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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Home. These are off days due to the weather and needing to get my DOT physical updated. When I first started this line of work I could get the two year DOT card. But between my aging and them changing the rules I have been on a 1 year card for the last five or so years. The Dr can issue a six month card but Company 1 will not let us drive with a six month card, I haven't asked Company 3 (and I no longer work for Company 2) For the last couple of years I have had issues with both my blood pressure and my eye sight. The last two years I have failed the sight test for the physical, but passed a sight test at the eye doctor. This required the eye Dr to fill out a form and then have the DOT physical Dr attach it to my DOT long form. The blood pressure had just been an issue of them taking it multiple times. But I have also gotten myself on blood pressure medicine. So as a preempt this year, I went to the eye doctor first thinking I would be saving time. This time I failed the sight test at the eye doctor, so now it is glasses for driving. I only failed by a couple of letters but it was at least one too many for them to pass me. But I can pass all tests with my off the shelve cheaters. 20/20. My DOT physical was in the afternoon, the eye appointment had been in the AM. After I fill out all the paperwork in the lobby I ask if I would have time to use the restroom before the appointment. NO ... I forgot that we have to pee in a cup. The person at the front desk said it was a drug test so I didn't use the restroom and gulped two small bottles of water they gave me. I have had to drink gallons of water twice because I couldn't fill their cup the first time. Not a fun way to spend the day ... and if you have to drink the extra water, the office has to send that sample out because it is too diluted for them to do in house. But this wasn't a drug test, so they don't need as big of sample. I passed that part, they can do it as soon as I'm done. Here are some of the things involved in the test Pee in a cup Weight Height Hearing (they whisper works, I repeat them) Eyesight (this time they only did the reading and peripheral vision, it the past they had also done the color contrast one) Blood pressure ... the above was done before I saw the Dr, the following was done by the Dr. Touch the toes With hands if front of you, push his hands up, down, right, left. He looked in my eyes (again) Listened to my chest Had me cough Take five stops, toe to toe Close eyes to check for balance Asked a lot of questions (No squats this year) The Dr also gave me suggestions such as getting a blood pressure cuff or stopping at the clinic more often to get my blood pressure checked. Loose weight and a third thing which I have already forgotten. From there I had to go to the DMV to get updated in the Federal Data Base. I got there with 10 minutes to spare. They just need to see my DOT card and drivers license. And I needed to fill out a form with my name, etc and if I was exempt, non-exempt, intrastate or interstate. Because I had never gotten a DOT card with my blood pressure over 140 before, we didn't take a run until after I had talked to both companies. By now it was after hours for all companies so no work on Monday. Didn't make it out of town Monday, so I will make an appointment on Tuesday to get my medicine increased. Also roads in southern MN and into IA are still closed or travel not advised so we wouldn't want to leave town anyways. Because we didn't get going Monday, we now can't make it to CA before the weekend so we don't need to leave until Weds/Thurs. Sounds like the weather is bad again west, Donners Pass is closed again. With the RV's they don't want the extra miles on them so we have to wait it out if we are going to Sacramento or SFO. TUESDAY Somewhere my driving record didn't get updated properly so Company 3 couldn't see it. Not sure what the issue was, the DMV said it's a live system. As soon as they hit enter it's there for the world to see. 190227 - MN Still 'home.' Nothing on the board new yesterday that we wanted, roads were still bad. Last night they added about 50 trips to the board and then took about 20 of them back off. Even after they took the 20 off they later took two El Cajon runs off so we were down to two RV's to the place we wanted to go. I called in at 7:59, they aren't supposed to answer until 8:00, and one of the runs was gone already. So we said no. I asked about going south with the Davis orders and they will not let us do that. We can go down to US-50 I was told. Didn't get into it with them, but we have driven that route with a car when it is not snowing and I would NOT take that route of the roads are so bad that I-80 is closed. Yesterday once I got all my questions and we still didn't have work I made an appointment for my blood pressure. I made it for 9:40 so it would be after rush hour. We left the house about 8:30 to giver ourselves plenty of time to get the 30 miles. Once I turned onto our frontage road, we started meeting cars ... that means the freeway is backed up so we made a U-turn as soon as there was a break in traffic. We ended up taking side streets about half the way there. The computer did not want us on the freeway. We did finally get to my appointment at 10:15, so an hour and fourty-five minutes to go 30 miles. Too late, too bad. No openings for me later today and no way to squeeze me in. So a big waste of time, we head back to our side of town to drop off books, cash a check, etc and eat before leaving. I'll have to make another appointment when I know I'm heading back to town. We ate at Zupas in Woodbury. I see there is a new Aloha place where the Slice of Pie used to be. Might want to try that, not too many Hawaiian places around. Then we stopped at Burnsville Center to walk indoors. Not good ... when you walk for 10 minutes and are ready to stop. We did do two laps, used to be 4-5 at this mall. Sears is closed as are a lot of other places including two that they were stilling cleaning out. One was 'Things Remembered' and the other looked like an old shoe store. Interesting that Monday I was at Ridgedale and the Sears there was also closed but I didn't see ANY of the smaller stores closed. Once we turned down work this AM we