 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
1 bus to Des Moines IA ... spending the night at Wendover UT Last night ... after I shut off the lights, I decide to look out the window at my bus. Except tonight we aren't overlooking the lot like we were last night. So I turn around and start walking across the room. WHAM ... I walk into the coffee table ... with both legs. OUCH. I didn't fall but I limp off to bed. I don't understand. I am getting black and blue spots on my arms and I don't know where they came from. Last night I could feel the pain and it was hard to walk all day and no black and blue, no swelling. Breakfast was yogurt again. When I went back in to check out after starting my bus I see the first person I have seen wearing a mask. Other than us and the help. And they are mandatory here. So what good does it do to make them mandatory? Rolling by 6:30 local. Not much traffic to start but it quickly builds. 1st stop ... RED low fluid light. It comes on and goes off three times before I find a place to pull off. Emigrant Gap. There is a Shell, a Burger King that has re-opened and a large truck parking lot. I call the shipper. Instructions are to wait 20 minutes before calling the 2nd number on the list. I then call the 2nd number which is no longer in service. So I call the 3rd number on the list. Finally after an hour of waiting I call dispatch. He says to call the guy who used to do this job. That guy doesn't pick up but calls me back before I am done leaving him a message. He asks a few questions and says I am good to go as long as I am not having any other issues. A few miles down the road one of the other people call back. I am where I can pull off and I get the call the 2nd time they call. Same, I'm good to go but they want me to add more fluid. The light does not come on again all day and I haven't found the fluid anywhere ... and they said it should be everywhere. It wasn't at the Shell station. BB looked and they had motor oil and coolant, that's it. Back at the Shell station someone asked what the issue was when we were looking for fluid, they then followed us out and looked at the bus and talked for a while. But nothing anyone was going to help with. I need an OK before I am going to drive a bus with a red warning light on. We had planned on stopping at Donners Pass but this was our stop instead. Don't think I mentioned this yesterday, while we were at Donners Pass I noticed a pickup with a U-Haul behind it with the back door open. The only thing in the U-Haul was a mattress on the floor with one person sleeping on it. And another person sleeping on the floor next to the mattress. Then I noticed someone climbing out of the back of the pickup, seems there had been two people sleeping in there also. And this was at 4 in the afternoon. There was also a 5th person was was wondering around with his dog. Not sure where he was going to sleep. Before we left, they all got into the cab of the four door pickup and were gone. Saw one NV cop today. Sitting in the median about a mile in from the CA state line. 2nd stop, Flying J in Fernley for fuel. No waiting. 37 gallons. Not sure if it was bad food or nerves but I had to use the restroom both in Emigrant Gap and here. 3rd stop was at the Pilot in Winnemucca at the Subway. We decided to eat outside. When we come back out with our food there is someone trying to back in to a spot a couple of spaces away from us right next to another truck. They try a few times and then pull further and further away trying to get strait. People are blowing their horn to get past. There is maybe 20 trucks in a lot built for 100-200 and they are trying to do this right near the fuel pumps. Finally the trainer gets in the truck and backs it up straight at about 20 mph. Then a few minutes later he pulls out, makes a U-turn and comes back and parks cross ways in front of me and the other trucks. He looked right at me sitting in the drivers seat when he went past. He just parked there, I'm short and the lot was mostly empty so I just pulled around him and left. He was still sitting there they last I looked. 4th stop at the Sinclair in Elko. Still no fluid. We take a half hour break and get an M & M ice cream sandwich. 5th stop is at the Pilot for fuel, no fluid. 