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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200803 CA-MI 2 RVs to CA, 1 to Davis, 1 to Manteca (both delivered) 1 bus to Grand Rapids ... MI ... Michigan ... spending the night at Santa Nella CA We can't make delivery by Friday even if we maxed out every hour, every day ... we would come up two plus hours short. So we are going to be taking it slow and delivering on Monday. Rental car home, home Tuesday. Unless we find work where we are. Breakfast was the usual limited here. Yogurt and pastries, fruit. This place is right on any comments this AM anyways. Juice machine was missing it's drip pan and they went to look for it right away. We wait until 8:30 to get going to miss the rush hour. I had parked tight to the curb along the drive area and I was also up near a couple of trees so I was watching the trees ... and as soon as I started to move I realized that any tail swing / sharp turn and I would be hitting a light pole. Opps. Didn't do it, but I hadn't thought about that when I did any of my walk arounds. Traffic this AM is a breeze, is it Sunday AM? On one of the cat walks across the freeway I see a man carrying three huge garbage bags ... and to bicycle rims. He must have lost his grocery cart. Lots of homeless every place they can stake a claim. Also lots of burn piles that look more like someones camp than a burn pit. 1st stop - 49er, is always a zoo. Now they are down to one gas pump, two sides. At a major truck stop. They are re-building the whole building but no sign that they will do anything with the fuel pumps. They are also old and hard to read. And ... after you swipe your credit card, it asks for your rewards card or "Push CNL." There is no cancel anywhere on the pump. So I found my rewards card and swiped. And it seemed like just about everyone had to go inside for some reason before or after fueling or both. Lots of people left after sitting for a few minutes. When I was done fueling I pulled over to the RV parking ... just as a semi took the spot I wanted, and part of the next spot. I was able to get past them but I didn't want to park there depending on how straight they were going to pull out. This is supposed to be a car only lot. 2nd stop - the drop. Only two ahead of us but we are there two hours. Instead of the usual 2-3 inspectors they are down to one. One of the drivers we talk to later says the others have all quit. When I get to the drop, just inside their lot there is a STOP sign. 'Do not go past.' So I walk to the front office but someone with the company name on their shirt says to go to the middle of the building, that is where the office are. They are re-building this place and every trip is different so I walk to those offices and wait. Nope, back to the front. Those doors are locked. So I ask the next person I see ... 'drive around back as usual, STOP sign is for repairs.' I pull up and park beside the RV that said they were going to West Sacramento. :) I go inside and tell someone I am there ... they aren't involved in receiving so they say to just wait in line. An inspector is just signing someones paperwork and then takes the next persons paperwork. Theirs is a RoadTrac out of Canada. They brought it on a flatbed. Lucky for us they only had one. Once I saw the inspector outside without a mask, I knew him. He wasn't the 1st guy we met at this dealer but he's been here quite a while. The other guy, from the motel, says we can go ahead but we still think we have plenty of time so we don't cut in line. We are 10 mile from the airport and he has a flight at 7 AM tomorrow. We got some insight talking to this guy. Sounds like the used to be able to self dispatch. I didn't ask what that meant. Now they have taken that away and you must email dispatch when you see a load you want. So it sounded like they also have a 'loadboard' that drivers can look at. But now with the self dispatch gone, dispatch only puts 45 orders on the board max. They do that as a way of keeping the less wanted loads moving. Sorry, doesn't work for me. If nothing is on the board that I want, I sit. And your loads sit, until you put it on the load board. This drive said he had looked at driving for a different company at one point but the other company moved a lot of used trucks and was more 'dispatch' driven. That made him much happier with his current company :) We talk and listen. BB is the only one who keeps her mask on at first. The rest of us put ours back on when the inspector comes to do paperwork with one of the drivers. Later one of our companies drivers come that is driving a flat bed with two RV's. He also keeps his mask on the whole time. According to the other driver for our company, part of the reason the small ones are being flat bedded is miles. The dealers can sell them with (almost) -0- miles on them. They have asked about having the others flat bedded also but to do so would require permits and or pilot cars. Lots of extra money. So we had almost two hours of indoor conversation. Longest so far. Usually we stand out side but it is already 90+ degrees. I'm done, I pile in with BB and we are on our way. Because it getting late we decided to wait and eat until we had dropped. The next 60 miles was un-eventful. 