 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
Trip 14 - New GMC - class 'C' with a
reefer PA Date September 24, 2003 Its been over a month ... I did do a couple of 1 day shuttle trips but nothing to write about. Now its time to roll ... these runs are usually a safe bet. PLUS I will be sharing the ride home. Could it be that dispatch remembers my last run? $30 for three days, and I had to buy my food out of that. AND we are getting an early start, am supposed to meet at 8:30 at the office. And we are ready to go at 8:30, this doesn't happen very often. Bad news, my truck is here but the others drivers is two hours away and I get deadhead to get him there. <> 100 miles out of my way, the company is paying for the fuel but it does tend to mess up my hours. And good news, we could pick up a run part way back. We still had to pickup a rental car to get us to the second truck ... the second leg would be paid. Day one was uneventful ... it took us two hours to get to the second truck where we took 15 minutes for inspection (of his truck) and fuel. Four hours later we stopped 15 minutes for fuel, four hours later we stopped for the night. Even going through Chicago wasn't a major problem ... the other driver knew of a place in Sturgis where he had stayed before ... a Knights Inn for about $50. Across the street was a bar that was still open ... not much for a menu ... but after a long day we needed something. I had to settle for chicken sticks, a little dry but filling. ... one long day down ... but I was able to make it look good on paper. September 25, 2003 5:30 AM - (that was a short eight hours) it is refreshing to be up before the sun on a crisp clear morning. We were able to make it another hour before we had to fuel ... with these pro-pain trucks, we fuel more by where the Flying J's are than how close we are to 'E.' Timing was good again, we made it to Toledo after rush hour. Flying J ... watch where you step ... they keep everything it 'tip top' shape ... but I guess there's no way to keep the customers from letting their pets taking dumps where ever they want. And I stepped in it ... lucky it had just rained and were puddles to rinse my shoes off in. We seemed to following a storm ... better than being in it. A second fuel stop ... now we have to wait for dispatch to fax our next BL for our return trip ... so we decided to grab a bite to eat. Here is where things started ... going wrong / getting interesting ... depending on how you look at it. Neither of us had ever had anything faxed to us ... for some reason I thought we had to get our own paperwork out of the fax ... turns out the cashiers get the faxes and charge us for them. Anyhow, because we didn't plan ahead and took more than our usual 15 minutes ... this day would get very long. And dispatch was already looking for drivers for next week ... We had been told both of these trucks would be 'blind drops' so we weren't on a tight schedule, but when we got to the first drop someone was there to greet us ... most of these guys are pretty excited to see these new trucks. And he had it all written down for me, the directions to our next drop. That's the problem with these long days, I tend not to think of all the consequences when I change plans ... we followed his route ... but we weren't dropping my truck next, we were going to the airport. By the time my the rest of my brain kicked in we were an hour down the road and I think it cost us a lot more than an hour. I had hoped our day would go as follows 3 pm - first drop 5 pm - PU rental car / drop second truck 10 pm - PU return truck Instead, because of waiting for the fax and taking the wrong highway, it looked closer to this 4 pm - first drop 8 pm - PU rental car 9 pm - drop second truck 2 am - we were avail to PU The route the last customer gave us avoided the toll road, but put us 90 miles from the airport. I finally decided to take a 'shortcut' ... by now it was getting dark. We finally found a 'US' highway ... which doesn't mean a whole lot ... going the speed limit was not possible most of the way ... little towns where you could reach out and touch the front porches on the houses that lined the street. But these streets were not made for today's trucks and this was only a class 'C.' I was driving down the yellow line most of the time at 10 mph under the speed limit. It seemed like it took hours between these two freeways. Finally we were back to the Interstate ... luck the Allentown airport is small, we were able to drive the truck right to front door and pickup the rental car. Less than $90 including taxes for the rental car ... the bus would have been $76, plus an hour cab ride on each end, and with only three buses a day it would have added another day to the trip ... by then we would have had to convince the customer to wait for us to pickup late on a Friday night ... the rental car works for us again. After the hour and a half trip down the back roads I was ready to get out of this truck, and now it was night, raining, road construction and a very "washboardy" road ... it was a white knuckle trip ... this drop was an hour from where I was originally told it would be. Add the trip down the wrong highway and the trip to the airport to picking up the other drivers truck and I have driven 200 plus extra / free miles. Did see something unusual on this stretch ... 