5th stop is two miles down the road and across the state line at the Quality Inn. We walk out into the parking lot and get Mexican again. Lots more people tonight so we had to wait for our food. Good again tonight. Today look 30 longer coming east than it did two days ago going west. 3 mph for 10 hours difference. This bus maxes out at 62 mph. And with all our stops it was a 12 hour day. It is looking less and less like we will deliver on Tuesday. Load board didn't change. BB's Dad is still in the hospital, not sure if he is going to make it back to the nursing home or not. 200705 CA-IA 1 bus to Des Moines IA ... spending the night at Laramie WY Stuff from earlier in the trip. Yesterday there was something on the side of the road that hadn't been there two days before. It looked like maybe a semi trailer that had been burnt into two parts? I think the only wildlife we saw in two days in NV were crows. Lots of crows. I mentioned fireworks to someone in Wendover last night and they said they were heading out to the salt flats because of the fire danger. Hadn't thought about that, not much that will burn on the salt flats. When we into Winnemucca a few days ago I could see a few horse trailers by the arena in town. Now when we went past again on the freeway we could see 100's, not just dozens, of horse trailers. What ever it was is big out here. I was half awake when the alarm went off, BB wasn't. Breakfast was yogurt and juice. And then juice again when I was ready to go, plus some Hostess treat. It sounds like this town of 5,000 didn't have any virus cases before the shut down. Now, after being open for a month, this town has 300 local cases of the virus. UT scale by the NV line is closed. Don't know that I have ever seen that before. Very still today, the water is like a mirror. But I am driving so no picture. 1st stop ... TA in Tooele for a break. We picked the TA over our usual Flying J because I am still looking for bus fluid. They don't carry it either. We took a half hour, BB spent a good part of it on the phone. Things still not going well with her Dad. Other than that our time was taken up by watching the sea gulls take off into the wind currents, higher and higher. Not sure why they do that. 2nd stop, POE / Port of Entry. ??? I don't need a permit? Because I am under 26,000# and delivering to a customer instead of a dealer? Lots of exceptions to every rule. But they still have everyone stop and come in so not much time lost. And it's time for our lunch break and we don't want Subway again so we go into town where we can park at Walmart and walk to fast food. Turns out the old Walmart, now a farm store, is closer to fast food. So we park and first walk to an auto parts store to find the fluid for my bus. The shipper said I should 'just stop at the next truck stop and buy some.' I have stopped a half dozen places and no even carries that brand. This place has the brand but not the correct type. I buy a quart, just in case. But I won't put it in unless the red light comes on. Then we walked to Wendy's as it was the closest. No in-door seating but we could order indoors. Line was out the door but people were staying <> 6 foot apart. Didn't see anyone other than us and the staff wearing a mask. We ate sitting on the step of the bus in the parking lot. Interesting parking. Lots of people with trailers. Some would pull in and park so their trailer was out of the travel lane behind them, then a few units down, someone would park so their front was out of the travel lane ahead of them. So a lot of the travel lanes didn't go all the way through today. Some places people followed the yellow lines, other places they just parked anywhere. Oh ... and as we were walking, I saw a couple of young kids throwing spoon fulls of their ice cream at the face of a political poster. Not sure if their parent saw them or not. This town was getting to be a zoo with trailers, we were glad to be leaving. When we looked over at the rest area at the edge of town we could see that was full of trailers also. Trailers. Travel trailers, boat trailers, ATV trailers, storage trailers. All of them. This stop took an hour, plus the short stop at the POE. Making for a longer day. 3rd stop, Rock Springs at Cruel Jacks Shell. Use the rest room and buy some juice. 5-8 more months before the A&W will re-open. So no root beer this summer. That will be more than a year from when the fire took down the building. Seems like a long time to get going again. 4th stop fuel in Rawlins at the TA. First I pulled into the Flying J while BB rechecked the prices. TA was $.10 a gallon cheaper so for 50 gallons we went to the TA. 1st I filled the DEF on my card, then I restart the pump for diesel. All to save the $1.25 service charge on the DEF. I am up to 8.5 mpg. 5th and final stop is in Laramie. First we stop at the Carl Jr's (Hardee's) to get a burger and salad to go. Then we go to our motel, Comfort Inn. Once we are in the room we find they have no soap. No soap anywhere. And they will not go into other rooms because of their virus policy. I want to know what their policy is on renting rooms with no soap when we are supposed to be washing our hands with SOAP and water all the time. Earlier today the forecast was for nasty weather between Rawlins and Laramie. But we drove through all sunshine. It looks like we would have enough time to get to delivery on Tuesday as long as the wash didn't take over 30 seconds or so. So most likely we will be