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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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201227`MN-NV 1 tanker, heading to Winnemucca NV ... spending the night at Winnemucca NV This place has hot breakfast ... and I have more leftovers than I can eat. I think I need to stop eating anything with garlic or noodles before bed. Didn't sleep well, too stuffed ... or just eat less of it. We need to scrape our windows again this AM. We are leaving as it is getting light outside. Variable speed limit is up to 55 mph. For the last four miles of the state. We stay at 55 for a few miles but the roads are mostly clear so we start running at 65 mph. I have to stop at the UT scale and BB keeps going. We will meet again in two hours. Shortly after the scale I see the only transporter of the day. A 'Go Metro' bus. I look it up later and see that I have driven one of those, to Cincinnati. The sun is just coming up. And at times it is right in our faces, other times it is in our mirror. There is enough road spray that the mirrors and side windows are partially viewable. Some places it is best to just stay in the lane I am in and focus on the truck ahead of me. Ahhh. Last night, one of my online route choices was to go north of SLC instead of through SLC, but it added most of an hour. Now I see the 'chains required when flashing' signs. The weather may have been bad enough for chains last night. The northern route is flatter, at least as far as we have driven on that route. We go past a reservoir that is seldom full, but this fall it has been almost empty. Today at 8 AM there are over a dozen cars parked at the shore and people are out ice fishing. Rarely have we ever seen a boat on that lake. But we do often see people fly fishing on the river that leads to it. 1st stop is the Flying J in Lake Point. BB is already there. Quick stop. We will meet again in two hours. The salt flats are the same as last time. Except someone has straightened the skeleton with the fishing rod. 2nd stop is at the Pilot for Arby's. We eat in the car. Dispatch has gotten me a more correct NV permit. It still has me crossing the state, not delivering in it. We get to the border 13 minutes later than I had guessed. 3rd stop is Elko at the Sinclair. We use the restroom and I buy cookies. When we leave, I see two highway patrol in the parking lot. Earlier I had seen one on an exit. 'So now I know where they all are' I think. Nope, we meet one more before getting to the freeway. There are usually three cops when the inspection area is open, but I suppose they need to keep one on patrol. 4th and final stop is Winnemucca. 1st for fuel at Maverick. $5 for 2 gallons to bring the fuel gauge above 1/4. But the gauge doesn't move. But fuel level is 'almost' never an issue. 2nd we check into the Quality Inn. 3rd is food from the Pig across the street. I call ahead and the order is ready in 10 minutes. That walk is cold enough that we do not go for a walk later. We are now about two miles from the drop. 8 AM drop and then we head home. That direction anyways. We will be following a storm so we aren't sure how far we will get each day. We had planned on being home Wednesday night. Now we hope to be home by Saturday AM. We have looked at taking different routes but the storm is wide but we will keep watching. There are runs we could take from out here, but we still would have to get the car back. So unless something shows up on I-80 heading east, we will likely pass. 201228`MN-NV 1 tanker, heading to Winnemucca NV (delivered) ... spending the night at Idaho Falls ID I missed taking a screen shot of the weather map that had us re-route our trip. The forecast was for snow yet today before we get to SLC. Then we would be following it, with the worst from Rawlins WY to Laramie WY and still snow all the way to MN. So we re-rerouted. Breakfast at the Model T. It is the inhouse restaurant at this Quality Inn and it is free. But because of Covid, there is limited seating so it is 'to-go,' which is what we prefer. I call down, and they say it will be ready in 7 minutes. When we get there, they are pouring our juice, the rest is ready, they just needed to bag it. The free breakfast includes, a large juice, two fresh eggs, 4 slices of (really good) thick bacon and toast. We were ready to head out at 7:30 AM. BB stops at Flying J for fuel and I head the two miles to the drop. I've looked at the street view so I know what I am looking for. Two people come out and look the truck over and ... ... and THEN they ask when I got into town and said, "You should have called, we were here and could have signed for it." And we could have been six hours closer to home right now. Not sure if that would have gotten us ahead of the storm and gotten us stuck in the middle of it. They sign clear and we are heading home. It would have been nice if BB had taken an RV and we could have delivered on Saturday and kept heading west BUT 1) I wanted to check on things at the farm one more time 2) (because of above) we wouldn't have gotten to the RV lot in time 3) It was the holiday weekend and that brings related issues 4) We don't know if the west coast bus company is open these two weeks so we still would be deadheading home from further away. As soon as I am driving, BB starts checking the weather. But ... the states haven't updated their road conditions since over 24 hours ago. Our 1st stop is Elko at the usual spot. Just east of there are the NV inspection stations. Today there were three cops on the east bound side and one on the west bound side. I have never seen both directions open before. By now the states have updated their road sites and we have been watching the weather closer. Based on right now, 10 AM CST, it shows we would hit snow before SLC and have snow all the way home on I-80. It is 25 miles shorter to head up to I-90 and we shouldn't hit snow until St Cloud, about 90 miles from our house. Weather can always change but we decided to head north. Somewhere before we leave the freeway, there is a spot where the salt is thick on the road, from one shoulder to the other. Not like it was broadcast by hand, but raked on so it was level. So at Wells NV we exit the freeway and are on a two lane road for the next two hours. We are not a mile from the freeway and four truckstops and there is a female taking a leak on the side of the road. The male with her is looking away, but we get the full view, no attempt to hide anything. I have been on this road a few times. It is a good road with a fair amount of traffic, but it is a steep grade and the shoulder is about a foot wide and then the drop. And if there is a guard rail, it is a foot from the solid white line. 2nd stop is in Twin Falls just before we get back on the freeway at Chic-Fil-A. Long line at the drive thru, but inside they move people quickly. Two registers open, but one is dealing with a family of eight and they are at the register when we walk in, when we order and when we get our food. We can remember some of the places we have stopped on this route, but not all and not always what were are driving when we were here. We head east on I-84 to Pocatello and then north on I-15. 3rd and final stops are in Idaho Falls. 1st we stop at the Loves for fuel and then three miles down the road we stop for the night at the Sleep Inn. We aren't hungry yet, it is only about 4 PM. But when we check in, we find out that this location has both food in the evening and for breakfast. Tonight will be broccoli cheese and wild rice soups, plus bread and cookies. We are in for the night. From Wells to just south of Idaho Falls there was not any snow, but here we can see where the plows have plowed around cars so it was recent. We got off the road early tonight because on I-15 the next town is over two hours away and by then it would be after dark. And at the time we are thinking we will be hitting snow by St Cloud so we don't want to catch up to the storm any sooner. Now that we are in the motel and watching the weather closer it looks like the snow will hit ND but a day before we get there and by the time we get home the storm should have moved off to Chicago. Not sure how that relates to I-80 if we had stayed on that route. Didn't mention this a couple of days ago, but as we were heading through WY I had 1st noticed a crow on the freeway fence. Then a second crow feeding on a carcass. It was a while later when I began to wonder how the dear carcass got there. The post the crow was sitting on and the fence in that area are 10 feet high. Load board US - 301 IA - 114 MN - 5 WI - 7 The load board for IA is still around 100 instead of -0-. The two Reno RV's are still there from two weeks ago. Not sure if they will still be there when we are ready to go. Not sure when that will be. Yet. The long RV runs are heading to 7 to OR, 8 to WA, 9 to FL and 8 to ID. With the start of the new year, we are looking at how to change things so we don't keep running I-80 once or twice a month. One thought is to look at the loadboard and take two of the RV's that have been sitting on there the longest that are going the same direction and see if we can make them pay. Right now there are 5 RV's that have been sitting on the loadboard since 12/4. That is over three weeks. If the roads are good, we should make it to Glendive MT or Dickenson ND by tomorrow night and then still home on Wednesday night as planned. 201229`MN-NV 1 tanker, heading to Winnemucca NV (delivered) ... spending the night at Glendive MT 165 ??? On the IA load board the end of Dec? Last two years it was -0-. Neither of us slept great last night. I froze all night and BB was up turning up the temp. This AM we think we figured it out. BB had set the fan to run all the time. But it seems that when the heat wasn't on, the fan was bringing in air from outside, not re-using the air from the room. And it was below freezing outside. Breakfast was nuke your own item from their fridge, plus the basic cold items. Too many people getting food and I forgot to grab juice. Not a big deal, I saved the left over juice from yesterday. We are out and scraping car windows at 7:30 local just as it was getting light. This cost us time ... not the scraping, the fog. I drove the first two hours at 65 mph instead of 80 because of the fog. We would see about a quarter of a mile. So that wasn't what slowed us down. It was the chance of black ice. Not much of a chance as we only saw two cars the 1st hour. Then the fog started to lift. Interesting. The fog lifted enough that it was like a very low cloud. In the distance we could see the sun shine lighting up the base of the hills/mountains. A few miles later we had