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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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190313 - CA-WA Happy Birthday to me ... a $400+ fine (for forgetting.) On the up side, we got a 3,000 mile run to VA. Now we just need to get back to OR before 3 PM. Up and ready before 6 AM local. One minute to 6 AM, I call dispatch and get right in. We get the OR to VA run we had looked at. The only down side is that we need to have to be back to OR before 3 PM. That makes it tight, BB tried to interrupt me but I missed it. So now we have the run. Went down to eat breakfast, the place is still under construction. One of the things you have to do is go into the kitchen to get your juice from the juice machine. As we are walking to our bus in the AM, the guy who had to wait for me to park last night is just leaving. We leave just before daylight so we get to watch it get lighter and then all of a sudden it just seems to be light. 1st stop of the day is a rest area near Red Bluff, CA. Opps, get a message that I forgot to do my daily check in call. I usually leave the guest book out so I have the motel zip code for my call in. This morning I even commented that I got into dispatch just before the call in notice beeped. But it didn't click and I didn't call. There is a 'fine,' for not doing the call in. Coming up the state line we could see a mountain in the distance. Turned out to be Mt Shasta. I think it is mention in more than one of Merl Haggers songs. Beautiful today. Another thing I noticed while still in CA was a "Welcome to the 51st state." They are still working on ceading from California. We get to the Port of Entry at OR and as I pull on the scale the guy comes over the loudspeaker asking me where my plate is. "On the back of the bus." (Right where it is supposed to be) He has me pull ahead so he can read the plate and I wait with the red light. Next thing I know he is standing next to my window. Major opps. He takes my drivers license and asks me to park and come inside. Very pleasant about it, I had all the info he needed then came the bad news. He showed me the fine for not having the correct paperwork. My mistake. It's not anything I have had to do before, but I should have known better. Years ago drivers used to take care of stuff right at the scale, 10 years is what he told me. Guess that's the last time I had to do it. Now it all has to be done on the computer BEFORE getting to the scale. Not likely to forget again. Two opps today, this one's a little bigger than the first. Called and got both my OR and WA permits before I left the scale. This also cost me 45 minutes that I didn't have to spare this trip. 15 minutes down the road we are at my only fuel stop. CNG in Central Point. I fuel, BB goes in and orders. While fueling I call the drop and leave a message. They never called back so I guess all is good. BB is half done eating by the time I get in. A few minutes later the area fills up with school kids. It would have taken us our half hour just waiting in line behind them if our timing had been off. As we go to leave, another of the Seattle buses is fueling at the CNG pump. I really want to stop and talk be we have miles to go. Last stop is another rest area, this one at Gettings Creek in OR. Along here we noticed a lot of tree damage, so much that BB looked it up and found they had had heavy snow damage a few weeks ago. Lots of traffic in Portland rush hour. Staying at a Comfort Inn almost in downtown Vancouver. Black Angus shares the parking lot but it was a 45 minute wait ??? So we walked about 3 blocks to a Brickhouse. Great food. Band was just setting up so, but we got out of there before they started. We are too old for that. Daughter called and said they had water in their basement, so they wanted to know if they should check ours. Once that thought is put in our heads we thought they should. We were still OK as of Weds. We'll see what it is like by the time we get home. Board is back up over 100 but I want to be home the last week of the month and we will just make it after this trip to VA. There is a truck in VA going back to within 10 miles of our house but it likely won't still be there a week from now when we get to VA. 190314 - CA-WA RV - OR to VA This is written a day late. We were up at 4:30 local, 6:30 AM central time. Breakfast doors were to be closed until 6 AM so we went without. I went without. BB had saved half her sandwich from last night so she ate that before we left. Even though this motel was almost in downtown, we were only a few blocks from the freeway. No issues heading against traffic at that time of the morning. We wouldn't hit traffic until about half way ... where people were heading to Seattle instead of Portland. This was a non-stop flight. Two hours to the wash. Saw a few cops with trucks pulled over. All scales were closed in WA. Could briefly see Mt Rainier, it was still dark passing Mt St Helen's. Plan was to get to the wash at 8:30, I have been here when the line is long. Today there was one van ahead of me in my bay, by the time I was done with my paperwork they were waving me in. As soon as we got there, BB walked across the street to the rental car place. It was straight across the street but there was a median so she had to walk up to the crosswalk. This time it the wash was about half of what I remember from the other company. And they only spent half as long working on it. I was done long before BB got back. One