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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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210422 MN-MN 1 truck to Dubuque IA (I picked it up, left at office) ... spending the night at home Monday - one day wasn't enough off so we didn't call in for local work even though Monday is one of the most likely days to get work. Tuesday - I did call in to the local company and told them I could do local Tuesday and Wednesday. Didn't get a call either day. Later on Tuesday our long haul company had two RV's from IA to Duluth on the load board. We did the math and looked at the options. Tuesday there was only one location in Duluth that had cars. When we looked again on Wednesday most locations had cars but a wide range of prices. The cheaper ones were less than they had been on Tuesday. It would have paid, but I had already told two other people I would be available so we ended up passing. Thursday, today. I called in again for local for just today. I couldn't get a word in edgewise :) They wanted me to do a 300 mile run today. We could have, but it would have been a long day ... and not local. I agreed to pick it up from the shipper and get it back to the office, knocking off the first 100 miles of the trip for the. We got to the office about 9:30 AM and picked up our paperwork. (I heard the boss was wondering why I didn't ride up in 9 AM shuttle.) Dispatch just got the paperwork this AM was their story. My story is that I am still not doing the shuttle since Covid. And if I was, I would have already been on it going to Crookston and I'm not sure they would have found another driver on such short notice. They were still wondering if I could do the rest of the trip ... I don't / didn't know yet. But knew I would NOT be available on Monday or Tuesday. When I said 'Monday' another dispatch jumped into the conversation and wanted to to know if I could go to KC on Monday ... no, I am NOT available on Monday. But they do have work if I am not limited to what days and times to work. About half the miles to St Cloud have road construction right now. Slow(er) and go. This AM when we past the MN scale there was a transporter crossing the scale. Then on our way up to St Cloud we past an RV heading north. We had not seen that one on our load board but we are trying not to watch the board when we aren't going to work. Then on the way back we saw a city bus, it was on the hook being brought back to the shipper. So some stuff moving, even close to home. We got to the shipper at noon. I've been there a few times now and the contact knows who I am. He had the keys on this desk and the truck was parked by his door. Tractor with a sleeper cab, 2017, with about 300,000 miles. Clean. It took less than 15 minutes to do my inspection and be ready to roll. 13 speed, sounds like there are not too many of the drivers who can, or will, drive them. Doesn't make any, or much, difference to me. It did make a little difference. I had put it in low low gear when I started out and then didn't get the RPS's up high enough when I wanted to shift. So I had to come to a complete stop and start over. After that I had no issues. I didn't see BB when I pulled out, but she saw me and I was behind her all the way back to the office. She had left the shipper to go get some food while I was doing my inspection. Then we pulled back on the freeway within seconds of each other. No issues heading back. They wanted the paperwork and keys back in the office so I just was 'visible' and left them on the counter. Only one person in the office over the lunch hour and they were on the phone. Load board US - 478 IA - 238 MN - 5 WI - 5 The weather hasn't been 'gardening weather' so I have spent a lot of time re-doing some of the older write-up pages on my website. Mostly changing the lay outs but also re-reading some of what I wrote and re-wording and correcting spellings, etc. ... that could keep me busy for a while longer. Now to go dig in the dirt :) |
