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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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190219 - CA-OH First a few things about yesterday. There were a few trucks in the ditch and one on it's side where it was snowing. Then at this motel right by where we parked was a little prairie dog patch. Just like the ones at the zoos, except this one didn't have a fence around it. ... and in my 'spare time,' I work on family trees. The last few weeks I had been helping two cousins that were both adopted. Last night I re-read the first message from one of them and had their family ID'ed in a couple of hours. Got to remember to read the WHOLE message. Breakfast was the usual eggs, sausage this time plus potatoes. No issues, no rush hour traffic in Amarillo. The TX scale at Shamrock was open. It's always a debate if we have to cross with pickups. We crossed this one. It is about a half-mile/mile off the road. Drove across the scale and then back on the freeway. This is the location I got inspected before we started buying TX permits, I was the lucky one. When we get to the scale in OK, they had the signs that light up to say OK TO BYPASS or TRUCK MUST EXIT. It said neither, we didn't weight enough to trip the scale so we bypassed ... First stop was in Erick, OK. Second stop was at the Flying J coming into OKC. Fueled and then ate at the Huddle House. Place wasn't two crowded. They were out of salad so BB had to get a BLT. I got a pattymelt, hadn't had one of those in a while. Did see quite a few driveaway units today. Mostly boom trucks. Also saw a lot of skunks, laying on the highway. Didn't see one yesterday and flattened it a little more. Oder faded in the rain. Third stop was Tulsa. Flying J. I miss read the arrows on the highway. Left lane showed left turn, center lane was straight acroos and right was for right turn. But the left lane was for both U-turn and left at the street. We ended up doing a U-turn and going back to the next exit. They are still working on the road by Flying J, they were when we were here months ago. Does make for less traffic when the street is closed beyond the business. Called the drop, left message. We SHOULD be there on Thursday. We are making good time today. Scale at MO was 'Trucks' so we bypassed it. Stopped in Joplin at Flying J for fuel. We haven't been picking the lowest prices, sticking with the big places, easy in and out. BB looked at the weather and said we are done for the day. We had planned on getting to Springfield, but the rain will be changing to ice. We backtrack two miles to a Quality Inn. Then walk next door to Old Chicago. It rained most of the day. At one point the ice was so think on the radio antenna that I thought it would break off. We averaged 66 mph, the roads never got icy. Still watching the weather as to what time we want to get home ... RV board is back up over 80, but still not the CA orders we are looking for. 190220 - CA-OH It's so rare I do a good deed, I'm surprised I forgot to mention this yesterday ... Coming through OKC I noticed a cop standing on the side of the road with no one pulled over. So I put on my flashers and slowed down, when I did he ran out across two lanes of traffic and grabbed a log chain that was laying on the highway. There were a lot of things about last nights motel that said 'Super 8,' not Quality Inn. The room size, the layout and then this morning when we went down for breakfast the area looked to be two motel rooms opened up to make a place to eat. Good eggs. Did see a few trucks left in the ditch likely from last night. The first one was crashed against the rocks on the shoulder, the 2nd was on it's side and burned out, a 3rd was sitting in the median still crunched into a car ... but the truck was still running with it's lights on. I'm guessing the driver was inside sleeping until a tow got there. 1st stop Lebanon, MO at a Cenex. Just because that was the town we picked, a few miles before or after and we could have stopped at a truckstop. 2nd exit ... wasn't there. So we drove another five miles and ate at a different McDonald's in Pacific. Not sure when they changed the prior exit. The McDonalds and truckstop are still there, but no direct exit. Half hour break. This was the main exit for Six Flags so not a place I'd like to stop in the summer. Picked out the Super 8 I stayed at a few years ago. Not sure where I was coming from or going to. A few miles back on the road and BB exits. I'm thinking she read the signs wrong. She calls, I pull over and answer. She has a check engine light on. We agree to meet at the next exit but don't say where. We didn't stop the same place and it took a while to get the directions correct to meet. I do the calling, We are stopped for a little over an hour. Then are told to take it to a Nissan dealer. The closest one is about 10 miles away. We get there and they can't look at it for at least two hours so we get the OK to go on to delivery. Most of this time has been off duty for me but it has cost me enough on duty hours and total time that we can't get past Indy in the daylight even if we had driving hours. Back on the freeway, we are now on I-55 instead of I-44. End up loosing BB for a while in traffic, 20 miles or so. We stop at a Flying J in Effingham for fuel. I end up loosing BB again before we get to Indy, and get lost myself. I take the 1st exit on the beltway instead of the 3rd exit. Luckily she had her GPS on both times today, and those were the only times this whole trip she had had it on. She got to the motel before I did. Quality Inn. Both the Shoney's and Bob Evens within a block are closed. Not sure if it is a good area or not but I don't want to chance it. We order in, we could have driven but I didn't think of that until after the food was delivered. Jordan's Fish and Chicken. They were only a block away, but not an area I wanted to be