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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2 RV's to Bakersfield CA (both delivered) ... the trip continues from HERE 20181203 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX Plan was to be up and ready by the time both the shop and the bus company were open. We were, but everyday while we are on the road we need to do an AM check call. So everyday I get a text comfirming my call. Today that text and a text from the bus company came in at the same time and because I knew what the text was, I didn't look at it right away. Then the bus text was 'had I delivered yet.' Finally about an hour later I got a call to update my status. At this point I was told to take the bus to a Rush Truck Center about five miles away. I could have called, but I thought they may be more likely to work on it if I was sitting in there drive. They weren't. Yes they could work on it, but it would be next week. At that point I called the bus company back and they started looking for other places. It didn't seem like working with a Ma n Pa shop was something they were interested in. An hour later I got the call to take it to another Rush location here in San Antonio about 10 miles away. THEY would be able to work on it this week (vs next week.) And when I asked about leaving the bus ... no ... no ... no. We got to the bus place about 10 AM and they said they might be able to look at it by the afternoon. I checked with dispatch and all they want to know is my location. Next we called a motel, and they were fine with us checking in as soon as we could walk there. This place does not give rides so we walked it. It's only about a half mile so we lightened our load so we only had two carry bags. There is a little cafe a block away so that was lunch. The front desk told us about a pizza truck so that is the plan for supper. Cafezino, it's in a small house, you have a choice of about a dozen menu items. People were having their little two people meetings over their computers. Food was good. I had a meatball sandwich and BB had something else. We spend another afternoon on the computer until about 5 pm. Then I call the shop back and they did not get a chance to work on it today but they did sound very certain they would be able to work on it tomorrow. Pizza truck was supposed to be in a parking lot by 5 PM. We get there and no truck, so I look it up on the web and it said open 5 PM ... THURSDAY. Missed that before, they are only there four days a week. We decide not to eat at the cafe again and come back to our room and order Papa John's. Today it only took an hour to get our pizza. We ordered a large and ate half, the rest may be for tomorrow. Travel site has been down all day, can't find anything online. Hopefully it comes back up. And if it does I will be grabbing all my old files and moving them here. Work called looking for drivers. Board is not that busy but I thinking they want them moved before the holidays. That was our plan, this was not. There were a couple of interesting runs out of TX again but nothing we could commit to. 20181204 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX Not much for excitment today. Slept in, no alarm. Usual breakfast. Later in the morning the guy from the bus company called me a couple of times, like to ask me where I was. Turns out that 3 out of 4 buses heading to Brownsville are now in the shop with seal issues. They think it is coming from the breaks. I only have two hundred miles left. I also called my dispatcher to update him and ask how long they keep us on a broken down bus. 'Two weeks, but that hasn't happened very often.' I also mentioned to him that the reason I may have gotten further than the other drivers is I drive slow and stop often. We had left over pizza for lunch. About 1 pm I called the shop. The bus will not be ready today, they are waiting for the bus company to ship them some parts. While on the phone I asked if we could walk down and get some stuff out of the bus. I needed more drugs (I don't keep them all in one bag) and BB wanted to wash more clothes. AFTER we walked down and got the stuff, we found out that they don't have soap here. So BB can't wash cloths after all. More sitting around again this afternoon. At 5 pm we walk back over to the cafe to eat again. This time we both got a chick sandwich. We also bought juice and cookies. The last two years the load board was down to -0- for a few days now. This year it is up around 60. Nothing exciting coming out of TX. Not sure what we'll do when we get home. Need to get rid of the bus first. This AM I had told BB that we would either get going today or they would pull us off. Wrong. Travel site still down. 20181205 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX Another day sitting in the motel. I wake up at 5 am and think that I should have asked the bus company if they were working on both sides. I didn't get back to sleep after that thought. Finally at 10:30 I call the shop to get an updated. Parts did ship last night but they have not received them. They also don't have anyone who can work on it until after noon. Without asking directly I did find out that they will replace the seals on both sides. Whew ... At about 11 we decide will will walk down to Cheeders. We can see it from the window so it's not that far.But we have to cross over two frontage roads and under the freeway. We are in no hurry so we just wait until there is a break. But we hadn't looked at street view or ariel photos. There is a 'creek' that didn't have a walkway over it. No shoulder. The creek looked more like a spillway, wide with tall grass but I didn't see any water except under the bridge. The ground seemed solid but we decided not to chance it. Instead we walk back to Rudy's BBQ. Set up like a fast food place, order at the counter and bus your own tables. Food was good. I had ribs and BB had the turkey. For sides