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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2 RV's to Selma SC ... spending the night at home Today we weren't in any rush to call dispatch. Usually we call in at 8 AM when they open or when dispatch adds something new. Mid-morning we decide to call. We called and got to no-tows to Selma NC. 1,200 miles. We plan on pulling out sometime tomorrow so we won't need to do 500 miles a day. Right now the closest runs coming back to Effingham IL. Nothing coming our way out of Shelby right now. But we will wait to call for a trip back until Monday, unless it is coming back to WI, IA or MN. Received an email now that my local company that we will now get 4x the point (just like the long haul company) but I will have to start using their company WEX card to get points. Load board US - 409 IA - 179 MN - 1 WI - 5 We have about three plus weeks before I/we need to be back for local / quarter end work. We could do three trips to the Carolina's. Even three round trips. Or even more short trips. 210226 IA-NC 2 RV's to Selma SC ... spending the night at Walcott IA Alarm goes off at 7 AM, mountain time. 6 AM local. :) We have been in been in the central time zone for a few days now and BB's phone still hadn't re-set. So we shut the alarm off and drifted in and out for the next hour. Plan was to get to the store at 9 AM when the pharmacy opens. I had dropped off our van yesterday in case they had a chance to work on it. We hadn't heard anything so I called just before we were ready to leave and they said it would be ready in a few minutes. So we waited. They had fixed it and taken it for a test drive. But we weren't even out of our town of 2,000 people and it was acting up again. Not bad, so we kept going. First stop was the pharmacy, 2nd stop was near Northfield at the Flying J for gas. low fuel light came on as I slowed down for the ramp. A couple of years ago something got changed and now the low fuel light does not come on until it is laying flat on E. 3rd stop was at Burger King in Northwood for food. We were going to do the drive thru but right as we got to the speaker the van started acting up again so we parked it and went inside. Everyone was wearing their chin masks. Some even had then over their mouths, and a few had them over both their noses and mouths. 4th stop was in Forest City at the Kwik Star/Trip for fuel. I am still wanting to leave the van parked on full. This may be the last time this season? 4th stop part 2. Our lot. We get our paperwork, the dispatcher is busy on the phone and doesn't say anything directly too us. Even me just pointing they knew I wanted more logs. We know the routine. We found our RV's and did our inspections in the usual 1 hour time. Today there were between a half and a dozen people there at one time getting ready to leave. The number of RV's doesn't seem to be going down. In the employee parking lot there are now 7 rows of RV's waiting for run to get parked in our lot. Today was the last working day of the shippers year. The RV's are all ready to go, just no where to park them. 5th stop is Clear Lake at Pilot for fuel. 6th stop is Center Point at the Casey's for a restroom break. Here we decide where to stop of the night. 30 miles short of where we had hoped. Getting going that most of an hour later is what cost us. 7th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Walcott. First we are going to fuel. Gas had been cheaper at the BP so BB ended up there, but right now fuel was cheaper at Pilot so I ended up there. I saved a penny a gallon. My rewards cards don't work and BB was across the street. I had to go inside and pre-pay because the pumps weren't working right. When they asked how much I was going to put in, I said $1,000. What ever I don't put in, goes back on the card anyways so I don't understand the reason for the question. When we pulled in, I got out and kicked a beer bottle and a roll of toilet paper out of my spot. Both of us parked on top of towels and there was a full donut laying next to where BB parked. Almost looks like maybe the snow plow hit a garbage can and now the snow is melting and showing what was buried. We order on line from Grandma's Kitchen next door. Walk over and pick up our food. I would have ordered more when we got there but they seemed a little busy. No breakfast at all at this location. Later tonight we decide we will walk to the Arbey's in the AM and buy our own breakfast. We got our route picked out for tomorrow. We hope to get to Chillicothe OH. That will leave less than 500 miles for Sunday. Load board US - 374 IA - 155 MN -0- WI - 7 The good runs out of NC are gone, so what we are looking at now is to take one going to or near IN and then picking up an RV heading the rest of the way to IA, MN or WI. Nothing will be added tomorrow, we will see what else is taken 210227 IA-NC 2 RV's to Selma SC ... spending the night at Chillicothe OH NO breakfast so we walk across the street to Pilot / Arbey's. Website says 24 hours. People hanging out say they will open at 9 AM. We are there at 7 AM. So we grab food off the warmer. BB gets an egg and bacon biscuit and I get an egg and bacon on french toast. Too much bread so I don't eat the one slice of it. Ready to go at 7:30 1st stop is Goodfield at the IL welcome center. 2nd stop is Crawfordsville at the Pilot for Subway and fuel. Only one person working the Subway, good thing it wasn't busy. Only one person ahead of us and they took 10 minutes. Noticed a missing person sign while we were waiting. Adult, last seen wondering aimlessly in front of the Pilot sometime last year. Off their meds. 3rd stop is near New Paris at the OH welcome center. 