walking in after dark. We both ordered Gyros. And cake, to get the order over $20. But they didn't have the cake so we got delivery for an order under $20. We ordered online and it didn't ask us what pop we wanted so they gave us Pepsi, we dumped it :( neither of us drink much pop, even it it is free/paid for. Still haven't heard back from our drop. We have it all mapped out for tomorrow. Not sure if we'll use one of these pickups to go to the airport, or to the local rental. Or if we will get a local rental, or taxi all the way to the airport. Options. More stuff on the board out of CA. The IA board is staying at about 80, none to CA but finally a few to OR and a couple to AZ. 190221 - CA-OH Basic breakfast, we were ready to roll by 7:30 local. Sun would soon be coming up. Did ask as we left how safe the area is. "No problem with safety, just no food to walk to" was the reply. I'm guessing if we walked it once in the daylight that we'd be OK to walk after dark. The building next to us was built as a Shoneey's, the name on the building was a BBQ with as new sign saying 'Pancake house coming soon.' Next to it was the Taco Bell, behind the Bell was the place we ordered delivery from last night and a Subway. So there was food. About 15 minutes down the road we are at Pilot in Greenfield to fuel. We had thought of fueling earlier but this would be the most convenient, but we'd likely be leaving extra fuel for the customer. This is how far we had planned on getting last night before the check engine light issues. Noticed a guy on the other side of BB's pump putting gas in a can. Actually it looked like a (used) clear DEF container. When he came over to the back side of mine I realized what he was doing. He was draining any fuel he could get out of the hoses ... didn't ask for money though. BB would tell me later than when she started the pickup at after fueling the check engine light was off and would stay off. At Springfield we stop for a break at Loves. By now someone had called me back about the drop while I was driving. We can drop until 4 pm, if later ... just let them know where we leave the keys. So with that info we decide to use these units to go out of route to pick up our car at the airport. We also had a local car reserved a few miles closer but let that one go. Today on the highway ... stuff in the ditch. Plus one semi got off the pavement with one axle and was sunk in the mud on that side. When we drove past he was dropping the landing gear. I'm guessing he was hoping he could get the tractor out without the trailer, then come at the trailer from a different angle ... all on the shoulder of an interstate. Later I saw the cops giving a guy a DUI test ... at 10 in the morning. BB also had someone in the exit lane next to her but when the lane exited they just kept going down the shoulder, she finally got away from them. Not sure where they ended up. Break was in Wooster at McDonalds after we were on US-30. Too many McD's this trip. Another half hour down the road and we drop BB's truck at Walmart and head to the airport. GPS warns us not to take the exit for the freeway and then we see the ramp jammed. And as we do get on the freeway from the opposite direction we see where a pickup ran into the back of a semi. Following too close maybe? When I get off near the airport there is a STOP sign in an unlikely place and someone tries to go around me when I stop. Then they try to go around me before the turn lane starts. Once we do get turned the pass and cut me off for no reason on a four lane. GPS also had us go a block down a side street and take a U-turn for no reason. But we didn't know where we were supposed to go so we followed it. I hadn't looked at directions, just street view of the building on the computer. As I got close, those looked like the buildings, old railroad buildings and sure enough ... there were the trucks for the company we were looking for. I get to the drop and wait for BB. We drop the car and go back to get her unit. Back at the lot, I find the office while BB starts to unload. These are their trucks we were just relocating for them so they don't even look at them. They sign and we give them the keys. We are supposed to leave them with 1/8 of a tank of fuel. Fuel light can't be on. My was just under 1/4 and BB's was just over 1/4. Even with 300 miles out of route we still used less money than we were paid. Nothing on the load board for MN, IA or WI so we are heading home. We briefly think we can make it Friday night ... later we realize that IF we made it home Friday night ... we'd be shoveling for hours in the dark after driving for 12 plus hours. We'll be home sometime on Saturday. And if the weather comes as forecast we may not leave on Sunday even if there are loads. Nothing good on the board right now. Still good stuff coming out of CA. But if we get out there again this month I want to try first to get a bus. If we can't get out of town, or there is no work to get us out of town (where we want to go) by Tuesday, we will just stay in town and I will get my DOT testing done before the next trip instead of after next trip. Two plus hours from our drop we stop in Maumee at a Quality Inn. But first we stop at schlotzsky's for to go food. 190222 - CA-OH We hadn't set the alarm because we had already decided not to make it home on Friday. So we slept in and didn't leave the hotel until after 7:30 local. We eat our breakfast and hit the road. We are only a few blocks from the tollway so traffic is not an issue this AM. 1st stop is at a rest area near Elkhart. We fuel, use the rest room and are on our way. Interesting that the oasis in OH are huge with up to four fast food places in their food courts. In IN, they are down to one, non-chain place for food and a four stall bath room. Here we switch drivers so I could call for my DOT appointment. The weather is not looking better of the weekend and if we don't get out of town