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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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210606 IA-CA 2 RV heading to Davis CA ... spending the night at Notomas CA BB had leftovers, I had a cup of yogurt. BB had to fuel or she wouldn't make it to Wells, so she fueled across the street at a Sinclair. Put in a couple of gallons to get to Wells. 1st stop - Wells, Loves. No where for me to park so I parked in the driveway with my flashers on. 2nd stop is our usual Sinclair in Elko. Short legs but that keeps us on the route and stops we are used to. And in WY and NV there isn't much choice. Yesterday I had gained a range of 40 miles coming down the hills into SLC. Then I lost those 40 miles coming across the salt flats in a headwind. Now this AM I lost another 40 mile range heading up the first hills out of Wendover. Loosing range but my mileage keeps going up. 3rd stop is in Wendover for fuel for BB and food for us at Loves / Carl's Jr. After fueling we realized fuel would have been cheaper at the Maverick where we often stop. By the time we were ready to leave, the couple we had seen a couple of times yesterday were pulling in. We still have not talked to them. Both Loves we stopped at today had issues processing my card. As in they didn't know how to do it. One place I told them how to do it ? but they had to ask a co-worker 4th stop was final (?) fuel for me at the Flying J in Fernley. They do have three RV pumps buy you can only come into the pumps one way and no one fuels on the left side. And two of the pumps are left hand fuels. I did the math and I should need 20 gallons. I am up to 8 mpg. This is always a hard guess because we don't want to fuel in CA. And CA starts with the mountains and then a 5,000 feet descend. When we get to the CA inspection station there is a line, even with three lanes open. There are two U-hauls ahead of me that are getting inspected. And in the line next to us a trailer is getting inspected. They are opening them up and looking inside. Luckily the U-hauls are empty. When it is my turn, they ask 'any wood?' I had to ask them to repeat it. Usually they are asking about fruit and plants. As I am driving away, I see a 2nd inspector pointing to my transporter placards. Sometimes that is the question, 'transporter?' 5TH Stop was the Gold Run rest area. Someone driving a much older RV started asking us questions about our new RV's. But they were also watching their dogs run loose so it was a short conversation. Coming into Sacramento today it was smoky. Limited visibility. But the roads were not bad, not much for slow downs anywhere except the hills. 6th stop and final stop was at the 4 points Sheriton. Not our usual stop but tonight the priority was having a place to park close to the airport. I had looked at the aerial photo's to see where to park but that area was coned off. So I quick had to adjust. There were parking spots and the coned off area was usable, you just had to come in a different driveway. As soon as we were checked in, we drove across the freeway to In-n-Out. With an RV. Those places can be crowded so we parked a block away at a office building. As we parked a tow driver from our company pulled in across the lot. We talked a couple of minutes. He lives in OR and picks up trailers in OR but is looking for a change. It would be a huge change. Nothing I know of drivable is made in OR. We take our food back to our room. CA is different, Covid wise. People are still wearing masks. Bars and restaurants are still closed or have limited seating. Not sure of our plan for tomorrow now. Usually we can not deliver with any warning lights on and my is still on. 210607 IA-CA 2 RV heading to Davis CA (1 delivered) ... spending the night at Galt CA Today's breakfast was made to order, and we had to pay. The more you pay for a hotel room the more likely you will have to pay for breakfast and WiFi. We had omelettes. The cook was the person at the front desk. As we are waiting for our breakfast we are watching the local news. Seems the fires we saw yesterday were started 'in or near' the homeless camps along the river. Other fires have been started there also. Fires are way up compared to last year, but they did not show an average. I did notice that where there were fields that weren't being used, instead of leaving the grass grow to keep the wind erosion down, the fields had been disked to keep the fire danger down. I call dispatch about the warning icon on my RV right after 8 AM, 6 AM local. I can not deliver it that way. I wait in our room until 10 AM / 8 AM local to start making calls the breakdown help line. At 1st they are clueless but finally something clicked and they found a repair shop that could work on the RV and gave me the persons name they had talked to. Because I have been through this before, and dispatch just told me that a driver drove to five shops before getting fixed ... I called ahead. After about 15 minutes, the person I was supposed to talk to put someone else on the