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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 38 - New GMC - Refer ... to Salt Lake City, UT 3/24/04 - Wasn't sure which day I was going to be ready to go ... dispatch said the truck would be sitting there when I was ready. It ended up being 8 AM Wednesday morning ... when I am going to run, I want to get going and dispatch doesn't open until then. Did remember to grab our NE and WY plates ... dispatch hadn't ... and I was gone. With dual pro-pane tanks our first stop is usually Des Moines ... bad news, pump is down ... we have been told that 450 miles with the dual tanks is 'safe' ... Omaha with be about 500 ... the RPMs on this truck have been running low and it 'looks' like I should be able to make it. And I do ... more not so good news, this pump is slow ... an hour (more or less, reality or logbook) to fill the tanks ... and I had only used 80 from my 150 gallon tank. This is great, I'll only have to make two (fuel) stops this trip ... 15 minutes for morning inspection, 15 minutes for fuel and 11 hours driving makes an 11 - 1/2 hour day. I kind of like these easy trips ... Phoenix was I35 / I40 / I17 ... this one is I35/I80/I15. I had hoped to make it to North Platte the first night ... as a guess ... ended up that that was only nine hours, so I kept going to Sidney. Wish I would have had my Exit101 / Cheep Sleep already done, but no ... I end up spending $39 for a Motel 6. My choices for food are 'Fast food,' an expensive steak house ... or Perkins ... not my first choice, but the food was good. When I first heard about this run I had thought I had seen airfare's for $160 ... now that I'm on the road, I hear they are $300-$400, so it's going to be the Greyhound for me ... 34 hours and I've forgotten my pillow again ... think I have a half dozen of these WalMart travel pillows now. The SUPER WalMart was only across the parking lot ... not what I'm used too ... at 8 PM the place is empty, only one cashier. Great weather ... 70 - 80's for for today, the only time I end up waring my winter jacket this trip is from home to the office. 3/24/04 - 5:30 wake up call ... opps, should have done my paperwork last night ... I could have started this AM at 5:30 instead of 6 ... my rule of thumb is 12 on, 10 off, but with these large pro-pane tanks I only need to stop once a day ... too late now. There are a lot of advantages for running west ... including ... even as a kid I like the west better than the east ... going west I can (usually) pick up the truck at the office, as early as I want / going east I need to pick it up at the plant, usually about noon ... going west the speed limit is up to 75 mph / east there is a lot of 55 mph and we are getting paid by the mile, not the hour ... little or no traffic congestion going west / frequent delays going east ... you gain an hour or two against the customers close time going west / you loose an hour going east. I've got 50 miles left of NE and 102 for my one and only fuel stop today ... much prefer this getting going before the sun comes up. Been this way once before and know to be prepared at the port of entry ... write down my complete VIN which is never on the paperwork ... and leave my log book in the truck. Inside the scale house ... no waiting ... I open up my folder to get my BL ... the guy stops me ... all he needs is my plate number and our DOT number and then says ... "You will be mounting this (plate) on the back of your truck, right?" ... "I had to throw my tools to get on the plane, is it OK if I put in the dash?" ... "It needs to be on the rear" ... "Really." ... "Only if you want to drive it ... I can let you the mile to Sap Bros, but no further." I don't see any drivers coming and going to ask for a wrench so I head out ... I watch and no cops ... I need to stop in 10 miles to get fuel and don't want to stop twice ... so I risk it and don't. At the Cheyenne Flying J is another slow pump ... doesn't take an hour to fill, but ... I do buy one crescent wrench for $9 and get my plate mounted ... and still have plenty of time to talk the dispatch, my wife, the guy filling the tank ... and another driver from "Don A Ray Driveaway" who was driving a $500,000 motor home. Late yesterday dispatch had said there may be a truck in Denver for me after I drop this one ... as of this AM they still don't have a deal, but with the good time I made yesterday I'm going to try and catch the 2 o'clock bus ... or be real early for the 11 PM bus. The bad news is this 500 miles took 100 gallons and the one tank showed empty ... now I don't dare risk trying to make the last 500 miles on this tankful ... I'm guessing as I hit more hills, and mountains my milage is going to go down ... that, and on a good hill you can run out of fuel even with fuel in the tank. For the rest of this trip I am watching the miles, the speedometer and doing the math ... I need to average 65 MPH ... 70 MPH ... 