8.4 MPG!

I picked up the Tyson load this morning and, as expected, it was heavy (40,000 lbs). The scale at the plant was acting up a bit so after I left I stopped at a truck stop and used a certified scale. I had the weight balanced legally but I made an adjustment anyway then went on.

The Tyson plant I loaded at was basically a beef slaughterhouse. Truck after truck with bull hauler trailers (the kinds they use to haul all kinds of livestock in; the ones that stink to high heaven, usually) were coming to the plant and trailer after trailer of refrigerated beef products come out the other end. So to speak.

Anyhow, I was puttering along around 60 MPH through Nebraska and then Iowa and just idly watching my computerized MPG readout. I started at 8.5 MPG from the previous day when I had fueled and reset the counter about a hundred miles from Lexington. Amazingly, for hundreds of miles through the rest of Nebraska it not only didn't go down, it went up to 8.7 MPG!

Along I-80 in Iowa it gets fairly hilly for a while and as the hours passed I watched the gauge slowly drop down to 8.5, then 8.4 and finally bottom out at 8.3 MPG. Getting this kind of mileage in a truck with a gross weight of about 75,000 pounds is way, way, WAYYY out of my experience. Finally, I entered Illinois and slowed down to 55 MPH and the gauge slowly moved back up to 8.4 where it was when I dropped my load off, some 620 miles after picking it up.

Frankly, I was a bit... apprehensive to haul my first max weight load, as I thought I would be crying over the mileage. The difference between 6.0 MPG and 8.4 MPG on this trip is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 that I "made" today, by which I mean it didn't go up the exhaust stack and instead remains in my bank account.

To celebrate, I took my truck over to a truck wash here in Ottawa and paid for its first cleanup. The guys there do a really spiffy job and I'll post some pictures Real Soon Now so you can all admire my new ride.

Toodles!

P.S. Already have a load assigned, picking up here at the local Petsmart DC heading out to Colorado. I'm going to drop it off in Omaha tomorrow and someone else can finish the run, as I have some truck stuff that needs to get taken care of.