we had creamed corn, potato salad and cole slaw. At 1:30 I call the shop, still no parts. So I text my contact at the bus company ... the parts will SHIP today. So we are here for another day. After our big lunch we finally order our next meal at about 6 PM. We go with Panera. Their online app allows us to track the car as it makes multiple deliveries. They are out of the Cuban so I go with the steak and cheese, with soup. Finally see the diaries on Ebay. (My Dad's cousins, but someone else bought them and are now selling them.) These four walls are getting closer together ;) 20181206 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX I wake up at 4:30 and realize that the guy selling the diaries did it right, for him. He's not selling them as diaries, he's selling them as collectables for the news and entertainment newspaper clippings that are in them. I likely will not get them. I don't realize I have drifted off when BB gets up. It is 7:15. I call the shop in the morning ... THEY will call ME when the parts come in. Still by 1 PM I am calling them again. At 2 PM they still do not have the parts, so we reserve the room for another night. A few minutes later they call and say the parts are in. ... another half hour and they call back. They got SOME of the parts. At that point we don't know if they were shipped in separate (lost) packages or if the bus company didn't ship them. Thinking we would be gone by tonight, we walked next door to the Cafezoni and had a repeat of Monday's meal ... plus soup. I didn't need the extra food. I am stuffed. There is now a good likelyhood that we will be here for the weekend. We have 6 hours of just driving. Plus an hour of stops. Plus the time at the wash, so about 8 hours. The bus place closes at 5 PM. So we have to be out of here before 9 AM and the repair shop doesn't open until 8 AM. Called bus dispatch to give them an update. That's all they want to know, where I am. We walked down the street to get pizza from the pizza truck. They weren't there. BB looked on line and their site said something about being in a specific town today. I guess they are there instead. We end up ordering oriental instead. I should have taken pictures. Each to go container was full to the top. BB ate half of hers and I ate about a third of mine. Mine was pretty good, chicken, sause and rice. BB had the peanut chicken, not as good. 20181207 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX Went down for breakfast before they closed at 9 AM. Called for a late checkout by 10 AM. Called the repair shop after 11 AM. They checked while I was on the phone, the parts are in, they are working on it. (At some point we will know if they have ALL the parts) ... and they are not open on Saturday. Hopefully that is not an issue. The back corner of the motel property touches the horse track property and we are able to see what goes on. They seem to work the horse track every day. And no live races are on the schedule until June 2019. They do have food, not sure why we didn't walk that way one of our many outings. Called the shop back and they have been waiting since this AM for the specs for the break settings. I make a call and find out the shop left a message with someone who isn't in today ... and I have to wait until someone else gets back from lunch to find out what else is going on. That person finally calls me back and says they will take care of it and call me back. They finally do at 3:30. By then we have checked out. The shop website says they are open until 6, but it seems only the office is open until 6. The shop goes home at 4 PM. BUT they are going to come in on Saturday to get me out of there. ))) Thank you ((( So by 10 AM tomorrow the shop should call and tell me it is ready. So we reserve another room and check back in. Wow .. a different room. It is raining now so not sure what we will do about food. We ate left over oriental for lunch. Our driving board is dropping. We will now deliver on Monday and hopefully get home Weds night ... or Thurs AM. Not likely we will do another RV trip. Could, if the right two day trip shows up. After 6 I called the mobile pizza place that we have walked down to twice. This time they were here. I called first to see if they were there, then a 2nd time to order. Wet walk as we walked through a vacant lot before we got to a side street. We don't like walking on the frontage road, and not after dark. Pizza was good. I ate half, BB saved half of her half. 20181208 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX We are supposed to get a call from the shop at 10 AM so we aren't in any rush to get up and going. Breakfast is a little different every day. Today the sausage is cold. Other than that, all is good. No call at 10 AM. By 10:30 I call them, all I get is answering machines, no one picked up. We start walking to the shop. I bring my backpack in case I can leave with the bus. The rest of the stuff we leave in the room. Becuase I had problems with the computer last night I had already packed my computer before we started walking so I was carrying the extra weight the whole way. No one at the shop. It rained last night and it doesn't look like anyone has been in the lot this morning. I call the bus dispatcher and he is in, it's still before noon on the west coast. Get a motel, call the bus company. By the time we get to the shop, we are a quarter of the way to the rental car agency. I try to call to see if they have a car before we walk, but I get put on hold. So BB makes a reservation online and we keep walking. After 2 miles we are at the rental cars. In fitting with the last week, there are issues with getting the car. They finally had to do a manual order to get us out of there. Finally after a week we have wheels ... like we are 16 again. Wheels. The first thing we do is go get soap. Laundry soap. The motel has washing machines, but no laundry detergent so we have no more clean clothes. We