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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 17 - New GMC - class 'C'
refer (Rochester) Lima, NY Date October 16, 2003 Due to family events, I was not able to call dispatch until the end of the day Wednesday for a Thursday run. They started with a truck going to "somewhere" in NY, near Rochester where two other drivers were already going ... within minutes they called back to see if I could go to Oregon, California and then back to OR. I would have loved to, but there were things going on where I didn't want to be gone for that long ... and the second run was "time sensitive" so I couldn't leave it sitting if something happened I had to get back for ... so I was still going to NY. 15 hours to Rochester, so this is how it SHOULD work ... 9am - Dispatch to PU paperwork / catch shuttle 11am - PU truck 10pm - end of 10 hours driving plus 1 hour for fuel stops Day 2 6am - start work after 8 hours off 12noon - end of 5 hours driving plus 1 hour for fuel stops 1pm - PU rental car Day 3 3am - Drop rental car (we can usually beat the hours by at least 5%) "15 hours to Rochester" ... this is how it really went. I'm there early, waiting, most of the other drivers are there ... finally just before 9, dispatch comes out and says "Computers just came up, so it'll be a few minutes..." "All these drivers are here, so dispatch knew yesterday who, when, where we are going. What does the computer being down this morning have to do with anything?" (... good question, but all know the answer) Of course the last one ready is the shuttle driver, he's busy copying paperwork and squaring things with accounting as the rest of us wait ... a couple of the other drivers go out and get the van ready to go. Finally we are all ready to go, but we have to drop off another vehicle on the way ... we are hardly out of the driveway and dispatch calls, something about 'envelopes' ... driver doesn't know what they are talking about, and doesn't ask, just says we will be back. We PU the other driver and stop back past the office, where the driver runs in to PU the paperwork ... and we are gone. A few miles down the road another driver starts looking at what new paperwork ... "You grabbed someone else's paperwork" ... so back we go. Seems what dispatch called about was to see if any drivers needed 'trip envelopes' ... none of us did, so we wouldn't have had to go back at all ... then the driver did go back, he grabbed every envelope on the counter, including ones for another driver ... by now it is no longer 9am, it is almost 10:30 ... already an hour and a half lost and we are just starting/leaving. I won't forget this shuttle ... I may have to ride the shuttle with this guy driving again, but I will refuse any trip with this guy. I said something later to the guy I'm making this run with ..."Huh? that was the best ride I'm gotten from him. I call him 'Whiplash' ... He's the only driver where I can't sleep in the rental car when someone else is driving." (On this trip, when I start driving this guy is snoring within five minutes ... every time.) When we get to our trucks, 'Whiplash' tells me "I'll warn you about the driver you are running with" (What now? ... I know nothing about the guy ...) but he continue's "There's no fast food with this guy (he's on the Atkins diet)." We both have new trucks class "C" refer's for Lima, a small town just south of Rochester, NY ... I'll be adding another new state to my list ... and they are full of fuel so after a couple of minute inspect, and agreeing we are both comfortable with driver "five over" we are on our way. The other driver leads and after a couple of hour we stop for a break at a Flying J ... before we leave he is in looking at the buffet ... (this is going to be a long trip if he eats every two hours.) but he was just looking to see "what we'd be eating down the road." When you get to Janesville, WI there is a road sign suggesting an alternate route because there may be up to a one hour delay on I-90 due to road construction. The sign and the road construction have been there all summer and it has never been a problem for me ... till today. Traffic wasn't stopped until after the suggested highway and then it was too late ... we sat for two hours between Janesville and Beloit, sometime not moving an inch for 20 minutes at a time ... finally, the end of this road construction and this state. And time for a pro-pain fill ... and a buffet fill. After he orders, he looks at this buffet and see's there is not enough 'diet food' so re-orders from the menu. I stuck with the buffet, but I won't do that very often ... too much food, too much liquids and an few miles down the road I'm looking for a rest area. Back