World's Largest Truck Stop: Iowa 80, Video Tour

There is a section of the forum dedicated to videos. Try to keep them there. I got my hand slapped for posting videos in various forums.

 

I love the Iowa 80. I don't get there as often as I'd like to, but it's always a pleasure. You can always find a parking slot, even at three o'clock in the morning. The store is awesome. I call it Haul-Mart. Good food in the diner. Great service. Especially the young ladies and their Midwestern charm.

I have only one bad memory related to it. One late winter day I pulled in feeling sick. I had a raging case of stomach flu and everything that goes with it. Naturally I was under a load. I called my company and had to beg for down time. Of course they were difficult. 'Cant you take some medicine and continue to do the run?' No, I said. They finally agreed to repower the load. The driver who was assigned to meet me wasn't very bright. He called me asking where I was. I told him The Iowa 80. "Where on the 80?" The truck stop. "Yeah, but which truck stop?" The big Iowa 80 at exit such and such. Yeah but what's the name of it?" It's the Iowa 80! The world's largest truck stop! "Oh' he said, " you mean the Petro"
Guess I should have said that to begin with.

 

Cut some slack, guy. New drivers come aboard everyday. Even some experienced people might be 11 Western States drivers and haven't been able to get to the Midwest.

 

Where does the term "Midwest" come from? Kansas might be considered Midwest when you look at the US map... At least the West side of Kansas.

 

I've always wondered about that. You would think that the Midwest would be Wyoming or Utah, somewhere around there. I knew a fellow in the service who was from Dallas Texas and considered himself a midwesterner. Another fellow who was from Illinois said "You're a southern boy"

 

It may seem like this in the current day, but if you have seen videos of trucking from the 70's and 80's, all of a sudden it is cool to see the different way people dressed, even the different shapes of the cars back then. Someday 2020 will be 'back then'.

Certainly, it would be cool to see video footage of how they built the pyramids 3500 years ago. I'm sure the Egyptian vlogger would catch hate for filming it at the current date and time but we thousands of years later would very much appreciate seeing the footage.

The way we do things today will be done vastly differently tomorrow. It is indeed important to document how we go about our business today so they in the future will know and appreciate our hard work. Even this very forum which is approaching 20 years old, holds a wealth of information and has documented tons of changes in our industry in the very short time it has been around.

I love it when people bring up old posts that are several years old; we can virtually step back in time and remember what it was like before the 30 minute break, before the 11 hour limit, before the 34 hour reset etc.