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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 35 - New GMC - Refer ... to Kingman, AZ For once I knew where I was going a day ahead of time, just not when ... things have been slow and dispatch didn't know if they would have any more trucks and won't run our schedule if there is only one truck. 2/24/04 - Had to wait until 9 AM to find out IF I was running today ... should be ready to run leave at 10, ended up being four of us running today ... but I'm the only one leaving town, the others are just shuttling trucks back to the office. This run is <> 30 hours so I have time to spare and can still deliver on the third day ... once at the office, dispatch even offered me my choice of today's trucks UT, NM, CA or my AZ ... I kept the AZ, it had the most miles. The new husband / wife team will be taking another two, one to Roswell, NM the other to CA. There was also another AZ that went out last night with one of our drivers who lives in Vegas ... he wanted mine but it wasn't at the office and he had no way to get this one from the depot last night. When we get to our depot, the pro-pane truck is still filling mine and by the time I get my stuff out of the shuttle van he is done and filling the one next to it ... with his hose on the ground in front of my truck so I'm not going anywhere ... he does ask if he should unhook the hose so I can get past ..."No, I'm supposed to take 15 minutes to inspect my truck ... you should be done by then." ... so I had to do it legal ... a complete inspection. I had done some checking before I left this AM ... it looked like I would be taking the bus a few hours to either Phoenix or Las Vegas ... but my wife had been through the area a couple of years ago and remembered there was an airport in the Bullhead City / Laughlin area which was is under an hour away but with a very limited flight schedule ... I would now have to trim an hour off my time over the next three days ... to make the bus connection to the airport. Actually there is an airport right in Kingman, about a mile from my drop ... great ... if you want to spend $1,700+ for a oneway ticket. By taking the bus an hour west I hope to pay around $120 ... plus the $11 bus fare. Good news ... this truck has two pro-pane tanks ... which gives me a range of 450 miles if I need it ... first stop ... Des Moines, IA. ... but, because I had to pick the truck up two hours away at the depot, I will not be able to make it through KS yet tonight ... too many miles. If I plan this right I can get by with only showing one 15 minute fuel stop per day. Ain't these new hours of service great? If I stop any long I risk missing my bus / flight and am stuck in a gambling town for an extra day ... 2/25/04 - Motel 6 last night, $31 ... Got an early wake up call so that I can grab a bite to eat and be ready to fuel by legal log-on time ... get to the Flying-J in Emporia, KS and there is one of our trucks, I find the driver at the counter paying, never seen him before but he was wearing one of our, now required company jacket's. This is the guy who left the day before ... and he seems to still want my truck ... we chat for a few minutes, then he decides to join me for breakfast ... the buffet ... it was good food. I'm not much of a fan of the mid-day buffet ... This guy drives for a few other companies besides ours and seems to know his way around the country ... how to get out of just about any town ... he's also one of these guys who won't stay at a Motel 6 or Econo Lodge, or anything less. All this chitchat has slowed me a little ... thought I'd get a jump on my start time, but instead ... completely legal ... toll tickets to prove it. Didn't even run 10 hours yesterday so today I'm going to have to push the full 11 with only one mid-day fuel stop. Opps ... all that eating and drinking this AM and now I've got to find a restroom ... should have stopped at the OK welcome center ... really should have. The next rest area with restrooms is four hours later at the western exit to TX. And that was after I had finally stopped at the Flying-J in Sayre, OK. Last time I headed south I had ran the milage between each Flying-J ... this time I'm guessing ... the guy filling my tank says it's 550 to Albuqueque, NM so I'd better stop in San Antonio ... didn't want to, that would be an extra 15 minutes off my day ... Guess it had snowed up in the northwoods before I picked up my truck, almost didn't get the truck off the spot ... 24 plus hours later as I'm going through OKC I notice hunks of snow flying off the top of my truck ... I also notice one of the side doors on the truck box was loose, so I hit the breaks and the shoulder of the road ... ALL that snow from the top of the box was now on my windshield ... Lucky for me the guy at the station was wrong and it was 410 miles to the Flying-J at ABQ ... we usually consider 450 safe, but that's at 55-65 mph ... I've been doing 70+ since I've picked up the truck so I don't want to count on that ...also none of the fuel gauges are working correctly. A couple of more pieces of good news ... in NM the speed limit is 75 ... and I-40 is now open ... ??? Yep, closed yesterday because of snow ... The computer had routed me via NE, CO and NV ... but I wanted to get south of the snow so I got the 'OK' to run the south route, a difference of only a few miles ... I was more concerned about the mountain pass's slowing me down, awful hard to keep the speed up in the mountains. I also liked the simple directions of going the southern route ... go 950 miles south on I-35 to OKC, then go 950 miles west on I-40 ... ABQ was going to be a push, but if I don't make it tonight I have to log an extra 15 minutes for a fuel stop, otherwise I start my log with 15 for fuel and inspection. No problems at the NM scale, just cost me $7.50 for a permit and less than 10 minutes time. This is a long 11 hour day ... 