had only planned on staying overnight and would have to walk most of a mile so we left our suitcases in the bus and only carried a backpack and a duffel bag. We stop at WalMart to get the soap and also get a new thumb drive for the computer in case the computer does crash before I get a new one. Next stop is Best Buy to look at more computers. Too many people out shopping this time of year. Now backtracking to the Post Office so we can mail last weeks delivery. And then back to the motel. BB had eaten the left over pizza for lunch, I had a cup of yogurt when we got back. At some point I had called the bus company. They answered on the second ring. And they restated that the bus company was to have called me. Now the earliest we will get back is next Friday. Most likely the bus is not done yet so we won't get to delivery until some time on Tuesday, then three days home. I am really getting bored today sitting in the motel without using the computer, only my note pad ... and it has been a week in this town. Finally at 5 PM we go to Chedder's about a mile away ... the way the crow flies.There is already a wait. Once we are seated I order the monte cristo and potato soup. BB had salmon and veggies. Way too much food for ordering desert. Back to the hotel and I start transfering data to the thumb drive. 20181209 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX We knew for once we were not going anywhere today so we were in no rush to get up and around. We were still down for breakfast by about 8 AM. We made reservations early for tomorrow before asking for a late check out :) We are only about 15 miles from the Alamo. Left about 9:30, maping software has a little opps in it but we still able to get where we were going. A few places we had to cross a few lanes in a few blocks but traffic was very flight this AM. We drove around a couple of blocks looking for a parking lot, none had prices so we pulled into one that was closest. $20 for the day. We paid. We spent about three hours at the Alamo reading, looking and listening. Then we walked to the River Walk. BB looked at a Bier Garten but they had a very limited menu. So we went to another place we had looked at online. Schilo's. It is the oldest diner in San Antonio. BB had a ruben with potato salad, I had a chicken salad crissont with deviled eggs as a side. BB also had homemade root beer. All food very good, and filling. Place was packed but no waiting. Then we went for a two hour walk ... plus a fall. At some point I looking around, I know I'm walking past picnic type tables on my right and then ... WHAM. I think I have walked into the seat, but when I look back I see a one foot high brick wall I tripped over. I land on the palms of my hands, my head never hits the ground. We got back and sit on the bench for a bit, my leg is scrapped a little but not bleeding. Later when I'm trying to move at a different angle, I feel it in my shoulder. My arms broke the fall but my shoulders may have taken the blunt of it. On our way back to the car we are looking for a restroom, the only one we know of is at the Alamo so we stop back there. But there is a line so we think it would be faster to just get to the motel. So that is what we do. No issues getting out of downtown. Back to the hotel. Still not hungry at 6 PM but we need to eat, finally decide to go to Capparelli's Italian. We tried to get there without getting on the freeway so we took bunch of back roads. Took us a while with road constuction and 'no-right turns.' But we did finally get there. Small place in a small strip mall at past the endge of town. We were told to sit anywhere, the place was just about empty. By the time we got our food the place had filled up, but there was never a line. BB got the cheese ravioli with meatballs. I had lasagna. Both were really good, the red sause could have been better but the rest was really good. BB ate all of hers, I couldn't, so I have leftovers. 20181210 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Selma TX We are up and ready to go by 8 AM when the shop opens. I give them 15 minutes and then call them. 'They are working on it.' I told them I would call back before noon. I call back just about 11 AM, and am told that 'They now have the parts' ... but the crew is going to lunch and I wouldn't be able to get an answer until after noon. Our car has to be back by noon so we head out. I fueled and BB walked next door to McD's. I put in 2 gallons of fuel even though the gauge was still on full. We drop off the car and they give us a ride back to the motel. Later I call the shop back and am told it won't be today, maybe tomorrow by noon. (I won't put any money on it.) Then I call my dispatch and give them an update on voicemail. I eat my leftover, take a walk and settle back into our routine. Later we walk next door to the Cafezinho. So we don't have to walk back in the dark, we get our food to go. BB orders a turkey and I order the meatball sandwich again, for the 3rd time. Small menu. We also order cookies and juice for me. 20181211 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Pleasanton TX Not expecting any answeres until noon, I finally get out of bed at 7:30. Down at breakfast they are out of bacon so I stick my head in the cook area and let them know. The gal asks me if I want ??? eggs. I ask her a few times to repeat it and then wave it off. Back at the table BB tells we that it is a Mexican 'condiments.' So when I see the gal again I explain that I didn't know what she was talking about. "Don't you eat Mexican?" Yes, I do, but have never heard that word. Then I asked if she knew what lutefisk and lefse were. I got a blank look. People from different from different backgrounds know different foods. Check out time is 11, so I call the shop for an update. The long pause I get when I ask for an update is was not re-assuring. They are waiting for parts, should be in 'soon.' Not sure what