 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
210616 CA-SC 1 bus heading to Spartanburg SC ... spending the night at Edgewood NM I had woke up at 3 AM and thought it was time to get up, until I looked at the clock. BB went down to the breakfast area for coffee because they do not have coffee makers in these rooms. No decaf. Just a few pastries. But pull out a little after 6:30 local. The low fuel light is coming on and off for the last forty miles. But the fuel gauge is still showing 1/4 and we had stuck the tank. 1st stop is Williams at Loves for fuel and DEF. All pumps are full so I have to back in. The driver is just about done pumping so no long wait. Not sure yet what I did, but could not pay at the pump. By the time I got back to the pump the yard was full and someone had pulled in 'behind' me, so that I now would have to keep backing to get out. I put in 107 gallons in a 120 gallon tank ... in the mountains. I think that is only the second time I have taken over 100 gallons to fill a bus. Then I fill DEF. I put them both on the same card this time. Otherwise I would have had to go back to the fuel desk between fills. It works. Plenty of road construction today. Stop and then slow and go. One of those places was just before our exit to go eat. So I stayed in the right lane until I could see that the exit was closed. 2nd stop was Hopi at the Burger King. It is now a 'One 9' fuel stop. It is a chain of stations that are tied to, but not part of the Pilot / Flying J group. Once upon a time, this used to be a 1st class truck stop. Two food places, shops, barber shop. Then a manger ran it into the ground and half the stores left and the place is in poor repair. Maybe now they will bring up the standard again. The barbershop walls are gone, two of the stores have moved to a re-done area. We sat out at the bus to eat. I tired to call the glass company but no answer. 3rd stop was in Jamestown for the restroom and calls. I finally got through to their place in ABQ to get some questions answered. But I want to get further down the road before tearing off the protective plastic. When I am done talking to ABQ, I call the AR location. This time they answer. Very hard to understand, they sound like they are on speaker phone. New issue. They can't fix it if is too hot. It is supposed to be in the 90's on Friday. Didn't put two and two together. We could have had it fixed in ABQ first thing in the AM. Too late now. Plan is to get as close to AR as we can without driving 600 miles. We could have done another hour and a half tonight ... Before we got to Jamestown a group of motorcycles past us. Then I saw some of the drivers in the restroom, then more at the fuel pumps. Then we had to wait for cars that were running with the group when we wanted to leave the gas station. Then a few miles down the road there was more road construction. And as we were stopping, emergency vehicles came up behind us. Right where the final cones are to force one lane, there was one of the cars and one of the motorcycles. And a dozen cop cars. At the end of construction were the rest of the motorcycles and one cop car. Based on that ratio, it must not have been a rough motor cycle gang. I tried to look them up but I did not remember their complete name. 4th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Edgewood. Someplace we were 'never coming back to.' They have ceiling heater/AC's and BB does not like them. We have passed over them other times but. Other times we have stayed at the Quality Inn in Moriarty 10 miles down the road. Tonight the price was more and the parking is always harder. If we aren't in a rush, we also stay in ABQ. A large couple slowly walked in ahead of us to the hotel. No rooms left. So we got one of the last an hour ago. Once checked in we try to call next door to the China Chef but it goes to voicemail. We walk over and wait in line. They still are following Covid procedures. Floor to ceiling plastic with little holes in it. We and others we were waiting in an orderly line. Just as it was our turn, someone comes in the door and says they have an order ready ... so we get bumped while they wait on this last person to walk in. Everyone else who had an order ready had waiting in line for their turn. 20 minutes wait so we have time to walk back to the hotel and bring the rest of our stuff up to the room. Food. Good, and too much. We each ate half and MAY have the other half for breakfast. Breakfast here is slowly returning to normal. They said slowly. When the state gave them the OK to re-open pools, it was a two day open. Then they were told, Opps, no. Close the pool. I guess they don't want to stock up on food until they know they are open to stay. Load board US - 302 IA - 119 MN - 6 WI - 8 NC - 11 The NC trips to WI we wanted are gone. I was going to call in the AM about them. Nothing new was added that is an interest to us. We will keep watching. 