driven out from under the fog and had clear skies the rest of the day. But there was still some slick spots in the left lane so I kept the speed down until after our 1st stop. 1st stop was at the MT welcome center in Lima MT. I wasn't going to go in, so I parked and BB went in. Then I decided to line up my car between the lines, I backed up BEEEEEEEEEP. Seems I backed out in front of a semi. Opps. The building at the rest area is at the end of the lot so everyone is making a U-turn to get out so he couldn't have been doing a couple of miles an hour. And because of the angle of the turn I didn't see him. This AM it is the weather that keeps us occupied. It was 15 degrees at the motel, then it dropped to -7 once we came out from under the fog and into the early morning sunshine. Temps get up above -0- and then drop again as we go up and down the hills. Finally four hours later it is up to 25 degrees. Also there is the weather on the other route we would have taken. In WY where we would have been this AM, there is black ice, a half dozen spots across the state. Then at the WY/NE border, where we would have been by noon, the road is closed for the first 100 miles. By going through MT, we would be going past 4 4B's. The 1st one is in Dillon but it is only about 10 AM so we don't stop. The 2nd one was ... not in route, it was 20 miles west of Butte and we were heading east from Butte. 2nd stop is the Town Pump / Pilot in Rocker just west of Butte. We end up getting shelf food instead of either Subway or McDonald's. I got a chicken salad sandwich and two deviled eggs. BB got some kind of wrap. Mine was good, hers was OK. Town Pump has good shelf food and lots of it. Here at this exit there was one of the 1st 'new' style Motel 6's I remember, then it was changed to an Econo Lodge, and now it is a Red Lion. Always changing. There were three different 'short-cuts' from I-15 to I-90 before we got to Butte, but we decided to stay on the freeway. Early on we had noticed 'snow' at the bottoms of some of the swamp brush. Later we realized the 'snow' was actually from the steam rising off the open creek. Clear roads and 80 mph once we are on I-90. Lots of changes. Lots of places remind us of parts of trips that we can remember. Much more that we can not remember. 3rd stop is a Town Pump / Pilot for fuel in Columbus. Quick in and out. By now I-80 is open in NE. So traffic CAN get through. That doesn't mean that it should. We had enough of that for 100 miles in MN. NE is 45 miles, plus another 100 miles before we get to Des Moines. Then another 25 to home. In Billings we pass the 3rd 4B's, but it is only about 2 PM. Here we get on I-94. And we now know that it will be dark by the time we get to Glendive. Stopping in Glendive gives us 650 miles today and 650 for tomorrow. We are only on I-94 a few miles and there are a half dozen deer grazing within feet of the concrete. But that is the only wildlife, live wildlife, that we have seen today. 4th stop is for 4B's tomato soup :) ... the lot is empty? But it is only 4 PM, not a hot time for eating. :( They closed at 3 PM. No soup for me this trip. But we need a rest room so we head next door to a ... Town Pump / Pilot. Right between the these two locations WAS a Motel 6 that I had stayed at many times. Now it is a OYO. And the fuel station I used to use, a Cenex, is gone. The lot is empty. I 'had' to fuel at the Cenex with the buses I was driving because the fuel pressure at the Pilot was so high that I couldn't run the pump slow enough to fuel the buses. The way the buses are built, they have to be fueled very slowly or the fuel kicks back and the nozzle shuts off. Full moon rise over the hills. Beautiful to look at. Doesn't show up as much on a picture. 5th and final stop is in Glendive. 1st we stop at CC's and order our food. It is an old Country Kitchen and I/we have eaten here many times before. Then we drive two doors down to the Comfort Inn for the night. After we are checked in, we walk back to get our food. I get a French Dip and BB gets Fajita wrap. Good food. This area has changed. There used to be three motels next to CC's. A Days Inn, it is now a OYO. The Comfort Inn, no change. And the Super 8 ... closed until ??? Plus they have built a Travel Lodge with a Penny's Diner. I think the Travelodge is new in the last two years, since we have been here last. The Holiday Inn Express was new about two years ago and a La Quinta is 5 years old. Load board US - 359 IA - 165 MN - 3 WI - 13 We were (are?) planning on taking a some time off in January. BB has looked in her notes and we spend Jan watching the load board all day hoping something shows up. Not this year. Not sure how many days we will take off. Dispatch is closed Friday and we need to get things done on Thursday so those two days are out. And I think Sunday is out, we can't pick up without someone in the office anymore. So maybe Saturday, or maybe next week. 9 RV's to OR, 2 to CA, 12 to WA, 12 to FL and this is only 35 of the 165. Those are the longest runs. The shortest two are going to Lincoln NE. BB and I have lots of time to talk. This run didn't pay great, just over our threshold. A couple of reasons for that is, it is a one way. Our choice. And this company pays transportation for the 'cheapest / logical' way home. The shipper was willing to give the driver a ride to Reno, so -0- income