happened yesterday. Wrong parts, bad parts, ruined the parts? Whatever happened, we are still here. We decide to walk back to Rudy's BBQ. Food was as good as last time, but my left leg has been 'jolting' me every once in a while today and continued doing it during the walk. Also, this was the first time in a long time that my throat issue has bothered me and this was the worst I ever remember. I need to keep track of what and why. Not interested in being put under so Dr can look at it. I call at 2 PM and the shop is still not done with my bus, I plan on calling back at a quarter to 4 as the shop goes home at 4 PM. At 3 PM I get a call, the bus is done. We pack up to walk. The driveway at the motel has a huge grade or I would have walked up and came back past the motel to get our stuff. I could stop on the frontage road with my flashers on but BB doesn't like that idea. Speed limit is supposed to be 45 mph on the frontage road, but it doesn't seem like it. BB is having second thoughts by the time we have walked across the motel parking lot carrying our stuff. But we keep plugging on and get to the shop in about 20 minutes from the time they had called. The shop pulls the bus out for us and I go back in and sign the paperwork. I do a quick inspections of the bus, lights and for damage. All is good, they have washed all the oil off the wheelwells. Before I am done with my log I notice a warning light on. No one answers at the bus company so I go back into the shop to find my contact, he's NA and the shop is going home in 15 minutes. But the bus company calls me back and says 'GO.' I let the shop know I'm leaving and am gone. Traffic is not bad. I am on edge with this bus and am watching the rear wheels as well as the road. 60 miles down the road something starts to squeel and I can no longer get the bus over 60 mph. I pull off at the next exit. Once I am back by the rear wheels I can see the smoke. And it stinks, not like hot oil, more like rubber. The rims are still cool enough that I can touch them, unlike the last two times. I call the bus company and they have me disable some of the computer safeguards and ask me to call them back if that doesn't fix the issue. Just wanting to get off the freeway, I did not look to see if I can get back on, I can't. I will need to take backroads to the next entrance. A couple of miles down the road and before we are back on the freeway, I stop again. Still not hot, no more smoke but it still stinks. We get back on the road and then on to the freeway. I had planned on getting four hours down the road tonight. Now I just want to be in a bigger town before dark. Five more miles down the road I stop again. I haven't seen any smoke but it still stinks and does not sound right. I call the bus company back and as I am talking to them I finally see what looks like oil between the rims, but none on the ground yet. The company says go to the closest motel. He will need to talk to other people in his company before letting us know our next step. I call the dispatcher but he doesn't answer. Dispatcher calls back as I am driving so I call him as soon as I exit the freeway ... Oh, earlier today the dispacher had told me there are two more buses in El Paso with the same issue, they are not up and running yet. Five more miles and we are at the motel. MicroTel this time, in Pleasanton. We check in and then walk a half mile in the dark to a Mexican restaurant. Very good food, only the salsa was too hot for me. We both had enchiladas. When we get back, we walk past the bus. After one hour there is already a huge puddle of oil. What we are smelling may be the oil, but it's not hot oil so I don't understand why the smell would be so strong. When we took the trip we reserved a car of $70 a day. Now cars out of San Antonio are $470 a day. $1,077 for a Hertz, our car of choice. Same out of Houston. Car prices have gone up out of Brownsvill also but only to $170 a day. Because I like to not be up against the clock, we priced out the car for 4 days, still $170 a day ... but if we keep it for a week? $30 a day. We got it for the week. AND because I have no idea how things will play out, we also reserved one for the following Friday. Same price. With prices going up like that we need a backup plan, we can't afford to spend over $4,000 to get home. Flying would be cheaper, but not cheap. So we will have to wait until all the people at the bus company in CA are in and a meeting can be held. Load board is back up to 8, but we aren't going anywhere. Did get an email today from my other company. Everyone needs to let them know when the are available. Good news is there are ONLY 44 buses to move in the next 20 days, which is about normal. If it wasn't for the holidays. 20181212 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at San Antonio TX Up before 5 am to get my final bid in on eBay, but someone had set a max bid higher than I was willing to go. Back to bed, but not really to sleep. When I get up later and make my daily checkin call, I see that the bus company had texted me over an hour ago, but I have my sound shut off ... it's on now. Not being at a Choice Hotel, breakfast was a little different. No fridge, so no yogurt or butter. Also cereal but no milk?? Went out and looked at the bus and it is worse than last night, I'll need to walk to the auto parts store to get something to clean up the parking lot before I leave. Last night we had reserved a couple of cars, depending on which one works. This AM, BB lets me know she will be out of meds in a few days so we may be reserving a car for a different date. My thought this AM is that they will just flatbed the bus the rest of the way so it is somewhere with the bus company can bring in their own crew to work on it. Can't do that at a dealer. Get a text that a tow truck is on the way and the name of the shop it is going to ... back in San Antonio. We get packed up and move our stuff out to the