issue was that it needed new plate stickers. Two months past expired? The drop was two blocks from the wash, got there before 9 AM. That is the earliest they will take them. Someone in the lot pointed where to park, one driver was ahead of me. We have time to talk. With this couple, she is the bus driver and he only drives RV's. Also he is the one who wants short days and no after night driving. No issues with the bus. After a little bit we got a whole lot of attention. We were not supposed to be out of our bus without a reflector vest on. Seems someone was killed in there yard within the last few months so it is still very real to them. Instead they escorted us when where we walked. By then someone had brought out vests for us. We were out of the lot by 9:30. It is paying off that we got going before breakfast. We now have four hours back to Junction City. Almost right away we have to stop at a rest area. It's been four plus hours since we got going this AM. Over our two hour limit. Quick stop and rolling. Less than half way to the next pickup we stop for breakfast at Castle Rock at McDonalds. Mt St Helen's exit but we are on a tight time table. In order and out. Eating in the car. No issues through Portland, we saw the Portland gondola both ways running. Not sure the draw, haven't read up on it. Traffic was light but still a slowdown. Another rest area stop at Jefferson, OR. Off the interstate and about 20 miles of side roads and we are at our next pickup. 1:30 and they close at 3 PM so not much time to spare. 45 minutes later I get my paperwork. I took this run at 8 AM yesterday and the RV has been ready so long that the battery is dead and the tires are low. This lack of staying on top of things may be the reason this place is closing down. It was commented on on the safety meeting that it may be closing but today it was part of the conversation. 55 RV's in the next 34 days ??? when in the past they haven't done more than 1-2 most weeks. Yes, the people who we talked to were counting down the days. This place opened since I started driving for this company 3 years ago and it is already being closed down because they can't meet quota. The chassis that aren't started on will likely be flat bedded back to IA is my guess. There was another company driver waiting when I got there. He had used Uber for an 80 mile ride. Didn't ask what that cost. He had taken a non-CDL garbage truck to Wilsonville just north of here. Even after I told him how bad the road to Bend was, later he said he might stop past his brother in Bend ... with a 45 foot RV. On a road I don't want to take a car on. Once we had our paperwork we were told to go find our RV's. After not find them right away I got someones attention who told us to go back and they would bring them to us. That didn't happen, finally someone who knew where the RV's were, walked us out to them. Battery was dead so I had to use the house battery to start it. That is a nice feature to have. Did a quick check before driving the RV up to the front. Once to the front, someone comes out to sign paperwork and cover items. By now my low tire light is on so that took another ??? hour to get taken care of. Finally I am ready, but by now it is well after 3 PM so the front office is close and the office in IA is closed. This time I do remember to get my permits. We are ready to go. I pull out on the street and my check engine icon comes on. I start to turn into the next company driveway then don't. They are closed, I have signed for it so it is my problem. And it might be coming from the low fuel, now laying on 'E.' Or from the low battery, low tire or other prior errors. I take the chance that it might re-set if I fuel and run at highway speeds. I put in more fuel than I would have at the local intown station and then we head to the airport. Light doesn't go off so I stop at on the side of the road before we get to the airport. It's not a good place to stop so after shutting the battery off and on we move on. At the airport there is no goo place to park, just a turn around with No Parking signs. We sit there while I make some phone calls. Before we get chased out by security, we move to a gas station a few miles away. I had had to leave a message with the manufacture, and as soon I start driving the phone rings. But by now I am driving and have to let it go to voice mail. Manufacture says I can run with it, dispatch says get it looked at. I look and there is a place 10 miles away. I had hoped to get to Portland tonight but those hopes are fading. My first call was to a TA truckstop, but this location can't look at it because they are right next to a manufactures dealer. I call them and they say they can look at it as soon as we get there. So back to the airport and drop the car. I didn't want to drop until we had an answer but it will be getting dark soon so we drop. I gave BB a five minute head start but that wasn't enough. Found an employee lot where I could circle without stopping until BB was done. We get to the drop and have a wait to talk to the only person at the counter. The person I talked to had left a few minutes after I talked to them. They did find someone to look at it. A lot of old error codes, but no current issues. Not sure what they do on there end, but I didn't have to pay anything. Then we had to go next door to the TA to pickup my permits. Now we no longer had time to get to Portland. I am limited to 14 hours a day, driving or not. We only had time to drive the wrong direction to