Our next load goes to Minnesota. It's a 700 mile run so we're not too thrilled about it, but at least it'll let us squeeze in another trip onto this week. We put in our time off request, so we didn't think we'd run all that good before we went home, but we didn't expect it to tank immediately. Oh, well. Some things never change, huh? What USX will do is keep us on short, crappy runs until we go home so that they can make sure they can get us home when we requested. Whether or not we make a living these last few weeks is beside the point.

One last random thought. It's sobering to realize that in the last two weeks we've managed to put $1,000 in our savings account. We did that by setting a minimum pay-day balance of $1,500 (which is roughly what we need at any given time to settle bills). So if on Friday after being paid we have $1,600 in our checking $100 is transferred to savings. So in the last two weeks our excess has been $1,000.

Wow. I only want to buy $3,000 in equipment. I won't entertain fantasies of Mara coming back out after she's healed, though. For one we've been seduced by a few weeks of good running before, and came back to U.S. Xpress only to nearly starve. I haven't forgotten that we were working our way home with plans to quit when we were offered the dedicated run. Besides, there's Mama to think about. She couldn't deal with us being gone all the time, and is only dealing with it this time because it's a one-time deal. No. As enticing as a few good paychecks may be we need to keep this in perspective.