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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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201123 IA-CA 2 RV's heading west. 1 to Carson City NV, 1 to Davis (both delivered) ... spending the night in Livermore CA We had first planned on leaving at 6:30 for our 8 AM appointment. But that would only get us there on time if everything worked like clockwork. So we had decided 6:15 last night. But this AM we were up early, two time zones difference, so we headed out at 6 AM. Breakfast was what we had in our bags. I had a fruit loops bar that we had gotten a few weeks ago. The one I ate a couple of weeks ago was better, starting to dry out. When I left I did see that the to-go bags were sitting out but I didn't grab one, we still have a few items in our 'emergency' supplies. Good thing I had looked at the map again last night, the road out of town is not where I had told BB it was. So we got on the right road this AM but I missed a speed limit sign so we drove 55 mph instead of 65 for the first half hour. It was still mostly dark and BB's first AM dark driving plus we had time so it was OK. Most of the next stretch had been under construction last time we came through, clear sailing this time. Another opps. I had looked closely as to where BB's fuel stop was this AM, there were to repair shops / junk yards and a post office next too it. Nope, those are gone and I sailed on past. BB was watching her mileage so she knew it was the correct one so she pulled in. I turned on the first street I came to after I saw she was not behind me AND saw we were up to the freeway. I ended up going through a 500+ mobile home park with few through streets. BB was done fueling when I got back to her so as soon as she went inside and got her receipt we were ready to go. Another seven miles and we are at her drop. It took over an hour and a half so good we left before 6:30. Within a couple of minutes someone arrives and opens the gate so we can pull in off the street. A few minutes later someone is out doing the inspection. No damage, small RV, we are pulling away from the RV dealer before our 8 AM appointment. Good day so far. We are not back on the highway more than a mile and we see 'Chains or snow tires required six miles ahead.' ??? I debate turning around and going up through Reno. But instead we pull into a park and ride and BB checks the CA DOT website. No restrictions. It was an overhead sign that displayed the warning, but the official sign on the side of the road was not flashing that chains or snow tires were required. Neither was the sign four miles down the road. It did look like the road had been plowed though. So maybe the roads had been slick in the early hours? Today I have an RV that is not much bigger than a Sprinter. I would not want to take anything bigger on this road, but we did see semi's on it. It is a US highway. But most places the road is as wide as the solid white lines and then a drop off. Or a rock wall. In some places it looks like the rock higher up are sticking out over the white line on the roadway. And it is curvy. 150 miles from Carson City to Davis CA. About 50 of it was hills and tight curves, then 50 of non-freeway and then the last 50 was all freeway/expressway. We do go through Tahoe, saw the lake but not Nessy. Easy to pick out where the state line is, no more casino's. Google suggested a bypass but traffic was light today so no issues. I was wondering if this road would have a fruit inspection station, it did. CA cars get a by-pass lane, out of state plates have to drive under a shed and stop. I can see by the snow that I am the 2nd vehicle today. I pull in and stop. No one at the window so I leave. This route is a long 150 miles. BB is saying slow down as we go around the curves and I am already going the suggested speed. It is pretty up here, lots of fresh snow. But there are long stretches of no passing so a person could get quite a following. BB paid $2.29 for fuel in Carson City, the 1st stations we see in CA have fuel for $3.39. Somewhere on the outer suburbs of Sacramento was a Sams Club. Not sure what the price of fuel was, but cars were lined up four deep waiting for each fuel island. Usually we stop at the 49'er for fuel, but it seems to always be congested and even if the pumps are working you still have to go in to get a receipt. So today I decide to go to one of the stations a few blocks from the drop. There is only one. The other one has closed since we were here last, all signage is gone and it is fenced off. Not sure if it will re-open as a gas station or as something else. So we pull in to the other station, Valero. I stop at the only diesel pump but then realize that the screen is not working so I have to go inside to pre-pay and back in to get a receipt when I am done. This is what I was hoping to avoid. Usually this place is packed, today as I am walking back to my RV I am the only one in the lot. As we were about ready to leave I noticed there are also Valero pumps behind the building. I knew there were contract only pumps / Pacific Pride but those are not open to the public. Now I know there are