bus. Then walk a block to get some floor dry to clean up the mess the buss left. Once we are back I call both the tow and the shop. Tow will be here in about an hour. It will be a 'landoll,' that the bus will have to be driven on to. And there is only room for one of us in the tractor cab so we will need to get a rental car to get up to San Antonio if that is where we are going. The good news is there is a rental car place a block from where we are now, and about two blocks from where the bus is going. Called the shop, they had no idea what I was talking about but took down my name and number. Said they would look at it either today or tomorrow depending on when the bus got there. If it had been an engine issue, it would have been a couple of weeks before they could look at it. But a seal? No problem ... that after I told him it was the 4th one in the last 500 miles. Dispatcher said he would let us know by noon ... west coast time?? ... if they were going to pull us from the bus. I'm guessing they won't do that until the shop has looked at it. Right now we are debating leaving our stuff in the bus for the ride or leave it in the motel without us. We had asked for a late checkout, but we did not put the 'do not disturb' sign out and they started cleaning our room as soon as we walked out. So now we sit and wait in the breakfast area. It is already after noon but neither of us are hungry enough to leave the bus when the tow may be almost here. There are three fast food places at the edge of the motel property. We see the 'tow' truck pull in and go out to meet him. This is not the type of trailer I expected, this trailer is usual trailer height and the whole bed tilts and then drive the bus on. I drive the bus to the truck and then he drives it on. The bus is as wide as the trailer and has to be on just right. As he's pulling on the rear drags and the tires start to spin. He has to pull the trailer bed ahead to get the bus off far enough to get more traction. Finally he used the trailer bed to push the bed under the rear wheels far enough to get traction. Then we have an issue that the bus doesn't feel stable. I'm in it when he is pushing the bed under the tires and it starts to rock ... I want out!!! Later as he is trying to move the bus it rocks under him. He ties one side down and completes the load. We had been going to walk to the rental car place as soon as he arrived, but now we've spent an hour or so helping him load. At one point BB walks around the back of the bus and the tow driver stops. The look on BB's face stopped him and he wanted to know what she meant before moving again. Later I tell him that she does that to me often. :) He finally has the bed tilted flat and the bus in the position he wants and we part ways. All I grab is my back pack off the bus, BB grabs her suitcase. And we have a few blocks to walk to the rental car place. We make it, I drag or carry the bag most of the way. No issues at the rental car place. We head back to the McDonald's in front of our motel to grab something to eat. As we are going to pull in the loaded bus is pulling out of the next street. We have a long wait for our food, lots of people after us get their food before us. At some point I remember the food we left in our fridge. Opps. We go back, they give me a key to the room and the food is still there. Beds are all made but no one checked the fridge. We head to the shop about 45 minutes away, no issues. We get there before the bus ??? I go in and ask a few questions. The bus will be behind the fence so we can leave our stuff in the bus. We fill out the work order, they don't having anything from the bus company who set this up. BB calls as I'm talking but I don't answer until I get outside. Once I'm outside I see the bus, he's here and unloaded. We grab my suitcase, answer a couple of more questions. As I'm walking to our car, someone is backing in next to us and someone else's horn is going off. They must have some kind of detector system. We head back to the motel we were at 11 days ago. It is about 2 miles from the shop. There is a Motel 6 and a Super 8 next to the shop, but not with the best reviews. When we get to the Comfort Inn, 1st the keys don't work. Once we are in the room we realize the door doesn't actually latch. A slight push and it opens, and the dead bolt doesn't work at all, so it's just the latch ... not enough. We go back to the front desk. They give us a room on the very end of the building. It has only marginal internet. Sometimes it's working, sometimes nothing. We head to the Iron Skillet to eat. Wow ... I was sure we had walked down here before, but as we drove it I realized we had not. Scary. We both say we will get the hot buffet, but as I look at the food I change my mind. As I'm working on my second plate, this one of salad, something gets stuck in my teeth. I only have two picks and they both bust. A couple of bites later I feel something grinding. I finally realize that it is one of my teeth. Now I've lost my appetite. This Petro / Iron Skillet has a couple of unique things. The first I notice as we walk in, is a lock smith / key maker. Then when we get to the buffet, this one has a grill in the food area where they cook some things right in front of you. Back at the motel I bust most of a dozen tooth picks before giving up, the sharp edges on the tooth are breaking the floss. I did call dispatch and they said 'stay with it.' We will know more tomorrow. The bus got there at about 3 PM and the shop goes home at 4 PM. Not sure what they will find. Four wheel seals in the last 500 miles. Something else is wrong. We are back on our 10 AM and 2 PM calls to the shop. We will likely keep the car until we get the bus back. No message from the person who owns the diaries. Did get a reply from the person who actually put them on eBay (not the same person.) 