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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 53b - Used car ... from Providence, RI to China (Augusta), ME 8/26/04 - He had offered to take me to BWI / Baltimore airport, but with all my time to kill before this trip I had found a few Avis locations that were closer than BWI ... and he picks the closest ... would save him a good half hour of travel most times of the day ... and 'hours' now that its rush hour. It's at a gas station and the local guy says he 'doesn't have the authority' to release one-way cars ... I call the 800 number and make my reservation. Then the Avis person said they 'wanted to give me $20 in free fuel for us Avis today ..." sounds good to me, but a few questions later and I began to realize that they were wanting to sign me up for something but I didn't know what ... after politely telling them I was in a rush and this was taking too long, I finally had to hang up while they were still talking ... seems like a long ride to Avis, but it was only 10 cross country miles ... ... and we pass the train depot ... one thing I did not price out ... did check out the bus, but that would have been a 12 hour ride, and would have had to pay for 30 more miles of car fare than by using the rental car. Should have made reservations ... it doesn't cost anything to cancel and the price has gone from $77 / 24 hours to $114 ... $30 less in my pocket. My ride waits until he knows I have the car ... bunch of nice guys in their company ... then he's on his way ... and me on mine ... brand new ... only 66 miles. I'll put another 350 on it tonight. Not sure getting here sooner would have done me much good ... unless it was a half a day ... as it is I will be heading right through NYC at about 6 PM ... turns out not to be a bad ride, had hoped to do this early enough to have been able to see the Atlantic, but no ... Did get through NYC in the daylight ... big bucks for the tolls ... didn't really get my bearings ... just stay on I-95. I try to run as legal as ... as practical ... so I want to be as close to my drop as possible. Not that it really would make any difference, my next leg is only 5 hours so I could have stayed at my last drop and still had the hours to log it all ... Somewhere I picked up a coupon book ... and found an Econo Lodge for $44, not really a low price, but it is the lowest I could find ... and didn't find anything before that so I stopped there ... "Sorry, we aren't honoring the coupon, we estimate we will be full, Price is $89." ... Aahhh ... NO WAY. (I'll sleep in my car for that price.) I stop a couple of more places ... nothing under $80 so I keep driving ... and I will keep driving all night if I have to ... Providence, RI airport ... closer than I thought ... OK, I'll drop my rental car, pick up vehicle two and keep heading toward Augusta until I find a 'cheep' motel ... little did I know ... Not being real sure I was at the right airport, the right parking lot, etc ... I drive my rental car into the parking ramp to find my vehicle ... it's there, but that two minutes cost me $6 ... AND now I have 15 minutes until Avis closes ... I quickly throw my stuff in the truck of the next car and as I'm about to slam the truck, I see my keys for this car ... lying in the trunk ... that was close, how many days would it take to find someone who will get keys out of a car that isn't mine ... Now the fun begins ... I never asked how much it was going to cost to get the car out ... and the only ticket I can find is a month old ... at $20 a day ??? I pull up to the ticket booth, hand the gal a twenty dollar bill and said "I lost my ticket." (sign said $20 for lost ticket). That didn't work so well ... she made me back up and called security ... Security first wanted to see my airline ticket until the realized I wasn't the owner of the vehicle ... I still played dumb, and they said they knew the car had been here at least a week, and because the title was not in my name they could not release the car without something in writing from the owner ... and some documentation of when the car was dropped ... and I'm not going to shell out $600 without talking to the boss. OK, maybe I should have driven this vehicle down to Avis first, so I knew it was out ... but I don't have that much time to play with ... but now I have lots of time. 8/26/04 - ... sometime about the time I tried to get the vehicle past the ticket booth it became Friday ... if the other driver had got me my truck Tuesday, I'd be home and in bed by now, instead of climbing into the back seat of this car to try to sleep. I had first walked into the airport to use the restroom and I tried to call one of the airport motels ... $120 ... and that was a low end motel ... by now I had been up over 20 hours and fidgured that any motel without a shuttle would still be $80 ... plus a cab both ways. It has been a long time since I have had to try sleep in a car and I am out of practice ... don't think I slept much if at all, usually you know you've been asleep once you wake up ... never woke up. Now I have to wait until dispatch calls me back ... and to get a double check on my credit card so I know I have the money ... to both get the car out, and to get home. Back at the airport terminal I find people who have rolled their sleeping bags out and probably gotten a much better nights sleep than I (at least it was a nice mid-70's night). This is not an airport you want to get to a half hour before your flight ... the line for the security check had to have well over a 100 people, maybe 200. And this airport was not laid out for this ... the security line has to be split into three sections with guards to guide people from one section to the next ... and a guy at the end of the line holding a sign saying "Line starts Here" ... What a job. Lucky for me dispatch checked the phone as soon as they got up ... the more I think about it the less I would want that job. Yes, they do want to check with the customer before I pay to get the car out so it'll be another hour or so ... "Glad you have a credit card ..." was what dispatch had to say ... pay the bucks and go ... $520 ... by now the people at the ticket booth had changed shifts and the day guy let me through without a problem, he just said he needed to know the plate number so they could remove it from their records ... Now I have just enough time to get to my drop and still catch the last bus back to Boston to catch a flight if that's what I still want to do. I was given no directions as the guy told dispatch he would 'meet the driver' ... I had tried to reach him yesterday, but had to leave a message and had tried again today, still no luck. Finally about 10 miles from Augusta I get a call ... he doesn't offer to meet me, instead gives me directions ... and I forgot to ask those all important words ... "How's the best way back to the airport." By now I am down to one hour until the bus to Boston leaves ... 20 miles to the customer and 20 miles back ... could be done, but not likely. I immediately take a wrong turn and it takes me a half hour before I'm back on the freeway ... next I find the right exit, go past the the McD's and KFC ... and the airport ... and the bus I should be on ... but I can't find the highway number he had given me. After 2 hours and many U-turns and asking directions a few more times, I finally find my customer. (Seems the highway number he gave me DOES NOT cross the road I was on ...) "So how are you getting out of here?" ... "Cab I guess" ... "What? I'll give you a ride ... I could have met you in town ..." (AAAAAaaaahhhhh, yes TWO HOURS ago.) There is still one bus leaving tonight ... now to decide if I get a rental car or pay big $$$ and fly ... the rental car has gone from costing me $300 to $400 ... flights have gone from $160 to over $300 ... As we are pulling in to the airport ... which is also the bus station in this town ... dispatch calls "You haven't bought a ticket yet have you?" ... Leg 3 - Trip 53c - '94 Used Freightliner - Flatbed ... from Londonerry (Boston), NH |