open pumps back there but I should have looked a the nozzle size. We can't fuel at the truck islands without and adaptor which we do not carry. We are at the drop, no one ahead of us delivering, and a partially empty lot. They are low on RV's. Same guy as usual checked us in. He has been here a while, but the guys from when we started seem to be gone. This time we drag all of our stuff into the office before BB walks down the street to get the rental car. Most times we have just stacked it in the lot until she gets back. This makes it look like we live on the road. Eight pieces of luggage plus a large case of water. Inspection today took an hour. Clean delivery. I had thought they might find windshield damage but they did not. I couldn't see it, but I know I did get peppered a couple of times. As soon as we are to the car, I call the west coast dispatcher. I am to call back after 3 PM. Before I can move the car, I get a call. My first thought was that was quick, but it is a dispatcher from my local company wondering if I am back in town yet. Nope. They called last time two weeks ago when I was on my way to Livermore. Same as this time. Next is the In-N-Out Burger for lunch. This place is packed, the drive-thru is packed, cars are lined up on the street and I have to go past and make a u-turn to get in the line. Then we decided to park and order inside. Now I remember, CA now has NO inside dining. And for some reason no one wants to sit outside. They do have a dozen out door tables but for a while we are the only ones eating out in this 70 degree weather. We each get a double double and I get a shake. I forget that BB does not like their strawberry malts so I get to eat the whole thing. Then off to the rest of the 90 miles down to Livermore. I miss the exit to get to our outlets, so we take the next exit and then drive past the buses before heading to walk. We get to the Livermore Outlets with an hour to walk before it is time to call back. This place is packed. The parking lot is full to the edges, we usually park in one spot. Not this time. One of the stores had 30+ people waiting in line to get into the store. Others had 10-20 people waiting. And others had none. Too many people, we only walk around the perimeter once. Even being outside, too many people, too close. At the usual time I call the dispatcher. Nothing for today, then he says ... 'unless you want to go to Portland.' I say "It is not one of my first choices." And he lets it go. So we are in a motel for the night. We check into the Quality Inn in Livermore. The price is now cheaper than driving the hour down to Santa Nella. A while later we order online and then go and pickup food from JB's. We split a sandwich and then had three cookies with ice cream. We didn't finish them all tonight. Again, no eating inside. But this place had two tents set up outside plus their usual outdoor seating area. After dark the temps had dropped into the 50's so no longer balmy. We had gotten the cookies and ice cream before, but couldn't remember which kind was best so we got the 'trio' again. This time I posted the flavors on Facebook for future reference. One of the truck-stops had been offering the drivers of our company a free Thanksgiving meal but we had to sign up by last Friday, but we didn't. Now they changed the rules so we just need to print a coupon and include our driver name and info. We did do that tonight. And while I was at the front desk getting this printed, I got talking to the guy and the front desk about business. When we came back to the motel at 6 PM, there was only one car in the lot. His. Rooms here used to be $100, $150, $200 a night during the week. Tonight it was less than $80. They just remodeled this place last winter, just got done when Covid hit. Most of their business was business travelers coming for company meetings. -0-. That business is maybe gone forever. By 8 PM when I looked the lot had six cars. Still not much for a 30 room hotel. Load board US - 199 IA - 87 MN - 2 WI -0- When I dropped in Davis this afternoon, I looked at the load board and there was another Carson City and Davis run that would work for us. And they are still there tonight. Jct City OR trips are still there from yesterday as are other CA, OR and WA orders. And there are five orders to Hastings MN, that is about a half hour from our house. Tomorrow we will look for someplace else to walk, where it is not so crowded. Just looked at my 'grave map' and the closest cemetery where family is buried that we have not visited is over an hours drive. 