for a taxi ride for me. And flights out of Reno are cheap. Cheapest flight for next Monday is $126. So what they pay for transportation and what I actually pay is a big difference. Most likely we will go back to doing 500-900 mile runs for this company. Fewer days for BB to follow me, and flight costs or rental car rates that the company pays on shorter runs is more in line with what we will actually spend. We did a long trip to see how it would go. No change from 4 years ago. And it was the long weekend and we/I wanted to be working. One more long day and we will be home. 201230`MN-NV 1 tanker, heading to Winnemucca NV (delivered) ... spending the night at home Breakfast is already in a bag, so we grab it to go. We are on the road before sun up. Until sun up I drove 65 mph in an 80 zone. Then right before sun up we got to ND and the speed limit is 75 mph. This car is doing really good on gas. 35.6 at 80 mph, after driving 70 mph in MN the last 250 miles we were up to 35.7 mpg. Pretty much all day the roads would go from clear and dry to spotty ice and or web. I'd run the cruise when I could but a lot of the day I could not. 1st stop was a rest area in New Salem. Had something happen here that has never happened to me before. The restroom is open so I walk in, a gal is mopping (without closing the rest room.) I back out, but she says come in and leans the mop up against the wall and walks out as I walk in. As I am standing at the urinal, I hear the garbage being emptied in the men's restroom. When I turn to leave, I realize that the garbage can is directly behind me. ??? 2nd stop was a fuel stop 30 miles down the road at the Flying J. 3rd stop is for food in Jamestown. Arby's for food and Exxon for the restroom. ND may not be locked down, but each city has their own rules. No inside ordering at fast-food places. Not sure how that works for Subway like places. Or maybe it only applies if the place already has a drive thru. 4th stop is in Moorhead MN for the rest room. 5th stop is in Alexandria for the rest room. Then we stop close to home for Culvers and take it home. BB was hoping that we could skip ND today and go directly from MT to MN. It has been a long road trip for her in the car. For a while we were talking about stopping early at a motel somewhere in MN. We could have the car for two more days. ND flew past :) Well over 3,200 miles in seven days. Too much of it on iffy road conditions. We'd like to take a few days off ... but. Load board US - 398 IA - 178 MN - 2 WI - 22 The load board had gotten up to 185 at the highest today out of IA. We are guessing that about 10-20 loads were removed from the board but even more were added. It is going to take a long time to move 178 loads at 20 a day ... when they add 30 new ones. We had only gotten a couple of inches of snow at the house. I shoveled before we drove on too much of it. Light stuff, much easier than the snow the day we left. Tomorrow we return the rental car and turn in my paperwork. Friday is a holiday and we will take this one off. Saturday ... or Monday ... or ... we will likely leave again. But at least two short days off. 201231`MN-NV 1 tanker, heading to Winnemucca NV (delivered) ... spending the night at home The 1st thing BB says to me this AM is "we are not going anywhere." With no alarm and no where to go, she slept for 10 hours. Her body needs another day or two off. The 'work' we do today is get the rental car back. So two less days on the rental car. But I still haven't done the math on the trip. Then I stop at my local company and drop off the paperwork for the last trip and get my legals for 2021. I forgot to drop off my 'sock' / tire chains so I had to go back later and do that. While I was there I asked if there would be any shorter bus runs coming up. This shipper does bigger orders that can run for months. They are still doing Boston and Baltimore. I think those have been shipping for most of the year. Then a few months ago they had a few Phoenix and now they have started a few San Diego. San Diego ones are 60 foot CNG. But nothing short. This years Christmas gift from the local company was a box of cookies. Last year it was a winter safety vest. When we went to drop off the car this AM I was all over the place on the road. Sliding at the stop signs, expecting others to hit me when they did the same. Once I picked up BB, she said she had no major issue and we quickly realized we needed new tires. We are guessing these are the original tires on this car. We called and were able to get in yet today and they were working a short day. We dropped the car, dropped off the 'sock' and ate lunch from Steak Escape in our van and we got the call while we were still eating. Car is done. We also had time to get a hair cut and pick up our drugs. Plus try to clear the driveway a little better. Nothing else on my list. Load board was at 178 last night. Nothing new as added so it dropped to 147. I think about 90% of the trips are taken off the board either in the 1st hour or the last hour of the day. The ones we have had our eyes on are still there. We will see if we are ready to call in on Saturday for leaving Monday. We will have to pick up all of our legals before our next trip there also. It was already next year somewhere when it was 4 AM here. :) Time to get more of my trips moved over to the Mylynx site. |