'Interstate left lane / Cabela's right lane' ... that's right the "Worlds Foremost Outfitter" gets it's own lane of freeway west of Allentown PA. I had talked to my drop customer and he had told me where to hide the keys as he leaves early and it was now after 9 pm, I wasn't expecting anyone there ... all I could remember of the directions was to go left ... I was going to stop and read the rest of the directions as soon as I could find a place to stop, more narrow roads and I was soon out of town, when I finally found a place to stop it was the industrial park road and as I turned I could see my drop, lucky turns. As I stop someone pulls along side of me ... one of the employee's had seen us coming through town and followed us. A quick signature and we were rolling ... good thing we had two drivers and one truck for a while as we were pushing the end of our 15 hours. Now we have a 5 plus hour drive to pickup our next truck ... which will mean getting there at 2 am ... do we get a hotel for a few hours or sleep in the car ??? September 26, 2003 At some point between Allentown and Pittsburgh it became Friday ... we had hoped to pick the next truck yet Thursday night, I was thinking we could make it by 9 or 10 pm and it was supposed to be sitting at someone's house. But we had made a choice not to call until we dropped our first truck so we'd have a better idea of our ETA. We had the peoples cell phone number so I didn't expect that to be a problem. By the time I realized it would be after midnight we couldn't reach anyone on either their main number or their cell. The last word from dispatch was the customer was moving the vehicle from their house to their business ... a "couple" of blocks away ... and they'd be at the office by 8 am. So that was now our pickup time, not all bad, it would force us to be 'off duty' over eight hours. At 5 o'clock the other driver was glad to be out of his truck ... the guy is retired and we had gone two days with breaks 15 minute breaks every four hours, except one the one break ... so when we dropped the truck I hopped in to drive. And drive, and drive. The other driver did drive for a while but when we didn't stop at the last 'oasis' on the tollway to sleep in the car I took over driving to get us through Pittsburgh. Going through downtown in the middle of the night wasn't too bad, but we did get to cross the same bridge a few more times then we would have needed. We were able to find the streets listed on the map that was faxed us so we knew we were close, now to find a place to park for the night ... where is a safe place to park in a strange town? We kept driving towards the airport ... hoping for a truckstop ... IN a major city? good luck. It was now well after midnight and we couldn't find any 'cheep' motels ... finally we decided to head back towards Pittsburgh and a Holiday Inn we had seen. When we got to the exit I couldn't see the Holiday Inn, but did see a Days Inn so we pulled in ... then we had to decide if it was worth the $$$ for the hours of sleep. We sat for a while deciding, loosing precious minutes of sleep, finally the other driver walked in to check on the price ... $100 plus. Too steep for less than eight hours, but they did give us directions for a cheaper Days Inn 'close by.' Again we sat deciding ... finally I realized sleeping in this car wasn't going to happen and we had 14 hours of driving ahead of us. So off we went, heading towards the airport ... soon the other guy decided maybe the night clerk meant 'back' towards Pittsburgh, not 'back' towards the airport. so we tried to turn around. Not a good idea, just because you can get off a freeway doesn't mean you can get back on anytime soon. After a half hour off the freeway we found it again ... and headed in the other direction. Still no Days Inn so we have to ask directions ... another two miles through the residential streets, up / down and around ... we finally found it. Half the price of the last one and only an hour less to sleep. "Pong ... pong ... pong" I was wide awake. It sounded like someone was bouncing a tennis ball against the side of the motel ... I finally convinced myself to go back to sleep ... I was awake again ... and realized it was the other driver snoring. One thing about motel curtains ... they do keep it dark in the room ... I woke up again and saw a light on ... it was after 8 am. We called the customer and they gave us the new directions ... I need to listen closer and repeat back. Back and forth across the same bridge as last night a few more times ... then we finally ask directions again ... we had been a mile from the customer before turning around. (Why do they route people 2 miles down residential streets just to make a U-turn?) Finally we find the customer and the VAN, our return trip is a Ford cargo van. If we hadn't lost all that time yesterday, we could have slept in a van and saved the $50 on the motel. We drop the rental car and are on our way. We can only be on duty 15 hours, and we have 14 hours of driving ahead of us, plus a few fuel stops and it will be ... close. This is the first time I have anchored my licence plate on the rear of a vehicle ... we didn't have to drive the 'truck limit' or worry about scales ... and at 15 miles per gallon we should only have to stop two or three times on trip home. The trip was mostly uneventful except for the hour and twenty minutes we spent going the last 12 miles of Indiana going into Chicago. Each of us tried to sleep in the back of the van, he did ... I couldn't ... and we made it back home in our 15 hours, of course ... ;) |