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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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210414 IA-OH 2 RV's to North Canton OH ... spending the night in Walcott IA No alarm. But still up shortly after 6 AM. Breakfast was yogurt and a cup of tangerines. Shortly after we are up, I / we both get calls from the dispatcher in OH. They can see I am coming, they want to know where I am now. Sorry, their main account is new chassis. Very rough ride and not going to where we want to go. Most of the load board right now is going about 500 miles. We would get there on Saturday and have to wait until Monday to deliver. The pay wouldn't even cover the three nights motel. Right when we are going to leave at 8 AM, I get paid for my last trip. ??? Usually it takes a day or day and a half to get paid. So I look at the email. I have only gotten paid for the basics. So I email them back and then head out. 1st stop is in Northfield at the Flying J for car fuel. Back on the road I get a call from central dispatch, they too see I am heading to Ohio. I quickly tell them we will deliver and need to be back in MN on Monday. They say Thank You. We remember the road construction on the side road so we take a different route through Joyce. 2nd stop is the RV lot. We get our paperwork and find our RVs, do our inspections and are ready to roll in 45 minutes. Lots of cars stashed here. And in one spot the cars are each taking up a spot and a half. Finally found a 3/4 spot and made if fit. When I drop off our paperwork in the office, I see the head dispatcher, the one who I had talked to yesterday. Told him we couldn't make any of the runs work that we had talked about. Some of the rental cars were $600 a day. He said he used to drive for four different companies when he was a driver. (So he knows how it works) 3rd stop is the Flying J in Clear Lake for fuel and food. 4th stop is the Casey's in Center Point for a restroom. Now my local dispatchers are calling. I call them back from the stop. They have a truck going to Omaha, sorry I am already working. It would be a nice lead in to taking an IA trip. 5th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Walcott. Food is next door at Grandma's. We had talked about ordering breakfast but it wasn't listed online. Then it wouldn't let us order on line anyway so we walked next door and ordered. Then walked across the street to Pilot for water. We hadn't taken the time to stop to buy a case so we are buying a few bottles at a time. We both save half our food for breakfast. This place has -0- breakfast. Load board US - 541 IA - 277 MN - 8 WI - 12 BB is busy looking at I-80 in WY just for fun. It was closed this AM and was going to open around noon-2 PM. Now it was closed again at 6 PM. We got through clear sailing both ways. I did get paid for my downtime and some transportation. I did not get paid for the service fee for ordering my permit from an outside company. I would have thought that was SOP. Company pays when we order where we are supposed to. It is not a free service. So I am out $30 but ran legal. Not going to complain, this is by far the best paying trip we have ever done. Nothing showed up on the load board today that works for us. We still have a day and a half before we will be past where the work comes out of in IN. Not sure I mentioned this before. Back one of the first days with the last bus I messed up my finger. The door / lid for the engine in the back is similar to the sliding doors in a van but instead up and down. One time when I went to close the door, as it was going in, into position I was far enough back that only my middle finger was still on the door. One finger was not enough to close the door so the finger bent back. Ouch. But now just a few days later I am able to bend it, close it like a fist again. Tomorrow. We have about 500 miles to the drop. Closest hotel with a decent review is the Hilton Airport. Under $100 so I think that is where we will stay. It will work great for the rental car, almost across the street. 210415 IA-OH 2 RV's to North Canton OH ... spending the night in North Canton OH No breakfast at all so it is leftovers from last night. We were up earlier than the alarm so we get going a little early. We do our inspections and then drive for 10 miles. Fuel is $.11 a gallon cheaper there. 