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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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1 - New Bus 20180222 - CA-MO Left out early to be able to get the car returned by noon. After doing a quick fuel at an Arco in Bakersfield we headed up CA-99 to Famoso and then through Wasco to Lost Hills where we caught I-5. Trees are starting to bloom, hills are turning green, it's supposed to freeze tonight ... People are busy planting in the fields, other places they are picking fruit, spraying fruit. Busy, busy. Our next stop was a rest area called Firebaugh, about mile marker 386. Four hours after we left Bakersfield we were in Livermore. It would have been nice to have gotten to Livermore last night and I wouldn't have had to count those hours. Now I'm going to be short hours to make delivery on Monday so it will be Tuesday. BUT if I do a shut down/re-start I won't make delivery until Wednesday. Finally get a hold of dispatch and he says there 'was nothing extra' yesterday so we will wait until 4:30 today. We have time to kill so we eat at Panera, then go to a local cemetery where a family member is buried. The office pointed in the correct direct and I parked the car about two foot from the grave marker. All the area's were named and I had the area name so we could have found it without the office. Then we just walked the cemetery. One place there were four similar markers, four children had died within a month, ages 2 to 9 from the same family. After that we went back to the outlet mall we stopped at last time and walked. Somewhere in there we also checked out local motels because Hertz in this town does not allow after hours drop. If we had known that we would have switched to a local Enterprise. As it is we just switched from a one way Hertz to a local Hertz to keep the cost down. By 3:30 I knew I was going to have work, just not where. Then we went and mailed our paperwork from the last trip and ended up at In-And-Out for burgers. Were going to go to Panda until we saw the In-and-Out. We are getting to know our way around Livermore. I lost securities number so had to call dispatch to get let in. I'm going to St Louis. Check in went quicker this time. BB headed out as soon as all was good. She wanted to get to the motel before dark. Right after she left a guy walked in, first time at this location. So dispatch asked if I could cover the how to's of the bus. That took about a half hour that I hadn't planned on. And the other guy was getting a bus without a fuel gauge. Mine has one again. :) Finally it's last light and I ready to go. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK. Turns out the horn locks on if you don't have your seat belt on. Putting the bus back in park does not help. Only putting the seat belt on makes it stop. I was just going to drive a few feet forward to give the paperwork to the guard. We end up at the LaQuinta for the first time because of the parking lot. Quality Inn was full tonight by noon ??? and I couldn't see where to park. Also stopped at a Hawthorn, they had a very tight parking lot. I went in and asked where to park a bus ... anywhere I can find room. We could have paid with points there but decided to go with a sure thing. Set the HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK off again when I parked, I was going to get out and see how close I was, took the seat belt off before taking it out of gear. The trip looks like we should make it to Needles again the first day, Friday. Then to Albuquerque on Saturday, Oklahoma City on Sunday. IF we can make that I will run out of hours on Monday and I will have to shut down before we get to St Louis. Tuesday I will have more hours and we can make delivery on Tuesday, by noon? Then it is less than 500 miles back to Forest City so it should be just a one day rental. Iowa load board is up to 198. The previous high was 179, a year ago in May. So plenty of work. CA dispatcher wants me right back but I told him it would be April. IF we head back out after St Louis it will be a shorter trip to the SE, NC or FL. 20180223 - CA-MO Friday was a long day. No rush getting up, we can't return the rental car until 7:30 AM. Breakfast is the next door down. Good breakfast, the office and breakfast are set up in a conference room. We get ready to pull out about 7:30, scrape the ice off the windows ... yes, this is in California. People are sleeping in a car a few feet away from us, I don't set the horn off ... this time. It's all of two miles to Hertz. We've driven the area enough that I don't look at a map. I find the drop and realize I need to do something else to my DOT log. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK. Didn't get the bus in park before I took my seatbelt off. Sure the neighborhood loved it. This is the third time on this stretch of highway in two weeks so nothing much new. A little greener, a few more blooms, some of the citrus has now been picked. First stop was in Firebaugh at a rest area, another two hours down the road we stop at a TA in Buttomwillow for Taco Bell. This location didn't have a Country Pride and didn't see a family restaurant anywhere. 30+ miles of non-freeway, this is why BB didn't want to go this route yesterday. Stoplights for the last 10 miles or so. Saw a school bus run the railroad tracks, not sure what the lay is here, but I stop in every state. Coming through Bakersfield I notice a gal walking on the inside of the sound barrier. Then a noticed the 40 foot long homeless encampment built against the barrier. Common sight out here. Lots of tag on the hills between Bakersfield and Barstow. Some trucks did better depending on how steep the grade, sometimes they would pass me and sometimes I would pass them. I did pass another Gillig bus, he was going about 60 mph and I never saw him again. Also saw an RV out of Oregon, he passed me and I never saw him again. This trip I'm running 65 mph. If I don't, there's a good chance I wouldn't make a Tuesday delivery. Not making Monday because I didn't get a chance to re-set my hours. But now I'm better to run short days every day, than to take a day off so I can run long days. It's a math thing. Next stop is in Boron at a Pilot. No rest areas on CA-58. It's next to the only stoplight for miles and traffic gets backed up. Almost three hours to Needles. Both rest area's on I-40 have been closed and the only gas stations look mostly deserted. We know where food it, McD's is on top of the hill right next to the Quality Inn. But just as I'm turning down that street I see that Jack's has enough room to get the bus in, so Jack In The Box it is. Food was good. Wasn't sure how for we would get tonight, I originally pegged Needles, but had time to get to Kingman. BB looks up the motels and the Quality here in Needles is $130 for tonight. We have enough time so we will head to Kingman. Earlier today rooms in Kingman had been $62, as they are now. But when BB tries to reserve it, it comes back as $97 so she cancels to see what she did wrong. That was it. Sold out. I called, yes, sold out and, no, they did not have a reservation for us. After doing some more looking we end up at a Best Western for $100+. Still less than Needles. Now it's dark and we've got another hour to drive. Stop at the scale to get a permit. The guy flagging us through flags the person ahead of us over. Seems he wanted to make sure none of his cars were stolen. So with him out checking the cars, a truck stops at an empty window, until I mention something to the person helping me ... opps, they were supposed to be doing both jobs. Scale warns of of ice ahead, but not before Kingman. Get to the Best Western, check in. Nice place, right next to a BJ's ... (they sometimes carry the 4B's soup, but we've already eaten) Jump drive on my computer has quit working. It came new with 'security' so that I had to log in everytime I want to use my jump drive. No way to prompt it, just wait until the screen pops up. Well it no longer pops up so I can't use my jump drives. Soooooo ... I email my permits to a junk account so I can print them out. That is how a wasted last night, trying to get my jump drive to work. It still doesn't. RECORD - For the first time since I have been driving RV's there is over 200 left on the board at the end of the day. 20180224 - CA-MO Awake by 5:30, breakfast at 6:30. Great spread, three kinds of eggs, five kinds of dry cereal, real plates, bakery donuts. But that was the second night in a row where we've spent over $100 for a room. Ice on the windows of the bus, thought we'd be rolling by 7 AM, it was closer to 7:15. Thought I'd get my inspection and fuel done in 15 minutes, took a half hour. And every minute today counts. I am up against my rolling 70 hours and can only work the same number of hours that I did that day eight days ago. Today is 10 hours. Long lines at the Flying J so I fueled at the RV pump ... and didn't get my discount. The discount would have been worth well over $10 so I will be on the phone Monday to find out the why. My guess is that I have to fuel at the diesel islands. Traffic was thick at the station so I tried to back out. That didn't work so I did get out going ahead, but no one wanted to move when the light turned green so I missed the light, the guy ahead of me, ran the red. Finally rolling. Suns up, bus is getting warm. And it starts beeping. Did it maybe a dozen times. No dash lights were going off, sounded maybe like it was coming from the computer which is in a locked cabinet behind me. Only happened this morning, no sounds this afternoon. Glad we didn't have to go any further last night. There was one of our RV's in the lot at the Flying J hanging with ice. Roads were clear but wet. Quite a bit of snow at the higher elevations. Looks pretty now. First stop was Bellemont at a Pilot, again the rest