20181213 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at San Antonio TX Up and down for breakfast before it's over. Then wait until 10 AM to call the shop. After being on hold for a while they finally come back to the phone and tell me to call back after noon. So we reserve another car. With no good motels near the shop we will need a car as long as we are in this shop. No internet in this room, we are as far away from the office as we can get. So I have to 'HotSpot' it to get online every couple of hours to check emails, etc. After a late checkout we go back up to Chedders in Selma. This time I get the Philly and BB gets the club. We get back to the car rental place and while we are waiting in line, I call the shop, the bus is next in line at 2 PM. At the rental car place we switch the car we have from a one way to a two day local. Back to the same motel we have been staying at on I-10. We check in and get a room with WiFi. And I call bus dispatch and let him know what the shop has told me. He suggests I call the shipper. I call the shipper, and he mis-understands me thinking I am the delivery point and stats explaining where the drivers are. No ... I AM the driver, I just want an update on my bus. Seems he knows they are not looking at my bus until today. IF they look at it and order the parts yet today, the shop should have them tomorrow. Otherwise it will be Monday. Then he says to call dispatch, he may want you to come back and get another bus. (I didn't tell him that was not going to happen.) The shipper did tell me before I cut him off that one of the buses in El Paso should be done today, didn't sound like the 2nd one would be. Neither one of us was hungry but by 7 PM we knew we had to eat something again today so we went back to Denny's. It's within walking distance, but it's dark and we have a car. About three blocks to walk it. 3 miles to drive it because of the one-ways. I had a philly omelette and BB had fish. :) when we were done eating, I asked BB if she wanted a lollapalooza. She said no, until I told her the closest one was in MN. Didn't realize the only Bridgemans are in MN, plus a few in WI. Nothing left on the board today out of IA. There are a couple in TX going up to NE but doubt they will be there when we are ready to go. OK, we are ready to go now, but also want to get this thing delivered. 20181214 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Brownsville TX WE MADE IT TO BROWNSVILLE ... ... too bad the bus didn't. We were up and down for breakfast again by 8 AM. No reason to get going ... At 10 AM I make my morning call to the shop, all they say is 'they are working on it, call back after noon.' 11 AM is check out time so we are out of there. We head to the Missions National Historic Park. We spend an hour or so there watching a movie and walking the grounds. There are five Missions in San Antonio including the Alamo. The Alamo is downtown, this one is still surrounded by city. The church area looks like it is still used and a lot of the Mission has been rebuilt. While we are at the Missions, I get a call from my local company wanting to know if I can work Saturday. Nope, I am still in TX ... didn't they just call yesterday and I told them the same thing. Hope there is still work when I get there. When we leave there we drive a couple of miles and go to a Golden Corral. This one is laid out differently than any I've seen before. Didn't have any food that was bad. And I had plenty of it. From there we drove to another one of the Missions. I tried calling the shop but it just kept ringing and ringing so I gave up. Planned on calling them back in a half hour. We hadn't done much walking at the first one Mission so at the next one the plan was to walk from one to the next one. We start by looking at the buildings on the way to the path. A bus called 'De-Tours' got there about the time we did. Seems to be a place that will take you where ever you want to go and tell you what they know about it. We found a path but it didn't look right, we took it anyways, brought us just about back where we started and then we found the trail. Still not marked but six foot wide, paved. Wasn't that way closer to the Mission. We get five minutes down the trail and the bus company calls. They can't get a hold of the shop either. So I try the shop again. I get someone, and they had tried to call the bus company but they didn't have the name of the person who called. So the shop was glad I called. And I was told "We looked at it. The guy we had assigned it to doesn't know anything about how this one is put together. We will have our 'expert' look at it, next week, Tuesday or Wednesday." So I call the bus company back and relay the message ... and we run through the timetable. Weds they look at it, Thurs the parts are shipped to them. By the time they get the parts it's the weekend and then Christmas ... if it's OK with dispatch, I can leave the bus. I call dispatch. He doesn't like to leave a bus sit, but he understands. We have been with this bus for over two weeks. He does tell me the other two are rolling again today. They also have been down for two weeks. They have over 800 miles today, I hope they have better luck than I did. We check close times for a couple of places and head out. Our first stop is back to get the stuff out of our bus. It is sitting where it was this morning when we drove by. So either they had already looked at it, or they never did pull it in. We grab our stuff and head south. It's about 3:30 so we are ahead of traffic. At about 5:30 we stop and get fuel and McD's in Kingsville. Finally at 7:30 we are at the airport in Brownsville. Yes, we are driving eight hours out of our way to pick up a rental car. It will save us about $1,800 on the car, plus better mpg. BB doesn't want to drive at night so we rent the car, and then leave it sit in the airport lot. The rental place doesn't open until 9 AM and we want to leave at 7 AM in order to return the San Antonio car by noon. For a few minutes we thought about spending the weekend in Brownsville, Padre Island but we just want to get out of TX. So we left our 2nd car and headed to the SureStay. They are still a part of the BestWesterns, but no longer can use those signs ??? The lot is just about empty. 