staying in Des Moines and washing, picking up the rental car and dropping the bus Wednesday AM. And then heading home. 200706 CA-IA 1 bus to Des Moines IA ... spending the night at Kearney NE BB didn't want a bag breakfast, she had left overs. We are getting a pretty good stash from all the breakfasts :) I did get the bag, with muffin's and apple sauce. BB is looking at our loadboard this AM and somehow gets on something she hasn't seem before. It is showing how many loads out of IA and how many to be HAULED out of IA. Then one day she mentioned was 39 on the loadboard and another 15 to be hauled. So my log of daily loads isn't showing the whole story. Not sure why or how long, but some are getting hauled. And hauled to CA where we want to drive them to. As I am getting out of the shower, the phone is ringing. I run but miss it. It is dispatch, wanting me to take a run from Des Moines to St Cloud. It would be great money in more normal time. I am short of hours so it would be an extra motel night on a 200 mile run. And things are not well at home, we need to get home. When I went to check out, they asked how was my stay. I told them. I think I was on my second sentence when the manager stepped out of the office and took over. The topic was no soap. Seems this location's vendor is 3 weeks (or 3 months) behind, so they have been ordering for a 2nd vendor who is now also behind. My points were ... 1) there must be some place in town that has soap. 2) When they knew they were running out, only give people what they ask for 3) With all the precautions the motel is taking, and then we are supposed to go 12 hours without washing our hands after touching everything. I forgot to mention 4) What amenities could be missing for you not the rent the room? ... then I said how nice their staff has been when we check in, this time, two days ago, two weeks ago. 1st stop was Pine Bluffs WY rest area. Someone in an RV was dressed for a night out ... 1920's style. We only took a 15 break, we should be OK. Kimball NE ... home of a family famous chiropractor. Just past the town I notice the truck ahead of me pull to the left lane. Then I see the deer coming up the ditch bank and onto the road. I start blowing my horn, they stop. I blow it again and they turn around. WHEW. Don't need roadkill on my front bumper. As we pass Sidney at 10:30 AM, we see two buses pulling out of the motel. We are too far away to see which make they are. I had thought they might catch up to me in the next hour but they didn't. And I doubt they were heading west as both bus locations in MN are closed last week and this. Not likely to see any of those buses on the road until Tuesday next week. 2nd stop is Arbeys in Ogallala. I park in the big rig area and we go inside to order. We could have eaten inside but we are still staying out side. Only saw two other people other than us with masks on. None of the staff was wearing masks, but one other male mid-50's was, but not his wife. And a 20 something girl was wearing a mask. The other dozens of people who came and went were not. So I park in the big rig area, and back up so hopefully no one parks behind me to block me in. But someone in a car parks right in front of me?? Lots of other places in the marked car area to park and they park in the un-marked area so I would have to back out. But they were in and out before our half hour was up. Actually took an extra 15 minutes and called my dentist. They are still not taking routine checkups. And I would have to go to one clinic in St Paul if I wanted to get in. Not sure when I could get in, but they are open now. I'll wait. Nothing hurts but even at six month checkups I need work done just about every time. Then I called the drop, twice. No answer so I left a message. We will be there Wednesday AM. Somewhere out in this wide open country I started smelling something in bloom. The first time it hit me like too much perfume in a closed area. I never did figure out what it was. Smelt it a few more times. 3rd stop, Sapps in Odessa. When I pull off the freeway and go across the overpass, my low fuel light comes on. Well, I know that works now. First time on this brand of bus to have it come on. At the pump, the card reader sees my card, then says removed and gets stuck on remove. So I have to go inside and leave my card while I fuel. 52 gallons in a 75 gallon tank. And the low fuel light had come on. 100 more miles and I will top off the tank again and that will be it for this bus. 4th stop, another seven miles down the road and we are at the Comfort Inn for the night. They have SOAP, two bars so one went right in my bag :) Plenty of room to park when you are off the road before 5 PM. Only used 7 of my 8 hours today. It would still be a push to make it to the drop tomorrow and now I have already said Wednesday. Walk next door to the Angus Burgers and