phone. They asked me about five questions and said 'Sorry, we can not work on it.' By that time it was time to leave to get the rental car so my RV was on hold. I used my RV to drive to the airport and drop BB off. Then I returned to the hotel to park my RV for now. Last night when I got near the hotel there was a narrow turn lane with high curbs with a little yellow and black arrow sign at the start of the curb. I had driven very slowly past it. Today that sign is was gone. This AM we see why the one part of the parking lot was coned off. Amazon training. So no parking. This is the 2nd hotel with a large lot where we have run into that. When BB gets to the hotel with the rental car, we switch driver. She takes her RV and I take the rental car and follow her to the drop. We are only about 10 miles from the drop. 1st stop - BB fuels at the Tesoro gas station a block from the drop. 2nd stop is the drop in Davis. Both the old time inspectors are there. One of them had been here the last few years. The other one had been here since day one of us coming here. But he had been gone the last year. Today he said he had been off work 11 months because of Covid. I didn't ask if it was as a precaution or if he was sick. As soon as we had made contact with the inspectors I was back on the phone looking for a new shop to fix my RV. This time I had someone who knew all the right questions to ask me. This person I trusted. BUT ... ... the closest shop is 90 miles away. And we are in a major city. This time I am not going to drive to without checking. We are not to put that many extra miles on these RV's. So I called my dispatch. They were not going to OK this without checking with someone else. But I got the OK and we were on our way. 3rd stop - back at the hotel to check out and get my RV. This is when I found out that the Amazon trucks use part of the lot ... and the restaurant is not closed because of Covid. It is closed because of lack of help. 4th stop is the 49er truckstop for fuel. I am down to 40 miles range, enough to get to my drop. Not enough to get 90 miles to the shop. As usual this area is a traffic jam. This time it starts near the truckstop. Trucks are backed up onto the two lane road. Finally a straight truck decides they do not need fuel this bad and that frees up an opening so others can jockey for position and I can get by. All the way to the gas pumps where things are a mess also. Someone pulls up beside me and motions asking if I am in line. I am. It still took 10-15 minutes to get to a pump. All pumps are working but people either need to go inside to pre-pay or to get a receipt or both. I had to park after fueling (some park at the pump until they get their receipt) to get my receipt. Then I could not remember the dollar amount and that is the only way they can look it up. So they gave me a receipt and as I walked away I realized it wasn't mine. But I was not going back to wait in line again. We check our credit card statement, the receipt they gave me was $2.50 less than what I paid. BB had looked up the shop I was going to be heading to and read the last step by step details to me. But when I got to my RV, I looked it up and it was different. So I remembered my route and headed out. Then after I was off the freeway and onto the side streets I realized I didn't have a building number. As I zoomed in, I realized that somehow the map had changed destinations on me. BB had been correct and I was on the wrong side of the freeway. Almost directly across from where I needed to be, but I had to go back to the exit to cross the freeway. 5th stop - A repair shop in Ceres. I had called here before heading down also but the person I had talked to is NA. The person I talked to said I needed to leave the RV. I asked if there was anyway not to leave the RV and they said no. Then halfway to the RV the story changed. Bottom line is I was in and out in less than an hour and it only took a few phone calls. One of those calls was to the drop. It was too late, I can't make delivery today so we start looking for hotels. Then I realize that I am sitting here idling and loosing one mile range every minute. I head out. When leaving, I was just going to go out the way I came in. When I got near the freeway I had to get in a turn lane, Then someone goes past me blowing their horn. In a few seconds I realized that was BB. I found out later that I had missed a street sign. I didn't want to be in the turn lane, I wanted to go straight. But the way the lights were timed that didn't work ... so well. When I got a green arrow I slowly moved until the oncoming traffic had made their left turns in front of me. Then I went straight ... on a red :( Not a smart thing, but by the time I got to the fuel station I was down to a 12 mile range. And I drove 55 mph most of the way to the turckstop. I wasn't watching and got into the left of the two left turn lanes and a semi pulled up beside me in the other one. That cut me off from turning into the Loves. So I kept going to the Flying J but was still in the wrong lane but was