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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200108 IA-FL IA to FL ... but with trucks. There had been two RV's back to Greer on the board over the weekend so I called in Monday AM. And redialed, and redialed and when I got through, I could here someone in the background ... giving away one of the Greer, SC runs. No, we didn't want just one, or anything else and the moment. So we watched the board Monday, Tuesday and today. A few things would show up but by the time we did the math or talked about it, they were gone ... or they didn't pay. We had looked at taking one to GA and the other to FL but they too were gone by the time we thought it might work. There had been a few, very few to CA but they all showed up one at a time. Only the north east runs stay on the board very long. First one of these trucks show up and then a 2nd, out of two different locations. BB does a quick look at rental cars and I call dispatch, I have to leave a message and I do but also call back a couple of minutes later. This time I get through. Then the tell me that if we are taking two, there are two at the same place, they just haven't been entered into the computer yet. Once I was off the phone, BB went ahead and booked us a car to get to the trucks. It didn't look practical to leave our car close to the pickup location. That's when she realized an OPPS. This was going to cost a lot more. But we stuck with the plan. Got a rental car out of Hudson, WI. Cheaper for some reason than getting one out of MN. So this trip we won't need to go through IA ... but with our luck it likely won't be out of the way this trip. We could have saved one nights motel last trip if we hadn't had to pickup our car in IA. So a little after noon we headed out. Stopped at the clinic on the way. The more math we do the worse this trip looks. We won't loose money but it is not going to pay like the west coast runs. We have gotten spoiled. ... and we are supposed to call the pick up location before arriving. I called every half hour between 3 and 6 PM and the phone was always busy. No voice mail (I didn't try texting.) So lots of extra stops on the way down, slows the trip down a little. We stop to eat at the Love's in Floyd, they have both a Subway and a Godfathers. But I don't care for the main pizza's they serve and we don't have time to wait for a special made one so we get Subways to go. We had talked about staying in Waterloo but ended up going the full way to North Liberty. I think we are about five miles from the pickup location. We will likely stay hear until we make contact in the AM. With the time difference I had only tried calling a couple of times before the dispatches went home so now I will email in the AM when the clock on. Tonight we are in the Sleep Inn in North Liberty, just a few miles north of I-80. We will be heading straight south and won't have interstate until we are almost to St Louis. We used to go this route quite a bit but haven't for a long time. We will make it to one side or the other of St Louis tomorrow depending on how the pickup goes. The next night we should be just north of ATL. Then be near Orlando Saturday night and either drop Monday ... or Sunday if they will let us ... and if we have other work. If no work, we will just likely sit in FL :) We do need to be home by Saturday and a day or two on either side and then gone again mostly until the end of Feb when I need to re-do my DOT medical for driving. 200109 IA-FL 2 trucks from IA to FL ... got as far as O'Fallon, MO. Alarm went off at 6 AM today. We hadn't contacted the pickup location so it wasn't going to be an early morning. Breakfast was eggs, sausage and yogurt. Juice was orange, the apple juice looked like water and smelled formented. After breakfast this AM I emailed the dispatcher before the office opened, they emailed me back right away. The area code was off one digit. I kind of thought that last night when we checked into the motel and saw the area code of the hotel. At 7:30 I called the contacted and they said they would be there at 9 AM. So 9 AM it was. We had about a half hour drive from the motel. The guy was there already cleaning out our trucks when we got there. Clean, as in getting out the trash. All the side storage area's have stuff in them and I found out later that none of the keys work so I can't lock them. This place was closing down so all trucks were moved somewhere. BB noticed hers had a IL plate on the front and an IN plate on the real ... he took off the IL. He didn't say how long he had had the truck but he had never noticed that. The guy that signed off made sure all the legals were in order. The rental car place was right on the street between the pickup and the highway out of town so we used the rental car to shuttle one truck and then the other. We had fueled the rental car this AM next to the motel but then put on about another 30 miles so it dropped off full even though we couldn't put in a full gallon. When BB stopped to fuel the rental car, I stopped and put in enough fuel that I hoped I would get to the next truckstop. Adding 10 gallons gave me another 30 miles range. I need to average 5.5 mpg to break even on fuel. And that is what the dash says I am getting. But that 10 gallons got me almost 90 miles, I was back to 1/4 tank when I fueled the 2nd time. BB's pickup had a half a tank of fuel so that will help the bottom line. When I called dispatch, they asked if I could take a picture of one of the other trucks in the lot ... opps, I was already down the road. Need to start calling from the lot like the ask. After we dropped the rental car, the next stop was 90 miles down the road at Wayland, MO. Flying J and Denny's With this truck I fuel at the truck islands and BB is fueling at the gas pumps. Denny's was fish for BB and a chicken philly and soup for me. Twice as much as I needed. Today's driving was on a