get to Eugene. Back to the Quality Inn. last time we had stayed at the Comfort Inn. But the Comfort had a small lot. Turns out the Quality Inn has lots of room to park. We will be here two nights as now I have to do a reset. I may have not needed one if everything had gone like clock work yesterday, but now I will need to drive closer to 600 miles the next five days to make delivery on time. We haven't eaten yet so we walk to Shari's. I have seem them for years and have wanted to try them. They are also the only one not across a major side street. We walk in and they say it'll be 30-45 minutes. ??? the place is about empty. Seems they are short 2 cooks, not sure who is cooking. They say it will take another half hour to catch up on orders already placed. (They also say they have called other places in the area to see if they can spare a cook, no one could) We walk across the street to IHOP. Plan had been to get to the east end of Portland and maybe hop a bus, a train and see the sights there. Not much to see here, but we are on the bus line if we could find somewhere to go. 190315 - OR-VA First a little about the RV. It's 45 foot long, most of the buses are 40 foot. Most of the RV's we drive have the suggested retail price in the window. This was does not, but we were told it's worth about a half a million dollars. So a little bit more than our house. Spent a lot of time this AM working on paperwork. And looking at the future trip. We'll be able to make it as long as the roads stay open. WY and NE roads seem to be open. I-29 is now flooded so we may to adjust our route. And rental cars home are expensive so we will looked at a lot of options of driving one part of the way and then switching but haven't found anything that works yet. Also by then I will be out of hours again so that limits taking a truck part of the way unless we can find something coming back to the MN. But that means I can't work local on Monday. ... and they are already calling me even though I am on the NA last. Sorry I'm in OR right now ... Took a walk down to Sizzler for lunch, they used to be in MN years ago. It was about 3/4 of a mile down and another 3/4 back so that is likely our trip for the day. Worked on my distant family tree a little bit ... Then at 5:30 we walked over to Sheri's to eat. Last night they were short cooks, tonight everything seemed to be back to normal. I had a Philly Dip and BB had senior fish. And we got a piece of OR pie to go. Some berry that only grows in OR. Similar to the Blueberry desert we get at Betty's in Two Harbors, but not quite as good. Back on the road again tomorrow. Long days, I will likely be out of hours so we can't pick up anything on Friday. There is one in SLC that BB could grab going back to IA. But that would delay us and we wouldn't make Thursday delivery. Looked at the route to VA and it is about 10 miles further to not go through KC and STL but go through Des Moines. Computer wants us to go via Chicago which is even more miles than going south at Davenport. I'm guessing the time is shorter. 190316 - OR-VA 6 AM breakfast, rolling by 6:30. Someone parked in front of me so I had to back up to swing around but no problem, lots of room. 1st stop is an hour down the road at a Love's for fuel. Not a fan of OR. OR and IN have numbers you are supposed to type in before you can fuel at the diesel islands. For some reason not an issue at the auto pumps. Could get the pump to work so I went inside so they could turn the pump on. They didn't tell me what they did but they got the pump turned on. 100+ gallons later and the fuel splashes back. At Loves we have to go in and get our receipt from a numbered tray. It's Saturday AM, no issues with traffic but for some reason the signs say it's faster to go via downtown that take the beltway so we do. Lots of homeless camps in Portland. Saw the one under the underpass in the middle of the freeway again. They have to be walking across the freeway to get to and from that place. Saw others along the river bank, they seemed to be throwing there trash down the hill. Did see one a couple of days ago that was on the freeway side of the sound barrier that had a city garbage can. Not sure if they used it for garbage or just storage. Hazy morning so we can see Mt Hood but can't even see the snow on it until we are closer. Not like those crisp days coming across NV. For quite a ways it is windy coming up the gorge, hang on with both hands. Some of the smaller falls had both ice and water, but the big one, Multnomah Falls, didn't seem to have any ice. I didn't get a good look at it and BB can't see through her window because of the screen. Did see a goat or two on the rocks along the road. We aren't very far inland before we see snow ... and we got to across a scale. This time the guy was looking at his phone ... why couldn't the guy have been doing that when I had the bus??? Next stop of the day was a rest area near Mosier while we were still along the gorge. Honked twice as we pasted the cousins.' Didn't see anyone around. Had planned on stopping in Hermiston to eat but changed it to Pendleton to split the day a little better. Took a half hour to eat at the McDonalds at the truckstop. Some guy looked like he was having a seizure or something when we walked by, when I came back from the restroom he was gone but his stuff was still there. We were almost done eating before he came back in within a few minutes he was acting that way again. ??? My food was good but they did BB's wrong so she took