201124 CA-PA 1 bus heading to Pittsburg PA ... spending the night in Santa Nella CA We will be sitting in the motel for part of the day so I will watch the load board even though we are 1,000 miles away (today I am using the total out of IA, not just RV's) 8:00 - 87 8:30 - 82 9:00 - 79 9:30 - 76 10:00 - 76 10:30 - 76 11:00 - 75 11:30 - 73 11:45 - 84 - 3 Davis, 2 1,000 Oaks, NV 3 AZ 12:00 - 83 12:30 - 89 1:30 - 105 END - 144 Breakfast was a nuked sandwich. No microwave in our room so they had to nuke it before giving it to us. They had more but we weren't going to be stocking up. We were down at 6 AM, likely the first ones. Looked like maybe 10 cars in a 40 room hotel. From 6 AM local until 10:30 we hit refresh on the load board to just to see what was happening. Not much in the AM. Checkout was 11 AM so we got out before that. Headed to Manteca to the In-n-Out Burger. And dropped off our paperwork at a mailbox in route. Today I only had a single instead of a double double at In-n-Out. And no malt. They have a few tables outside so we ate there. Saw a few others eating in their car in the parking lot. No indoor eating in CA. Not sure for how long. We were heading to Senora CA to a cemetery. We wanted a walk but are kind of gun shy about leaving all of our stuff in parking lots anywhere in the Bay area. Even the reviews of the local parks have comments about break ins. I had a list of cemeteries we could stop at, Senora was the furthest. Once we got to Senora we just followed the computer directions. Wow. A street wide enough that you might be able to meet a person, walking between the buildings. Then at the four way stop where you can't see past the parked cars, other cars are blowing through the stop sign. We'd go for the length of the building, then turn, go past two buildings turn again. When we left the cemetery it was just a couple of turns on a wide road and we were back on the express way. But it was part of a mile further. We walked for about 45 minutes at the cemetery before BB wanted to head back. We did not find what we were looking for, but at least it wasn't a cemetery we had already been too and I forgotten about. Quick stop at a gas station in Jamestown for the restroom. By the time we got back to Escalon, it was time to call dispatch. "I need you, meet me at 5 PM, I don't know where you are going yet." Timing was about right. We got back to Livermore a little after 4 PM. We stopped for fuel and then food. Gas station was a nice place, but there was someone going through the garbage cans looking for cans and bottles. Then when I was ready to leave someone pulled up to the opposite islands and first stood by his door and then went to fuel leaving his door open. So I just about could not get past. There was a few inches on each side. :( Across the street to the Wienerschnitzel. Something different. BB got a Krout Dog and I got a Chicago dog. Good change of taste. Not something that was easy to eat in the car so I waited until I got to the bus place. I thought I would have a half hour to eat while I waited for the dispatcher. Nope. He was already there. But the gate was locked. No problem. Security was there early today to open it for us. I found the dispatcher. We are going to Pittsburg. Deliver full of fuel, deliver on Tuesday and do not enter the state until you are ready to deliver. And he finally gave me a fuel dipper. None of the buses used to have fuel gauges and we are supposed to leave them with 5 or 8 inches of fuel so I have just been guessing and no one has ever questioned me on delivery. This time I have no gauge and the shipper is paying for the last tank of fuel so I want to come in close to empty, but not run out. We check out the bus, all is good. But we have to decide how we are getting to Pittsburg. I-80 or I-40? I-80 is shorter, but I-40 has cheaper fuel, motels and tolls than I-80. By the time we are done inspecting and get back to the office, the dispatcher is done with his paperwork and packing to leave. BB leaves, I take my pictures and drop my paperwork. Follow the trail to the rental car drop, pick up BB from the side of the road and we are rolling. Traffic is the usual stop and go for the first 10 miles heading out of town. We have talked and we are heading south. It also works that the bus wash is on the south end of town so the total mileage is not that much different. Once we are past the traffic we make a reservation in Santa Nella. This bus goes 68 and the speed limit here is 65 so I actually have to watch my speed, but I do have power to pass trucks going 64-1/2 mph. ??? No one parked on the street across from the hotel. I park and go inside and ask if it is still OK to park there. It is. So I leave the bus on the street, until I think about it and then go out and move it to 'my spot.' My spot was empty when I looked before moving the bus but when I got there, there were two cars making my parking more difficult. By the time I was parked, they were both gone. I also remembered when I was moving the bus that I bottomed out when I left last time. Got to watch that. Another Pittsburg bus is parked behind the motel. I prefer to have a clear shot for leaving. If someone parks the wrong way near the corners, it would be hard to get out of there. Load board US - 300 IA - 144 MN - 10 WI - 3 201125 CA-PA 1 bus heading to Pittsburg PA ... spending the night in Kingman AZ This place was not serving breakfast until 6:30 AM so we ate from our stash and after we checked out we grabbed stuff to replenish our stash. And I hadn't called last night so this AM I called to get my AZ and NM permits before we left the lot. And I bottomed out leaving the lot, and I was even trying to go out at a different angle. I should have just gone around the building. Or parked across the street in the Carl Jr's/Hardees. Next time? Just getting daylight when we left, likely dark when we get in. Most of the first hour and a half we are going less than the posted. Traffic is heavy and trucks are jockeying for position. 