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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 71b - Used IH - Box Truck Chicago, IL ... to Des Moines, IA Trip 71c - Used IH - Class B Refer from Des Moines, IA Turns out it does take us almost 5 hours to get back to Chicago and I was holding it at the speed limit plus ... then we switched drivers ... and he started following an fast driver that would pass us ... the fast driving didn't bother me ... just the way he'd drive if someone did something he didn't like ... another reason to take the bus. He had been to this customer last week so he found it right away ... for a while we didn't know if we were going to be going anywhere ... his tranny wouldn't let him off the spot and my air pressure wouldn't come up. He was told that his truck had take 20 minutes before it 'warms up' ... and my air was coming up, ever so slowly but as soon as I moved it and hit the breaks the low air light was back on ... once it finally reached normal it stayed there. Last week the other drivers had taken the car back to Midway airport, took them about an hour, which is the same that dispatch had set up on this one ... one call to Hertz and we found there was a drop location about a couple of miles away so that saved us close to a hour ... but ... But ... by now we could see the rest of the story ... we were leaving Chicago at 5 PM not the 11 AM or 2 PM we had thought. And we had now heard from the other driver ... he had no intention of heading back home once we got to Des Moines ... the roads and weather was getting bad ... Had asked dispatch about that both at pickup and earlier today ... 'Storms not here yet' was the only response I could get ... Well now it is here and our two day run will now be a three day run. Not sure what the rush on that Phoenix truck is, dispatch has told both me and the driver in Des Moines that we need to get the third driver to the customer yet tonight regardless of the weather ... ??? ... 'Why,' I ask The guy is going to be out of hours by the time we drop these trucks tonight ... the Des Moines driver tells them 'No,' that he's already checked in to a motel in Des Moines. Had my wife checking weather.com and she said we'd be luck to make it half way from Chicago to the IA boarder before we shut down ... less than 10 miles after we got on I-80 I can see the snow in the distance ... and then we're in it ... this is going to be a long night ... But within a few miles the snow lets up and we hope we are save ... I-80 looked like it may be the south edge of the storm for now ... and it was for most of IL and then it started to rain. Had to keep the defroster on high and the windows open in order to keep the ice off the windows without roasting myself. The ETA at Des Moines was ever changing ... a little less than an hour out as I was passing a truck, mine started to slide ... that was enough for me, by the time I called the other driver who was ahead of me, he had already slowed down ... 45 mph ... then down to 25 mph at times ... most others have also slowed some ... a few are still doing the speed limit or more. In one stretch ... counted a dozen cars in the ditch within 20 miles. Two were mini-van's laying on their sides in the ditch ... only two looked like there may have still been someone around, the others must have all happened earlier ... As we reach Des Moines the other driver calls and asks where I am ... 'Right behind you at the I-35 exit' I tell him. "No, you're not. Because I'm sitting in front of a service station off of I-235. Opps, been following the wrong truck, couldn't tell in this weather ... didn't want to be that close on the ice. In a few minutes I am really behind him again and we try to find our drop ... after a couple of miles he gives up and I'm in the lead. Between the road construction on I-235 and the railroad tracks we can't find the streets were looking for. I finally pick a residential street that isn't posted 'No Trucks' and head south ... stop sign ever block. With two stop signs to go before our street I slow, hit the breaks and keep on going ... good thing no-one was around ... I locked up those anti-airlock breaks and slid a half a block which put me thru the stop sign and on my way to the next street. And we couldn't have been going over 15 miles an hour, stopping every bock on narrow city streets. The street was still as icy at the next stop sign but I was prepared ... Opps ... bad news ... should have checked. Paper work says open M-F, 7am to 3am ... guess what? They are not. And we hadn't called ahead, we had called on the previous three customers this trip but not this one ... Ahhhh. And no one answers the cell number and because it is now 11 PM, dispatch is no longer manning the after hours line. Did have a few seconds of fun though. When I drove around back to the shipping docks looking for someone, I had to make a U-turn ... and did ... front tires just stayed in one spot and the back spun around ... first time I've done that with a truck. Time to punt ... one guy wants to leave the keys ... I'm not so sure but we find a place to park the trucks and before we are backed in, someone pulls in the lot ... the guy had gotten our message and he only lives three blocks away ... YES. Now to the motel ... the guy who is giving us a ride back home checked into a Motel 6 about 5 PM ... he'd driven one way through that mess between here and home as wasn't going back tonight. After my sliding on the icy streets I was a little gun shy of this ice ... not guy who's driving though. To get to our Motel 6 we have to drive through the Red Roof Inn parking lot ... the way he was driving, if there had been any ice, we would have wiped out a half dozen cars ... but if I had said any thing it would have distracted him ... and may caused an accident. Took us a while to get through the Motel 6 lot ... in the winter it is now plowed for trucks ... and we took the last parking spot ... we were told there was a dog show in town. This could be a loud night ... first Motel 6 for me since my run of bad luck on my Oregon trip. This one was OK, except it was so windy the satellite dish couldn't keep a signal ... my comment was, 'this would make a good ad for cable TV.' No food close so we order in pizza ... Papa Johns ... by the time we get the pizza and are done eating it's going on 2 AM. Page 3 - The next leg .... |