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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 45b - Used car ... from Tucson to Houston, TX 7/2/04 - We couldn't pick up the car until 8 AM Pacific time ... which is about the same time as our hours are up. But we still have to get paperwork from dispatch ... we call in with the fax number, then walk next door again for another meal at IHOP. Turns out the pickup location is at the next exit ... it's a little body shop / used car dealer with cat's running everywhere ... all we had to do was pickup a car, but this guy looked and sounded like the classic used car salesman ... Shouldn't be much wasted time on this trip, the airport we drop this car is right off the Interstate in the direction we are going ... and when we get to Houston, we will get to the airport on our way to drop the car ... This trip flew by ... 80 mph ... AZ, NM ... TX ... TX ... and more TX ... I had hoped to make it to Houston tonight, but before we get to San Antonio we call it a night ... the Motel 6 is full, the Budget motel is $60 +, so we try the Econo Lodge ... $50, we took it ... definitely a top end Econo Lodge, there was a line waiting by the time we got our room ... glad we didn't wait any longer ... in San Antonio the next day we saw a Motel 6 for $74 single ... the perks of working holiday weekends ... We were both beat and wanted to get a good nights sleep before our long day tomorrow ... I don't sleep well if I'm up much past midnight ... by the time we got done at IHOP it was past midnight ... again ... Had problems earlier fuel stop today, was a little C-store with high priced fuel so we had only planned on putting in enough to get to the next truck stop ... my credit card wouldn't go through ... clerk said the message was 'excessive usage' ... "What?" ... this is what I do ... Called when we got to the motel, the card company said there was not a problem with my card ... and there hasn't been again ... not sure what his problem was. 7/3/04 - We now had a few more hours ahead of us than we / I had wanted ... by the time we pickup / drop the car we have 5 extra hours more driving than I wanted today ... We find the drop ... in a new development with a welcoming sign saying "Homes from $250 to $1,000,000" ... so the guys comment when we dropped his 'new' company car should not have surprised us ... "I've never driven a four year old car before" ... (I felt like saying me neither ... mine are usually 10 - 20 years old) ... was a nice guy though ... Many more hours of 75 - 80 mph ... I lucked out for once on this trip, I usually am the one driving the late night hours ... this guy did 8 hours of overnight, I'd wake up / sit up every couple of hours and ask if he wanted me to drive ... 'no' ... he was still good ... sounds like he used to run the overnight some times when he was an over the road driver. Somewhere in MO, he says I can drive ... its about 3, maybe 5 am ... we fuel and when we are in paying, the sky opens up ... water was inches deep in the parking lot for about five minutes ... and my turn to drive ... rained for a few hours, kept me running a little slower and with no cruise ... Finally pull in about 7 AM ... five hours to spare ... |