September 2024
September 24
Traveling the lower 48 states I don't get a lot of time to stop and smell the roses, but sometimes I get lucky. There's a famous truck stop in Iowa called Iowa 80 Truck Stop. It's on Interstate 80, exit 284 in Walcott IA. I've been there a few times and each time it seems that they're always adding something different. Something new they put in is a truck museum which displays different types of trucks that are antiques. Julia decided to join me for 3 months to get out of the hot Florida weather. I know, it's hot all over during the summer months but not as bad in some areas.
1944 Cocoa Cola Truck
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1911 Walker Electric Model 43
Once you leave Florida, you leave the heavy humidity behind which makes 98 degrees feel like 110 degrees. Going from your house to your car is like diving head first into a wet vulcano and by the time you make it to your car you need a change of clothes because all the body fluid you had before you left your house to walk 20 feet to your car has now been absorbed into your shirt, underwear and shoes.Once you step one foot outside you are blinded by the bright baking sun and a waterfall of sweat that runs into your eyes.
You're walking around like a zombie with both arms extended feeling around in the direction where you last parked your car. You reach out and finally feel your car but now you have 8th degree burns on your hands from touching the car. By the time you reach you car you have to open all you car doors, reach in to turn the ignition on with your head still outside of the car desperately searching for air. Once the car is running you turn on the air conditioner to turbo blast and try not to touch anything else in or outside of the car.
1962 White 9064 TV
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So here we go, the tractor trailer is packed up for a 90 day adventure on the road to pick up and deliver products to warehouses throughout the lower 48. This isn't exactly a vacation trip but at least it's air conditioned.
During one of our deliveries we head through Iowa. I generally do not have a plan on where I'm going to stop for the night until about 7 hours into the day. I have mentioned to Julia in the past about an Iowa 80 Truck Stop being the largest truck stop in the world. So I decided to stop for the night as they have a decent restaurant and lots of memorabilia for shopping. Once we pulled in we went inside for a sit down meal. That's something that seems to be getting harder and harder to find out here is good food.
Just about every truck stop has gone to fast food which is ok once in a great while. Mostly I pull into a walmart and pickup some groceries and prepare my meals in the truck. I wasn't sure what the schedule was the next morning but after looking the route over I decided we had enough time for a good breakfast and to browse through the truck museum. We took a bunch of photos of many of the trucks on display.
Finding a decent restaurant on the road that will accommodate a 75 foot semi can be like searching for a treasure. There are apps like Google maps, waze, apples maps, trucker path, and of course a walmart app. With these apps you can zoom in to see if there's enough room for truck parking and if there's a way to get in and out it's not fool proof, but it helps. So with these help of some of these apps I get lucky and find a gem.
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to enlarge
When it comes to jotting down names and places of where I've been, I don't, for whatever reason. I know I should, I'll work on that. Another place we stopped had good food and some unusual memorabilia. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as the Blues Brothers, Betty Boop, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. So not always work and no play... 99% work and the rest of the time some R&R.