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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 58 - New Peterbuilt - Cement
Truck ... to Orlando, FL I have a choice of more cement trucks going to FL, the only city I have heard of before is Orlando so I take it ... I may be running with someone if they can find anyone ... we are really getting backed up on trucks. I want to be home for the weekend and there is a cheap flight leaving at noon on Friday so I would like to leave yet Tuesday but I have things to take care of at home Tuesday night so that's not really going to work ... that, and I've been up since 2 AM from my last trip. Stopped by the office to pickup my check and paperwork for the next trip and and asked how much the fuel surcharge had gone up this week ... I had read in a USA Today that diesel had gone up 10 cents in the last week ... the boss heard my question and came out to 'explain' how the fuel surcharge is calculated ... (I've been in shipping / trucking for over 20 years) ... but what he was saying wasn't adding up and he finally admitted "The customers are balking at the high fuel surcharge, so we are holding it at 10 cents." Great for the customer, not good for the drivers ... not for the next couple of months until fuel starts coming back down. Dispatch does find someone to run with me ... but he too wants to be back early Friday so I buy my 11 AM Friday ticket on-line ... now to make it happen. 9/29/04 - 6 AM wakeup ... need to pickup the other driver by 6:30 (he lives less than five miles from me) and be ready to leave the office at 7. NO FUEL again ... these trucks are supposed to be full or filled at pickup ... but now I know why these weren't, the other driver was the one who moved all the trucks down from the customer ... no time to fill, end of the day rush job ... There was another driver at the office making an early pickup ... a garbage truck to Spokane (which had been offered to me) ... no luck for him, he had been there before us and was still there when we left ... truck wouldn't start. We finally got rolling at 7:45 ... already know we should have been rolling an hour or two ago ... The first bad news was the fuel tanks weren't full ... and the tanks were only 40 gallon ... and on the first tankful we only got 4 mpg ... this is going to be one long trip ... 60 mph, stopping every two hours / 120 miles for fuel. 'Wasted' a half hour eating just south of Madison ... (knowing what I know now ... ) bad decision, we need all the seconds we can get. With a fuel tank this small there is not much room for error ... at 1/4 we only have <> miles to go and there are a lot of places where there is not diesel ever 30 miles ... lots of stops. We max out our miles ... and then some. Made it to Marion ... should have stopped back at Mount Vernon based on miles ... and back at Effingham based on hours ... Motel 6 - $29 single / $35 double. 9/30/04 - We are fueling the first thing in the AM, combining fueling with the morning inspection for 15 minutes ... Ouch, I thought I would avoid the extra high diesel prices by not fueling on I-24 in IL ... wrong, here in Miron diesel is $2.19 also. Guess you either need to fuel in Effingham or make it to Paducah, KY. P A N I C ... I got a could of panic messages from dispatch before I could get to a phone to call them back. They need someone to a truck from Fort Meyers to Tampa and it is HOT. Over the course of the day I will find out that someone crashed a truck and we are going to move / give them someone else's new truck to keep them happy. Dispatch will spend the days working out the details ... at one point I was going to drive a rental car from Orlando to Fort Meyers, but there are no rental cars in Orlando ... due to the debates and all the people visiting to help with the Hurricane cleanup ... then dispatch was going to fly me from Orlando to Fort Meyers ... then they found someone to pick me up from my drop in Orlando and drive me to Fort Meyers, follow me to Tampa and then bring me back to Orlando ... With a truck that only gets 120-150 miles per tankful it would really be helpful to have a copy of my Exit 101 with me ... it really helps to know where fuel is ... and isn't. I had just done this run in the last couple of days so I had a fairly good idea but miss-guessed a couple of times. Atlanta at rush hour ... not bad south bound, north bound looked bad and and the traffic reports make it all sound bad. Am missing the North Georgia State Fair, catch a radio station broadcasting from there ... we also pass another fairgrounds right on I-75 ... also found a third fair grounds in Macon To have any chance of making our flights tomorrow, we need to be close to the GA / FL state line ... we end up in Valdosta, GA at another Motel 6 ... again $29 single / $35 double. This one did not advertise truck parking and it was a trick to get these cement trucks turned around ... they do not have a very short turning radius. Finally got a good cell signal and a message to call my ride in FL for tomorrow. Called back and found out that he would handle it all tomorrow ... so I'm back on my morning flight ... We were told that Shoney's would still be open but they were not ... that left the Waffle House or fast food ... Waffle House it was. We had been up about 18 hours when we hit the lights ... not the time to try to figure out the math of making our delivery tomorrow ... so we settled on 'keeping it legal. 