able to make the turn. 6th stop - Flying J in Ripon. Crowded. I finally picked an outside pump and waiting at an angle next to it. The other person at that island was there before I got there and I think was still fueling when I left. The RV pumps had three each waiting when I got there. I am no longer worried about how much fuel I leave. I put in plenty of fuel to get back to the drop. From here I call the west coast dispatcher. There are now more drivers ahead of me than last Friday. Things are looking up ??? I think so, because the shipper is still building, just not shipping. When they do start shipping again they will likely ship 2X as many as usual and he won't have enough drivers. I will call again tomorrow, if he still says no, we have a rental car for 4 PM. 7th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Galt. 45 miles from the fuel station and another half hour to the drop. We MAY keep the room tomorrow AM and come back for a while after we drop. We would have if we had stayed where we did last night but those rooms went up by another $50. This hotel is less than last night, plus we get our points. ... A couple of weeks ago this hotel chain removed 25,000 points from our account. I twice asked them about it. The 1st email reply had ended up in our junk folder ??? and we didn't see it. They said they had given them to us in error. So tonight I was typing a reply to their reply asking what the error was. We had stayed, we earned those points. But I wanted to double check. And what I found was they have now given us back those 25,000 points. Today. Without explanation. But later that night I get another email. Somehow everyone had gotten 25,000 points. So it was easier for them to reverse those points and start over than for them to removed those points from those that shouldn't have gotten them, one at a time. Lots of fast food nearby so we walked to ToGo's. We have eaten at one of their locations before and it was good. May have been because we were starved. It was during a breakdown. This location also has a Dyers Ice Cream. So I had a cookies and cream malt. I would have also had a smoothie but they were out of mango. It was way more food than I needed without the smoothie. But I did need to eat. I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since about six this AM, it was now after four PM. But I do not get hungry or thirsty, usually. I'd likely starve to death if I was living alone. I just forget to eat. Back at the hotel, we had forgotten our key when we walked out of the room. I will blame it on BB. She had checked in to the hotel without me and I hadn't seen the keys. So we had to have them make another one for us. I had parked in the car parking instead of their truck parking. When I walked in the hotel I asked the desk clerk if I was OK. He first said he may call me if they got full, then decided he would likely get more trucks tonight than cars so wanted me to stay where I was. I had left myself one spot in front of me for BB to park so no one would block me in. An hour later, after eating, I went to move the car. Someone had parked in that spot blocking me so I would have to back out instead of drive out. 40-50 empty spots in the parking lot and someone has to park right next to me so I can't drive out. So I park behind the RV so I will still be able to back out in the AM. Load board US - 384 IA - 112 MN - 10 WI - 14 All that was put out for CA today were two WA trucks, not even going to the same location. Didn't do much today but things were always in flux. Makes for a long day. IF things go well tomorrow. We will be on the road early and get this RV dropped. Then have nothing to do for the next five hours. Then be in or near the Oakland airport when we call dispatch. If we are needed, we are an hour from the buses and can be ready before the paperwork is ready. If there is no work, we will grab our car, head past the bus company and drop our 1st rental in Livermore and hopefully get as far as Rocklin or maybe even Reno. Heading home empty doesn't pay, but neither does staying in CA doing nothing. 210608 IA-CA 2 RV heading to Davis CA (2 delivered) 1 bus heading to Medford OR ... spending the night at Vacaville CA Bus dispatch called me before I could call them. Three buses going to Medford OR. 350 miles one way. Later talking to dispatch he asked if we would give the other two a ride. No rental cars back and flights are $400 for a $175 trip. $$$ will be a little more than that, but that is the base. Then we will head out somewhere longer tomorrow night (or Thursday AM) (The rest is written three days later) Breakfast was last nights leftovers from ToGo's. The truck that was blocking me in last night was gone this AM. I noticed that someone had taken down some smaller branches when driving through the lot. I had been very careful to stay away from them. But I sure noticed this place was not big rig freindly. We have about 30 miles off non-freeway before getting to I-5. Not bad, it was flat, but narrow and I rarely was up to 55 mph. Halfway to the drop and I get the error message that I had been getting before the check engine light came on. Now it is back. That put me on edge for the rest of the trip. 1st stop - Velaro - I made it to the fuel stop. $60 of dealer fuel and on to the drop. 2nd stop - the drop - I know where to park from yesterday, but today they are painting lines in their lot and the inspectors are moving RV's. Today it takes twice as long as yesterday. 