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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200817 IA-OR 2 Rv's to Junction City OR, delivered ... spending the night at Kenniwick WA ... Breakfast, almost the same as yesterday. Except the night before last we filled out our request when we checked in, this morning we filled out our request when we came down for breakfast. Then the person on staff filled the request and brought it out to us. Two hour time difference so I call the dispatcher in MN about the trucks in OR (that's just how it is sometimes) Had to leave a message again. This time he did call me back. The 'other' that is listed on the load board are dump trucks :) ... with trailers :( Pay is good. But I don't move combination units enough to feel good about it. Not going through the mountains where I could smell my breaks on my plain RV. I really wished it had been something else, just about anything else. But if it had, it wouldn't have been listed as 'other' and likely wouldn't have still been on the board. I told him not to hold one for me, but if I changed my mind. I didn't change my mind, I passed. At 7:30 we were moving luggage and checking out of our motel. Seven miles later, we were at a Chevron. Yes, there are diesel islands but the are 'member only.' Pacific Pride. So I need to fuel in the car island. Not an issue, still a lot more room here than at either of the gas stations in town. One pump with diesel is open so we are able to start fueling right away. Oregon. Where you can not pump your own fuel if you are in a town of 40,000 people (?) or more. Pump was a little slow today so it took a half hour to pump less than 40 gallons / $80 worth. Any time anyone else would start pumping diesel at another pump, ours would slow down. Dropped BB off at the airport, I've been here enough that we now know where to go with large stuff. Another few miles down the road and I am at the drop, I park away from the inspection area as we are two hours early and only one of us is here. A few minutes later and BB is there to pick me up. Back to the hotel to pick up her RV, I follow her back as far as the RV place, but she keeps going into town to fuel there. Not her best choice. The stations are right on the city street and sometimes it is hard to see traffic depending on where people park. Getting here this trip, coming off the freeway to the side street, there is a stop light. Between the last two times we were through there would have been less than 15 minutes. Someone broadsided a pickup. Cops were there, but the fire trucks were just getting there when we got there. Never know when something like this is going to happen, even if you are the one in the right. As soon as I am back at the drop, I take my paperwork into the office and find out where to park. By the time I am back to my RV, BB is there so she follows me to the inspection area. We end up only both being there a half hour early. Cutting it a little close. There is one of our drivers sitting doing paperwork at an outside table. He was doing the same thing a few weeks ago when we were dropping the rental RV's in CA. Same driver, waiting for a cab again. We don't offer. It's hard not being a nice guy, but it is safer. Later another driver for a different company talks to us for a bit. He drives out of Indiana and somehow one of his friends had borrowed one of his bikes sometime in the past. So this trip, that is his ride home. Sounds like he will be taking some back roads and trying to stay in some higher elevations where it is cooler. He was a biker so I asked him about Sturgis. He had come through there on this trip but places were asking $150 for a parking spot at the RV camps. No power, no water. Just a flat piece of grass. So he didn't. The inspectors find chips on both RV's. This place is known for their thorough inspections. BB's is new so she needs to call her damage in. Mine is a 'used' unit, so they do not even note the damage on my paperwork, only on theirs. After we are done we find shade and BB gets our paperwork sent to the office. BB had looked at a lot of place to eat all the way from here to Salem. We end up eating right here at the RV place. A few of the RV shops have made to order food. This place also has a RV camp ground so lots of traffic. We have eaten here before. Really good food. BB had southwest chicken sandwich and I had a chicken salad sandwich and onion rings. One of the rings was a ball, but we opened it and it was the center pieces of the onion. Didn't eat it. I was so stuffed that I only ate half my onion rings and they were really good rings. Not the frozen, pre-packaged ones. As we get into the car to leave, I reach in my pocket so I am not sitting on my phone for the next to hours ... no phone. I had left at the table. Nobody stole it, not that that would be a bad thing at this point. Another thing I need to do when I am home. Get a phone. Leaving the RV place we end up following the blue signs to the freeway instead of the computer. It got us to the same place on different roads. We stop for fuel before returning our first car in Salem. Then we drove to their office. Almost missed it as we didn't have the GPS on. We've been here a number of times, but usually from the other direction. One person ahead of us at the rental agent and they take about 15 minutes. We take about another 15 minutes, and we