8 PM on a Friday night and there is about 5 cars including ours. We have the one way car for a week, but only plan on taking three days to get home. There is one truck kind of on the way but not sure we can do a pickup on Saturday. IF I remember, I will call tomorrow before noon. It only adds about 30 miles to the trip and would 20181215 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX ... spending the night at Fort Worth TX It was a long day yesterday, I know I forgot some of the things I was going to mention. Remembered them during the day and now have forgotten them again. SureStay, this was our first stay at one. On-line it says it is a new brand. What I have seen, most of the SureStay motels used to be BestWestern. We couldn't get the heat to adjust right (in southern TX,) the pillows were all flat, the stop in the sink was stuck down so we had to use the shower to brush our teeth and wash up. I took a shower and it was like only three of the little holes were open on the shower head. The place still only had a few cars in the lot at 6 AM. We left before breakfast. Plan had been to get going by 7 AM, but we were both up so we were going a little after 6 AM. It was just getting light. We were able to see the buses in the lot where I was supposed to have dropped mine, only about a quarter of a mile from the airport. Got to our car, and switched our stuff to the new car. No security asking what we were doing when all the agency's are still closed. Back to the freeway and past our motel before 6:45. BB followed me back to the freeway but from there we were each on our own. Not too far down the road there had been a major accident in the median. Looked like two cars/pickups had rolled and one must have been pulling a trailer, something had split wide open. Saw this last night and again this AM, these cars down here that are 'in transit,' a lot of them were pulling two cars, not just one. Wanted to take a picture of the sign we saw last night that said 'Next services 60 miles,' but there wasn't one coming from the south. Last night I had put in what I thought would be enough fuel to get back to San Antonio. 100 miles from San Antonio I add another 7 gallons. Stop at a Wal-Mart and get it for $1.77 ... in CA we have seen it for over $5.00. But the Walmart is on the wrong side of the freeway so it takes a little time to save that $1. That was near Corpus Christi on I-37. An hour and a half later I am back in San Antonio, first I add another 2 gallons to bring it back up to 1/2 full and then to the return. Six people ahead of me and they seem to be taking about 20 minutes per. Finally after BB gets there, they realize they are going to need more cars so they take me out of order and check mine in. Another person had been ahead of me to return theirs, but they were in the restroom when they asked. I still think we were there over a half an hour. BB had stopped and gotten a breakfast sandwich this AM, I had not. As soon as we had dropped we head to McCalister's up near Salma. BB had some kind of salad and I had a french dip and potato soup. Not enough au jus, other than that, all good. My mind is slipping. 15 years ago I had ridden the Greyhound from Fort Stockten home via San Antonio. I mentioned to BB that there should be two huge outlet centers just north of San Antonio, there wasn't ... they were closer to halfway between San Antonio and Austin. :) Our next stop was at Buc-cee's for fuel in Temple, north of Austin. I had never been in one before. Six registers at this exit open with a line waiting. Parking lot is the size of a Walmart in addition to all the parking at the pumps. After I bought a couple of things at Buc-cee's to 'help me stay awake,' BB decided we should not run too late tonight. She found a brand new Sleep Inn just north of Fort Worth for $55. She looked at the reviews for motels further down the road, but the reviews were not good. Once past Denton there is not much until we would get to OKC, but that would after 8 PM. Lots of road construction today so not a whole lot of time driving 75 mph. Got to the motel around 4:30, checked in and went across the freeway to Braums. Missed our turn so took the long way around. No quick U-turns here in TX. I remember eating at one of these before and BB didn't care for it. She didn't remember and wanted to try it. Still doesn't care for it, we'll see if she remembers this time. She got a small burger and I got the chili and we both got malts. None of the chili is as good as the Big Chief. Now that we are rid of the 2nd car, BB is in no rush to get home. If we were going to take our time, I would have liked to have headed out to Padre Island. Now I'd like to get home. I had more or less committed to being in town the week before Christmas and now that I can be, I would like to be. Right now we have about 1,000 miles to make it home ... should be able to do that before dark on Monday. Sometime this morning I called on one of the orders on the board heading to IA. Only question I asked was if it could be picked up today. "Monday thru Friday only." Didn't bother to ask any other questions. It would have been an easy $500 if we could have done it, only 30 miles out of route. We did have to go thru one border check this AM, we each were only asked one question "Citizen?" We were in separate cars at the time. At some point I need to do the math and send in all my breakdown and trip info. Everything has to be mailed at one time, they won't pay anything that is not sent in with the original documents. 