1st stop is in Avenal for a rest area. This place needed some attention in the ladies room. Out of all paper and dirty. From here we have a little more time on the freeway and then we are on two lane for 30 miles or so. Orchard country. We get to see the farming up close. Grass might be timber dry but anything irrigated is growing on CA time. Both yesterday and today we see the homeless camps. We saw a couple of camps that had burned out and it looks like they just set up camp deeper in the brush. One place looked like their new door was a blanket that mostly survived the last fire. Other places are just burnt piles of junk. This bus will go 68, but we are supposed to run at 65 so it is harder than just having it set to 65. I thought that maybe being set to 68 would give it more power. Not so. I was still down to under 45 mph on the hills on CA-58. Fourway flashers on. 2nd stop was the Loves in Tehachapi. They are easier to deal with on getting my paperwork printed. Our choices for food at Loves are McD's or Subway ... or shelf food. Subway it was. Now they do not even have any indoor seating. So we stand outside of our bus and eat again. Not warm out but above freezing :) Opps ... 120 miles down the road and the rest area is closed. BB looks at a few of the Ma-Pa stations but decides we can make it another hour down the road to the next rest area. A three hour run instead of the usual two. 3rd stop is near Essex at a rest area. I end up parking on the gravel as the place is full. And we also 'stick' the fuel tank again, second time today. We are down to a couple of inches and have 100 miles to go. I have always made it from pickup to Kingman without fueling ... so I SHOULD be able to make it. But my DEF was not full at pickup so I'm questioning if my fuel was full. The debate in my mind goes on, to stop sooner or in Kingman. At the POE / scale I get the 'truck must exit' message. The person at the window looks over my paperwork for a couple of seconds and we are free to go. By now I have remembered that there is fuel before Kingman and have decided to stop there. Address is Lake Havasu. It might be costing me another $10 more than Kingman but a tow or roadside service truck would cost more than that. And I have never gone back in the AM for the cheaper fuel, I always go forward to what is cheaper. 4th stop is the Pilot near Franconia. Full house. All island full and waiting. The truck fueling in the bay next to me is done and leaves. The truck behind him has no driver but I can't cut in line the way we are parked. Then the driver comes back and tries to get out of line instead of pulling past the pump? But once he turns he can't go anywhere until another truck moves. So I cut into that line. There is a FedEx truck sitting back but I can't tell if he was waiting in that line or not. And he couldn't get to the pump anyway. Finally we are full and stick the tank again. Now we know for sure how much should show on the stick. And I put in over 90 gallons. At 6 mpg I would have arrived in Kingman with about 3 gallons. Plus the 25 that may or may not be useable. That is a load off of my mind. 4th and final stop is at the Best Western King's Inn. Not to be confused with the Best Western across the street with a different name. There is truck parking but I park with the cars. Three cars in this part of the lot that would hold 50. Four more cars on the other side of the building in a lot that would hold another 40 cars. Not real busy. We have stayed here before. Maybe the Choice Hotel was full? Once that motel went from a Quality to a Roadway it went down hill. Not all of them do and maybe this was a one time thing but we have not been back. The other Choice hotel in town went from a Comfort to a Clarion about the same time. But that one doesn't have enough room to park. So tonight we are paying twice what we used to pay in this town. We had talked about stopping at the truckstop on the way into town to fuel and get food from the Black Bear. But we don't fuel so we end up going to the motel and walking next door ... OK, more than one door, but I'm guessing if we knocked out our bathroom mirror we'd be looking into their kitchen. Oyster's Mexican and Seafood. We call ahead and walk over, we don't even have to set foot on the parking lot. Didn't count the steps. HOT Mexican food, we haven't had that for a while. Good food. Lots of it. Load board US - 232 IA - 97 (12 are not RV's) MN - 4 WI - 5 The CA and NV orders are gone, still 4 to OR, 8 to WA and 3 to ID. 8 of the non-RV orders out of IA are also going to OR. Offices are closed the next four days so there should not be any change in the load board. But we will be working. It may be shelf food tomorrow. Truck stops will be open, not much else. 201127 CA-PA 1 bus heading to Pittsburg PA ... spending the night in Oklahoma City OK Breakfast. You point, they bag. I picked two Rice Krispy bars and juice. BB picked emergency supplies. As she was going to eat her left overs from last night. So I had one Krispy bar and ham. Leaving out at first light. 