decided if nothing came up we'd stick around for the safety meeting tomorrow in Forest City. So I called them, got someone very, very new. They didn't know how to put me on hold yet. Didn't know which button to use ... and I could hear all this because ... I wasn't on hold yet. I-35 got bad once we got down past Owatonna where the freeway had been closed. Missed the better pictures of 10-20 foot snow on both sides of the road. When they snow blow it it is easy to see how deep it is. Nothing was melting today. Lots of hard pack still on the road. Did see a few people in the ditch, a few of them still in their car. One interesting one where the tow truck was backed into the ditch. I'm guessing what happened was he was pulling the car from deep in the ditch and at some point the weight of the car was too much for his truck and the car slid back down the hill taking the back of the tow truck with it. Ahh the good pictures I'd have if I had a dash cam. Got to Albert Lea at 3 PM which is the earliest check in time. Sat around for a couple of hours before walking next door to the Iron Skillet. I had said I did not want a buffet tonight, but that is what I had. Good food tonight. Didn't stuff myself. And the Stone Cold Ice Cream is gone from the travel plaza and there is a sign saying that Taco Bell is coming soon. IA did not put anything on the board all day. I was told this AM that it was unlikely that they would. They would be busy cleaning out the snow and moving all the RV's. But after close they put another nine back on the board including one for El Cajon. We have looked at the weather and IF it holds, and they don't put better orders out we MAY take the Davis runs. Monday looks good for Donners Pass but it is five days out. There wasn't a reason to take any of the shorter runs yet. We can't delivery until Monday, so we'll still have extra time if we take a 1,500 mile run to NM, AZ or FL and leave after the safety meeting. We will be gone somewhere. Plenty of work, no reason to be back anytime soon. 190228 - MN No breakfast this AM, we were headed to a safety meeting and they will feed us there. We get there before 8 AM and there are a number of people already hanging around, nothing is set up. Finally, a few minutes before 8, I go looking for the dispatchers. They are already in the room waiting for us but never got around to setting up the sign in area. We've been to a number of meetings but this one was really 'clicky,' people that knew each other stuck to themselves so we didn't get talking to anyone new. Once the meeting is started, we are shown a bunch of pictures of the RV's and the area the last few days. The dispatchers plus a few local people have spent most of there time for most of the last week digging out. Each unit had to be dug out, the big ones just needed to be cleared in front of, the smaller ones also needed to be cleaned along side of and UNDER. We saw one picture where the drifts between the RV's were within a foot of the tops of the RV's. In the middle of the storm the only business in town open was the Dollar General, and that was because the owner lived across the street. Gas stations, grocery, roads, everything closed. Had to use snowmobiles to get around. That means the weather has really messed us, BB and I, up. Because dispatch was digging in the snow, they have not had time to put RV's on the board. They have only had time to put 100 of the 500 on the board. We are not going to run out of work anytime soon. There will also be ANOTHER 500+ RV's that are going to rental places in April-May. Down side news was that the RV's we thought we'd get out of Oregon may never happen. I had one chance to move one when we delivered to Jct City and didn't take it. They covered the major accidents and the stupidity. I didn't write down the costs, but one of the biggest expenses is people hitting fixed objects. Fuel posts, awnings, light poles. Wrong fuel is also a big one ... thousands of dollars a year. One big accident already this year was where someone passing an RV spun out, hit the RV, RV spun out and landed sideways on top of the car. RV driver was OK until he unbuckled his seatbelt. Then he fell sideways to the side/now bottom of the RV. He was able to climb back up and out the drivers window which was now the top of the RV. After the meeting we did drive through the lot to see what is there. They did a good job of cleaning the lot, lots of room for more RV's and they were being brought over. But less than a half dozen put on the board before close, nothing we wanted. We decided to take another walk in a mall. The closest one (still) is in Mason City. When we were there last time, JC Penny's had closed but the rest of the mall was still almost completely full. Now, a year later, the only other anchor has closed, Yonkers (Herbergers) has closed ... along with 90% of the other stores. Their map is still up, there were 60+ small stores in that mall. Now the largest ones left are Victoria's Secret and Bed and Bath, they just announced today that they will be closing another 58 stores. GNC who is also closing stores, plus Clair's (the earring people.) Other than that there is a local jewelry store. The rest of the open stores have cloth banners for signs and they (likely) have moved in since the last time we were there. This is likely the last time this mall will be open for us to walk there. After our walk we came back to Clear Lake to eat at a new Mexican place, the location used to be a Pizza Hut. Food was good, dip was great. Then we sat across the street at the Pilot for a few hours before deciding to head back to Forest City to check into the Super 8. Dispatch did put more orders on the board after they closed at 5 PM but nothing we want. The only trips to the west are into the next batch of weather headed this way. IF they don't put anything new on the board by the time they open at 8 AM we will take orders to the SE. And we will see if we can speak for an order coming back this way. There are trucks coming back to both SD and NE. It would be nice to get it all lined up in one day. No tolls, no permits. No rush. To eat, we headed back up to Shooterz. Always great food. As we left we noticed the taco place across the street was also packed. It's in an old quonset with the name of the biz painted on the tin. We might try that one next time. |