4th and final stop the Quality Inn in Chillicothe. We call next door to Roosters for food, but it keeps saying I am next in line for 15 minutes so we hang up. We look at the Applebee's but everything we liked was too filling. So we end up at Cain's Chicken Fingers. We've never eaten at one before. Your choice of food is chicken fingers. Two kinds of dipping sauce. And drinks. The drive thru line was all the way around the building and no one was inside so we weren't sure until we got to the door if we could go inside. Then someone else followed us in. Chicken was good, if you like breaded fingers. Load board US - 357 IA - 146 MN -0- WI - 5 We see a total of 4 transporters today. Two RV's and two buses. We are kind of in the gap where we are on the road that the transporters don't take. Somewhere this AM I saw a guy come up behind us and go around BB and cut in between us. I thought he was getting out of someone's way. Nope, he got right up to me and then passed and back in front of me with a half a car length to spare. Older guy, didn't look out of it. When he gets a few car lengths ahead of me ... DING ... he hits the rumple strips and kicks up a rock. Nice big crack in my windshield. As far as I could see him, he was driving the same way. Very quite day on the roads today, no slow downs even coming through Indy. Is Covid finally over? Starting with the last trip when we were in KS. The parking lot for the buffet in Liberal was packed. Yesterday I noticed the same for Chedders in Iowa City. Tonight at the Roosters in Chllicothe. 450 miles left for tomorrow. I haven't been to this location yet, but we have been in this area enough that I have only written down one exit number. The rest I am hoping I remember as we will be on a half a dozen freeways tomorrow. Not like staying on I-80 from IA to CA. Catch up ... Yesterday we saw a San Diego bus at Owattona fueling and then saw it again when we stopped for food in Norwood IA. I thought about going over and talking to the driver but we were already later than planned. Not sure how many of the drivers I would know there anymore. And before that, when we had stopped for fuel at the Flying J and were leaving, I was looking at a Penske truck to see if it was a transporter. When the truck started to move he went over a snow pile like when you jump a curb. So I am watching him as he comes up to the street, he never looks my way. I lay on the horn, he stops. And then when we were in IA on the prior trip I saw 12 new mixers. 9 did not have any placards and 8 of them still had paperwork glued to the front window. Two mixers had placards, taped in the center of their side windows. Only one was done correctly. I can't read fast enough to see what companies they were driving for. 210228 IA-NC 2 RV's to Selma SC ... spending the night at Smithfield NC Alarm went off 6 AM local, we didn't get going until 8 AM. Breakfast was mostly back to pre-Covid except still no hot food, but nuke your own. So we did. Rain. Rain the first about three hours. Some times on intermittent and some times on constant. OH-35 is getting closer to being done. They now have the pavement done up to a few feet within the existing highway. Once that is done it will be four lane all the way from Dayton to Charleston. They did the last part from Gallipolis to Charleston in three sections. I have watched all three get finished in the last almost 20 years. 1st stop is for fuel in Cross Lanes at the Sheetz. Based on our fuel mileage it should be our last fuel. The Golden Corral here in Corss Lanes is being used for truck parking. Somewhere later today we see a Golden Corral that has a packed parking lot, as does the Cracker Barrel next to it. 2nd stop is in Priceton at a Taco Bell for food. This time I only got two taco's instead of three. Once we are in Virginia there are now variable speed limit signs. Today they were set to 40 mph because of the fog. 40 was a good speed as long as the person ahead of you had their lights on. 3rd stop is the welcome center in Low Gap NC. When we got down to Winston-Salem, we were going to take Business 40 to cut off a couple of miles. I never saw the signs so I kept going to I-40. BB remembered which exit number Business 40 was so she turned on it. Then after Business 40 merges with I-40 it merges with I-85. When it did that the exit numbers changed so BB pulled off at an exit and checked the routing. So I got to our next stop before she did. 4th stop was the Flying J in Haw River. In case we needed fuel. BB has an excess range of 40 miles and I have an excess of 80 miles. So no fuel added here. As we are leaving Raleigh the highway signs say accident ahead. I have no idea where else to go so we stay the course. It is in the far right lanes where two freeways come together. We saw lots of people but couldn't see the damage. Maybe slow and go for about five minutes. 5th and final stop is at the Sleep Inn in Smithfield. We drove past our drop to get here. This place has fresh evening cookies, like they used to. Now they are in paper sleeves. There are ways to provide the same quality service if they want to. We order from the San Marcos Mexican place next door. Food is ready in 20 minutes and is good. Bob Evans was in another corner of the parking lot, about five other places within walking distance. Good food. Tomorrow we will use my RV, more fuel and the car is in BB's name, to go get the rental car. I will drop my RV and we will come back to the hotel and get BB's RV. But 1st we may call for our run home. Plan now is to grab the truck to Effingham. The pickup is only an hour away and with any luck we may have it picked up by noon. From the pick up to drop it is about a day and a half. So we are planning on not dropping until Wednesday morning. From our drop in Effingham we have three options right now. Two of those could be gone before we can call and get the runs. 1) One hour south of Effingham, there is a truck coming back to WI within an hour of my house. On this one we could use a local car from Effingham for the pickup and drop it back at the same place. That would cost us about $50. And it would only be a few miles out of route to go past our house to pick up our car before dropping this truck. Down side is I would have to cross the MN scale on an out of route run. EDIT: OPPS - Wrong location. This truck is in in Indy, 150 miles away and a rental car would be about $100. The truck close to Effingham is going to TX. 2) Three hours east of Effingham there is a motor home going to MN. This run is 300 more miles dead heading than the other run and I would get paid for 150 miles less. But this one is new and the other is used. 3) Get a rental car in Effingham and head home. This would be what we normally would do. So we looked at this and a rental cars are $200 a day, twice our normal. And if we are heading back to the Carolina's on our next trip, we wouldn't leave out until Friday so getting back a day earlier without being paid wouldn't gain us anything. But the load board changes by the hour and we can't call on a Wednesday pickup (in IN or IL) until Tuesday so a lot can change. Weather at home got warm today. Here the highest I saw was 78 degrees. :) ... the trip continues HERE |
