 Good day. Good day everybody. Morning has already come and gone. Well actually no, it's not even noon yet. I got up really early. Feels like it's afternoon already. So this morning, oh we went into Minneapolis. I had two pickups. One well into the city and one in Maple Grove, which is sort of on the northwest side. Same place, just two different locations. Highly inconvenient, but we got it done. The second part I had to tarp, so that was fun. But we're on our way up to Red Lake, Ontario. I'm taking Highway 65 up to Highway 2, or US 2 and take that up west to Highway 6 and then take Highway 6 up to 71 and 71 will take me through international falls. Then I'll be on familiar roads there. Sort of cutting through northern Minnesota through the back country here. I like this better going through the back country. It's quieter, less traffic, and I know the roads because I come through here often. So I know we're all the good truck stops are with all the best treats, unfortunately. We're gonna watch what we eat, right? Right. I'm at a quick trip right now in what I've never been to this place before though. I'm on US 65. I am in Iscanti, Minnesota. I-S-A-N-T-I, Iscanti. We're gonna run in here, grab a coffee, and then we'll head on down the road. We're gonna be in Red Lake, Ontario tonight. Get unloaded tomorrow morning. Go back down to Canora, which is south of Red Lake. Grab another one of those loads for Brainerd and zip back down here into Minnesota. So it's been a good week. I've been rush, rush, rush. That's why I didn't film anything this morning. I wanted to make sure I got everything loaded. And out of that, I wanted to be first in the gate and first out. And we were. And good thing I didn't take any breaks or get any delays because there's a lot of trucks lined up behind me right away. So I would have had- I would have still been there. So good thing I was on the ball. I want to stay on the ball. I don't want to lose the ball. Let's keep the ball. And let's keep rolling. This week's been going good so far. So all the way at the back here, they had one skid that needed to be tarped. Just one. So I tarped three. Just worked out better that way. My tarp was too big to tarp. Just one. So two extra skids got a tarp for free. Yeah, it's gonna be good. Plans might be changing for my next load. I'm not too sure yet. I just got a call from them saying that they might be sending me out to stretch my legs out a little bit, a little bit further again. So they might take me off this next load that I was going to pick up in Canora tomorrow, put someone else on it, and then put me on something else. Or I might be able to do both. I might be able to get this Canora load done and then run back and get this other load, which is going a little bit further than I usually go again. I had a lot of fun going down to Texas last time. So I just put the bird, put the bird out there. I don't know what the saying is. I put the whisper in their ear saying, hey, I kind of like doing that every now and then. If you need somebody, if you need somebody to cover something. I came up with something, but I'll wait to tell you what it is until I know whether or not I'm going. It's not Texas this time. Grand Rapids, Minnesota. I always want to say Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids, Minnesota. And 600 meters, turn right on. 2,000 and I'm 38. How about now? I know a better way. This is my regular route between Brainerd and Brainerd and Canora. I'm going to take that same route up north, but first we're going to stop in here. There's a Casey's just up the street here. It is the cheapest juice on my rope. I don't really need fuel. I don't really need fuel because I fueled up yesterday in St. Cloud, but I am going to top off my tanks because I'm going up into Ontario and then I'm going home from there. Oh, I'm going to need the fuel. The new plan has been confirmed. Looking forward to it. Continue on this road for 23 kilometers. There you go. Now you care. Now you know where we're going. Now she figured it out. We're going up Minnesota Highway 6 and taking that north. Where is this Casey's? I thought it was here somewhere. Ah, the Casey's is actually not in Grand Rapids. It's in... What is this town called? Cohasen? Cohasen? Just west of where we were. Right on to 1st Avenue Northwest. 1st Avenue, number one. Nice. Fueled up here before, so I don't know where they're... Okay, so their diesel pumps are on that end over there. I see. Take the next right on to 1st Avenue Northwest, then turn right. How do we get in there? Oh boy. Oh wow, okay. This is tight. I probably should have gone in. Oh wow, I almost wanted to get in here. Take the next right, then turn right. Take the next right, then turn left. Need to come in, I guess not. Take the next left, then your destination will be on the left. Oh no, we're here. I'm just trying to figure out where we look. What? Okay, so I'm going to have to go around and try again. Continue on this road for eight kilometers. Because I need to come in right here where I'm going out. I thought this would have been the exit. So I'm going to go all the way around. There's a road that leads around the back of the gas station. First, I've got to turn right onto this highway