770 miles. After all this trying not to log an extra fuel stop I decide to do it anyhow. Am going to fuel tonight when there is a better chance of a 'qualified person' is on duty ... the odds will be against me at 5 AM tomorrow when I want to leave ... Wow ... what a place for a truck stop ... on the hill over looking ABQ ... can see all the lights for miles, and miles, and miles. Next time I might stay at the Microtel next door ... online it shows as $43 ... but tonight I'm back at the Motel 6, two exits back for $31 ... what happened to the $29?. Opps, missed the 8:30 close at the restaurant across the street ... wanted to try a local 'family' place ... so tonight it was Denny's ... as I'm getting my food I look at the clock and it registers ... it's only 8:30 now, the place across the street must have locked the doors at 8 tonight. 2/24/04 - I hear voices and it's not light out yet ... thought I was getting the early start. I look out the window and see 2 - 4 squad cars and cops escorting people out of the motel. Not sure what was going on, when it really was time to get up this morning I saw that the Motel 6 had a 'rent a cop' on site ... not sure if they always have one on staff or it was just because of last nights excitement. Right on time, keeping it legal all day, every day this trip ... but then I always do ;) I have a good couple of hours in by the time the sun is coming up, I much prefer driving in the dark on this end of the day. Not sure how I miss guessed my drop time by a couple of hours but I did ... yesterday when I talked to the drop site I was thinking I more than likely would not drop before 2:30 local ... meaning I would miss the bus and have to find another ride to Bullhead City, or wait for the next bus and spend the night. Now it looks like I will be dropping around 12:30 local, a full two hours earlier than I thought just 12 hours ago. Today my one stop would be ... with a second short stop at the scale ... knowing that some scales get picky about not having the licence plates mounted, I left mine in the truck ... cost me a couple of minutes to go back out and get it so they could confirm some info on the back of it. Did see a couple of other driveaways at the scale, driving the little shuttle buses ... didn't take the time to see who they worked for, they were still waiting in line when I was ready to leave. Great directions into the drop if I would bother to read them ... got to the drop just as my contact was pulling in ... he did a quick inspection and was ready to give me a lift to the bus depot ... might be my last free ride, we just got a memo in our paychecks on Friday say 'Please do not ask any of our customers for rides..." ... no idea what that is about, the free ride perk was one of the great things about this account ... just another thing the boss was able to bargain away I suppose ... at no cost to him. At the bus depot I find out that the buses are running late, at least an hour ... why only when I'm early? So I get my ticket and walked next door to kill some time and for a bite to eat ... at the Flying-J. This is the crossroads for the buses traveling east / west on I-40 to LA and the buses going north / south between Phoenix and Las Vegas / Salt Lake City so even when the first bus did get there it had to wait for the other one ... but waiting is part of this job. Once moving, in less than 45 minutes I'm off the bus in Bullhead City looking for a cab ... would have to wait 20 for him to show up ... now that I know where it is, I might just walk it next time. Wow ... look at this airport ... it is ... a single 60 x 120 steel shed. Sun Country is the only airline flying out of here and sounds like even they are only seasonal ... the first person I talk to sort of seemed confused when I said I wanted to buy a ticket ?? "Can we do that here?" they asked someone else ... guess that should tell you how many oneway tickets they get out of this town ... I got my ticket $134 ... $18 more than the online price yesterday, but I'm not one to buy advance tickets in this line of work. Now, more waiting ... I had two hours to wait, even with the bus being late ... I check back inside later, and I still have two hours to wait ... our plane will be late getting here. I mostly stand outside and enjoy the weather ... this is one busy airport, in the four hours I was there a single passenger FedEx plane left and a charter flight came in, dropped it's passengers and left empty. I just happened to be wondering indoors when they announced that we could start going through security ... I was first in line ... the only one in line when they started. I got the usual top level screening ... found a new way to set off their metal decter ... just what I needed. Spent the next two hours watching everyone else go through ... there were a few guys with suspenders and western shirts that were really beeping away ... for the gals it was their wire support bra's ... finally realised why they had two 'special' inspectors in this little airport ... one handles the guys, the other the gals. From here on the flight was pretty uneventful, a quick stop in Denver and we got into town a little after 1 AM ... This is the first trip in 10 months where I have made over $200 a day ... usually I fidgure around $125 and try not to take anything that looks like it will pay under $100 a day ... after fuel, motels and transportation. |