Shakes. We've eaten here before. But before we walk, we order online so it is ready when we get there. BB has fish and a strawberry malt. I have a burger with egg, bacon and hashbrowns plus onion rings, cheese and tomato. And a pina colada malt and a mango lemonade. I couldn't, didn't, finish it all. Loadboard IA - 28 including six non-RV. 2 to MN and 4 to FL MN - -0- WI - 4 US - 95 I'm still limping a little. The worst is my upper left leg. Didn't hit it there so I must have pulled something when I was catching myself from falling. Father in law is not doing better. Seems it has been decided to move him back to the nursing home and put him in hospiscare. The nursing home only allows one visitor per resident, that one person can visit as often as they want. But once in hospise, he can have one visitor at a time, no limit on how many total people. He seems to be holding in there, but still not wanting any meds and little food. We have another six hours of driving tomorrow plus an hour for inspections, fuel and breaks. Same as today. Then Wednesday will be a short 10 miles or less. BB found a rental car location right on the route so we don't have to go to the airport. And it's $40 cheaper than the prior one she was looking at. Trips this close to home pay really good. But not sure when we will head out again. Mid-July at the earliest, if there is work. Grandkids were eating the blueberries from my garden today. Glad someone is enjoying them. 200707 CA-IA 1 bus to Des Moines IA ... spending the night at Ankeny IA Almost 10 hours sleep for both of us. Day eight of our road trip. We both slept good. Lots of stuff in our breakfast back this AM. Some places give us our breakfast in a sandwhich zip lock bag. Others do the lunch size bags, this place had the Walmart sized bags. Yogurt, fruit cup, muffin, breakfast bar and a bottle of water. We head out at 8:30 AM. Close to the same as every other day other than we are in our home time zone. 1st stop is less than a 100 miles down the road at York at the Petro. I do my last fuel stop there, now all I have left is fill with DEF and get it washed. I've never asked how full the DEF is supposed to be, shipper is paying so I deliver it on full. One scale before Omaha, I am under 26,000# but I get the 'truck must exit' sign. I thought the scale might have an issue with the driver ahead of me. Trucks are supposed to be in the right lane for the mile before the scale. He wasn't. Everyone is supposed to use their blinkers when they change lanes/exit. He didn't. But we both got the green light after being weighted. Dispatch called again about the truck in IA to St Cloud, I tried to call them back but dispatch wasn't an option from the number they called from. And even finding that out took 60 seconds. Sorry, every other location I call I get directly to dispatch or have to leave a message. Not interested in punching in numbers after numbers to get a hold of someone. Just thought I would be courteous and give them a call back. Now there is also a 2nd one from Dyersville to Dodge Center. That would be a different dispatch ... 2nd stop was at a Jimmy Johns in Council Bluffs. Looks like it used to be a bank. We order, then the cashier has to run to the restroom. Each restroom is just a single user. BB waits for a while and then decides if the person is taking that long, she doesn't want to use it after them. I got an 8 inch ham and cheese and bb got a 'Slim.' We weren't in a rush so we took 45 minutes, I would have only needed a slim. 3rd stop was Underwood rest area. Just 15 miles down the road, but plenty of stalls in the rest room. Another couple of hours and we are at ... 4th and final stop, The Sleep Inn in Ankeny.Yes, if we had pushed it the last couple of days and left the motel at 6 AM today we could have made delivery. But our rental and plans were for Wednesday so we stayed with that. At check in, I only had to show, not give, them my credit card and my drivers license. This was the first place we stayed after being off the road because of the virus and it has been the only one who no longer doesn't have us sign for anything. Virus ... MN is down to three deaths a day. ICU are down, cases and hospitalizations are up. We are still often the only two people wearing masks. Even the buffets are open. Some places still don't have indoor seating or ordering but fuel, food and motels are all open. Which is all we need driving. We saw lots of transporters today. Lots of Amazon Prime vans, one group of five plus smaller groups and singles. Also one group of center driver mixers plus singles. Cruise America RV's, other RV's, school buses, trucks, we are on the move. Not much for excitement, one guy blew his horn at me ... maybe because I was doing 62 in the left lane in a 65 ... but it was a left exit and I was just about under the exit sign ??? Father-in-law is not doing any