20181216 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX (left it at the shop) ... spending the night at Bethany MO Not a tight schedule, so no alarm this AM. But we were both up by 6 AM. BB had gone to bed last night by 7:30 and I by 9 PM. Still very few cars in the parking lot at the motel, we wait until breakfast opens at 7 before going down, still very little is set up. Fridge is still locked. I take the usual, eggs, sausage, yogurt and juice. I usually complain or comment to the staff on the food at least once every couple of weeks. But this morning the eggs were so bad that BB complained. It might be the first time this year that she has had something to say about the food to anyone other than me. They were cold, runny and had the texture like someone had added dry egg mix to yesterdays left over eggs. Got out of the motel about 7:45, got to Davis, OK rest area for our first stop. It was easy to see that there had been a cattle trailer in the truck parking lot. Piles of evidence. It's been quite a while since I've been on this stretch of road. Some things are new, others are gone, some things have just changed. In OKC I have seen places where they have oil wells right in town. One parking lot they are drilling another well right next to the freeway. I think most of the wells are shielded in some way, high wall, fully enclosed. Lots of road construction, it looked like we lost most of a half hour this AM because of slow downs. Did see a few mixers heading south, I couldn't read the transport names on the sides, but they were not my 2nd company, could have been company #1. Later we saw an RV being transported. They have them front wrapped so they don't get rock chips already. (Already, coming from TX. Not sure what it has been like in IA/MN.) Next stop for fuel and food was in Blackwell. We stopped at the Pilot and Taco Bell. Gas is still under $2 so we fill even though I am only down to a 1/2. I remembered where most businesses were along here, but I had combined the two Blackwell exits. The south exit has most stuff on the west side and the north exit has all stuff on the east side. Roady's is one of the largest truck stop group and I had never picked up a rewards card. So today while we were eating lunch I looked up where the stations were on the way home. There is one in MN by the old stockyards, but there is also one 2 hours from where we ate lunch. So that was our next stop. Computer said to stay off the toll roads because of delays. We didn't and there wasn't. I-35 is toll from the OK border until Emporia. $8.50. We originally had talked about stopping at the Flying J, but that is a few blocks off the freeway. So instead we are stopping at Roady's, it's only a block off the freeway. I got my rewards card, used the restroom and saw that they had replaced their Chick-Witch with a Duncan Donuts. Back on the road and our next stop was the only north bound rest area in MO. Holt, MO. We had talked about staying the night different places, but if we make it to Bethany it will make for an easy day tomorrow. We weren't sure we'd make it all the way but we've made good time yesterday and today. And if we get home Monday I can work Tuesday. Don't need to, but I really want to keep that job also and they don't bug me about not working one day out of every 30 as long as I am around every quarter end to help move buses. Another thing we had talked about was eating at Strouds in Kansas City. But we were in the area by 4:30 and neither of us was hungry. Good thing we weren't. When we drove past, the place was already packed. Likely had a line waiting based on all the cars in the lot. And that was at 4:30. Instead we ate at Toots in Bethany. We have always gotten the buffet but you can also order off a menu. Plenty to eat, meatloaf and potato salad was the best. Other stuff was still good, there just always has to be something that is best. Another mile and we are at the hotel, Quality Inn. Used to be a Comfort Inn. Tomorrow we if we get going by 8 AM we should be home before 4. In case I forget to close with this tomorrow ... we will be off the road now until after the 4th of January. We've looked at our upcoming events and we have three weeks between my 1st and 2nd dentist appointment. Then nothing until the end of March when I like to be back for quarter end. After being gone three weeks this time we will likely try to be home a couple of days every couple of weeks. But life always has a way of filling in our calendar. 20181217 - CA-TX 1 bus to Brownsville TX (left it at the shop) ... spending the night at home We were the only ones in the breakfast area this AM, took the last two eggs and the last two sausage. There were other cars, so there were other people somewhere. Had to scrape the windows this AM. Only with a credit card but it's the first time in weeks. I call my 1st company before 8 and leave a message, I never hear back. Cheapest fuel was at a WalMart in Ankeny. It had gone up since the price on GasBuddy but it was still the cheapest. A few spots of snow on the north sides of trees but not in the sunny area's until we got to Clear Lake. We eat at the Other Place. We've eaten here a few times, always good food. I can't eat even half of the food so I get it to go. We stop and pick up our car, it is frozen in but no shoveling required. Only about 10 RV's in our lot but we see them double parked in other area's. Just looked online. The last two years we had been down to -0- over New Years. Stayed near -0- in 2017, but in 2018 it went to 100, then 150 before dropping again. My appointment is on the 2nd, not the 4th like I thought. But now our med refills are out of wack so we will have to decide what to do. I make a quick stop in Albert Lea to call the guy about some diaries, BB stops and uses the restroom. I stop again at the clinic and BB heads home ... to shovel snow. Because our driveway faces north, it doesn't melt off our driveway until later in the spring. Called about work, they have it covered for tomorrow. I'm sure I'll find something to do. No new write-ups until 2019. |