1st stop is the Flying J in Davenport. There is a Comfort Inn here, but then food last night would have been Denny's. :( 2nd stop is the Road Ranger in Ottawa for a rest break. OH dispatch calls me a couple of times while I am driving. I call back when we are stopped. First they want me to go another 300 miles east ... no, I tell them, if we had wanted to go that far we would have taken a longer trip, like to the Carolina's. So they offer me a trip to the Carolina's. I try to stay polite. Then the want me to go to MI. No, we are going to MN, they don't have anything (then.) And this is the chassis dispatcher, I don't want any of those trucks. Dispatchers must have been talking between them, I have never talked to this one before yesterday and she knew that my wife and I ran together. 3rd stop is the Oasis near Rolling Prairie at Sbarro's. On line I thought it said they had a Popeye's, but the other food is Burger King. We eat indoors, only a couple of other people eating inside. No stop and go's today. Just lots of semi's jockeying for position. Weather was good, just a few brief showers. 4th is for fuel at Loves near Edon. It is the only exit between the IN tollway and the OH tollway. I do the math on how many miles we have left to go, how much range I currently have and what my mpg are. If my mpg is correct and stays the same, I will not make it to final fuel. But there are fuel stops, I can add more. 5th stop is at another oasis near Clyde for the restroom. 6th stop is for final fuel and food. Circle K has the gas closest to the drop, we put in our final fuel there. WOW. I thought I was going to be short on fuel. I got here with a range of 88 miles. I was that far off on 200 miles. BB was closer to correct, her low fuel light came on before we got to the station. Food. From the gas station, we go across the street to Arby's. Sign says drive thru only open. Wrong, nothing is open. So we drive to McD's. Again, drive thru only. So we cross the street to the grocery store. All the custom deli, made to order area's are closed. So it is shelf food. We get a collection of stuff so we would have enough for breakfast. All this looking for food cost us an extra half hour. It's been a long day already. 7th and final stop is at the Hilton 'something' for the night. We didn't realize they had food here, it didn't show on the map. They also have breakfast here. $10 each, made to order, all you can eat. All I can eat is a couple of cups of yogurt at a $1 each so not a good deal for me. Load board US - 533 IA - 273 MN - 7 WI - 11 Now OH does have runs going to Duluth MN and some to WI, but they are still chassis. Sorry. Otherwise it would work out good. IN didn't add anything today except two to Canada. Our hotel tonight is about a quarter of a mile from the airport and rental car, then about a mile from the drop. We can't pick up the car until 9:30 so not an early day. From there we will head home and watch the load board. 210416 IA-OH 2 RV's to North Canton OH (delivered) ... spending the night in Ottawa IL Up without an alarm, even in the eastern time zone. We could have paid for an in house breakfast, but we didn't know that ahead of time so we planned left overs. I had fruit, three deviled eggs and a yogurt. 1st 'stop' was dropping BB off at the airport a quarter of a mile away from the hotel. Very small airport, very quiet at 9 AM. 2nds stop was the drop. I pulled in and was grabbing my paperwork to take inside when someone directed me where to park. And they took my paperwork. And gave me the OK to leave so we could go get BB's RV. Then BB gets there but doesn't see me. 1st she stopped in the middle of the drive and quickly realized that was not a good idea. So she backed into a parking spot. But by the time I got near her, someone on a fork truck was motioning with their hands and then throwing them up in the air. BB had parked in a 'service spot' and he was trying to back a travel trailer in there. Opps. We finally found a safe spot and I was able to get in the car and we headed back to the hotel. I had thought it would be a quick inspection but it ended up taking about 45 minutes for each one. We had parked the car next to the RV's but later were asked to move as more RV's were coming in. We parked where we could see the RV's and when we saw the inspector walking in, we walked in and got to the desk at the same time. No damage. Nothing on the load board that is going to work for us, but we will keep watching it. BB is already hungry but it is only 10 AM our time so we hold off until our first stop heading back. 3rd stop is at a oasis near Amherst for food. We get Popeye's chicken sticks. Good food, but I hadn't listened when BB ordered ahead of me and she had ordered spicy. The receipt says hers were mild, she had the meal, and that mine were spicy. Both seemed spicy to me, and neither one did to BB. Their ranch is good, their honey mustard is not. Not sure what it is about their chicken sticks but I like them better than anyone elses. 