75 MPH ... for the rest of this trip the truck wants to down shift on every hill and run at 4,000 RPMs instead of 2,500 ... and its killing the milage. I'm going to have to stop at another Flying J ... good thing I look at their guide, the one we had stopped at before with the garbage trucks doesn't have Pro-pane, I will need to stop at Rock Springs and get about 20 gallons of 'insurance fuel.' Somewhere along this stretch I see a lowboy making an illegal U-turn in the median. When I get much closer I realize why, my guess is he couldn't make it under the bridge at his exit ... he was hauling the dump box for one of those big trucks used in the miles ... the box was three times as wide as the lowboy, pretty much covering both lanes and the shoulder and was being escorted by four escorts. I make a quick call to my drop locations, dispatch had told them I'd be in in the evening and now I'm shooting for 2 pm ... not a problem, and the guy gives me directions for a 'short cut.' The Flying J was a quick stop ... had to wait for someone to get to the pump but I sure wish the other locations would have had a pump like this ... I could have fueled in 1/4 of the time ... the gal fueling me mentions the hills coming up and I decide I'd better get 25 gallons instead of 20. At the UT scale I'm in luck, its full and the sign says to bypass ... when I get to the exit for the shortcut it looks like a cowpath so I watch for a second exit ... there isn't one. Then I see an exit that shows on my map and can't decide if I want to take it ... until after I'm past it. So I do a U-turn at the next exit which cost me 5-10 minutes I didn't have. The good news is that this highway is no cowpath ... it's a four-lane US highway ... for a few miles, but it does cut off a good 20 - 30 miles ... and I see why the computer didn't route me the 'shortest route' ... "restricted" ... but the restrictions don't apply to this vehicle. Sure beats the Interstate, traveling through Provo Canyon. I hadn't gotten any highway numbers, only ..."exit to Echo, follow signs to Provo" ... once I got into Provo I wasn't sure where to go and didn't have a city, local or state map. When I see a sign for the Interstate I follow it ... turns out it it adds another five miles to my trip ... but I 'should' still have time to catch the bus. Dispatch has give us the directions the company uses which are better than any map ... providing they are current. I get to the location ... the building is supposed to be 200 yards from the main road ... it's not, everything is fenced in ... I continue down the main road until I get to a guard shack ... "Oh, they moved a year ago, you need to go to the next exit." ... so back in the Interstate and back on the phone for some new directions. Easy to find ... I can see the building and trucks from the highway, bad news is that I now have 10 minutes to get the 15 miles to the bus depot. Now if I had been AT the bus depot, the bus would have been running late ... but because I'm late it'll be on time. I tell the guys at the drop that I could still use a ride to the bus depot, even though I'm most likely going to miss this one ... sure enough, a few blocks from the depot we meet the bus. The guy offers to wait until I get my ticket ... then follows me in, seems he has a guilty conscience about leaving me in the depot for 9 hours ... and offers to take me into the Salt Lake City depot. Here's where I make my mistake ... I decide to by my bus ticket here so I don't have to wait in line in SLC, it only takes a few seconds ... but ... (By now we have dropped the Denver run, things weren't falling in to place fast enough.) Once on the road I call my wife to update her that I missed the early bus ... a few minutes later she calls back ... "There's a flight out of SLC for $200" ... vs $135 for the bus which will take 34 hours ... my driver has already offered to take me the 70 miles to the airport, that's how our other drivers have been getting out of here ... but I need to decide quick ... for anyone who's ever been on a bus for 34 hour hours it should have been an easy decision. We head to the airport ... we get there just under an hour before departure, if I can't make the flight I still have plenty of time to get to the bus depot. I'm in luck, there are only two people ahead of me in line ... "can I still get on the flight to Denver?" (All of there flights go via Denver) ... she checks "$320" ... "What? we just checked on line and it was only $200 all the way to Minneapolis" ... "That must have been an advance / on-line special ... but I can check and see what the flight is today ... Huh? ... It's only $212 ..." (YES ! ! ) There are only a couple of people ahead of me in the security line and when they see my ticket is 'flagged,' they usher me right through ahead of everyone ... Opps, forgot to take the crescent wrench out of my pocket, so it cost me $9 to mount and un-mount my WY plate ... the wrench was there's. I get to the gate as they are just starting to board ... I quickly rush back to Burger King to get something to eat, all I've had so far is a breakfast bar and it's now mid afternoon ... by the time I get back to the gate, I need to get on the plane so I shove the burger in my pocket and took my seat ... or someone's seat, it seems they have double booked my seat and they have to re-assign me ... I don't care as long as I'm on the plane and the change gets me in the second row which will help getting to me connection. A quick hour flight and we are in Denver, this time my connecting flight is only a couple of gates away but they are already seating the rear of the plane ... but that gives me enough time use the restroom and take a couple of quick bites of my now 'two hour old' burger ... before I need to board. Another quick flight, until we hear ... "we have been put into a holding pattern" and then a 1/2 hour later we hear "we are going to attempt to land, if we can not see the runway, we will need to pull up and head to Sioux Falls to refuel ... " So much for a quick ride home ... but it was, we landed. 'Home again, safe at last" |