1st stop is seven miles down the road at Moriarty at the TA for fuel. Cheaper and easier to get in and out of that the TA last night or the other truck stops. All buses are a pain to fuel, I have to hold the nozzle in place and hold it at the correct speed. I've gotten pretty good at stopping the flow at the correct time. Missed this time, fuel bubbled out the top, I let go of the nozzle and it fell on the ground. I didn't try to put any more in, I should have. Or at least stuck the tank. I put in 50 gallons and it should have been closer to 70 gallons. But I had had a good tail wind yesterday so it could have been correct. 2nd stop was in Tucumcari at the Flying J to use the rest room. They are working on the road right there and the lanes are narrow. People were not pulling out in the correct order and not leaving enough room. I was waiting for someone to clear the intersection when someone else pulled out, go almost against my bus before they realized they were not going to make it so I had to pull ahead to let them by and cut off someone else. This was the most empty I have ever seen this lot, the car lot. Usually there are transporters and lots of others. This time just a few people, no transporters. The two pickups next to us both had WI plates on them. Looked like a couple in their late 70's with everything packed up. I should have looked closer but I think both pickups were from the 60's, and they were using walkie-talkies to talk to each other when they were both sitting in the parking lot. 3rd stop was at the Loves in Amarillo at Subway. My choice as BB was now eating todays breakfast food. Most Loves have smaller parking lots, but this is TX and it is a holiday weekend so the lot most not full. I called the drop from here. I had four people / numbers to call and I thought I might be calling all of them. But the 2nd one picked up, asked me a couple of questions and that was it. Monday morning delivery. 4th stop was Erick OK at the rest area. Limited services. Yes, it is now two porta potties. 5th stop was at the TA in Oklahoma City for fuel. At the TA on the correct side of the road, as there are more than one TA's (And more than one Pilot's) on that streatch. I hadn't looked at a map so I started in the wrong way, then could tell I couldn't get to the truck pumps so exited out a very steep driveway. I managed not to scrape. No one had half the pumps so I decided to put in DEF also. Nope, the half the pumps that no one was at do not have DEF. So I moved to the other side of the building and was still able to back in. And my credit card won't work at the pump, I have to go inside. First I give them the wrong pump number and they say that DEF isn't working. I come back in with the correct pump number and they want to know how much DEF I am going to put in ... this is why I try to stay away from the TA's. I can do all this at the pump at Loves, Pilot/Flying J. I could have just dealt with it but I left the building and used my company card, likely the first time for DEF. Then the pump isn't working right, it takes forever to fill and doesn't shut off when full. Fuel, this is more routine. I get in almost 90 gallons. Not likely that the tank was full last time. 8 mpg the 1st tank (if it was full at pickup.) 10 mpg on the 2nd tank and now 6 mpg on the 3rd tankful. This has taken me close to a half hour instead of 10 minutes. All to save less than $4. If I hadn't decided to put DEF in at the last minute things would have been faster. Luckily that location didn't charge a fee. Otherwise I would have done it all for a buck. It got dark while I was fueling so the last few miles to the hotel were in the dark. 6th and final stop is the Sleep Inn on the northeast corner of Oklahoma City. We call next door to the Patio a Mexican/something else food place. Good food every time so far. And it was still hot. But they did forget to give us chips, salsa but no chips. I did see a fair number of transporters today again. UPS and white vans, RV's, trucks. Saw a school bus. I think I have seen that driver before. They put up two rows of placards across the side driver window and all across the front. Instead of just one placard on each side. And we saw a few cops again today, not sure why they need so many at each incident. Load board IA - 141 This morning it was 97, then down to 77 before they started adding more. Lots of trips that would work for us. Today. But we are not home today and can't call in until Tuesday and then only if we are going to drop the rental and head back out right away. By then we will either need to do laundry again or shop. We also need to pick up meds and drop off the van with the bad breaks. Or we will find something before we get home and head out from there. Not much highway stuff to see today. The Cadillac Ranch cars are a big draw. 10 Cadillac's buried nose first and covered in graffiti. Since 1974. And still drawing a daily crowd. Weigh scales closed today. 1,000 miles to go. Pay is good but the trip is long. Then 1,000 miles home in two days. ... the trip continues HERE |