on time we won't be back before my DOT card runs out. So we decided to do it before we head out instead of rush back. After an hour on the phone, I finally got both an eye appointment and a Dr appointment set for Monday. So we MAY be back on the road by Tuesday IF I pass everything without adjustments. Big issues for me are now the eye test and blood pressure. They just need to be corrected and I'm good to go. I got done with my calls just before we got to the IN toll booth, just west of the toll booth was the final rest area. We stopped to switch drivers for the trip through Chicago. The car ahead of us was also switching drivers, we left first ... amatures :) No stop and go in Chicago, just lots of traffic. Made good use of our I-Pass ... haven't used it since last year. Stopped to eat at Joliet at Rex. It was time to eat. The place has seen better days but the food is still good. We got it to go. Not much left of the salad bar. I remember more hot food. Now it's just salad and fruit. Next fuel stop is back at Walcott. Plan was to stop at the Iowa 80, but fuel prices have changed since last night. Pilot is now cheaper. At the 1st gas pump, I swiped my car and it said 'processing' ... and never changed. So I moved to another pump and went inside to make sure I wouldn't get charged for the 1st pump. Screen was not working, I was told. (So why isn't the pump closed off?) Stopped one more time at the Road Ranger in Evansdale for the restroom. BB used the restroom and I made a phone call. The later weather updates said we didn't want to be in IA on Saturday so we did a quick pickup of the car and got to Albert Lea before dark. We thought we would have to dig out our car, but I was able to drive it out. At the Comfort Inn in Albert Lea we used perks points and we ate at the Iron Skillet next door. Nothing special tonight, brownie was good :) After I looked at the load board last night IA put on another 60 RV's. CA, AZ, FL and western points. Today they only put out a couple of more, but when we got to the lot there were still RV's parked everywhere ... plus the 100 or so in our area. There should still be work next week. Not looking forward to seeing our driveway. Hoping we can see the house over the snow banks, we need to be able to get our car off the road and into our driveway. 190223 - CA-OH No alarm but still up early waiting for the breakfast area to open. We had to scrape the ice off of our windows, brush the snow off our cars. It wasn't bitterly cold so that helped. Defrosters both worked good. Last night after we were to the motel I had chipped the ice off from around my wipper's and flipped them up, not an option on the rental car. Hadn't chipped the ice off last night as we wanted to be to the hotel by dark. Could tell right away the roads weren't good. Finally got behind a couple of trucks that were going 40-50 mph and hung there. At one point we all moved to the left lane as it seemed less icy. At that point I wasn't watching my speed as close so I didn't know when they slowed down and sped up. BB had a digital read out so it was more noticeable. I did notice at one point the 2nd truck past the 1st and got ahead, but we stayed behind the lead truck. A few cars in the ditch but nothing major. Then north of Northfield, I could tell we were slowing down and I heard something so I opened the window. I could hear the trucks tires spinning but we were still moving. No way to get over to the other lane, there was more traffic now that we were closer to the cities. Finally the truck ahead of me came to a stop going up the hill. Tires were still going 90 mph as I went past but the truck wasn't moving. It did take a couple of minutes to get over as we were now stopped and the fast lane wasn't. I was concerned that we could get going with the cars but that wasn't a problem. The whole morning I had been tapping the gas every few minutes to see if it was icy. It was. I only tapped the breaks at very slow speeds to not loose control. As close as I could, I tapped the gas after we were off the ice and the car went 2 mph faster. That is all I had to tap it to make the tires spin ... and we were driving 40-50 most of the time. Within a block or so on the on coming traffic there were six cars stopped, some in the ditches so just crunched ... and a mile farther up the road were the row of snow plows heading to the crash. We kept the speed down even as the traffic from the ramps was coming down at the posted speed. Not sure why they couldn't see most of the traffic was either stopped or driving with their flashers on. Did my quick stop in Burnsville, almost two weeks over due on a one week re-check. BB took the car to the airport, I went to the cemetery. On most of the stone you could read the 1st names ... my preview to coming home. We stopped at the store to pickup meds and food so we could stay in until this blows over. When we got home we saw something VERY unexpected. Someone had snow blown our driveway. A day later we still don't know who it was. A neighbor that moved last year would sometimes do what the snow plow pushed up but he is gone and this was done right to the garage door. WOW ... part of the reason we stayed in a motel last night was so we didn't get home in the dark and have to shovel for hours. Plan was to just shovel far enough to get the rear bumper off the street and carry our suitcases on our heads to the house. Had planned on visiting some people Sunday but the weather and traffic don't make that look like a good idea. IA must have came back in late. IF there is work on the board, they work 8-12 on Saturdays. Sometime late in the day they added about 50 more RV's so it is back up over 130. Should still be work if I can pass my tests on Monday. Full day lined up. Eye dr in the AM, visit family who lives in that area, pickup home DVD's, another appointment, then go to the DMV, then head out of town ... Next trip ... abut two days. |