area was closed. Thought about taking a half hour break so I could log it differently but didn't. No traffic issues, it's Saturday so not real heavy traffic anywhere. Did have one semi come into my lane with all of his right tires as he was passing me, blew the horn and he got so he was just riding the white line. Stopped at the Hopi travel center just east of Holbrook. Had wanted a sit down meal but the restaurant is now closed. Signs say remodeling, but internet reviews say it has been closed for a while. It was open the last time we were here. There also had been a barbershop and a Dr's office. A second fast food place had just closed before we were here last time and nothing has replaced it. Only Burger King remains. Plus a couple of local native American shops, they are the ones that own this place. Still can't tell if I will make it to ABQ tonight, it will be close. Grant's is our backup plan. We do just a quick stop at the NM welcome center, I don't even go in. Every minute will count as to how far we will get. It's not that big of deal, we have more than enough time to make it to St Louis before they close on Tuesday, we just like to get the most of every day. Once we clear the Port of Entry it looks like we might make it. I'm doing the math every few miles and we are holding at 20 minutes to spare. Any major slowdowns and I could easily be over my hours. We make it to Grants and we are still good, I'm not going to need any more fuel before tomorrow so that helps. Otherwise there is a Loves right before the motel that is the cheapest in the area, but stopping could use up all of the 20 minutes. We make it ... The Quality Inn in Albuqueque again, the Mexican restaurant again. Blew the horn again ... Had pulled in to park and wanted to see how close I was so I got out to look .... HOOOOOOOONK. Thought I had learned after three times, nope. We do go for a 30 minute walk before we eat and take the long way back. And we got an upgrade so we have a really nice room for the night. I can't work over 9 hours tomorrow and 7 on Monday, but depending on where motels are cheapest we may work less than 9 tomorrow. It looks like we should be near Joplin Tuesday morning, that will leave about 5 hours before our drop. That part looks good. There is also an Avis a block from my drop so another thing that looks good. Driving 65 mph so I won't do quite as well on the fuel but may still make $100 plus just on fuel. Not sure what we will do when we get back on Wednesday. We don't really have time to do a 1,000 mile run unless they will take them on Saturday. And we don't make much money on the shorter runs ... and we've already made twice as much this month as some months. 20180225 - CA-MO Left out of Albuquerque right about sun up. Not sure how close, even at the time, because the sun was already a ways up in the sky or there was a huge sun dog a ways up in the sky. But the time we cleared the hills the elevation, etc had changed so it was hard to tell which it had been. Last time we stayed at this motel I wrote that they had garlic bread for breakfast, nope, it was potato cakes. Managed to get out of the lot without blowing the horn again. :) Plan was to stop at a rest area a couple of hours down the road and then another hour to the Loves in Tucumcarri. But I got nervous when the fuel gauge stayed on a quarter for an hour so we skipped the rest area and stopped in Santa Rosa at Loves. Glad I did, once I stopped at the Loves the gauge laid flat on E. This is why I don't like truck stops, it took a half hour, every pump had a line and with a bus I can't fuel until the person ahead of me has left. Most pull ahead to go in but my fuel tank is in the back of the bus so I have to wait until they are gone. At least I wasn't in the line next to me. The guy pulled ahead, then went in and bought Carl Jr's and who knows what else. It took a half hour but this time I did get my discount. Fuel here was a little more than in Tucumcarri but less than it costs for them to bring it to me when I'm on the side of the road. From here we did almost three hours to Amorillo, to the Petro/Iron Skillet. Should have just had the soup and salad but I did the whole buffet. Didn't need that much food and it wasn't that good. Soup and salad was good and I left full. When we got near Strattford traffic came to a standstill. I thought it looked like it was stopped ahead but because of the lay of the land I wasn't sure until I was fairly close and put the breaks on kind of hard. BB thought I wasn't going to get stopped before I hit the truck ahead of me. I was watching the truck but also the guy behind me. He was pulling a trailer and when I looked back, it was swaying behind him and almost disappearing in a cloud of smoke from his tires. Not sure what the cause was, a couple of minutes later all lanes started moving again. Had a couple of more beeps this morning, the one time I did see a red icon on my dash, it only