here, and there's a lot of traffic. Both directions. Adventure. Who on this road for 16 kilometers? Correct way of going to the pumps that way. Interesting setup they got here. Like I said, it's my first time here. This is usually what happens when I go somewhere new for the first time. Next time, I'll know better. I should have gone, but I'm way too nice. Turning right away, I want to cut them off. Who on this road for 16 kilometers? Then they got these pylons here. You know what? You know what? Okay, I think we got it this time. Co-Hasset, Minnesota. Co-Hasset. That's the city hall over there. That's how I know it. Look at this. Look how dirty blue is. Look at this tank. It almost looks like it's painted. Yikes. We're going to have to give this thing a bath for our next trip. Why is this tire looking low here right now? Okay. Must just be the way we're sitting. Tire pressures were fine before. Check them just before. Sometimes the way we sit on concrete puts more pressure on one set of tires than the other side because we're leaning a little bit. All right. Okay. So we have different plans in the works. We're not going to Canora tomorrow. Instead, we're going home. I'm going to need a reset for my next trip. We're going to stretch our legs a little bit. It's been confirmed. So I'm not going to tell you where yet. I'm going to leave you in suspense, but I'll be leaving in a couple of days. So tomorrow we'll deliver this load to Red Lake, Ontario, and then I just go home empty. Like I said, get my reset. Once my log book is reset, I'll have all the hours available to me, and then we'll head out there. There's 49 gallons, 183 liters. Just topped it up. Now I won't have to worry about fueling until I'm on my way on my next trip. I load while I was here. Checked all my straps, gave them a little tightening, but now until we get to destination, awful squeegees there. They were so short. They were literally like a foot long. And the rubber side, the squeegee side, or whatever the squeegee side to grate the water off the window, it was so hard because it was frozen. It didn't do anything. So luckily I carry my own handheld one in my truck that I could use, but I still couldn't reach my whole windshield. Not even close. But I got my mirrors and my headlights done, so good enough. Meters, turn right on, US 71. Falls, Minnesota. You on this road for 45 kilometers. With their Christmas lights, yeah. Turn left on, second avenue, US 53 and then, turn left at 900 meters. So rude, Karen. You do that so often, you know that. You realize that you do that, you just interrupt me. And look, they still have their Christmas tree up. That's nice. No one cares, Karen. No one cares. Cry me or ever build a bridge and get over it. It's in the Canada, so I can go home. Hours of driving left yet. Red Lake is pretty far up there. It's pretty remote, but I got a small remote town. So, here first thing in the morning, we'll go deliver this freight at around 7, 7.30 a.m. up in Red Lake, and then we'll go home then after that. I should be home at a decent time then, like early afternoon, back at the shop. Staying here and driving just because, as you can see, there's people here. Civilization. Up those remote highways, those remote two-lane roads, middle of the night, poor cell service. If anything happens, if I hit a moose or hit the ditch or, you know, the worst happens. Very hard to get help, yet though, that's the problem. There was a deer there. Freaked the daylights out of me. I was just getting into spot, getting into my spot over here, right? I'm sort of straightening myself out, you know, sort of just in my own little world. Just, you know, just trying to park all nice and straight and so that I can get out of here and hopefully, you know, parking away where no one can block me in overnight. Finally, find the right spot, settle in, pull the brakes. I look over there, and there's a deer, like right beside my truck, just staring straight at me, like right in the eye. It's through my window, just doesn't move. I knew he was alive because you could see his ears twitching, right? My brakes, like pulling my brakes, that big, pshh, didn't phase it. Didn't phase it. I don't know where it went. Creepy demon deer. I'm gonna stay in the truck for it's safe. What's a deer gonna do? It wasn't a buck, it was a doe. Better be careful, he's gonna end up in someone's freezer, keeps acting like that around humans, you know? That's the problem. People feed them, and then they become used to humans and trusting of humans, and then they meet the human with the freezer, and then they end up in the freezer. That's why you don't feed wildlife. If you really care about wildlife, you really care about them, and you want them to live a long, happy life and not get hunted, don't feed them. Don't do that. If you do that, you know what you're training them to do? The next time an actual hunter finds them, they're gonna walk right up to him. Stare at them. Click this. Go up these snacks. Nope, but I got a freeze! I haven't had deer, you know, I think I've had deer once. I'm not a big hunter myself, I'd like to do more hunting, or some hunting at all. I've never had anyone to take me, so I need someone who knows what they're doing to kind of show