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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 63 - Used Peterbuilt - Boom
truck ... to Denver, CO Had hoped to get a trip to Louisiana, had heard on Monday there was going to be a few trucks heading that way and its been a while since I have been able to cross a state off my list ... but not so. Ended up working late at my 'other job' on Wednesday and didn't get a chance to call in, so I just showed up Thursday morning to wait ... 10/11/04 - When dispatch didn't offer me something right away I knew the pickings were going to be slim ... after an hour they offered me a Denver truck, with a four hour deadhead to pick it up ... 'To short of a run, it's under a 1,000 miles.' After another hour they offered me a tractor to Youngstown, PA ... about the same miles, didn't want that one either ... but it don't look like there would be anything else today ... Checking in with my wife she reminded me I have two Sun Country Airlines tickets that we've already paid for ... and they fly out of Denver, not Youngstown ... So Denver it is. Now I have another hours wait for another driver to come in to drive me to Dawson, MN ... but wait ... dispatch has a quick little job to do first ... Go and pickup the Youngstown truck from the dealer so its at the office for the next driver. This was a bad, good and bad idea ... bad, it will delay us an hour plus ... good, because we find out the company van we were going to use has a radiator leak so we are still in town and can switch to another van ... bad, because ... When we get to the dealer they say 'it's no quite ready' ... over a half hour later they tell us we have it. I point out that it is missing a mudflap ... a big no-no. "Sorry, we do not have the OK to fix anything ... you get it as is ... and it doesn't have a key, so as soon as we hot wire it, it's yours." ??? That was the guy in the shop, so I told the person in the office that seeing it wasn't ready, dispatch may not want me to wait ... A quick call to dispatch agreed ... leave the truck and head to Dawson ... So I tell the guy in the office I'm leaving ... "Trucks ready now ... you can have it." 'Sorry, dispatch has got me on another run ...' " ... but ... but ... " Is what I heard as I was walking out the door. Now back to the office to pick up a van that will make it to the customer ... and pick up our paperwork ... Most of four hours to Dawson ... free ride, but still is unpaid miles. Lots of farming going on in southern MN ... sugarbeats dumps ... corn harvesting ... saw my first CAT combine on track, coming right down US 212 ... followed by a CAT tractor on track. Not sure why, not exactly rice country ... Dawson ... the driver found the trucks right away, he was here yesterday ... oh, yeah, dispatch had called me about 8 PM Tuesday night to see if I could take a truck the next AM from Dawson to ID ... I couldn't. Trucks are used ... boom trucks. Good news, it is full of fuel and is a stick shift, so it should get fairly good milage. Try to give a guy on the lot a copy of the paperwork ... he wasn't interested ... "Those trucks are just parked here ... workers left them when they were done with the job." Truck is licenced to WA, and is going from MN to CO ... the only other truck left is licenced to TX. Truck checks out good ... cracked windshield that could be a problem if I get stopped for an inspection. Other than that I just move the junk around that they left on the flatbed so that it doesn't bounce off. Had spent a while back at the office looking to see where to buy a SD permit ... after last week, dispatch was going to make sure I got one. Before I left the office one of the drivers who left yesterday called in ... they had re-routed their trip to come into SD on I-90 so that they could get their permit at the scale. By the time I got south to I-90, I was only 10 miles from IA ... Why go 20 miles out of my way just to stay on the Interstate. I wasn't planning on going the speed limit anyhow. And it would also save buying the permit ... now to explain why I didn't buy a permit ... again. Somewhere between Omaha Lincoln there was a semi with all 18 wheels in the air ... looked like minimal damage ... in the dark anyhow. Sioux City, IA ... Omaha, NE ... Lincoln, NE where I knew there was a cheap motel. Motel 6 for $29 ... Econo Lodging for $27. The Motel 6 was closer to food ... Perkins. 11/12/04 Shut down at 9 ... rolling at 7, just as it's getting light ... eight hours to go ... customer closes at 3:30 PM ... flight is at 5:50. Called last Sun Country last night and got a ticket ... cost $20 more than at noon, but didn't have all the info I needed then. After the credit for the prior ticket and the 'handling fee' it ended up costing me 72 new dollars. One new UPS truck parked next to me this AM ... have to be careful where you park here ... park on the wrong side of the lot and you'll get towed, unless you are shopping next door and 'Dr John's Love Shack.' By late morning I'm needing fuel, depending on how big this tank is I may be getting really good milage ... but I wanted to get the most out this tank so that I would only had to stop once ... but I pushed to far ... I thought I knew there was a truck stop in Kearny, NE ... there isn't and I was on 'E' and fuel was $2.19 a gallon. Had been a truckstop at the last exit ... and will be at the next two exits ... I put in $15 and headed out to the next exit where fuel was 20 cents less. 70 gallons ... was worth the second stop, but really should have stopped earlier. I wouldn't have had to stop twice ... and I wouldn't have left an extra <> $20 in the tank. I had gone 300 miles when my tank got to 1/4, by 400 it was on 'E' ... after my second 400 miles I was just under 1/2 ... but why? ... yesterday I was driving under 60 mph ... today about 64 mph ... and the truck wasn't new ... 50,000 miles. After I got home I checked and I could have saved 100 miles by going the shortest route ... but it looks like I would have gotten worse milage ... but how to know ...?? Somewhere after my fuelstop I see a new UPS truck at the side of the road ... right ahead of a squad car ... good trip for me ... only one scale open, CO and I get the green light ... Snow ... a few small drifts from last weeks snow in CO ... a new feeder lot dairy going in along I-76 ... other than that, pretty quiet. Dispatch gave me a map of my drop, just off I-70 ... so I look for a shortcut from I-76 ... then don't take it. Opt for one closer to Denver ... customer should be right next to the airport ... counting on a minimal taxi fare. Customer 'should have been' just north of I-70, but judging by the street numbers I'm still 50 blocks away so I call ... map was worthless, once I looked a little closer ... it only showed the street ... no street numbers. Customer gives me the real directions ... so many blocks this way ... so many another way ... then back again ... bingo ... On a dead end street ... only business ... I park the truck and ask about transportation ... "Cab" ... 'No bus? ... no one goes that direction?' "Nope." (Interesting ... 30 people will leave the lot in the next hour ... and NO-ONE goes north?) So I call the cab ... then go outside to wait ... I can see the highway a 1/2 mile away where I was meeting buses ... As I'm thinking of hoofing it, I start heading that walking that direction ... then see the 'No Trespassing' sign ... and under it is another sign 'Firing Range' ... End of that idea ... Cab calls back ... the computer can't find the address ... so I give them a better description ... right across from the AFB. So a 1/2 hour later I watch my cab pull into the AFB ... he doesn't see me waving, so I have to wait for him to go in and out of the AFB ... What I thought would be a $10 ride (from my map) turns out to cost almost $40 ... still want to see how close I was to the bus ... I'm guessing about five blocks ... I hadn't wanted to my airline ticket yesterday morning because I wasn't sure I'd make the 5 PM flight ... even after getting lost, and the cab getting lost, and being ten miles further from the airport ... I still make it before 4 PM. Also got to pay $3 to watch a train spot rail cars ... the old cab meter just keeps running ... tick, tick, tick. ... Ahhh more good news ... I am really here plenty early ... flight will be 2 hours late. It's coming out of Seattle and was delayed in the fog ... But I make it home ... in under 48 hours ... and actually made money ... |