lasted as long as the beep just a fraction of a second. Later I did a video of the icon's lighting up when I started the bus so I could see which icons it might have been. One of the four in that area is a communication fault, I'm guessing that is the one it was. After I picked up the bus I had asked both dispatch and the permit company if I needed a permit for Oklahoma, they said I didn't but this is my first trip though OK with these buses. At the OK scale I stop where the sign was, but then pulled ahead and waited for the scale to open once I was past the stop sign. When I got on the scale I was told not to do that, stay behind the stop sign until the scale is clear. Whew ... if the worst that happens is I get scolded like that ... and he was nice about it. No mention of a permit. Stopped at the welcome center a couple miles down the road in Erick. From there it was only an hour to Weatherford. I still have hours but this place worked. I had forgotten what the name of the place was we were staying, just had the exit number. Pasted the signs for our motel without realizing it, and our exit was gone. Grass grows where the road once was, so I had to go to the next exit and come back. We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Weatherford, walked across the parking lot to the El Patio, another Mexican restaurant. We had looked at a couple of other ones but they were closed on Sunday's. Tomorrow will be the tight one, we should have enough hours to get to Springfield IF there are no delays, then less than four hours to St Louis. Most likely we will be heading home from St Louis, not sure what we will do for the extra five days ... plus the five we had already planned on being home. 20180226 - CA-MO Full, I am still stuffed from last night and I only ate half my meal. Was only going to have yogurt but then I saw SPAM, or chopped ham so I had some of that too. Cranberry juice was pretty strong, I don't think the concentrate was getting mixed. Made my calls this AM, found out where to drop, right down to which door to pull in. Also called about not getting my discount ... "Always fuel in the back" (where the truck pumps are) and called about not driving my personal car over 11 hours and was told that did not apply to me. Pulled out shortly before 8 am, no rush today, it will be a max of seven hours today. A little over an hour later we are in Oklahoma City at Loves to fuel. Got my discount, but not my points. Not sure my card works anymore it is getting really warn. All pumps are full when I pull in, plus I have to wait until the guy ahead of me completely leaves. And when we leave, there are pumps open, no waiting. From here it is the toll road. Two and a half hours later we are at Big Cabin to the Woodshed to eat. BB ordered off the menu and her food was good. I opted for the salad bar without looking at it. The food was discolored from sitting out. Lettuce looked good but could tell it was limp when I ate it, had to dig quite a ways into the cheese to get some that wasn't dried, croutons were good. Also tried the chicken noodle soup, whatever spice they used tasted sour and completely over shadowed any taste of chicken. I ended up eating a 1/4 of BB's sandwich. And then the server never came back to so we could pay them. After they walked past a few times I finally paid cash and walked out. As long as we were stopped, I bought DEF and put that in. I was down to 1/4 of a tank of DEF. So far I am still on full for fuel after 180 miles. Hope that it stays over a half by the time I drop it. It doesn't seem to want to stop at the 1/8's and I am supposed to leave it over 3/8 or 5 inches of fuel if I had to stick it. Got to Springfield at 3 PM, there already was a truck where I wanted to park, plus a few storage containers but there was still room. BB was wondering why there was so few rooms, turns out they are remodeling so lots of room to park. Plan was to walk to Bob Evans, but as we walked past the Whole Hog Cafe smelled really good so we ended up there. They have lots of their food trophy's in their windows. The place looks like a former Shoneys building. BB had a salad and I had the pulled pork with only one of the two sides and I was still stuffed. Good food. We did take time to do a half hour walk earlier when it was still light out, didn't last night but had on Saturday also. Work board is back up over 200 RV's. We'll see if we head back out on Thursday or Friday with a short run. We did a lot better on this trip that even the last one and that one was good. Both trips had down time because of weather. There is an RV in Wichita Falls going right back to Forest City, sounds good but run of thumb is if the run it out of route, it has to be twice as many miles as it takes to get to it and this one is not. Tomorrow delivery day. Don't have the car set to pick up until 1 pm so we won't get going real early. Two hours to Cuba for the was then another 90 miles to