end up taking the same car as we brought in. They had a car that would have gotten better mileage, but they said it smelled really bad of smoke. Dirty is not an issue, smoke is a deal breaker. By the time we left there were five more people in line. The last ones were going to be there more than an hour. Only one person in the office. As often happens, there is one customer there on their own phone trying to find out why they can't rent a car. Either with their bank, the rental companies main office, insurance or someone. We are going ... pretty clear sailing up to Portland. We go from the I-5 to the I-205 to the I-84. Right near the I-84 intersection there is a grass fire in a homeless camp. It is way up on the hill away from the freeway but still inside the freeway ... I end up on I-84 west into downtown Portland instead of I-84 east to home. Only one intersection to make a U-turn at before the freeway ends in downtown. We take it. A few minutes delay and only my driving pride is hurt. Homeless living anywhere there is a flat spot on government property. Some places are so close to the freeway you can see right into their bed. Others are big piles of ... garbage or is that someones stuff? Also saw one spot that had been burned so the shrubs were gone ... and now there is a tent there again. Plan was to stop at one of the truck stops for their restroom. Both places east of Portland are usually crowded so we decided the Dairy Queen instead ... and we guessed that 'restrooms are for customers only' so what could we do? Except when we got there it was drive thru only. We still ordered and headed back to the freeway, rest stop would have to wait, we now had food. We stopped at the 2nd open rest area about 50 miles down the road. At the 1st rest area we were not done with our ice cream and it is the falls. Very crowded. Not as bad as on the weekend but still close to full. Not sure if I mentioned it yesterday but at an outlet mall yesterday the cars were parked all the way to the edges. People are getting out and about. 106 ... that was the warmest it got today. So no walking cemeteries for us today. This is the first trip that we are dead heading back from in a long time. We will be making about 1/2 as much as getting work both ways (so the dump truck would have been nice) but we are doing OK. Both the OR and WA scales are open. After the fact, we are talking a lot about what if ... what if I had taken the dump truck and trailer. We likely would have picked it up and gone to the hotel. Maybe parked it at a truck stop and used the car to go to the motel. And I would have had to have had printed permits before I got to the scales. But the biggest thing for me was the mountains with a, likely used, truck. Something I only drive every few years. We have the car so we check into a different motel in the Tri-Cities. As we get near, we realize we have been here before but don't know when. It is a block from the mall I worked at in the winter of 78-79. Again, lots of memories. BB said last time we walked the mall to refresh my memory. I don't remember that from the stop so I guess it didn't work ;) We may walk it tomorrow again. As of today it still has four anchors, rumor is Penny's is closing. When I worked there I only remember two anchors, like our local malls. The other anchors were added later. The other thing I remember was the Farrell's ice cream parlour. The final Farrell's closed in 2019. We ate at the final one in 2017 or 2018. I could go on about the old days, but that is the end of today. We didn't eat supper. After we were in the room here a while, BB was realizing it wasn't getting any cooler. We talked of getting a different room, but then the AC would start blowing cooler air again. Finally we realized that the AC likely couldn't keep up with the 100 degree's outside and once it got dark it would cool down. It did. Got an email from the hotel chain stating that I was a 'no show' at the motel in IA so I would not be getting my points. If I want to prove I was there, I will need to send them a copy of my stay. Hmmm The reason we are having this issue is because their computers were done, no computer, no receipt. I replied. We'll see how long this takes. All 100 out of IA are RV's. Need to get back to MN and pass my DOT medical so we can go again. Load board US - 213 IA - 100 MN - 7 WI - 3 200818 IA-OR 2 Rv's to Junction City OR, delivered ... spending the night at Butte MT ... We just "Cut off the nose to spite the face." Just before we stopped, BB was checking motels after we passed Butte and found that motels in Bozeman were over $100. So we turned around and back tracked to Butte. Once checked into the motel, we realize by not making it to Bozeman ... we are now going to have an extra nights motel. Which will cost us more than the difference between the Butte and Bozemans motels. :( Today - Tuesday morning. We had checked off what we wanted for breakfast on a sheet last night, so when we came down this AM we gave the staff our room number and they gave us our breakfast. Real scrambled eggs, sausage, yogurt, juice. Plus I got PopTarts but those are for the road, add to our stash. Once checked out, I drive over to the Columbia Mall. Their website is wrong. They only have two anchors. Macy's and JC Penny's and if Penny's is closing that leaves 1 of 4. Not so good. I drove around the mall until I got a feel