3rd stop - Enterprise, Manteca. We park at the (closed) casino and BB walks next door to sign for the rental car. After signing, BB pulls the car next to the RV and we move our stuff. From there BB head to final fuel and I head to ... In And Out :) Then we can eat our food while her inspection is being done. 4th stop - I pull into In-n-Out and am blocking the sidewalk, the line is long. So as soon as I can, I pull into a parking spot to go inside and order, and use the restroom. Opps. My mask is still lying on the dash of the RV. In those couple of minutes, not one else had gotten in the drive thru line so I got back in line. No mask required at the drive thru. Two double-doubles and two cups of water/ice. 5th stop - A few blocks later I am at the dealer and BB has already gotten all of her stuff out and given her paperwork to the inspector. We are one hour early but they said they would take us in the next open spot if we came early. I was hoping we would have more wiggle room but this worked. We sat and ate and waited. As soon as BB had her paperwork, I called the west coast dispatcher. He says I am early. Nope, I just like to confirm that I have dropped and am available. He says to call him back in 45 minutes. 6th stop - 45 minutes is what it takes to get to Livermore. Outlet mall is now back open and it packed. My phone locks up again and it is almost 10 minutes before I can call dispatch. Grand Rapids ... Michigan. CNG (not diesel.) Must stop at the same five fuel stops as all the other buses. No picking my own range. First time we have had that request. 2,600 miles. Never quite sure what the pay is on these but we always do OK. Paperwork will be ready at 5:30 so we have two hours to kill. Too hot to walk. 7th stop - We get to the shipper a little after 5 PM so I can have my bus inspected by the time I get the paperwork. I am getting ready to dial security when another bus drives up and lets me in. Thanks. We find my bus and am about half done inspecting it when the paperwork is thrown in to the bus. All checks OK so I give BB a 15 minute head start to stop and fuel and drop the rental car. I pull up to the restroom and say hi to another driver ... was even able to do the 'knuckle knock' this time. One of the first things I ask is how to adjust my drivers seat. It is almost shaped in a 'V.' I had been hitting the correct button, but it is much easier to adjust if there is no weight on the seat. We talked a bit about work and then a third driver wanted to know what to do with the paperwork. Still no security. They are to start at 5 PM and it is now after 5:30. The first guy I was talking to calls the local dispatch and he says where to put them. By now it is more than the 15 minutes so I get moving. Glad I didn't show up when there were no other drivers around, how to get in? and out? Picking up BB is no issue, there are now two driveways next to each other in that area so I can get off the travel lane while I pick her up. When we were heading to Livermore, traffic was backed up 15 miles heading east. Now it is closer to 10 and I turn off again after 5 miles. A little windy but that is about it. One hour down to the motel. 8th and final stop. Quality Inn in Santa Nella. As we pull up I see someone parking in 'my spot.' There are nine spots open on that stretch and I need five. The person parks in the middle one. But I see another maybe spot at is five. We try for a while and then when I am almost in, the couple that had parked in 'my' spot comes back, gets in their car and leaves. It looks like they just parked in the motel lot, walked the length of the building, came back and left. Just to make my life difficult. They left, I moved to 'my spot.' As soon as we are settled, we call down to the Split Pea Soup place. 'Sorry, we closed at 7?' Web says 10 PM :( One of the reasons we like to stay here is their food. BB and I talked about a couple of other places but when we walked outside we saw a food truck at the gas station across the street. We went there. I got four taco's and BB got a quesadilla, of which she saved half for breakfast. Loadboard US - 101 IA - 7 MN - 2 WI -0- 200804 CA-MI Woke up freezing, the AC in this room works. Later BB got up and decided to turn the heat on so it wasn't quite so cold getting ready in the AM. Opps, blew the circuit breaker. Easy enough to re-set, but the heater kept blowing it. Later I told the front desk about it. Breakfast? Juice or coffee and two kinds of packaged pastries. BB was glad to have her left overs from last night. I had a pastry and a breakfast bar from a prior motel. When I went to check out, the staff at the desk asked how my stay was, other than the AC/heater. I mentioned I would be glad when breakfast was back to normal. She wasn't sure that was going to be any time soon ... we talked a bit about it. We weren't in any rush today so we did a few laps around the parking lot/motel building. 