four-lane, non-interstate. At some point I noticed a scale on the on coming side of the road. Often, not always, on these types of highways, trucks coming from both directions are supposed to stop at the scale. I hadn't seen a sign before I saw the scale so I thought I had missed it. So I'm looking out my side window trying to see if I missed something and look back in my lane ... OPPS ... there is a pickup stopped in my travel lane about two care lengths ahead of me. I crank the steering wheel as I'm looking out my side window to see if there was anyone there. There wasn't and I missed the truck. I watched in my rear view mirror and they moved to the shoulder. BB hadn't seen what happened by remembered the pickup, she thought they looked like they wanted to take a left turn from the right lane. That would have been bad. Next stop was Bowling Green, MO to use the rest room. When I came out I had walked right past the log books. BB noticed them and I bought a couple. Now that most drivers are on Electronic Logs, paper ones are getting hard to find. The companies do supply some but one company is out most of the time and the I don't like the ones the other company provides so I buy my own. Tooo ... late to make it past St Louis tonight in the daylight. It's about 60 miles from O'Fallon, MO to O'Fallon, IL through St Louis. We were going to hit it right at rush hour so I guessed we'd need two hours to make it the 60 miles. We didn't have it, it would be dark. No problem ... we will be getting to FL on Sat or Sunday and likely can't deliver until Monday. One of the reasons that this is not going to pay big $$. Final stop is in O'Fallon at the Sleep Inn. A few good places to eat within walking distance. There were a few pickups going from NC back to IL but they didn't stay on the board long. IA now has two to NC and one back to Greer. Am not going to do the math to see if they would have paid better. Something out of NC going to SD ... Rapid City. 200110 IA-FL 2 trucks from IA to FL ... got as far as Nashville, TN tonight Breakfast as usual. We hadn't planned on getting going early this AM, we wanted to wait until after rush hour before we headed through St Louis. We waited until 8:30 which was our plan. Our plan was not for rain, so traffic still seemed to be slow and go. 20-40 mph. But by the time we had made it from O'Fallon, MO to O'Fallon, IL it had taken us an hour to go 55 miles. So I guess traffic wasn't all that bad. When I picked up this truck I had hung my 'placards,' truck DOT cards, in the side windows of the rear seats. But those windows are too narrow so I had to hang them sideways. By last night I had decided that was not a good idea, so I tapped them on the outside of my truck. I had planned on waiting until this AM, but then thought it might rain (which it did.) During the night I realized that my IFTA stickers may come off in the rain as they are only put on with Scotch tape. So this AM I took those off my placards and hung those inside the windows. And no, the tape I use does not work well on the wet surfaces. Where I pulled off the IFTA stickers, the tape would not re-stick. 1st stop was at the Flying J in Mount Vernon. I knew where we were going to stop, I just was picturing the wrong town. I was thinking of the layout in Effingham. The Flying J here is co-branded Hucks. Most of the Hucks co-branded with Pilot but this location had a Pilot across the street. Just stopped for a restroom break. 2nd stop was for fuel at the Pilot in Paducah, KY. My range when I left the 1st fill yesterday was 299 miles. When I stopped almost 300 miles later my range was 279. So we are going to make some money on the fuel. 2nd and a half stop. Next exit down the road we pull off again to eat at Rafferty's. Really good food. BB had a half a club sandwich and a (whole) bowl of fruit. I had a chicken salad sandwich and homemade potato soup. All good. Before we left I called the drop. We are to call him again when we get there Monday morning. He will 'stay in the area.' So I guess it's good to call ahead. Didn't ask about dropping on Sunday so we will be staying a few extra hours in FL :) ... Oh, we had planned on being back by a week from Saturday for family. Just got a text that that is being delayed until Feb. So ... we have no reason to leave FL. 3rd stop was at the rest area / welcome center at Clarksville, TN. By this point we realized we weren't going to make it to Ringgold ... or even Manchester. We had enough time to make it to Mancester ... if we could make it through Nashville at or above the posted ... during rush hour. We decided traffic will be much nicer tomorrow AM ... Saturday AM. Oh ... it rained today. Almost all day. Lots of times it was raining so hard that I couldn't see if anyone was coming in my rear view mirrors so I just followed until the rain would let up. Had to cross a few scales today, sometimes BB had to cross also, some times she didn't. 4th and final stop is at the Sleep Inn on the west side of Nashville. Miss the drive the 1st time past, turn around in the gas station and come back. After we are checked in we walk next door to Arbey's. Not hungry but we will be before dawn if we don't eat. Sounds like a really good gyro place across the street. But it's a busy four lane street with no cross walk for a few blocks. We only made 200+ miles yesterday and only 300+ today. Tomorrow we will try to make closer to our 500+ mile goal. Our work board is slow ... less than 40 units nation wide. There are a few locations that have more than that left over at the end of the day many days. Iowa has 3. The whole SE has -0-. Not sure yet our plan, maybe stay in FL a day? Then move head north and try to get something out of NC. No reason to head back to the midwest, no work there either. Would like to get something from somewhere going to California and get a run that pays :) It looks like we will make most of our money this trip by our savings on fuel |
