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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 55 - New Nissan - Garbage Truck ... to Boston, MA Somehow dispatch thought I didn't want to work again until Tuesday so Monday I got 'stuck' doing a local run ... rated / paid as eight hours, took us 12. But they were going to have another run to Phoenix ... this time a Winnie. 9/14/04 - Winnie's not ready, but they will have a Boston available later this afternoon, customer wants in there Wednesday ... not going to happen with this driver, late Thursday is closer to legal. Actually they had said it would be ready at noon ... noon turned into 2 PM ... then I had to pick up a driver with his truck on the way to Cedar Falls, IA. We were supposed to split the that part of the run 50-50, but I was driving when I picked him up and ... just kept driving. Guess we just missed some really bad weather in Austin, MN ... normally we cross I-90 a few miles west of there, today because of where I picked up the other driver we crossed a few miles east ... 15 inches of rain in 24 hours in Austin, I-90 closed for a while ... By the time I picked up my vehicle it was 6 PM ... I had hoped to make it to IN tonight. Couple of reasons ... 1) I wanted to be past Chicago 2) I know where the cheep motels are in IN 3) I wanted to deliver as early as possible on Thursday ... but we'll see. Some good news ... the truck has some fuel enough to get me to the closest Flying J ... sometimes these trucks are laying right on 'E' when we picked them up (and we are to leave them with 1/4) ... and ... it's a little Nissan, should get good milage. Little cab-over job, takes me a while to find where to check the fluids ... have to lift the cab to check the oil and the anti-freeze. The bad news? 30 gallon fuel tank, going to be stopping every couple hundred miles ... or less. Don't know if I was on the phone or what had me not paying attention but ... Just east of Waterloo I noticed the signs said 'Debuque ### miles' ... that's strange, they should be saying Cedar Rapids, Chicago or something ... Even once hit the shoulder and thought "that's strange, a gravel shoulder on an interstate." And thought "need to watch for I-280 signs" but soon my mind would wonder and I'd forget I was looking for signs ... 60 miles later I see 'US 20' ... that's why I'm seeing Debuque signs ... What happened? where I-280 and US 20 split ... US 20 goes East / straight and I-280 goes South / right, except ... the roads are laid out so that you take a right to stay in US 20 ... another instance of being on 'auto pilot?' So now that I know I'm not where I want to be ... I can't find my map ... Aghhhh. OK, I'm not completely lost ... I know where US 20 hits the interstate in IL, and I know that US 61 one crosses it somewhere around Debuque so I'll just play it by ear ... but this does NOT increase my chances of getting to IN tonight ... US 20 is a good road, 65 mph, same as the interstate's ... until you hit Debuque ... stop lights ... Wooo-ah, the truck doesn't want to stop ... the breaks are working but the truck won't idle down so I pop it out of gear (its an automatic). It's running at about 22 rpms (instead of 5-6) ... engine is roaring ... the light changes so I put it back into gear ... nothing ... nothing ... nothing. I try shutting down and restarting ... AND ... I can't find my hazards / four way flashers ...yeh, yeh, one of those things on the pre-trip list ... and I sitting in a lane of traffic on US 20. Lucky for me the road is slopped enough that the truck rolls to the shoulder ... I call dispatch ... not knowing what time it is, I want to make sure that I catch them before the shut down for the night ... it's somewhere after dark. They answer and run through a list of things to check, all of which I have already done ... Then they ask if I have tried to 'see' the problem ... not yet ... so I dig out my flash light, lift the hood and look. I am not the most mechanical ... I can change a tire and a bulb and used to change oil but that's about my limit ... and now that I'm flying about every other trip I no longer carry any tools ... Up with the cab I try to follow the cable but that doesn't work so I look for a cable closer to the engine and I find ... two of them. Takes me a while but I finally realize that one of them is hooked on something ... I unhook it, restart the truck and ... all right, that was it ... call dispatch and let them know so they can work on the other drivers that are broke down ... I do not want that job ... Now I'm really not going to make it to IN tonight ... maybe by 2 AM, but why? I had all but made up my mind to stay on US 20 ... until I saw a set of doubles exiting onto US 61 ... I followed ... four lane all the way ... only 11 extra miles (my little detour) ... and getting back on I-80 would avoid most of the Chicago tolls. But by now I'm zapped and ready to shut down, the coupon books show nothing cheep between here and Chicago so once outside of the Quad Cities I stop at the first place I see ... well, at a place I have seen signs for "Days Inn $32" ... but today's price is $50 ... ouch. 9/14/04 - At least I got the timing right, I will miss the Chicago rush hour ... Will need to stop in Gary for fuel ... cheapest fuel this trip $1.77. No major slow down in the I-80 / I-90 road construction area ... I had stopped three hours shy of where I had wanted. Two plus hours of IN ... I'm under 26,000# so I can cruise at 65 mph .... but next is S-l-o-whio ... WHAT? The bottom half of the speed limit signs have been covered ... trucks are no longer limited to 55, they can now travel the same speed as cars ... 