3rd stop is BJ's in Vacaville. We had had our In-n-Out on Sunday. At BJ's we were told they did not have enough staff to service the outside tent. They seemed surprised when we said we did not want to eat inside. Then I asked if we could get 'to go' and eat in the tent. They were OK with that. No one else did that while we were there. Then we headed up to two cemeteries where I wanted to take pictures. 4th stop was the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery near Dixon. 5th stop was the Winter Cemetery in Winter. When we came into town we saw a sign for cherry's. So we followed the sign, to a bakery. We got a pound of fresh carries. I also got a lemon bar and a piece of cheese cake and BB got a donut. Sometimes advertising pays, even with me. Today is Tuesday. Dispatch has been telling us how many drivers are in hotels ahead of me. So we have decided to be in position when it is time to call dispatch tonight. If dispatch says still no buses, we are heading home. We will be parked partway between the buses and the next rental car. Dispatch calls me ... If I will take a Medford OR bus and come back, he will give me a longer run. We are in no rush so we agree. But before that happens, as usual, dispatch is on one topic and I am on another. But we get on the same page quickly. 6th stop is for fuel in Dublin. We were going to need fuel to drive another 700 miles tomorrow. We end up at a grocery store gas station. That seems to be a thing in some parts of the country. 7th stop is at our bank. We had noticed earlier that I had no cash. So we used BB's cash. Now neither of us have cash. And one of our bank branches is within a mile or two of the gas station. Unusual thing here. Instead of a drive up cash machine and no bank. There is no drive up windows for anything. We have to get out of our car to walk to the bank wall to get cash. 8th stop is the bus shipper. Again, we can not find out bus. He has told us the bus number and we find other buses with that name but not ours. We drive the lot again and again. And the dispatcher is late showing up. Once the dispatcher gets there, we get our paperwork and go look again. Dispatch has been doing this for close to 20 years and if they say a bus is ready it is, somewhere. Turns out it is a white bus, no markings on the outside. No 'do not enter' sign like other buses and a swinging door that makes it look like it is not done. But the bus number on the inside matched, as did the VIN and the large rule of something was labeled 'Medford.' I call for my OR permit right away. The permit company is open for another hour plus but OR is not. This is not the usual trip. Usually I head to the rental car place to pick up BB. This time BB follows me out of the lot. I have put my license plate in the front window because last time I crossed the OR scale someone walked out to the bus to look at my plate that was mounded where it should be, before they would let me cross the scale. But the tape came off my plate and the plate fell before I got to the toll booth. And all booths are non-manned since covid. Then I had to cross a CA weight scale without a plate. But they didn't stop me. That is the only scale I know of in CA that has a sign saying 'All buses must weight.' Even the scale on the other side of the freeway does not have that sign. 9th and final stop was the Quality Inn in Vacaville. Large truck parking is on the street. I back in where I have parked before and BB points to the sign that says 'anything blocking this gate will be towed.' So I go into the office and ask where I can park. This location has camera's all over that rotate on a screen in the office. We had to watch for the correct screen to talk about where I could park. Once I am parked I check in, then BB who was still driving drives around the hotel a couple of times looking for our room. It is getting late. We haven't eaten since the call so after 8 PM local we head to McD's. It is the closest food. As usual I pay with my credit card. But somehow when I bring my card back into the car, I get something with it and it goes flying. I'm in the drive thru so I have to keep moving but BB is looking. After we get our food we are both looking. Finally once we are parked back at the hotel, I am able to find it. It is between the seat and the center counsel on edge. Load board US - 373 IA - 102 - 100 MN - 9 WI - 14 210609 CA-OR 1 bus heading to Medford OR (delivered) 1 bus heading to Medford OR ... spending the night at Livermore CA (The rest is written two days later) Today is an 'up and rolling in an hour' day. I don't eat breakfast or even look into the breakfast area. We are both tired. The AC or something was making a loud noise all night. And BB can't sleep without air moving, so neither of us slept (much.) I had slept early and then later I was finally able to get a pillow over my head in such a way that I couldn't hear the noise, but it was hard to lay that way. Shortly after I pull out, I get a call from the driver that had called me last night. But I don't want to stop to talk so I keep driving until I have driven my first two hours. 