.m. I really don't care whatever. I mean, but I'm gonna be sitting there all day. So he said, no, no, no, no, don't worry about that. We had to put in a time. That's the only time they had available, but very often they can sort of sneak you in if they have cancellations or if there's, you know, if they're ahead of schedule. So he says, most likely you'll get in earlier than that. I'm like, oh, okay, okay. He's gonna call on my behalf and try to see if we can weasel myself in there, into line somewhere throughout the day before 5 p.m. If not, well, then it is what it is, right? You have not, because you ask not. It doesn't mean the answer is gonna be yes. And if the answer is no, you have to be content and okay with that. The answer might be no. But if you don't ask, the answer is definitely no. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Ask. What's the worst I can say? No, okay. And you gotta be okay with no. We'll get loaded at 5 p.m. We'll see what's gonna happen. We'll see what we can work out. I'm stopping at Blue Beacon tomorrow. I'm very excited. I'm gonna get the full package, the full package wash on old blue and get all this dirt and grime off of here. I know, I've let it sit on there for way too long. It's just one circumstance, leads to the next one, leads to the next one. I know, I don't believe me. I know better than you, I, this is my baby. I know. Back to it tomorrow, a little bit of help from them. Maybe some chemicals. Replaced. Belt slips every time the fan comes on. Switch that fan belt before it switches itself, you know, and snaps on me. Ah, yes, it's always something. It's always something. Let's go. Two and a half hours. I want to get through Minneapolis, St. Paul or Minneapolis tonight yet. Because I don't want to deal with the traffic in the morning. Minneapolis is crazy. Some of you live in Minneapolis. I know that. And that's why you're so happy all the time. Because you live in Minneapolis. Got my GPS on my dash. Google Maps knows when there's a road case. Right on Marshall Road South, CR 17. Now you got it. Well, it's a little bit ridiculous. But look where I had to park. A rest area. So yeah, I'm parked here at a rest area. Rest area is actually full, but they have parking along the side here. So I picked a spot right underneath the light. So that old blue is nice and lit up here through the night. It's a little bit frustrating finding parking. So I went into Shakopee there, right? I went to the McDonald's. They have some truck parking there. I was like, oh yeah, they had some truck parking available. I pull in there and I read the sign. And the sign, it's a nice sign. They're politely saying, hey, this truck parking is for McDonald's customers only. And please keep your stay to 30 minutes or less. There's only like five spots, right? And go, okay, well, you know, they asked nicely. They put up a sign and they said they'll tow you. They probably wouldn't tell me, but whatever. They asked nicely. And just for the sake of people coming in the morning for their McDonald's coffee, they're gonna want some parking there in the morning. And I shouldn't be plugging it up there, parking overnight, especially when there's signs right next to me that say, hey, no overnight parking. So I said, okay, I'll respect that. So I went down the road to this next truck stop, just west of Shakopee. What is this, Highway 169? There's a holiday, in holiday express truck stop. Anyways, has about 20 spots or silver trucks. And it was half empty. I pull in there and say, well, look at this, half empty, a good parking spot. But I noticed every parking spot had a number, like a sign with a number on it behind it. Like that's odd. Truck stops don't usually have numbered spots. And I look at a sign across the way, so I park in one, number four. And I walk out just to check, like, okay, if they're numbered, this is weird. I bet you anything, it's paid parking. I bet you anything. So I walk over, I see a sign. They're like, all parking is reserved and you have to pay to park. Like, okay, let's go see how much it is. So I walk all in there in a good mood, whistling to myself. I go up to the desk, and I just want to know about the parking. We'll have to park here overnight. Like, yeah, it's a, it's $25. US, it's like $30 Canadian. One night from here, from here, I can also see the entire rest area over there. So as soon as somebody leaves, I know there's a spot available there, but I kind of like where I'm at here right now. It's on the side here. We're allowed to park here. And it's quieter, right? I will have drivers driving back and forth past me here, but at least I won't have someone like idling right beside me all night, right? So anyways, I mean, I hope you like my story. I'd really like to know what you think of that situation. Like, is $25 reasonable? Was I wrong to sort of laugh at that? I mean, they were serious. I thought they were joking. They were serious. We already have a crisis in parking. There's not enough parking spots for trucks that are on the road in both Canada and the United States. We need more. In the Midwest here, it's not as bad. It's more on the coasts. You guys who drive up and down there, you know how bad it can get. It gets pretty bad. Can't find parking. So I don't think the answer to the parking crisis is to charge $25 a night, right? I mean, I get it. I get it. The owner is capitalizing on the land that he has available. Drivers need to park. Someone's gonna pay. I don't know what to think about that. I would like to think that if I owned a truck stop that I would go out of my way to make parking free. So that drivers have a place to lay down their head at night, but I get the temptation. I get the temptation that business owners will get when they know there's a high demand that there's more trucks than there are parking spots and it's tempting to put that little price tag on the spot, right? Make a lot of money really quick like that and people will pay it because we're forced to stop by government regulations. So someone out there's gonna pay it. I get it. Anyway, I'm good. So have a good night, everybody. I hope you join me for another day tomorrow. We're gonna try to get in sooner than 5 p.m. Down the road and then we'll head home. Stay safe, drive safe and be safe.