65 mph. (Now that I'm home, I've checked the Internet and the new speed limit took effect Sept 8 ... and if all goes well, they may raise the speed limit for cars to 70 within a year.) Wow ... this will help, 10 mph ... three hours ... saves me a half hour. Another fuel stop in Toledo ... catching the Flying J's where I can ... over halfway to my drop. Cleveland ... rush hour ... but not too bad ... until I hit the 35 mph curve coming up on the lake and traffic is stopped .... H E L P ... I wasn't ready for this, I'm in the center lane of traffic and ... the accelerator cable got hooked again. So I'm riding the break as I'm trying to get to the shoulder ... there is no shoulder ... I have to wait until we get past the railroad bridge, now I also have to cross over the exit lane ... by the time I am stopped my breaks are a-smoking. Now that I know what I'm doing I get the cable unhooked in seconds but the breaks are still smoking (and I don't know where my fire extinguisher is ... or if I even have one ... I give it a few minutes until the smoke is harder to see and I have made sure there are no flames ... now to get back into traffic. Looks like I'm only going to get a few miles into NY before I need to shut down ... couldn't find my coupon magazines at home for the northeast and haven't found any here ... the signs don't look promising ... even the 'Tallyho Motel' is $40, the Red Roof's are $50 ... haven't seen a Motel 6. I finally exit east of Buffalo so that I won't have to worry about morning traffic ... as I exit I see this is also the exit for a Six Flags ... that won't help keep the prices down ... A-g-g-g-hhhhhh ... not again, the accelerator cable has hooked again ... again I wasn't ready ... had to stop between the toll booths ... there wasn't a shoulder ... but I am getting good at this. After a AAA discount the price is down to $54 for a Days Inn but is the only motel at the exit ... am running legal so I have plenty of time for a meal tonight so I walk across to the Flying J ... need at least one meal a day ... even spend $.50 for a paper ... that doesn't happen very often, once every 3-6 months. The one time I see something I may want to watch on TV ... the motel doesn't carry that channel ... guess its more sleep instead. 9/16/04 - More sleep most have been what I needed ... I woke up to go to the bathroom and saw it was 15 minutes before I wanted to leave this AM ... yesterday I had woke up over an hour early. Wow, both my motels this trip had clocks ... didn't bother to set the alarms as I'm not in that much of a rush, am running mostly legal so I should be able to wake up in less than my 10 hours off ... and have 'usually' only been sleeping five. $60? for a Days Inn? Last nights price did not include tax ... thought sure I had asked if the price was after tax ... now I am ... upset. Instead of $40 or $50 for two nights motel I have spent $110 ... NOT going to make any money on this trip .... had to spend $200 instead of $160 for a flight, not going to make the early flights ... The accelerator cable hooks / catches another three times before I finally do something about it ... Knowing I was coming up on Boston I knew I had to do something so I found a paper clip and tried to hook the cable so it couldn't hook ... it somehow it worked. I have never talked to my drop, dispatch has been keeping each of us updated but now that I'm only an hour out I try to contact him ... and get his voice mail. Good thing I tried to fix the accelerator cable traffic gets thick about 20 miles outside Boston / from my drop ... I-495 / I-95 / I-93 ... the only real backup was where a mini-van was stalled in the left lane, there was no left shoulder so people who didn't want to wait to merge right were driving down into the ditch and back into their lane ... Not sure how I thought I would be here 'between noon and three' ... I would have had to cut three hours off this trip ... but I was close, I pulled in at about five after three. No customer and no one there volunteers where he is ... one mechanic does come out and look at the accelerator cable problem and then goes back to work. I had thought I had all kinds of time, but now I am down to two hours until my plane lifts off ... I call the customer again ... voice mail ... I call dispatch ... NA. After about 15 minutes I ask again if anyone knows when the customer will be back ... the guy doesn't ask my direct question, but asks if he can help so I ask him to sign for the truck. He does his inspection and then asks if there was anything else ... 'Yes, I was hoping the customer would be back, he had offered to give me a ride ...' 'He won't be back, he's on his way to FL' ... would have been nice if they had told me that a half hour ago ... He does offer to have their parts runner to get me to the station as soon as they get back ... in about 15 minutes. The parts runner gets back but has no idea where the station is so they have to try and give directions ... she misses the final turn and has to do a U and the next street ... this is a train station, I thought I was catching a bus directly to the airport ... she doesn't know and no one at the station is of any help, and I see signs for bus's but no ticket counters or info ... time is running out so I buy a train token and ask how soon the next train is ... 'It's here now' ... so I hurry up the stains in time to see it round the bend. I walk the length of the platform but do not see anything on how often they run ... I do see that the train stops at the 'south station' in Boston so I'm not completely lost ... I was at that station a couple of weeks ago so I know I can catch a bus from there to the airport ... I watched the time between the first two stops ... five minutes ... times six stops ... I'll be at South Station at 4:45 ... 45 minutes before the plane lifts off ... I never did check to see if there was a connecting train to the airport. South Station ... my plan is to check the bus ticket counter for schedule and if there is not one leaving soon (NOW) to catch a cab so I follow the signs to the bus's ... don't immediately see the ticket counter, but instead see the signs for 'taxi.' I finally realize that if I'm going to get out of town tonight I need to catch a taxi ... "Yesterday it was a 45 minute trip, today it should be 5." ... thank you. I don't have correct change so he's digging for some ... go, go, go ... he ended up getting a bigger tip than I had planned but time was running out. Good news ... he has dropped me off right in front of the ticket counter and there is one agent open ... they seem to be in a rush .... quickly handing me my ticket and telling me to 'hurry.' The security line is only 50 or so feet away but there is a few people in line ahead of me ... as I'm standing there I check the time ... 4:58 ... and the sign said 'Ticket counter closes 30 minutes before departure' ... I had less than five minutes to spare. This is Logan Airport ... departure of two of the four 911 airplanes ... they take security seriously ... of course when I'm in a hurry the check me ... other airports, not so much. By the time I'm most of the way to the gate I hear "Final boarding call" ... I'm the last one on the plane ... But I made it. A two hour layover at the Midway airport in Chicago ... a few hours late and at the wrong airport to see the plane who blew an engine in Chicago today ... Midnight ... home again ... safe at last. |