better so it looks like his days are numbered. Not sure if we will try to see him tomorrow evening when we get into town or wait until Wednesday and go down. Thursday home to mow the yard and pick some veggies and weeds and then Friday AM head up to the north shore for the weekend. Got a message that next week is 'Road Check' week. Where all states tally and report how many violations. I call it vacation week. We have been going to the north shore with family for the 15 years I have been driving. It works out good. This will be the smallest group we have ever had. Just us and one daughter and her family. I think one of the first years there were 20-30 of us and most of us slept in the main house. That only happened one year and people started getting their own motel rooms. Tomorrow, if we are lucky we could be delivered in three hours and then head the 4-5 hours home. Load board IA-22 RV's (plus 4 more) MN - -0- WI - 2 US - 116 so IA is not in the half to 1/3 of the loads right now. The board is an interesting mix across the states. To eat, we ordered online and walked across the street to the Outback. Instructions are to 'wait in our car,' but we are walking so when they didn't come out right away we walked in. Our food was sitting there, they handed it to us and we were on our way back. I get chicken alfredo and BB got chicken something. BB was asking me when we ordered if I wanted something different this time because of how spicy my chicken was last time. This time it was her chicken that was spicy, they might have mixed up our meat last time. Good food, again. 200708 CA-IA 1 bus to Des Moines IA, delivered ... spending the night at HOME. Not sure why, but didn't sleep well. Thought I had been awake most of the night, until I remembered my dreams. Breakfast for me was yogurt, BB had toast, PB and fruit. Someone ahead of me at the juice machine was filling their used containers with water, right under the sign that says 'do not refill containers.' Lots of people coming and going, think we saw one other person with a mask. When we went down for breakfast we looked out the window from the hall at our bus and saw someone trying to back a two wheeled trailer. At one point they had it just about jack-knifed against the building, another time they were withing inches of someone's car. When we went to leave, we saw they had decided to just park in the drive at the corner. Left me just enough room to get by, if I was straight by the time I got to them. Which meant swinging into the parking spots. But I didn't hit him or the curb. Headed the back roads to the truck stop, same way we did last time, except this time we weren't using directions. Only one turn, at the 1st stop sign, four miles into the corn fields. Not sure it will be corn fields too much longer. One of the new buildings is FaceBook. 1st stop is at Flying J for DEF. Half the fuel islands are empty so I drive around and pull in back wards. A couple gallons of DEF and I'm full. I thought of going direct to the truck wash a few feet away but decided to re-park and go in and get my receipt. I tried. The fuel island building is closed because of the virus. I will have to go to the main building a ways away to get my receipt. I decided to chance it and went to the wash. 2nd stop at the Blue Beacon about 100 feet from the fuel islands. Both wash bays are open and one truck waiting in each line. I decided to wait until they pulled ahead and then I should have 15-30 minutes before I needed to move into the bay. I quickly walked to the main Flying J building. Neither of the kiosk were working so I had to wait in line for a cashier. Then I hurried back to the bus. Made it. 15 minutes for DEF, 30 minutes for the wash. Last wash was quicker, but 30 minutes is not bad. While I was sitting there waiting, central dispatch called again. This time I answered. I cut him off saying I couldn't do it ... he kept talking. Asking if I could do it and then there would be a 2nd truck in MN that was going to CA. Nope, can't do it. Didn't even mention the underlying reason. The MN to CA truck did show up shortly after that ... and both were gone by noon. Pretty easy directions from here. Get back on the freeway, get off at the exit, go south. Drop BB off at the car rental place. Catch the next road right at the light. Go a few blocks and turn left. When I got to the end of the street I was there. 