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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200620 MN Not working, yet. Called in to local dispatch a couple of times last week. They have buses going to the north east but no where else. When I said "I would rather go to AZ," they said everyone would. They did not ask me if I wanted one of the ones going east. They also said it is going to be a very slow month end. They didn't call me for local work on Friday and when I called in Friday looking no one picked up the phone and no one called me back. I did stop by the lot on Saturday and there were 2 buses for DC and 4 for Boston sitting there. Plus one white package van. As soon as I saw the buses I remembered the Boston ones only go 55 mph. We have been running buses to these two locations for six plus months, glad I'm not doing them. Over the road company has a truck in Somerset going to Eau Claire which is about 75 miles. It's been on there a few days and I think Monday I will at least call on it. (no work for Monday yet) If all they want to pay is the $.50 a mile/$35, it can sit. If they have a $150 minimum or something we might do it. IA load board is down in the 50's but there are still pairs that would work for us. I was going to ask local dispatch on Friday what the cut off date is that they won't need me, then we will just grab something else. We would like to get one more run in before the 4th of July. With all of our health issues, we are now looking at doing as many runs as possible before we are forced off the road. It used to be watching the money to see how much we had made compared to what we spend per month. MN load board is almost empty. It is their end of year and it should also be up in the 50 range. So either they are not busy or the trucks are all going to other carriers. WI had a few box trucks and they went pretty quick. But it doesn't look like there have been any more than just what was put out one day. There are also some mixers on the board coming out of WI. Not sure which kind they are and dispatch doesn't want to give us any more information but this is the location the center drive mixers come out of. No thanks. Had an opps today. Had another issue with my throat. Looking back that was only the second time in the last year and both times I was on the computer and not paying attention. Last time it was fresh chicken and this time rib meat so it seems to the the long pieces of meat that do it. Still debating on calling my clinic. BP has stayed down the last few days and today it was down where it should be. But that is only the second time in three weeks so that is not going to work to pass the next DOT test. We will call local dispatch again Monday ... Here is the reason people with camera's were standing around in Forest City when we were there https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/vice-president-mike-pence-to-visit-north-iowa-tour-winnebago-industries/article_6f780289-9cb9-57f9-8ea9-c887b9a11ed8.html?fbclid=IwAR0ypJ-tPO8CqMHcuP1cmDKObjGIjXNrWbebb7cJvihn1cXjuR_pTET9Hf0 The VP, who is from Indiana where most RV's are built, was in IA. 200621 MN Still no work for the local company. I call them usually (and today) call them late in the day after the next days buses have been released. Dispatch didn't tell me how many more they would have for this month, but they did say that they were told of four more on the original list won't be moving this month. Also dispatch has been told that there should be a lot of mixers and garbage trucks this week. They haven't seen it yet, and I don't see it with my long haul company. So this is kind of changing what are plans will be. I was hoping we would be on the road last weekend and have time to do a second leg before our vacation. Now it may be a one legged trip with one driver and those don't pay as well. I'm not sure, but it seems the agreement between the local company and the mixer company is that dispatch tells them how many drivers they have and up to that number is how many trucks we get. Seems like it any way. So if I'm on that list there better be a smooth riding truck. I was hoping to get a random truck out of one of the other shippers but nothing yet. The truck from near me going to Eau Claire is still on the load board with the long haul company so I finally emailed that dispatcher later in the day. By the time he got back to me and I looked at my emails it was after 5 PM. Pays good, so I think we will call in on Wednesday and see if we get it. Had thought of doing that this AM but then we had things to do that also needed to be done before we left and didn't want to delay leaving IF there was work. But there wasn't. Should have gotten my BP done so I wouldn't have had to do it tomorrow but that never crossed my mind. There were three RV's out of Indiana from some random place going to CA, they didn't last long. I only saw them as they were the longest runs on the load board. IA ended the day with 52, including two no tows for Sandy OR. Those would have been nice. MN ended the day with 4, beats the 2 from yesterday. But it is the end of the month, there should be 40. WI has a total of 8 including the short run by me and anther short run into IL. The rest are mixers from a new, for us, location. Plan is to call in the AM about the short run :) |