20 minutes worth. Dogs, we saw dogs. And remember, do not put your ice directly into the ice buckets. Some people use those for water dishes for their dogs. I don't remember bottoming out with the front of the bus coming out from here before, also bottomed out with the back of the bus. Didn't bottom out at all going in. Some people ??? the first one I saw today was someone who had pulled onto the frontage road and stopped and had their <> six year old boy peeing towards the freeway so everyone could see him. Could have had him pee against the car tire, or against the pole that was six feet away ... Later coming down the freeway ramp there was a driver of a truck that was peeing towards the gas station which was just on the other side of the fence. Again, could have done it against his truck tire. Interesting area for me. Farming. Watching the herds of people harvesting produce. People working in the orchards. Animals grazing on the dried grass. It doesn't look like they should be feeding there, but how is it different than hay that has been dried and stored? Somewhere on this stretch I saw a helicopter dragging what looked like a banner. Then a second helicopter ... then a third. Finally I saw the third one coming in close to the power lines. There were 4-5 people on the high voltage power poles and the helicopters were moving the men from one pole to the next. Instead of using trucks and coming up from the ground, they were coming down from the top. I've never seen that before on existing lines. I have seen something like it when the lines are going up. 1st required fuel stop is Barstow for CNG. Three islands, fuel from either side, one hose per island. One trash guy was sitting there when we got there, still sitting there when we left. Hope he was broke down as he wasn't fueling. Potato chip trucks started pulling in after I got there, glad we got there when we did. I was in, fueled, out in 15 minutes. 4,000# pressure. At a Sinclair station I think. Station and tourist trap. Racking instead of shelving, to the ceiling. All kinds of stuff. This route puts on the slow street into Bakersfield. Miles of stop lights. We used to go this way a lot until they were done working on the next highway north. Either way it is about 20 miles of two lane, 55 mph highway. But that is it until we get to the last miles before the drop in town. 2nd stop - Tehachapi, the Pilot and PJ's. PJ's is just the dressed up version of their 'shelf food.' This place has close to a dozen items in skillets plus a couple of kinds of pizza's. We get the meatloaf. BB likes the veggies and I get the mashed potatoes. Forgot to ask for butter, again. No indoor seating, there is a Wendy's there also and all the tables are gone and the other area's are blocked off. So we eat sitting on the step of the bus. Someone has to hang on the the food container at all times. It is windy. Yes, windy and dry. At the next where the Bakersfield National Cemetery is I could see a bunch of trucks lined up for miles away. I got closer and could see that all had their headlights on so the trucks were running and ready to go. Go, to the next fire. They were all fire trucks. Right now there is something called the Apple Fire going on in southern CA. So far it as burnt 41 square miles and 1,000's have been evacuated. Back to our food, once we were done I called to get my permits. AZ and NM. I got one for tomorrow and one for Thursday. Just because that is the way I have always done it. So now we can't stay in Gallup NM tomorrow night. We will have to drive less than 500 miles tomorrow. 3rd and final stop is at the Quality Inn in Barstow. We often stay at the Comfort Inn but it was $30 more tonight and this place has lots of parking. Lots of parking if you are the first ones here. We got a spot at 3 PM but there have been trucks coming and coming since we got here. We will have to walk around later to see where they are all parking. For a while when we got here we could hear someones base but that didn't last too long. After a couple of hours we walk down and order our food, to go. It is still way to hot to sit outside and eat. OK. If we had to, or if it was warmer inside than outside. After we order we walk part way around the lot and then go back inside and wait. Yes lots of trucks, so far still lots of hour. Our food was ready in about 10 minutes. Good food, BB had some kind of enchiladas supreme. I had one cheese and one chicken enchiladas. Plus we each got a salad. The salad wasn't real fresh but the rest was very good. Can't remember if we have eaten here before our not. I know the restaurant was here last time we were here. Picked up my permits. I wasn't sure I would get them because the email address to send to the motel was 'printer@' something, but a little while later I got an email saying the pages were ready at $.25 a page, $2 minimum. But when I picked the pages up they said NC. Covid - MN still staying under 10 a day, even with the cases and hospitalizations going up. Deaths are a lagging factor so we have to wait and see how much they go up. Even with all the signs and months of lock down, there are still people going into stores, places without masks on. We have our basic trip planned from now until delivery. Subject to change. Load board US - 107 IA - 8 MN - 9 WI -0- 200805 CA-MI 1 bus to Grand Rapids MI ... spending the night at Holbrook AZ We finally get up at 6 AM local, no reason to get up earlier. No breakfast until 7 AM, all the work trucks are gone by then, maybe that is the reason? Breakfast is made to order, we get eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast and juice. All for $30 less than the Comfort Inn which likely has yogurt and water ??? The trucks that were here last night are gone, but there are trucks still here that must have come in later. Lots of room so lots of business. 