1st stop - The TA truck stop in Redding. There is plenty of room in car area so I park there. I call the other driver, he had gotten sick overnight after we had talked. So he was running about one hour behind us. Not an issue. My next stop was supposed to be the Flying J in Weed at exit 747. I saw a Pilot at exit 745 but kept going. When I got off at exit 747, there was nothing. I could see the town in a distance but nothing at the exit. No Flying J. BB texted me from the Pilot but I was going to be there in two minutes so I did not call or text her. 2nd stop - Pilot in Weed. BB is gone, we missed each other. The reasons I needed to stop at a truck stop was I needed an OR permit. I had ordered it last night but it had not come so I couldn't print it from the hotel. And still no permit when I stopped at the TA. My contact had been working on and updating me. Now when I get to weed I have the permit ... but this Pilot is the first location that will not accept an email to print a permit. So I need to call the permit company back and have them fax the permit. The first time it didn't come through ... they likely forgot the (1) at the start of the fax number? But I finally got my permit. Not good. I have another message from the driver I have been talking to. He will not need a ride. He has taken a FL bus about 200 miles heading to OR before he realized he had the wrong bus. All that fuel and time is on him, and now he has to find his own way back. Back on the road, the OR scale is closed. No one will be looking at my OR permit that people spent so much time getting for me. By the time I got to Weed, I could tell I would need more fuel before delivering. 3rd stop is Central Point for CNG fuel. At the Pilot. I have fueled here before when taking a bus to Seattle a couple of years ago. Usually I have to worry about people using the pumps as a parking spot. This time two trucks were fueling and as soon as they were gone, I and another trucker pulled into the pumps. I swipe my credit card and it took but then it asked for 'Data.' I left it blank and hit enter. Error and cancel. There was a service person on site so I asked them. They came over and when it got to the 'Data' question, he asked what my truck number was. The pump didn't care what was put in, it just could not be blank. BB is up front in the car area and we talked but didn't see each other. I call dispatch to tell them that one driver had canceled on me and I had not hear anything from the other driver. Dispatch knew about both. They knew one driver had took the wrong bus ... and the other driver had spent $400 on a flight. Not sure of their math but that is more than the pay on a 347 mile run. Base pay on most trips is about $.50 a mile. These buses are a little more but not that much. 4th stop is the drop in Medford. They have a gate and it is closed. I call my contact a couple of time and it goes direct to his phone, and voice mail. As I am looking up their main number, the gate opens. The person is not my contact but they can sign. I get my part of the job done and everything packed up. Then they ask if any more buses are coming. I plead the 5th ... and say their should be two more, today or tomorrow. I walk out their gate and meet up with BB We are looking for close food. First it was Burger King but we sat there a few minutes and realized that it was about five minutes to move one space. We were right were we could exit so we did. We ended up at Sonic. Not quite as bad. We got our food and were rolling. At some point we agreed to do another trip to Medford tomorrow. It was 350 miles back to Livermore and we got back there late, but we wanted to be in position to head out in the AM. 5th stop - a rest area near Weed. Actually we had stopped at a scenic area a few miles before that to take a picture of Mount Shasta. I just pulled in to be off the freeway, took a picture out the car window and drove on. When we got to the rest area we were both going to go in. But I couldn't find my mask. I kept looking until BB got back. This was bugging me on it's self, but also because I had lost my good pen between Redding and the drop. In the bus. Couldn't find it anywhere and now I can't find my mask. I don't realize until later that I could have gotten a much better photo of Mount Shasta from the rest area than the scenic area. We leave. A while later BB is quizzing me on where I might have lost my mask. Well, I know I had it at the Bus drop because it had gotten stuck to the plastic I was tearing off the bus, so ... ... so I had tucked it inside my shirt, where it still was :) 6th stop - The next stop was a rest area near Dunnigan. Someone had a food truck but I wasn't sure how long the food would take ... and I wasn't sure if they had permission to be there. IF they were breaking that rule, what other rules do they break. And we had already decided to stop at the Beach Hut in Vacaville. 