it back, it was still wrong the 2nd time but she wasn't going back a 2nd time. Lots of snow on the passes in OR but no chain laws in effect. Roads were dry. Stopped again for fuel in Ontario, OR just before the state line. Had to go in again to get the fuel pump started. This time the person showed me which number I should be putting in. Now that I'm leaving the state. Not sure I'll remember by next time. Looks like I'm getting about 6 mpg which is what they are paying for. So the only savings I will get is by buying cheap fuel ... or if the mileage goes up. We had looked last night for which place is the best to stop in Boise. We have stayed at the Comfort Suites in the past but they are down a hill and have lots of trees around there lot. Quality Inn doesn't have much parking so Best Western looked like our best bet. That was last night, today we decided we would drive past the Comfort Suites to see if I could fit. And then BB found a new Quality Inn a few miles before Boise ... then read the reviews. It just changed to a Quality Inn but before seemed to be a druggie hang out. Not some place I want to park a half million dollar bus. Then she found a new Comfort Inn and that is where we ended up. It's so new it doesn't have reviews yet. Closest food was the Applebee's a few blocks away. Surprised there is not more food and that they weren't more busy. There is six motels with a couple of blocks of there. Food was good. I had two bowls of soup, one French Onion and one potato. BB had chicken and fish. And we / I topped it off with a brownie. 550 miles today, closer to 600 the next couple of days. 190317 - OR-VA If the desk clerk told us last night, we forgot. Breakfast does not start until 7 AM on weekends. We were stilling down there at two minutes to 6 waiting for the doors to open. Finally we asked. Opps. But they were nice about it and let us grab a couple of cold items. All I was going to get anyway was yogurt so I was good. BB got a piece of fruit and a roll. So we still got rolling at 6:30 local. It's still dark at that time, just a faint shade of orange in the morning sky. Stopped in Twin Falls/Jerome for a rest stop at the Flying J. We had planned on the rest area but it was closed, building gone. Flying J was the next exit, 1/4 down the road. A couple of full sized RV's in transit parked there. They are moved by another company. Bad news last night. Check engine light came back on when I pulled away from the fuel pump at the last stop. I'm hoping that it goes off after I do a 'hard' shut down overnight. I did not call dispatch. As soon as we get to our 2nd stop today I call dispatch. It is now after noon there. After a few questions, I get the OK to keep running as long as there are no other issues. It will need to be fixed before delivery. We are stopped at a Wendy's in Tremonton, UT. Not too crowded so I can park cross ways in the car spots. BB gets a salad so it's a 45 minute break. No issues with the scales today. We cross in both ID and UT. Next stop will be the Port of Entry into WY. The guy I get is having problems with his computer so he isn't in the most chipper mood. Asks more questions that most but no issues. Five miles down the road we stop at the Pilot in Evanston to fuel. Besides fuel I put in my first jug of Anti-gel. From here east I was expecting to see huge snow drifts. This road has been closed at least twice in the last few weeks because of snow. We don't see any cause for closure so either they do a really good job of cleanup or it has been melting fairly quickly. We do see lots of deer. Maybe 100 in the road ditches in first 50 miles. These were the bigger deer. Not sure if that is the only place they can find exposed grass or what. One place there were three laying in the median. Live ones, just taking a rest. And the median is about 20 foot wide right there, just grass, no trees. Lots and lots of road kill, not sure if has anything to do with the deep snow or not. But lots of them. No reason to go into the graphic details. We do a quick stop at a rest area about 40 miles east of Rock Springs. It's still called Rock Springs because there are no other towns around. We come back out and the 'check engine' light is off. ??? No clue. Rawlins is as far as we will get 590 miles and the next town is another 100 miles. I have the hours but we aren't going to be able to trim enough time to make delivery before Thursday so why push it. We are already pushing it because we usually do around 500+. But because we didn't get any miles in the first day because of the late pickup and check engine light, and then an off day on Friday, we now have to push it. We check into the Comfort Inn in Rawlins. Tight fit with the way they snow wasn't plowed. There is a big lot in back but I don't like to park there unless I have to. After we check in, we planned to walk to Penny's Diner, the only non-fast food on this end of town. It is about a half mile away, usually not a problem. But with the snow, we don't want to be walking on the roads instead of sidewalk and not sure how much water we will find. We 'settle' for Burger King. They have a sign by the register that says if they don't ask if you want a cookie, it's free. There weren't any cookies in the display and they didn't ask, so I kiddingly asked if they didn't ask because they were out. Nope ... and they handed me my two free cookies. And we had already grabbed two from the front desk at the motel. It's Sunday, nothing new on the board. ... the trip continues HERE |