on the highway ... we hit more road construction, this time we were stopped for less than an hour ... then had single lane traffic for much of the next 75 miles into Chicago, thanks to their 'overnight roadwork.' The other driver is under the mind set of never passing a Flying J ... the only chain with Propane at almost every station ... so we had to stop in Gary, IN ... I had just done this run two weeks ago and had no problem making it all the way from Beloit to Toledo ... but keep the peace. He had originally wanted to stop in Portage, IN but now that it was hours later than expected he wanted to run for another couple of hours ??? Not sure if there was a Casino or club in Portage or what and it's only 400 miles for the first day. South Bend is 500 miles a good day east on any run and on this one, its the halfway point. He wasn't quite sure where he had stayed and took the wrong exit of the tollway ... after asking the toll person he realized his mistake and we had to do a U-turn back on ... it looked like they thought about letting us back out of the toll booth, but by now there was a line. Five miles down the highway we exit again, and again he talks to the toll person ... as we exit the toll highway, with him in the lead, we are in the left turn lane and he decides to take a right turn ... so I follow ... from how he had described the place to me, I was fairly sure we should have taken a left. He had said it was a mile or so from the MI border, now we were heading into South Bend, a change of plans maybe? Nope, after a couple of miles he pulls off to look at a map ... my rule of thumb is, "if I can't see it from the Interstate, keep driving." By the time we had made our little detour, we will have added 10 miles to our trip ... just to find this motel. The other driver had stayed here before too ... and wanted to stay at the Hickory Inn Budget Motel ... not sure why ... a Motel 6 was just down the road for $33. So far since I have started doing driveaway, I have stayed at very few motels where the women I know would be willing to stay. Only a couple could be listed as 'nice,' maybe two as 'acceptable,' the rest would fall under 'never, I'll be sleeping in the car.' This was definitely one of those ... no tub, only a shower with a few tiles missing ... the sink had two styles of water knobs and rusty water dripping from both ... and enough toilet paper for two people for one night, and no back up roll. But it was only $20 each with truck parking available. Date October 17, 2003 What am I going to do after Jan, 1?? We hit the sack at midnight and by five I'm awake and by six I can't lay there any longer ... the other driver is awake now also, so we get ready and find breakfast. Now it's eight o'clock and we head out ... our trucks didn't have any frost, but the cars in the lot did. We get to the Toledo (Perrysburg) Flying J and the Propane area is all wrapped with 'Caution' tape ... seems they had an underground leak ... we are out of luck. They are nice enough to tell us that the KOA has Propane and gave us directions (once we decided that's where we wanted to go ... we had to go back and ask directions again.) Seems Ohio is one of those "less free" states, and business are very limited as to how many signs they can have. This location was only about 2 miles from the Interstate but did not have any sign on the Interstate, no sign on the four lane US highway, only a 12" x 12" sign at an intersection of two county roads and no sign in from of the actual location. Before we headed to the KOA, I checked in with dispatch ... or tried too ... I asked for dispatch ... "She's out sick" (no other comment, only silence) ... so finally I asked "so we are on our own today?" ... "pretty much ..." ...with dispatch out on Friday, there are NO loads ready for Monday, all driver are supposed to call in Monday to find out if / when they are working next ... that's one shuttle that won't be leaving at 9am. With good directions we found it ... and they still had Propane, at a cost of $2.70 a gallon ... at our next Flying J it will cost $1.33, at most of the Flying J's it's either $1.49 or $1.99 ... the other driver tried bickering about the price, but the KOA guy said those prices (we quoted) were below his cost ... and they probably are. If they are only filling a few 5 gallon tanks for the summer months, they don't have the buying power of a chain of Flying J's. ... the bad new is that the northern KOA's are only open May-October, so after two more weeks we have to find a new 'backup location.' Heading down the highway after fueling, the 'check oil' light comes on so I pull to the side of the road to get the lead driver to stop ... he does, at the last street before the tollway ... we pull in, I add between a quart and two of oil and we are ready to go again. The station we are at only has two types of oil, brand name by the gallon or budget oil by the quart, I get the gallon and hope the company pays ... that and I don't want the light coming on again in the middle of nowhere without any oil to put in it. "... Slow-hi-o" ... It was after noon when we pulled out of Toledo and we still had eight hours to go ... guess we are going to be a little behind our plan. Our next Flying J does have fuel ... and food. Even though we are hours behind, the other driver has to stop and eat ... not a bad thing, as sometimes when I'm on my own ... I don't. As we are waiting for our food, I call the office again to get our car rental info ... this they do have, but still no word on Monday. My last for trucks I have not hit a scale and my luck holds this trip. Once in PA you can see the lake at times ... and fields of grapes (?) I had called the customer earlier today and estimated we'd be there at 6pm but that I would call an hour before we got there so he could meet us ... finally at 7:30 we are an hour away and I try calling ... beep, beep, beep ... by 8 I still hadn't reached him so we stopped at a rest area to find another number for him. We had one, I just couldn't find it in the dark when I was driving ... he was at the office, waiting ... had been for two hours (I did tell him "... if things go well AND I will call when we are an hour away.) About 15 miles off the Interstate we find the location, a few minutes to clear our trucks and we are on the way to the airport, which is only 15 minutes away. Or would have been if the driver hadn't missed a couple of turns ... he drops us off in front and waits to make sure we have a car ... we do, and he's on his way. We do have a car, an Alaro (?) not the full size we like when we are going to be in it for the next 12 plus hours ... but it's cheep, under $80, split in two adds a little money to the take-home. I offer to drive and he lets me ... I am already tired and have to keep telling myself I've only been up for a little over 12 hours (not that I will be up for the next 15). I know I won't last long driving at night, two hours at a time seems like all I can handle ... must be gettin' old. The other driver, who's in his upper 60's says if he gets a 30 minute nap he'll be good for the rest of the night and in about five minutes he is out. Two hours down the road I have to stop, I at least need to get out and stretch to wake up ... the other guy wakes up and offers to driver, I let him. But an hour and a half later he stops for fuel, I haven't slept, just relaxed so I offer to drive and take over for the next three hours ... before I need a break ... he's had five hours sleep by now so he takes over again until we hit Chicago. Good thing it's the weekend as we are going to hit Chicago about 6:30 ... I sit up as we slow for the westgate of the IN toll ... but lay back to relax for a while more ... still don't feel like I've slept ... I'm laying back so I can't read the highway signs until we go under them ... I see the one that says we are now in I90, not I80 ... I know some drivers go this way and so I don't say anything. He is now driving under the speed limit and looking for a gas station even though we have enough to get past Chicago. I offer to drive and he pulls to the side of the highway ... I had got the feeling he didn't want to be the one who drove through Chicago. It wasn't bad, we never came to a stop, even with the road construction ... am glad to see the I290 exit, so I'm back on familiar roads ... by now we are getting close to 'E' and we finally stop at the TA just south of Rockford. It's 7am now and he's only had a salad at Subway in the last ten hours so we stop to eat. He goes for the buffet, but I'm going to stay away from them for a while, or I'll start looking like a truck driver. I'm not the most picky person, but I had to go complain about the restrooms, they were bad. The other guy offers to drive, so I let ... not sure I should have ... he was fine last night ... but this morning ???? He was doing 20 over if the road was open, flashing his lights at anyone ahead of him in the left lane ... cutting back in front of them if they stayed in the left lane ... I lay back down so I didn't have to watch. I offered to driver a couple of times but he said he was good ... and he was making good time. If all had gone great we would have been home at 3 Saturday morning, instead it was 1 Saturday afternoon. The computer said 15 hours driving time. It took us 15 in a car at ++ the speed limit. And took us almost 20 with the trucks. Home in time for part of a beautiful weekend 70+ degrees in mid October ... |