St Louis. Car is less than a mile from the drop, just a big loop around four sides of the collage campus then 24 hours and we'll be home. 20180227 - CA-MO We can't get the rental car until 1 PM so we don't leave the hotel until 7:30. Not much for traffic, first stop is in Cuba two hours down the road. We get to the Blue Beacon truck wash, there is four ahead of me so it looks like it will be close to the one hour wait that I had guessed. When we were next in line, BB said something that it looked like we would be out in under an hour ... unless they guys truck wouldn't start. AND it didn't. I had to back up to give the guy room in case ... ??? they just had me back up. He did get it started without a tow, could here it running pretty rough before I started mine. My wash takes as long as it takes to do the bill and we are rolling again. When they washed the bus they got a lot of water under one of the plastic sections that they put on the windshield to protect the glass. I watched as it tore loose little by little. Finally when about six inches of the four feet were loose I decided to pull off at an exit and remove it. As soon as I get on the exit ramp it comes loose and is gone. Too late to get back on the freeway so down the exit and then back on. :) back when we were coming into TX from NM ... there is a cross-over for the highway trucks, cops, etc and signs that should say wrong way so they make sure they make U-turns. Well someone had turned one of the signs so it said 'Wrong Way' as we entered TX. We entered anyway. From Cuba to St Louis it is less than two hours. Got BB dropped at the car rental with no issues. Then I took the next left, it should have been the 2nd left, so I went through the collage instead of around it. Didn't realize it until I was looking at the roof of the bus garage and new I'd made a mistake. By that time I was in the wrong lane and had to go a couple of extra miles to turn around. Luckily there was no one around but it was a mostly abandon area. Then when I was heading back I hit the curb, I had to take a right from one arm of a Y to the next one and did swing wide enough. But coming from this direction made it much easier to turn on to the correct street than from the original direction. BB was no there with the rental car so I stopped close to a parking lot and got ever thing in order for when she did get there. Two trips of stuff and the bus was empty. Found the correct door, but there was a bus in the way so I called my contact. He came out to where I was parked. By this time there was a UPS truck blocking me in so the bus guy did the inspection right there. Fuel was done to 1/2, I think it is supposed to be over 3/8 so we should be good. DEF light was no on. No issues. Once the UPS guy moved I pulled the bus into the shop, tore the plastic off and I was done. This guy did say there were two more buses from this batch and then should start getting the next batch in October. Didn't wait for BB to find directions, she hadn't found them before I got to the car either. So we headed west which was not the shortest way. More interesting sections of town. Finally got to the freeway and then to a Jimmy John's in O'Fallon 30 miles away. When we came out of Jimmy Johns, there were a few old people coming out of the Egg and I next door ... with there walkers and canes, they were not moving 'freaky fast.' ;) Next stop in the rental car was at a rest area in Hannibal, then the rest area in Ely, IA. Coming through Cedar Rapids we just came up on a cop in the median when he put his break lights on and put his car in gear. We were right along side of him when he kicked it down and put on the siren. The guy he was after put his break lights on almost as soon as the siren went on, he knew he was had. We stopped a Penara Bread for soup before we went to our motel in Waterloo. Comfort Inn. We have four plus hours to go still to get the car back to Burnsville in under 24 hours. We had not planned on going anywhere but home, but the board is now up to 216 and we have found ONE place that may work. If they will still take delivery on Saturday. Four years ago they would, we will have to call before we say OK. If we get that run, we will drop the car, go home, grab the mail, go to the bank and be back in Forest City for the night. If we do go home, it may be for 12 days ... that is another reason to head right back out. Because I have to be back on Tuesday for my DOT appointment we have a narrow window. We don't make any money on runs under 1,000 miles and we don't have time to do trips any longer than 1,000 miles. The customer has to be open on Saturday and there has to be a rental car place open on Saturday. Cars are up to $400 a day from some area's we looked at, instead of the <> $100 a day we are used to. There is snow in the forecast for Chicago so the northeast is out. There are wind advisories in the southwest. We've done the math and know what works.  |