for how it laid out with just the two original anchors. :) Then I followed my nose ... and realized I was going in the opposite direct of what I wanted. I saw a sign that said I-82 and I was looking for I-182. BB looked at the computer and I had taken a right out of the mall lot instead of a left. Once we were back to that point I knew my way for the next 1,000+ miles. This 'mall' is what ended up costing us enough time that we couldn't / didn't want to, drive past Bozeman tonight. Traveling up US-395 I could pick out a known potato cellar and phone tower at Connell, but we don't stop. 1st road stop is at the rest area in Sprague instead of the Loves in Ritzville, thinking it would take less time. A couple of days ago, Loves was really congested. We walk for a couple of minutes before getting back into the car. 2nd stop is for fuel at the Flying J in Post Falls. BB uses the restroom, I do not. It's less than an hour but the fuel is cheap and will get us to WY where the fuel is even cheaper. Somewhere in ID there is part of a truck load that is sitting on the cement median divider. The truck is gone, but it looks like the load came off the down hill lane coming around a corner (too fast.) Two very large tanks that are anchored together. 3rd stop is in St Regis for food. It would have been nice to get to Missoula for some 4B's soup, but not this trip. We ordered to go at Jaspers, BB had a club and I had a patty melt and a huckelberry shake. Another good meal and no supper needed. There were benches under their overhang so we sat on one and ate our lunch before leaving. The last couple of days it seems like 75%+ are wearing masks but haven't heard anyone making a big deal out of it. Not sure what the % is, but people out here carry. Open carry. WA the speed limit is up to 70, ID up to 75, MT up to 80 mph. Doesn't help much until there are not 45 mph curves every mile. Mileage yesterday on the car had been up to 33.5 mpg in OR, but today is back down to 28.5 after running 80 mph. 4th stop is Deer Lodge at the gas station for restroom and juice. I thought this place had been a Town Pump, but it is not now and maybe never was. Clean place, has Champs Chicken, but I am not hungry. Did get some kind of lemonade, turns out to be diet. This place had three kinds of 'Simply' juice, but not lemonade. Already covered how we ended up in Butte. Now if we don't get home on Thursday, I can't get my DOT done on Friday. Big OPPS, not looking at the big picture. 5th and final stop is at the Comfort Inn in Butte, same one we were at a couple of nights ago. No supper, 2nd night in a row. Today we saw one Amazon Prime van, one plain white van and two tree trucks for blowing tree chips into. That was all we noticed with placards. Did see lots of Greyhound sized RV's. 2 RV's to North Las Vegas are the most likely runs we would look at. We will see how tomorrow goes. Plan was to call for my DOT appointment tomorrow AM, knowing that we would be able to be home Thursday night. It is still doable, but originally we would only have six hours to drive on Thursday, now we are up to 8-9-?? Load board numbers US - 227 IA - 108 MN - 6 WI - 4 200819 IA-OR 2 Rv's to Junction City OR, delivered ... spending the night at Mitchell SD ... 815 miles today ... No alarm this AM. Breakfast, 2 yogurts, 2 juice cups. BB didn't like the hard boiled eggs last time here so she stuck with cereal this time. Rolling before 7 AM. Thought I knew were I was going but opps. Had to take the first U-turn. About two blocks time wasted, but that would be it for the day. 1st stop was for fuel in Belgrade. Town Pump, didn't know this one was co-branded Pilot until I looked at the map yesterday. New station in the last five years, right next to an on/off ramp ... for east bound I-90. About a mile out of route for westbound. Easy off, and then we realized it was rush hour in Bozeman. Quick fuel and when we realized the line to get back on the road wasn't moving, we made a U-turn, went down a gravel road and got on the road at the next stop light. There had been five trucks ahead of us in line for the road, four of them were still sitting there when we went past. 2nd stop was at rest area between Columbus and Park City. 3rd stop was in Sheridan WY. 4B's is gone so we ended up at Jimmy Johns. They were working on a lot of phone in orders so it took a while to get ours, a while at Jimmy Johns is five minutes or so. 4th stop was in Gillette for fuel at the Mavrick. Under $2 a gallon. It wasn't two hours from our last stop but it was the cheapest fuel we were going to find this trip. Moorcroft - BB looked it up, a few years ago BNSF said they were going to park 150 engines because of a slow down in business. And not too far past Moorcroft we looked north and saw Devil's Tower. Been there, likely will be there again. 5th stop was in Rapid City for the rest room at the Pilot. BB went in, I stretched my legs. Temps are 100-101 here today. Harley Davidson is taking down all their big sheds. All the trailers and small tents are already gone ... for another year. Only saw five bikers in Sturgis. The big RV parks are mostly empty except for the garbage cans. Everything looks all cleaned up already. One of the places had their picnic tables all stacked already. 