4th stop is at the same Loves between the toll ways for fuel. We don't need fuel yet but it is the cheapest we will find until Iowa. I also call on my rototiller. They had called a few days ago but we were already on the road. I should be able to get it some time next week. While going through IN, BB was hitting refresh on the load board but nothing good showed up. There were two RV's to IA but we would have had to check on Saturday delivery and we were still hoping for something better. And it would have had to been open all day, Saturday as it would have been afternoon when we got there. 5th stop is the oasis near Portage. I finally eat my other yogurt that has been sitting in the car all day. Two yogurts was too much food for this AM. When we got near Chicago I found a local (to me) truck that was going the speed limit and decided to follow them. It doesn't seem that as many people try to drive over you if you are following a slow truck. Turns out that most of the way past Chicago was running less than the speed limit today so not a big issue. It is rush hour here. Not an issue for me, but we were running in the second lane from the right and at one point the truck I was following got over into the right lane with his tires, just as a truck was passing him on the right. And that truck was already up against the median so he laid on the horn and backed off. Things happen. For as many things like that as we see happen almost every day, I am still surprised that we haven't seen a huge accident up close. 6th stop is ... RAX In Joliet IL. This one is still open. The salad bar is gone, but the sandwiches are still the same. I look online sometimes to try to find out what I can about the company. Tonight I couldn't find anything new. In 2011 there were still 14 Rax open. I have heard that it got down to four but I can't find that tonight. Most of the ones open were in Ohio, but Joliet is the only one we have eaten at other than when they were open in MN. (WIKI says: "as of March, 2021 in Joliet, Circleville, Ironton, Lancaster and Harlan.") 7th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Ottawa. We have been here before. The 1st room they give us the AC will not stay running so we get a 2nd room. Load board US - 503 IA - 261 MN - 10 WI - 14 Tomorrow. We have eight hours of drive time to get home. As of now, there is nothing on the load board that is worth trying to do and get back on Monday. IF I don't have to be back on Monday, we may try a longer run. Or we may just work for my local company doing short, partial day trips. 210417 IA-OH 2 RV's to North Canton OH (delivered) ... spending the night at home We've been here to this hotel once before during covid, but we forgot. They had bags listed as 'muffin,' 'pastry,' etc. But we forgot that they will also fill it with everything in the fridge. Juice, yogurt, cheese stick, fruit cup. I ended up eating two of the yogurts, BB had one pastry. The rest will be in my lunches in the next week or so. 1st stop was the Flying J in Davenport. It is the cheapest gas anywhere. We have enough gas to get to Forest City and maybe home, but we stop and put in 10 gallons here. It would be interesting to see how high the fuel range would go if we had kept the car. When we got the car it was 'full.' With a range of 400+ miles. After our 1st fill it had a range of 500+ miles. Now on the 2nd fill it has a range of 600+ miles. 2nd stop was our usual 100 miles, even though we are driving faster. Center Point for the rest room. 3rd stop was the Arby's near Waterloo. It was too early for food the last stop and there isn't much for food between here and Clear Lake. 4th stop was the Culvers in Clear Lake, our treat for the trip. 5th stop was the office in Forest City to pick up our car. The shipper has now added a 2nd row of RV's in the employee parking lot. Staging them for when there is room in our lot. I had counted five RV's between Waterloo and Clear Lake heading out, but no one is still at the lot when we get there. Missed a great photo today. While I was driving between Forest City and the freeway, there were a number of grass fires. One of them was quite large and I had been watching the smoke for a few miles. Then when I was directly north of the fire, I saw a whirl wind next to the fire that was pitch black. But the road had no shoulder and I am so trained not to touch my phone that I waited until I could pull off at a driveway. By then the whirl wind was gone. :( 6th stop is MSP to drop the car, then home. Load board US - 481 IA - 249 MN - 11 WI - 14 At this time we have no plans ... |