me the ropes, because I don't know, haven't gone before. Kind of embarrassing to admit that, I know, but never gone hunting. One day I'll go on a hunt, it'll be fun. Anyways, I'm gonna go to bed right here and dry it, and this is far enough for today. About seven and a half hours of driving tomorrow if the weather's good. I should be able to make it home, no problem. I'll have 13 hours available to me to get that done in, so I think we'll make it. Should be just fine. We're gonna get up really early, though. My alarm's gonna go off probably at 4.30, so I can get up, do my pre-trip, make sure the truck's ready to go warm up the engine and get going, I think. Because I only have to stop here for eight hours legally, I'm here in Canada, so. We stopped here at 8.15, so 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 15, I can start my pre-trip. If that takes about 15 minutes, I can get rolling at about 4.30 a.m. We're in central time, not that it matters for the sake of this vlog. But whatever, 4.30. Now we've got about two and a half hours of driving to get to the customer. 4.30, 5.30, 6.30, we get there at 7 a.m. They open their doors at 7 a.m. Might be there a little bit early. That'll give us time to stop for a coffee on the other side of town at Husky. So that's the plan. Hopefully we can get out of there by 8.30 in the morning. And then I've got another five-hour drive home. So let's say 8.30. Say we get out of there nine worst-case scenario. 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2. Be at my shop at about 2 p.m. Get a little blue parked in there. Wine down a little bit. By the time we get home, I'll be home in time for supper. I like that plan. What do you think? Do you like that plan? Now let's actually see if the plan works out. Remember, this is trucking. You got a plan for the plan not to work. You still got a plan. Seems kind of pointless making a plan then, right? But what else can we call it? This is what we would like to see happen. Home by 2 o'clock at the shop. Sorry, at the shop around 2 o'clock, home for supper. So home by 6 p.m. Like 5.30. It'd be nice to be home by like 4.35 o'clock so that I can shower and be clean and ready around 6 p.m. That's what we're going to do. We'll see what happens. Tune in tomorrow. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already. We'll make videos every day. We've been making videos every day for a long time. We're in our 13th year right now. We're in season 11. I haven't been counting since the beginning. There's a couple of years before I started numbering the blogs like this. But we're in season 11 right now. I believe we're in season 10. Lots of videos for you to catch up on. Go to my channel. Hit the playlists. You can see all of my playlists. They're all organized by year. Right back to the beginning where I started counting. And beyond that yet, makes it real easy for you to find what you're looking for and what year you're looking for. Back when I had a big bushy beard. Back when I had some hair. 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And if you want to go check that out. Subscribe, hit the like button. All the things. I'll see you tomorrow. I got to be up early. I changed my mind. I was looking around there where I was parked. And I thought to myself. There's absolutely no 24 hour building anywhere near me. It would be a long cold walk if my truck wouldn't start. And I was cold and I couldn't get any heat. There was nowhere I can go in. So I'm going to go up to the husky or the ESO. Just around the corner. See if I can find a spot there. At least they have a 24 hour truck stop. And if the worst does happen or there's any emergency or whatever. I can go inside their warm building. Time. So I don't like to take unnecessary risks. That spot where I was at would have been nice and quiet. But it's not even that cold. But still. It's where I wake up and my batteries are dead. I don't think that's going to happen. But there's not even anybody around there except that other guy to boost me. And he's probably going to be gone by the time I get up. Find someone. Because I got my booster cables with me now, right? Please find someone then that'll give me a hand and give me a boost. I'm not expecting my batteries to be dead. But if I got to wait a long time for whatever reason, you get it. Better. It's smarter. ESO kind of worries me a little bit because it's kind of crowded. I don't want to get blocked in in the morning because I'm leaving early in the morning. I couldn't go park at the petrol pass. But again, that's not a 24 hour stop. But at least it's in town, right? I could walk somewhere warm from there. Wouldn't be such a long walk. But we'll go check out ESO first. Up into Pizza Hut. Something happened there. I missed the old Pizza Hut from the 90s and early 2000s, right? When was it that they made that big change? It used to be different. All right, this used to be a husky got bottled by ESO. Sort of like a pilot flying J situation. See if I can find a decent spot to park where I feel like no one's going to hit me on this guy's block on the pump here. Shoot. I'm going to be able to get past him. That is not a parking spot, my friend. But I think I'll be able to get past him and be a safe spot.