1st stop in the rest area in Essex. The POE / port of entry is almost a non-stop. I stop on the scale and show the person in the booth my permit out the window. He looks at the permit, looks at my placard and says 'have a nice day.' 2nd stop was going to be at the TA in Kingman at the Black Bear Diner. We got off on the exit and the car ahead of me on the ramp took the last open spot on the cross street. That gave me time to see the police had the road blocked. No one was getting north of the freeway right then. Not sure the issue, didn't sit there to find out. We did see an In-n-Out, but by the time we saw there was a strip mall near it, we were past the exit ... So Loves it was, Subway. Ordered in, ate out. Fuel lanes were backed up out on to the highway when we got there but I was able to wind my way through and find a place to park. Now that I know where overflow parking is we don't need to go in that way any more. The other two truck stop ... Flying J has a Denny's and Petro has an Iron Skillet. No fast food at either of those. Wwwwwwinnnnneeee. As soon as we pulled out of Loves the bus was making a very loud wining noise. Anytime the engine was pulling it was wining. The only time it wasn't was on the down grade. Very loud. Two hours to the next stop. No lights on, nothing I could do if I did stop and look at it, so I kept going. 3rd stop was the Loves in Williams for fuel. Only one person ahead of me so I backed in and waited. Then backed into fuel. Couldn't get the pump started. Called the desk a few times. Pump would say fueling for a few seconds and then go blank. Finally they said to move to the next pump. I did, but I should have looked at it first. This one said right on the screen that it was not working. They have one more pump in the car island. One car ahead and I didn't have to wait long. This one works. But I am busy thinking about other things and when the pump stops, I just hang it up, grab the receipt and leave. I don't check to see how full the tanks got all I know is the pump shut off. Some times the credit cards have a max of $125 and this receipt was for $125.09. Never have seen a pump go even a cent over a credit card limit so I'm guessing the tanks were full. This stop took 45 minutes. The last fuel fill took 5 minutes. And we were off. No noise. Not sure what that was about, we still had lots of climbing to do before the down hill from Flagstaff. 4th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Holbrook. We had looked at the EconoLodge. Not much reason to pay extra for a 'hot breakfast' when there no longer is one. But we end up at the Quality Inn again. A few trucks already but I found my place to park. Denny's is a half mile walk and an Italian place is another quarter beyond that. I try to call the Italian place to order ahead but not answer each time. We finally walk down to the Italian place, most of the way ... until we could the 'closed' sign. ?? Someone had just reviewed it online a couple of days ago. The motel front desk still had it on their list. Back to Denny's. They do have indoor seating but we order to go. I wait outside, BB sits inside until it gets to crowded. We do get our food and back to the room. Good food. But twice today we had to 'settle' for something other than what we wanted. Today we saw 11 Amazon Prime delivery vans in transit. Three UPS delivery vans, lots of buses, RV's and other trucks. I-40 is a busy route for transporters. Loadboard US - 151 IA - 39 MN - 6 WI - 1 200806 CA-MI 1 bus to Grand Rapids MI ... spending the night at Tucumcari NM ... Awake and up at 5:30, breakfast doesn't start until 7. Breakfast is yogurt, fruit and pastries. Plus juice an coffee. Most places have yogurt so I'm good. Miss the eggs though. When I checked out this AM I asked the owner/manager about the Italian place being closed. He said they closed two days ago because the bars had to close and they also had a bar and decided to close the whole thing. Hopefully they want to re-open in two weeks but that seems awful quick to know if shutting them did any good. Because of the loud wining of the bus yesterday, I was looking at anything that could have been causing it. And I did find that according to the computer, my transmission is 2 qts low. Shows fine on the stick, but ... We tried to find this type of fluid for the last bus and never did. This time we looked for the people who service this brand of transmissions. (Last time it wasn't a transmission issue, and it was a different brand of transmission) There is one place in town where we are that services these transmission. They don't open until 8 AM. I call before heading down, they do carry what I need in one gallon jugs. 1st stop. Five miles down the street at a parts store. They have both the fluid and a funnel. Almost $60 and I should get it all paid back. I pour in two quarts and the computer now says 'OK.' We are ready to go. Now we know where to find