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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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210527 IA-WI 1 RV heading to St Cloud MN (delivered) 1 RV heading to Greenfield WI ... spending the night in La Crosse WI Breakfast was a nuked sandwich and juice so we left the rest of our Mexican food in the fridge. Pulled out at 7:30 AM, BB has to fuel. I am trying to get to the rest area by 8 AM. 1st stop - 8:01 - Dundas rest area. I call dispatch six times before I get through. I get my trip to WI for later today. When I picked this RV up it looked like there might be enough fuel to get to the drop. But the range / mpg didn't go up. It did go up 20 miles and then back down to an excess range of 10 miles. Then I see that I have five more miles to go than I though. 2nd stop - so I pull off at the next exit. Holiday gas in Clearwater. I add one gallon of gas to get the last eight miles. The machine does not print a receipt and I don't go inside. 3rd stop - Pilot in St Cloud for final fuel. 4th stop - at the drop across the freeway at the drop Oh, it is raining. It has been raining all day and looks like it may rain again tomorrow. Here and in WI where we are going. When I pull in the drop there is a guy unhooking from his tow car, I ask if he has already brought in his paperwork and he has. But when I bring my paperwork, they say that different shippers have different inspectors. It is most of a half hour before someone comes out. My inspector gets there first, once they are at my RV, I go inside to wait. And talk to the other driver. He's new. He's retired. He is running hard. He bought a tow car right away and now wants to pay for it before he decides if he keeps working. His wife is noticing he is gone a lot. 2-3 weeks at a time (and she notices???) His RV inspection gets done first. For some reason my inspector can't find the warranty person. It is raining so the camera person doesn't do her thing. They sign off clear. In and out in 45 minutes. 5th stop - We get as far back as Plymouth before lunch time. We stop at the Arby's that is the easiest to get in and out of. By the time we leave the line is backed up out on to the street. It is 12 noon. No major issues again today. We did hit the last of the morning rush hour but wasn't bad overall. 6th stop - we are back at Forest City to pick up our next RV. Again there are a few other drivers picking up but we don't take time to talk. This time BB is on a 'family call' so it takes me 45 minutes instead of the 30 minutes yesterday. 7th stop - We fuel right in Forest City at the Quik Star / Quik Trip. BB needs fuel and I realize I will likely use at least a full tank of fuel if not more. Lots of wind besides the rain. I drove most of the next three hours at 62 mph. If I went 65 mph the RV kept down shifting. Good news, even with the strong headwind my range has gone up so that I am now only 13 miles from my drop, I started out at 60 miles short of the drop. 8th and final stop is at the Comfort Inn in La Crosse. Before I get parked, BB has arrived. As soon as we check in, we call Ciattis for to go food. Later when we are eating, BB reminds me that is where we shared our first meal :) Load board US - 479 IA - 163 MN - 8 WI - 12 IN - 48 I had resigned myself to doing the semi tractors in Des Moines next week. But later in the day Forest City put out another no-tow to where I am delivering tomorrow. We will likely take that instead. Now I see that the RV from IN to Garfield MN is back on the load board, but doing that would take the rest of the week and leave our car in IA. I had been keeping track of the RV's in IN but it was often -0- and we have only moved two in five years. Now they are getting busy again. Plan now is to do 'local' on Tuesday and Wednesday and then head to CA if there is still work. 210528 IA-WI 1 RV heading to Greenfield WI (delivered) ... spending the night at home We ate all our food last night so hotel breakfast it was. One of three kinds of nuke sandwiches. And juice. No yogurt or fridge stuff. We pull out at 7:30 AM. It is still raining. And cold. Later today my brother who lives 50 miles of where we were ... posted pictures of last nights SNOW. In the last days of May, but it is not June yet. Early in this let of the trip, a semi pulls out to pass, but is over a semi's length behind me. He doesn't gain on me and the line behind him is getting longer. I finally back off five mph and let him pass. Then I speed up and stay on him for the couple of hours until the freeways split. And I watch my current mpg. I found a spot about a truck length back where the fuel mileage was really good. So I stayed there. I switched lanes, he switched lanes. Reading on line now, I should really stay further back for a few reasons but it is the following distance I often travel. Just usually not for this long. 1st stop was one hour from the drop as requested. Today I put in two gallons of gas. At the Kwik Trip in Lake Mills. Right now I have enough range to get to my drop. But I have been bucking a head wind most of the trip. And I am already stopped. And I call the drop, they tell me where to park when I get there. 2nd stop is at the Speedway for final fuel a few blocks from the drop. 3rd stop - my drop. I walk in and talk to the first person I see. They say wait by the door. I do. But in a few minutes we start to talk. The person must have been in the middle of something. When I was leaving later that person made a point of saying goodbye. The person who did the inspection was out to my RV before I was done removing my stuff. I also said something to them that came across wrong … two for two? It is still raining, I wait in the car with BB until they are done inspecting. Then I wait inside, for someone else to do a second inspection. I didn't look at my paperwork until later, they marked down a 'mark' on the bumper. I didn't take a picture of it. Or notice it. It doesn't show up on my general pictures. Three trips in less than three days. And the pay is good. Top 20% of our trips. I need to start a log so I know for sure which are the best runs. 4th stop - almost across the street. There is Culvers. The drive thru line is around the building so we go inside … that will also save us a stop later. Inside we order and wait, and wait, and wait. I see my sandwich sitting there … I should have timed it. Finally BB's is ready, after other customers have come and gone. We eat in the car as I drive. Good food. Masks. There were not signs on the doors at Culvers and all of the staff and half the customers in line were wearing masks. Last night in Forest City for food, we sat in the car and ate. And I watched the people come and go, None of the staff was wearing a mask, and only one person our of ??? dozens … was wearing a mask. Other than me. It is Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend. I'm not sure if we hit the speed limit the first hour of the trip home. Lots of slow and goes. Even one place we came to a complete stop for a few minutes. We never did see the reason. 5th stop was at the rest area near Portage. 6th stop was at the 'new' TA in Osseo. This is the an old truckstop that is now a TA Express. Snow is gone by late afternoon. 7th stop is home. We ate enough, too much, that we didn't' stop and eat again. Load board US - 502 IA - 197 MN - 11 WI - 11 We looked at the load board. We didn't call. All of the former CA trips are gone. The MN trip from IN is gone. Three of the four Des Moines trucks are gone. Near the end of the day, IA puts another 50 trips on the load board. Most likely we will head to Albert Lea Monday night and call from the lot on Tuesday morning. We will spend the weekend looking at trips. |
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