6th stop - Murdo at the Pilot for Subway. Yup, two cold sandwiches in one day. But that is the only fast food in this town. The place is not jammed with bikers and the line at Subway is not long. But the crew at Subway is not as fast as the crew a few days ago. We were not sure how far we would keep going. Finally BB was looking at the reviews and the prices and decided Mitchell ... if I wanted to drive that far. Sun was just setting ... 6th and final stop was Mitchell. First we fueled at Shell, under $2 again but not the cheapest in town. But the closest. This Shell shares a lot with the Comfort Inn we are staying at. Quick check in and we are in. 13 hours, 800+ miles. Long day, no long breaks. Most of the day, once we got out of the mountains has been at 80 mph. The first time I fueled this car I had a range of over 500 miles. When I fueled it now the range was under 400. Haven't looked at the mpg because of the way the display is set up, but I am guessing I am getting about 28 mpg now and was up to 33 mpg when I was running at 65 mph. We should make in home tomorrow. Less than eight hours driving from here. So ... tomorrow AM I will call for a DOT appt. And BB needs to make a pre-surgery appt. And I also may try to get an appointment for getting a new phone. Today the load board looks even better. The North Las Vegas are still there, plus two for Davis CA and two for Sandy OR. But we will be sitting until I pass my DOT ... Load board US - 249 IA - 112 MN - 6 WI - 3 200820 IA-OR 2 Rv's to Junction City OR, delivered ... spending the night at home ... Breakfast ... our first real hot breakfast since early March. Scrambled eggs, sausage. Could have had biscuits and gravy, didn't. Plus yogurt and juice for me. Not sure SD ever shut down, but this is our first time eating breakfast here. Got going some time around 7:30. A lot less miles to go today. 1st stop, two hours down the road at a rest area near Jackson MN. Mostly closed but this one has parking for 5 trucks and has four out houses. Most of the time they close the whole thing, not sure why this one is different. While we were stopped, I called for a DOT appointment. Tuesday is the earliest I can get in St Louis Park if I don't want the Dr I had last time. They offered to check other locations but I will stick with there for now. Then I tried to call my cell company and didn't get anywhere, I'll have to try them again later. We talked about calling my local company about working, but never made a decision on that. On to Blue Earth and then exit the freeway. Another 50 miles and we are in Forest City. Lunch time. 2nd stop Forest City, today we try ... computer says it is Taco Jerry's but I don't remember that to be the name. It is on the north end of town, right across from Shooterz, where we have eaten many times. Cheap food, but something didn't sit quite right. I'd try it again before I wrote the place off. Right next to Jerry's there is now a new Cobblestone Inn ... that might be why the Lodge on the south end of town is for sale. I noticed today that the marquee was not running for the Lodge so I'm not sure if they are open or not. 3rd stop - pick up our van in Forest City. The lot is full with the overflow in the 2nd lot. Lots more on the shippers side of the road. They should be busy until the end of the month. BB heads out with the rental and I head out with the van. Half hour down the road and I get a call from my local dispatch. I'm just about to the MN welcome center so I pull off and call them back. They are looking for a driver for tomorrow, but I have no way of contacting BB until we have dropped the car. So I tell them I will call them back. Almost to the cities, there is traffic coming down the ramp so I move over, no one coming anywhere close in the left lane. But the semi in the lead of the traffic is able to gain speed coming down the ramp so I get stuck beside him. Almost right way, someone is behind me flashing their high's. They kept flashing every few seconds for the couple of minutes it took to drop back and get in the left lane. Had I been going the speed limit, I might have just stayed there. 4th stop, MSP Airport. Last time we had an issue with the drop not checking in the car until after the return time, a day later. So this time we went to the main terminal. Opps. They are working on the roads as always. I see a sign too late that says 'returns only.' My only other choice at that time was to go in where the buses go. So I kept going. I was able to get past the rental cars and get to the exit booth. They let me out. I circle around and park in un-loading zone in the departure area. BB calls. She says it is OK to come through (again) so I do. Hertz does have location in Burnsville that we will likely try next time. Before we leave the airport, I find a wide spot and call dispatch back. They have two metro trucks that need to be moved, and I need to turn in my list of accidents. I haven't had any, but a paper still needs to be signed every year and I am late. BB had listened to today's work call and they are busy, looking for drivers to work. No other stops today, so head home. I find my accident form, fill it out and get it dropped off tonight. They should be able to clear me by the time I need to work tomorrow. BB will drive again. Load board US - 248 IA - 101 MN - 4 WI - 9 There had been some good CA runs earlier but those are gone. Best runs for us now are 5 to AZ, 2 to WA or 2 to FL. But those will be gone by the time we are ready to go next week. |