it. The Hopi Truck Stop at the edge of town has redone all their truck fuel pumps and now has a sign that says '1 Nine.' No idea what that means. I guess it used to be a really nice place. It is on the reservation and had a cafe, 2 fast food places, barbershop, plus other stores. Then they got a manger that drove it into the ground and now are trying to come back. Only Burger King and a knife shop are in the place now. No problem at the scale, the person in the booth just took a few seconds trying to read my paperwork from six feet away before waving me on. 2nd stop is the Flying J in Jamestown just to use the rest room. 3rd stop is the Flying J in Albuquerque for fuel and food. I used to fuel at the airport but that is a few miles out of route. And I have fueled at the Loves, but their pump is in the car island. At the Flying J the pumps are all by themselves out back. Denied. My credit card is denied, and again, and again, and again. We had this same problem last time. We have to take a video of the error message on the screen because the phone number you need to call stays on the screen for less than a second. So we video, and watch it again and again until we have the complete number. I call. They claim no issue with the pump. I finally tell them I am going to another location. After I hang up I try a second credit card. It starts. I think that was the issue last time also. For some reason this pump does not like my main credit card. There is no record either at the owners / phone persons location or from my credit card that the transaction was denied. Only on the pump. Now if I can only remember that next time I stop here ... next year. So another half hour to fuel. Only a few minutes to fuel, the rest being frustrated. We had planned on eating at one of the food trucks that hang near the truck stop but when we drove in, I had seem that Denny's had patio seating. So we went to Denny's. This location is built a little different and there is an area for a dozen tables under cover outside. No inside seating. The host seated us right away and gave us our menu's. And we waited as four servers waited on six other tables. Finally the host showed her face at the door and BB got her attention. It had been 20 minutes and no one had waited on us. The host took our order and we waited ... again. Other people came and were being taken care of right away. We finally flagged down another server. OH, I guess the host had given this person our order but never said who or where we were. From then on the service got better but we were seated for over an hour. Which has happened before at a Denny's. Oh yeah, and I bit my tongue twice. BB is out of water so we buy another 24 pack and lug it out to the bus. Bus was mostly fine the 1st leg this AM, then a little louder the 2nd leg. Not sure if being low on fluid had anything to do with the noise or not. Either it is not deafening anymore or we have gone partially deaf. The noise is still there at times but not as loud. And I have been checking the computer every time we stop now. 4th stop is the rest area west of Santa Rosa. BB walked to the restroom, I did not. The guy in the truck next to me just took care of his business right in the parking lot (I did not) A few miles down the road I had seen a cop in my peripheral vision and then noticed a car cross ways in my right side ditch. Two people were out of the car and it didn't look damaged and at first I wasn't sure how it got there. I looked in my left mirror to see of the cop was coming back, he wasn't. But I did notice gravel all over the road. Then I noticed two semi's and an RV on the shoulder and soon a cop coming with it's lights one. My guess ... is the car had come across the median, the semis/RV's just missed it. All happened just minutes before we were there. Lots of roadwork at our next exit. Traffic has moved to the west lane and west shoulder. Some truck coming out of the truckstop gets in the old lane ... until he realized we are heading for a head on and I have a cement barrier on my side. 5th and almost final. We stop at the Love's for Arby's. Late lunch so we don't get much for food but I buy liquids and BB buys fruit for breakfast. This time I park with the cars because there were no cars in the parking lot so lots of room for me. Final, final stop is the Quality Inn in Tucumcari a couple of miles down the road. BB was looking at motels last night and notice there was no food listed at this motel anymore so I called. Nope, the restaurant had closed in December last year. Four motels with no food for miles. There had been a Denny's until it moved into the Flying J five or so years ago. Then this place had the only food ... and now it doesn't. Cops were here when we got here, heard them tell the desk clerk that 'He left.' Not many cars in the lot and only saw less than a half dozen reservations on the counter at the front desk. Not like Barstow. No wonder the restaurant closed. Today I saw 10 of the Amazion Prime delivery vans, 2 UPS vans and one plain white one. Also lots of RV's, stacks of trucks and other stuff in transport. Covid numbers are up again today, deaths are still staying the same. Loadboard US - 146 IA - 46 MN - 2 WI - 1 ... the trip continues HERE |