3rd stop. Opps. Had I zoomed in on the signs on the gate when I looked at the location, I would have seen it said 'All deliveries use Morgan St.' But now I would have to back out, so instead I called my contact. He picked up this time but didn't know where I was ... because they don't use that gate. Ok, got it. Someone walking past used their card on the gate and let me in, told me to park the bus the same place my contact had. Very hot already at 9 AM. After I removed my stuff off the bus, I stayed in the bus. With my mask on. Finally someone came and started looking it over and then left for a while. Then he came back and did a quick look over, told me that it was OK for BB to drive in (I guess who ever let BB in, gave her a hard time, kiddingly.) The guy leaves to make his copies, I take off all the wrap I am supposed to. I think the warmer it is, the harder the wrap comes off. While I am doing that BB comes and moves our stuff from the bus to the car. For a while I had thought I may have to make a few trips from the bus to the car somewhere. Never sure how tight security is at these places. As soon as we are done we exit the gated area and we stop so BB can get a release number for me. It is still 7 in the morning on the west coast so we don't take the time to scan my paperwork in yet. Not quite as straight forward out of here, we took a different route that was likely faster but more turns. Almost no traffic in Des Moines at the end of rush hour this AM. 4th stop at a rest area near Story City. BB goes in, I don't. Corn is looking in places and like onions on the hills. About another two hours to Clear Lake. 5th stop, Culvers in Clear Lake. We use the drive through but they forget to give BB her mayo so we circle around and she goes in. Maybe 50-50 wearing masks. As long as we were parked, we sat and ate. BB had a chicken sandwich and I had rueben and a blueberry mixer. Mixer was melted by the time I was done eating. Almost had an throat issue. Could feel things were not right so had to get water out of the trunk. Just kind of sat there a few minutes until it cleared and I could drink water. Close, all the signs, but this time it cleared. BB eats faster than I, so when she was done she scanned my paperwork so I would get paid. 5th stop was the office in Forest City to pick up our car. Lot is almost empty. Someone had just brought in an RV so I asked them from where. We hadn't seen it on the load board, and then from here he is going to pick up something we never saw on the loadboard. Hmmm While we were at the office, the shipper brought over 8 more Cruise America RV's. Lots more still on the shippers side of the street. We head back to Mason City, the off airport car ended up being cheaper to go to Mason City than back to MSP. 6th stop at the Pilot in Clear Lake for gas. BB and I took different routes and I beat her. We both fueled. One hour and one minute after BB scanned my paperwork in, I am paid. And paid good, not quite as good as we had thought because one item was counted differently than we expected. Still, 10 days on the road and we are set for the month. Helps to get return runs close to home. 7th stop is at the car rental place in Mason City. I finally ran the AC from Clear Lake to Mason City. I'm not sure if the AC doesn't work or it just can't keep up. It is a little out of route but our time at their lot is short. 8th stop is in Owatonna at Holiday Gas and DQ. We wanted both cold liquids and ice cream. Actually I wanted Orange Julius but this location does not carry it. We got two lemonades and BB got a sundae and I got a shake. That seemed to help cool us down, and maybe by now the AC was doing something. We had talked about stopping and seeing my father-in-law on the way past. But one of BB's step-sisters was just there and we were hot and getting tired. We plan on going early tomorrow if it is not too late. Most all the younger generations have said their good-bye's. One more will stop by in the AM tomorrow, then his sister and then us. One at a time. I think it was a couple of days ago that he was awake and talking to anyone. Even the staff is saying WOW as to how fast he went down hill. 9th and final stop is home. We are now off the road for close to two weeks. It is still in the 90's tonight, it has been in the mid-90's most of the day. I had planned on doing yard work but not at these temps. Maybe right before dark. Right now at 7 PM the feels like is 99, earlier it had been in the 100's. Rain gauge still shows 4-1/2 inches in it. Last rain was a few days ago and it has been hot. Loadbard IA - 40 - 5 of them are going out to Neward CA, the same place we dropped this trip. MN - 4 WI - 4 US - 133 There were a bunch of short buses out of KS that were showing as CDL, they now have all been changed to non-CDL. They are going to Long Beach CA 1,400 miles. The longest run is going to Houston ... BC. Almost 2,300 miles. This is the first Canadian I have seen on the board for a long time. Home for a day, Lake Superior for 3 nights, then three appointments. Two next week and one the following Monday. Then, if there is work, I would like to get one more trip in before I deal with my DOT again. BP is still back up where it was last time I went in. I will likely have to talk to my main Dr before taking my DOT. I've got about six weeks to get that taken care of. |
