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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2 RV's to IN ... spending the night at Albert Lea MN Breakfast was HOT FOOD. Scrambled eggs and sausage patties. More like a mix of sausage and ham. Plus yogurt. Then we sat and waited. Then got a late check out. At noon we went to Erbert and Gerbert's and got sandwiches that we ate in the van. We had thought of eating outside but a brisk wind today. Sometime this AM I found and started emailing our tech support about my new phone not being able to load their website. I tried a few things and then they wanted me to shut down my phone. No can do without setting up a program called Bixby that sounds like it will take over my phone. No thanks. At this point I have not shut down my phone since I have gotten it. Maybe some day while I am home I will let it go dead so that it has to re-start. Still no work so we headed to the local state park and took a walk. After the walk we sat at Love's, because it was on the right side of the road. Finally at 4:30 we called in and took two RV's to IN that had been out there for a few days. We will pick those up tomorrow and deliver on Thursday and be back for our next RV's on Friday ... that is our plan. The load board was 13 last night. As soon as dispatch opened it dropped to 8 where it stayed for a couple of hours. Then at about 10:30 they added 7. I didn't write down the rest of the day because we had left the motel. But they added 11 after 12 noon, when we thought they would be on lunch so we weren't watching. Then they added a few more about 3 PM and the final 3-4 the added after 4 PM. Nothing matched. There were some good ones but never at the same time. CA, FL, but we don't make any money if we just take one and we can't gamble on something else showing up. So we are going to MI, our drops are a couple of hours apart but almost right on route. And when we drop it is a one day rental back to Mason City. We have looked at picking up something to take back from IN or IL with but by the time we subtract a motel and an extra day rental they aren't worth doing. If two good runs show up out of IN we may take those instead of coming back to IA at all. Too late to pick up our RV's tonight, since covid there is no after hours pickups. And we had waited all day for 'something better.' We will get going tomorrow early, when they open and will get to one side or the other of Chicago for the night. If we don't make it past Chicago tomorrow we will have a little over an hour to do in the AM and we should be going mostly against rush hour traffic. We check back into the Comfort Inn. We are using some of our 380,000 points tonight. About 10,000 of them. We walk next door to the truckstop and see that our Iron Skillet is closed. So I find someone to ask. Yes, it is closed forever. We have eaten a couple of dozen or more meals there. :( Pizza Hut was also closed, at least tonight. We had planned on pizza until we walked over and lost the mood before we saw it was closed. Load board US - 151 IA - 17 MN - 1 WI - 5 The trip from MLW to DSM is still out there. 201015 IA-IN 2 RV's to IN, 1 to Burns Harbor, 1 to Auburn (both delivered) ... spending the night at Walcott IA Breakfast was egg patties and sausage links, plus yogurt. Egg patties were fairly dry, they were OK as long as I ate them with the greasy sausage. We left the hotel about 8:30. As we are driving out I see some of the tall grass that I have been wanting to plant, but BB is ahead of me this time so I don't stop. I was wrong. There are two businesses between the hotel and the truckstop. 1st stop - Pilot for fuel. BB puts in her dealer fuel and I wait. 2nd stop - BB's drop, the next driveway down. We are there before they open a few minutes. It takes her inspector a full hour to look over a small RV. A tow driver comes in with a trailer and is in and out in half they time and that inspector spent half their time talking. 10 AM we are ready to go. I had looked at a map and took what I thought was the logical way. BB's computer and the route we got from the office disagree. Oh well, there were only a few miles difference between that route and this. Don't see this too often. I had gotten in the left lane at a stop light on the four lane because there was a row of trucks in the right lane. I got past some of them before they got up to speed but then I backed off to let one go past, and then pulled back into the right lane to let a semi pass. I'm guessing the speed limit there was 55 for semi's and 60 for cars (and RV's) Hadn't gone too far and I saw someone in a sports car making a U-turn in the median. Not a freeway so no No U-Turn sign so I didn't think much about it until I saw extra glass between the front seat and back ... then the lights, he kicked it down and in a few minutes had the semi who had passed me pulled over. I'm guessing the semi had been going 10, 15 over when he passed me. Not sure what he might have been going once he got up to speed. 3rd stop - Pilot in Plymouth for a rest break. I saw another transporter who had just gotten done fueling so I asked what he was making ... "about 5 mpg." :) "No, how much are you getting paid to drive?" He wasn't sure on this one but thought about $.75 including fuel. We get about the same for RV's that size. He was heading to CA from IN. Most of this route was on four lane, non-freeway except for the first few and the last few miles. 4th stop was at Speedway for my final dealer fuel about two blocks from my drop. 5th stop was at the car rental place where I only stopped long enough to drop BB. 6th stop was my drop. The drop was right on the corner where we turned to pickup the rental car so I knew where it was. But it is a car dealer and once on the lot I couldn't find the RV area. I finally stopped and asked. Next building. So I parked out front and went inside. Two used ones outside the building, two new ones inside the building. I saw one salesman so I asked who to talk to. He said the checkin person was already on the way out to my RV. As long as I was in, I asked if they were a new dealer or just remodeling. "We've been doing this 40 years. We just can't keep RV's in stock." That explains the big empty lot. And the inspector got to my RV the same time I did. (Opps, for the 1st time I forgot to take a picture of the dash in case I need to prove there were no warning lights on) The guy is inspecting as I am grabbing my stuff out and he is done when I am done. Signs and he drives the RV away before we are in the car. 15 minutes from entrance to exit. 7th stop was right back next to Speedway at Culvers. I ordered my usual reuben and blueberry malt. (easier to drink when I'm driving) Across the street was an example of 'it's not my job.' The sign for the restaurant had been taken down, but the 'help wanted' words were still on the marquee sign below it. At 70 mph, the freeway is the faster way back and we aren't limited on the number of extra miles we put on the cars. We do have a limit on how many extra miles we can put on the RV's. We head north to I-80/I-90 tollway. 