210617 CA-SC 1 bus heading to Spartanburg SC ... spending the night at Shawnee OK BB ate her leftovers for breakfast. I went down for breakfast. Interesting, I could use the common serving spoon to get my own eggs and sausage but had to ask for them to get anything out of the fridge. They also had bowls but no cereal. No fruit, no yogurt. We pull out at 7 local, the college bus had already pulled out before us. 1st stop is a rest area near Newkirk NM. 2nd stop is Amarillo at the TA for fuel and food. The fuel area is a mess but I pick a no-mess island. In one of the other islands, the truck that had fueled was still sitting there when the next truck was done. So the 3rd truck backed up, so the 2nd truck could back out. Trucks were everywhere, almost an accident as that 2nd truck tried to leave, people weren't expecting a truck to be backing out. BB got our Burger King food while I fueled. I took care of making a personal call while we were stopped. I had pulled out of the way right away so other trucks could get past. Today I did almost 600 miles on a half a tank of fuel. Tail wind? I get the bypass at the OK scale. 3rd stop is at the rest area near Erick OK. They are done working on the building so no more port-a-potties. If there had been, we would have kept going to the next exit. From here I call about the glass on the bus again. Today I can hear him much better. And he picked up right away. We set up a time and place for tomorrow. We looked online at the place later, it all looked good. Until we looked at it from the main street, it had just rained and huge puddles everywhere. That means huge potholes everywhere. Also got a good look at the trees so I know which way to come in. 4th stop is El Reno at the Loves for food. Carl Jr's / Hardee's again. We both have chicken sticks. 5th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Shawnee. There is a Comfort Inn across the street but they were full. This place is an old Holiday Inn. 1950's style. Showing it's age in a lot of places. We have seen a lot of transporters the last few days on I-40. Dozens of school buses and UPS delivery vans. Some RV's and all sizes of trucks. Nothing major with the traffic. Weather has been clear to cloudy. The AC in this bus really works. But it is either on or off. So it is on most of the day. BB puts her jacket on and I shut the drivers fans off. Better than the 100+ it would be with no AC Load board US - 318 IA - 117 MN - 1 WI - 7 NC - 24 No ideal NC trip yet. There is one truck with a chipper an hour en-route from the drop. Dropping en-route in IL. The only time it will add is the hour on each end to pick up and deliver ... and the driving 65 mph. It should pay for half the car coming home. Not huge but it all helps. Only a 1/3 of what we would have made if we had gotten the WI, and we would have paid less for a car also. Maybe tomorrow? Hotels are getting full and expensive ... so BB has us booked through the weekend. That may be something we start doing for the summer. 210618 CA-SC 1 bus heading to Spartanburg SC ... spending the night at Tupelo MS Bagged breakfast bag, BB went down to get the food and was not impressed with the staff. ... later when I was checking out, I noticed that they had charged me $1.50 for the safe in our room. Normally I would have asked to have it taken off ... but I didn't want my head taken off is I didn't comment. Person was not having a good day. Not down right rude, but not happy to have to work. Today we are heading out at 7 AM to get to the park by 10 AM. 1st stop - Sallisaw at the rest area. It was 150 miles from the hotel to the park and that was too far. And we were not expecting rest rooms to be open at the park. 2nd stop was the park in Van Buren to have my windshield fixed. I had looked at a map and street view pictures to decide which way to go in. The main turn looked really bad on the street view, lots of huge ponds of water to drive through. But today I only saw one pond of water so decided at the last minute to turn in there. Good thing I did. The driveway I had planned on coming in was gated. Locked shut. I hoped up on the front bumper to take the protective plastic off the windshield and the fix it guy was there. We both were about 10 minutes early. At first I just pealed the plastic down so he could work on it. Then when he was done I tried to put it back on. It stuck OK but there were so many air bubbles between the plastic and the glass that I couldn't see well. Maybe if I had used the edge of a credit card and slowly worked my way up. But I just tried using the side of my hand. That worked so well ... all those smushed bugs coming off the plastic onto my hand. It took the guy about 45 minutes. It was a very small chip. When he was done I could still see a spot in the glass when looking against the light. Actually could see a lot of those type of small spots in the windshield if the sun hits it right. Direct bill to the company. Now ... maybe ? a couple of un-eventful days. I carefully turned around in the parking lot. I didn't want to drive under any trees, no issue I was able to get out. The park was only about a block off the interstate so a good spot. 3rd stop - Morrilton at a Loves for fuel and food. Small place. Five pumps and about 10 parking spots. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get in back wards to fuel here. There was no place to turn around before getting to the pump but luckily I was able to make a u-turn in front of the next island and get in. Then when I was done fueling I had to turn around again to get to a parking spot. I found a spot, kind of. A semi would not have fit but the next spot had an RV in it so I was able to fit between. Surprising that in such a small and busy place that the trucks kept moving. No one was blocking the pumps. We both decided to have shelf Godfathers instead of Subway. I had Hawaiian and and BB had The Works. We sat in our usual spot. The front step of the bus. On the way to our next stop I tried passing two local school buses. The 1st one was easy but the 2nd one I was only gaining on by the inch. Finally when I was about half way past them, they must have backed off to let me go. I was getting quite a following, but I had been following them for a while and wanted to drive max speed. 4th stop - Forrest City at a rest area And for the highlight of our day, we crossed the I-55 bridge into Memphis. The I-40 bridge is closed so both freeways are using 'the old' bridge. I-40 gets one lane, I-55 gets the other lane. It is coned off that way for quite a distance. We saw a bunch of trucks exiting the freeway and took note of who they were. Later we saw them on the frontage road trying to beat the system. They did not. Other than right where the two freeways join, traffic was always moving. Not sure why, but the I-40 lane was at a standstill for a few minutes. Wait. Right at the end of the coned area there was a semi stalled. He may have been why we were stopped and the other lane was not. It took an hour to go those 10 miles, at the peak of rush hour. Wouldn't want to have to do it every day but for us, we knew it was coming so we just planned for it. There were two routes to get to I-22. The way I wanted to go and the way the computer wanted me to go. Today we went with the computer. And when I got there the sign said I-269 North. NORTH? Yes we back tracked a few miles but it was faster, if we had been going the speed limit, than the route past the airport. 150 miles we made without an extra stop. 5th stop was the Loves in Tupelo for my final fuel. 450 miles to go and I expect I am going to be leaving a lot of extra fuel on this one. The other option would be to fill close to the drop and stick the tank as I am fueling. I would guess that some do. But I still will make really good money on this trip. 10 more miles to the hotel. Again I follow the computer. Not the way I would go but it says it is faster. We could see the hotel from the freeway and 10 minutes later we were there. Big loop. The hotel is at intersection of two freeways and the first exits are about two miles down the road. 6th and final stop is the Best Western in Tupelo. BB had checked this afternoon and they were sold out. Good we made our reservation last night. The parking lot looked full at first. Then we realized the cars on the back side of the building were from people eating at the place next door. I had no problem fitting in the front of the building. But I didn't dare waste any time. All it takes is one car in the wrong place and 8 car spots are now NA for a bus. No towels? So we asked and got pool towels. We don't like to wait for food so we went to the least busy place. It would have been my first pick anyway. Ribs. We didn't order ribs, we both ended up with Philly's. They were supposed to be ready in 10 minutes so we walked back and carried the last of our luggage up. The rib place also had deserts that looked really good but we past. Load board US - 324 IA - 96 / 94 MN - 2 WI - 7 NC - 14 Nothing new good out of NC. The Effingham one is still there. A few others are gone. And another Garfield MN RV is ready in IN. But not likely that will fit into our plans. I'm still holding out for something going to IA, MN or WI. If there is nothing by when I drop Monday we will pick from what there is. We are hoping something it will be something from Shelby. We did the math and Creedmore, the other place we get trucks, would add about six hours to the trip. Depending on where the final truck is going will decide if BB will follow me back to MN in a rental car. If we take the Effingham IL one or something shorter, she will follow. If we get something closer to home, we will return the rental in NC and BB will ride with me. Right now there are NO one way rental cars so we are hoping they will still give us ours. WOW the load board is down below 100. 