7th stop was the Beach Hut - We have eaten here before and it was very good. Today there was only two people and it took a while to get our food. There was a line. I think last time I had a French Dip. I couldn't eat that in the car so I got a rueben sandwich. It was good but it had a whole lot of stuff on it besides meat and kraut. And it was getting to be a long day. 12 hours of go, go. No real break. 8th stop was the Quality Inn in Livermore. We check in and get to our room. We've never had a problem with sounds or anything here. We didn't really get wound down before hitting the hay. Load board US - 372 IA - 117 MN - 10 WI - 17 210610 CA-OR 1 bus heading to Medford OR (delivered) 1 bus heading to Spartanburg SC ... spending the night at Red Bluff CA Another late night ... should pick up tomorrow AM and drop on Wednesday in SC. 2-3 days home from there. (The rest is written one day later) We want to get delivery before the drop closes for the day so we get going by 8 AM. We could pick up earlier but it had been a late night. 8 AM is our balance. It takes a half hour to do the routine. I haven't done a 'daylight' pickup since Covid. There is now a sign that says check with the office along the sidewalk. So I did. We now need to have our temps taken. I pass. Then I walk to the bus. I pull the bus to the driveway and BB checks the lights. But this is a busy spot and two other buses come while I am sitting there and I am in their way. From here BB and I go at our own pace. I do not need to be in contact with anyone today and I know the routine. I have more fuel than yesterday so I should not need to fuel. I know I don't need to wash the bus. And I know that I do not need a permit, this is a 29 foot bus and under the weight cutoff. 2nd stop - I only stop once at a rest area in Corning. I only call dispatch once about this trip. To check in, let him know I have the bus ... and to tell him I do want to go to FL, but if he has a 'hard to get out of' place, we can do that and take a rain check on the FL. He thanks me. 3rd stop - Talent Port of Entry Scale. - Scale is open, I have to cross because I am over 20,000#. But I do not get flagged in. As long as I am going slow, I pull over and park. To check the gas pressure. I am to deliver with at least 1,200 psi. I am still at 1,400 psi. This bus is using a little more fuel but I generally use 300 psi for every 100 miles as my guide. I have another 10 miles to my drop. Coming into town, I see a huge dumpster and a cop in the homeless area along the river. It looks like they may be trying to clean it up. This is in the same area where over 1,000 mobile homes in 18 different parks burnt last year along the same river. They are still working on that clean up. Today I do not have the paperwork close to me with the exit numbers on it. But it was only yesterday and I do remember the streets even though I am coming from the other direction because of not having to fuel. 4th stop - Medford - the drop. Today someone was leaving when I arrived so the gate was open. I pull in and park in the same place. As I am getting out someone comes out. He is my contact. He does the basic walk around and I pick up my stuff. One of the quickest check in's I have had. I know where BB was parked yesterday so I walked that way and then looked at my phone. BB was still 15 minutes away. Because we can not call when we are driving, we text each other when we stop with where we are. That way the other person can gauge how close we are running. At first I set my pack pack on the grass but it soon has little green bugs all over. After a few minutes of sitting on the sidewalk and the bugs are gone. No idea what they were. BB gets there and we head for food. Instead of Sonic again we head to the Pilot / Taco Bell. 5th stop is for fuel and food and the Pilot. And I call dispatch. We are going to Spartansburg SC. Dispatch calls back later asking if I want to go to FL. No, I'm good. Spartansberg is within a few miles of the trucks we pick up in NC. Orlando is 500 miles south. 500 miles to deadhead with only a few more miles pay. I'm good, thank you. 6th and final stop is at the Comfort Inn in Red Bluff. But 1st we stop at the Burger King across the street. We have a balcony which we look out, step out onto and close the door. We could have gone further and saved DOT driving hours. But we are tired. These short trips do not leave us the same wiggle room that the long trips do. But the pay has been good. On a future trip we may rent a car for a week and just do local work. We had thought about doing this last winter but it never happened. Load board US - 404 IA - 124 / 120 MN - 6 WI - 20 NC - 28 ... the trip continues HERE |
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