8th stop is at the Oasis near Portage, last rest area before Chicago. I got a lemonade. It wasn't a Simply Lemonade. :( From here to the other side of Chicago you are taking your life in your hands if you try to go close to the speed limit. I just hope for slowdowns but there wasn't much for today. I was going "well" over the speed limit for most places and traffic was still passing me in the other three lanes and going around me when they could from my lane. Seems like a very long drive across the south of Chicago. 9th stop was at an Arby's in Peru as it was the closest thing to the freeway. Indoor closed. So we went through the drive thru and ... 10th stop was another 10 miles down the road at the rest area near Wyanet IL. No travel trailers rolled here this time. Not too windy today. And yesterday was only half as windy as last time we were here. 45 mph winds yesterday, 100+ the time before. 11th stop was for fuel at Pilot and then across the street to the Comfort Inn for the night. When we checked in, they said they were full. Only two more people with reservations and they were full. Hmm. They are working on the building, I'm guessing they are only using some of the rooms. Lots of trucks, the truck area was full. Maybe 20 some trucks, I didn't count. Load board US - 187 IA - 43 MN - 18 WI - 3 All 18 of the MN trips are going to Omaha NE. At one time today there had been 20 of them. Both BB and I had gotten text messages, a 1st, from dispatch asking if we could move tractors from Indy to Sioux Falls when we were done with our IN runs. So they are watching to see where we are. ... and no, we couldn't. Lots of stuff on the IA board but no good pairs. There would have been one good run, with one out of IN and one out of IA both going to CA but we didn't know if we were going to be able to stay out. We are. For another week and then we need to be back for a few days of appointments. We'll be watching the board to see what shows up. And we still have 4 plus hours to go to get our rental car back within 24 hours. 201016 IA-FL 2 RV's to FL, 1 to Ocala, 1 to Fort Myers (not picked up) ... spending the night at Albert Lea No breakfast at the IA motels? Nothing. So BB had a left over banana and I had my last cookie. No breakfast so we got going a few minutes earlier than usual. Traffic at that time of the morning is as I remember it on I-80. Everyone is jockeying for position, and it is mostly trucks. 1st stop of the day is in Evansdale/Waterloo at the Road Ranger for the restroom and then next door to the McD's for a breakfast sandwich for BB. But first we drove through the Arby's to see if they had breakfast, this one doesn't. Not sure what yet, but a new fast food place is going up on the same side of the road as Flying J. This Flying J hasn't had food since they closed their Country Market (?) 2nd stop is at Forest City to pick up our car and drop paperwork. Three people hooking up tow cars to their RV's and a few more drivers getting ready to go. Also two semi's picking up RV's. When I was looking online I could see what was being moved on semi's ... our good stuff :( On the way to Mason City, BB stops to fuel in Clear Lake where fuel is now $1.69. 3rd stop is the rental car place in Mason City. Doors are locked, no customers in the building. You have to wait until someone from inside comes out. 4th stop was El Loro for to go food. Too much. We both ordered the lunch special, I only at the enchiladas, BB ate her enchiladas, rice and salad. Then we sat a while and watched the load board. 5th stop was the Hynes Spur Trail in Forest City. Here BB realized she had lost her cap. And it was cold and windy, but we took a mile walk. Likely would have been longer if we had been dressed for it, or the weather had been warmer. Then we drove to the Kwik Star/Kwik Trip for the restroom and then sat in the local park the rest of the day. BB was watching the board from 8 AM on. The board started at about 40, by noon it was down to just over 20 before they started adding new runs. Again, we didn't write times and numbers down, but it seems they added the 1st new runs at noon, then at 2 PM, a few at 3 PM and the last batch just after 4 PM. They did put out some trips that were of interest. But none that we jumped on. No good pairs. Some that we could make work, but the money isn't there when their isn't a round trip or two no-tows. We ran a lot of math today. Then after 4 PM they put out our two FL runs. We called. But BB was still wanting to do math as I wanted to call. We need to get in the habit of calling and putting them on hold. That is something we can do but haven't done. Except for the ones coming out of our central dispatch when they can't tell me what the 'truck' is and I have to call the shipper myself. BB and I do some talking while I have dispatch on the phone, so they got to listen to our 'conversation.' :) BB takes the longer run because it is a shorter RV. Hers is 25 foot and my is 31 foot. We haven't done this route since the first part of January. Weather should be a little nicer where we are going. Other than that it is setting up to be the lowest paying run we have done this year. Unless we add a 2nd leg. And that might end up being BB following me with the rental car because it is cheaper than getting two rental cars. When we took this run I thought that rental cars were still cheap out of FL. Turns out that the prices show differently on the computer than they do on the phone. I thought I was seeing the TOTAL for the trip home like I do on my computer. No, I was seeing the daily rate on my phone. Nice thing about rental cars is that we can make new reservations and cancel old ones at no charge. We had looked at two going to Maine, too cold. And looked at two going to Kalispel MT, too cold. Also anything going northwest we would need to get permits NOW to be able to run South Dakota over the weekend. Not something we wanted to try get done on a Friday PM. Load board US - 151 IA - 35 MN - 3 WI - 2 ... one of the two WI runs is still the MLW run that was put out an hour or so after we left the area. No one else has moved it yet. The three left out of MN are part of the 20 that were there last night. I think the rest got pulled, taken away from this company and given to another company. As of right now there is a run in FL going up to SC and a run in NC going to MO. Who knows what will be there when we get there on Tuesday. |