9/30/04 - I woke up to use the bathroom and couldn't get back to sleep ... knew I wouldn't get back to sleep until I looked at the time on cell phone ... 4 AM. No reason to go back to sleep, we had asked for a 4:15 wake up call ... which never came ... my only complaint with Motel 6 ... do not trust their wake up calls. I told the other driver we'd stop at the next exit for fuel this AM ... I was wrong, we had stopped at an earlier exit than I had planned ... about two exits down the other driver starts flashing his headlights. So I pull of and fuel, had wanted to fuel at Flying J but was not going to waste the time stopping to tell him that ... if we were going to stop, we were going to fuel. By the time we fueled we were 'running legal' ... good thing as we were coming up on two scales this AM ... both are weigh in motion and for some reason the other driver gets flagged to re-weigh but is then sent on his way. Within an hour I know we are in trouble, cutting it two close on time ... One more fuel stop this trip, 15 gallons could make it, I decide not to chance it and put in 20 ... while waiting for the other driver to use the restroom I kill time by looking at a map to refresh my memory of the rest of the trip ... REAL good thing I did, I had missed one turn ... ah ... but what is one one missed turn ... (really lost). By the time we leave the truck stop, everything will have to work like clockwork for us to catch our flight ... and what are the chances of that?? Power is back on ... scales were working ... tolls are being charged again ... Find the customer on the first shot, quick sign ... wait for cab ... wait for cab ... wait for cab. Had been optimistic a bit ago, about a mile from the drop we saw two cabs while waiting for a traffic light ... guess they had moved on. Clock work ... waiting for a cab wasn't an option ... not for catching the early flight. If we weren't cutting it so close we could have walked a block and caught the city bus for a couple of bucks ... this cab is going to cost us about $50. Once the cab got there was started re-doing our calculations ... we would / should get to the airport about the time my flight lifts off and 10 minutes past when the other driver can pickup his ticket ... ticket counters closes 30 minutes before departure. But he has an open backup ticket so he has no major problems ... I will need to either wait until tomorrow for this airline or purchase a second ticket for $190. There is only an hour until departure ... if the security line is like it was when I left on Monday there would be no chance of catching this flight. I took me an hour to get through ... but the time I was through the line was twice as long ... or about two hours. But not today ... no line ... not for the regular's ... not for us 'Special Screened' customers either. I walked right though.. I was supposed to board at noon and be home at 2 ... instead I board at 1 and will be home at six, due to a layover in Atlanta. The deal was, I would pickup up the other driver before our run and he would drive me home, now that's not going to happen. I am getting way to used to flying ... I leaned my head against the wall of my 'window' seat and the next thing I knew they were serving drinks. I missed all the safety info and the jolt of the plane lifting off ... In Atlanta I had time for my Phillycheesesteak at Chalies ... this time instead of having to run from one end of the airport to the other I had only to walk across the isle ... from gate 9 to gate 8. Don't people wareing wigs realise that they need to update their wig color as they age ??? Those black rugs look a little out of place on otherwise grey haired men ... Don't like these new planes that AirTran is using, no room for my bag under the seat ahead of me on the window seats ... my 'window' seat to Atlanta didn't even have a windown ... row 31, rear of plane has no window, either side of the plane. Dispatch doesn't yet have a run for Monday, but I know there is work ... a couple of days ago they had two dozen trucks for one customers waiting for drivers. Got to watch Mount Saint Helens blow a little gas as I waited ....Maybe dispatch will come up with a trip to Portland for me ... so I can see it a little closer ... Coming home we come in over my house, right over my house so that I can't see it ... planes don't usually run this pattern. Not sure this is where we are supposed to be ... as soon as we are over my house we take a bit U-turn ... then a second U-turn so that we are going the right direction ... enjoy this part of the trip, trying to ID and follow our path to the airport. Rough ride the last few miles but a 'perfect' landing ... then at the gate, everyone had to sit down again so they could move the the plane 10 inches to match the stationary door. |