1st time this month. Only one time last month and before that it was down below 100 for a couple of days the end of Jan and the first days of Feb. Still lots of work. 210619 CA-SC 1 bus heading to Spartanburg SC ... spending the night at Duncan SC Breakfast today was hot. Omelettes and bacon. The juice machine wasn't working so they had juice cups. That was plenty. Good morning. Someone parked right in front of me. That is why I (almost) always leave room in both front and back of me. I was able to back up enough to get around them and pull out. 1st stop was just north of Birmingham at a Flying J. This one had lots of 'RV' parking in front. It started raining almost right away and has been raining hard at times. Enough to have the wipers on high but not enough to slow traffic. 2nd stop is at a Pilot in Temple GA for food. I didn't realize that this Pilot had RV parking so I parked across car spots. Still raining so we ate inside. Shortly before Atlanta there is an amusement park. It is open, the parking lot looked full but we only saw a few people walking ... with umbrellas. I'm guessing the lines were shorter because of the rain. Atlanta traffic was normal. Bumper to bumper but moving. This area we know from the days with our 2nd company. 3rd stop was at Carnesville at a TA. Huge parking lot and very few customers. The Iron Skillet is open again, we didn't look to see if the buffet was open or not. Lots of traffic issues today. At one place I needed to get into the left lane, the police were standing in the right lane, I was signaling and when there was a gap I started to pull over. But the next car coming up got in beside me and stayed right at my back wheel so I couldn't get completely over. I kept moving and so did they, finally after a few truck lengths they backed off. Another time I had pulled to the left lane because of a truck coming down the ramp. Instead of them letting me get past them, they got up to speed along side of me. I was gaining about an inch a mile and a foot a mile on the hills. Finally on a hill they backed off and a car cut over before I had safe room to move over. That cars stayed right at my door for a few miles before pulling in front of me in the left lane. ??? Masks. The signs are still on most doors but some places I only see one or two people in the whole place besides me wearing a mask. The AC never got turned on today. And it rained all day. Some times the wipers on high, sometimes the wipers are off ... for a few minutes before I need to run them. Most of the bugs are gone from the windshield :) 4th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Duncan. We have stayed here many times before, it is only a couple of miles from our RV drop in Greer. As I park the bus I notice there is a sleeping bag moving by the back door of the former Waffle House. We watched the bag, it would move but it didn't seem like a person was in it. Or there was enough air blowing into it to move it around. We watched it again when we went out later to the bus, it was still moving and looks full, but ... The hotel is musty. It is humid. I'm thinking we would have to pay well over $100 a night to get a 'fresh' room somewhere else. Last night's room was close to $150, but from the $50 we used to pay when BB started six years ago. It looks like breakfast selection is limited so BB wanted to buy our breakfast tonight. There is a Pilot a couple of blocks away so we start there. NO prepared food. Only a Wendy's. So we walk across the freeway to a QT / Quik Trip. There we did find hard boiled eggs, yogurt and some 'egg' things. This place also has hot food but by now BB wants Mexican. We get back to our room and call down to the Mexican place another block the other direction. We have gotten food from here before. The other food in area is Wendy's, Hardee's and McD's. And a Country Pride that may or may not be open. The Pilot next door is where the truck wash is so I have a block to go Monday AM. Today there was one truck waiting when we went past the first time and -0- waiting on the walk back. But I like to wash right before I deliver. Mexican food was good, we ate half and saved half for tomorrow. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow. We have breakfast and lunch, let it rain. Load board US - 309 IA - 91 / 89 MN - 3 WI - 4 NC - 12 There is still one truck out of NC that will work. I am thinking of calling them Monday AM and asking them to hold it ... to see if they add anything better. I haven't tried that before. A FaceBook 'memory showed up from today last year. A wheel barrel full of weeks. So I reposted saying I may have the same thing this year after being gone three weeks. My brother replied that I will be luck to find ANYTHING green in my garden because it has been so dry. I was wondering how tall the grass may be? It may not even need to be mowed. Not sure if the storm that is over us is moving that way or not. ... the trip continues HERE |
