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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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210720 IA-IL 1 RV heading to Winnebago IL ... spending the night at home I had a Dr's appointment today and I didn't want to line up any work until after that. Not an issue, no issues on the medical field and no work yet. Today our long haul company announced they were going to have a phone meeting at 3 PM (local.) On such short notice I thought there would be something major, there wasn't. As we are on hold for the meeting to start, IA puts out an IL trip. I grab it. It's about 300 miles, but part of that is two lane and last time we were at pickup at 8 AM and only delivered with an hour to spare. This time we are going to not try to deliver the same day. Last time we were already on a trip so we just stayed near the pick up. BB didn't want this one so I took it. We'll keep watching the board the next two days. Opps, I had forgotten to turn in my NE plate for my local company. I turned that in today. They didn't jump and and ask me to go anywhere so I'm guessing they are good with drivers. Load board US - 131 IA - 8 MN - 5 WI - 8 210721 IA-IL 1 RV heading to Winnebago IL (never picked up) ... spending the night at home We would have had to leave home about 5:30 AM to get this RV delivered today so instead we slept in and will deliver it tomorrow. We got going from the house at about 8:30 after taking a morning walk and eating breakfast. 1st stop in Northwood at the rest area. 2nd stop is at the shipper to pick up. There are about 25 RV's in the lot instead of 100-200 so it looks really empty. Only 5 RV's are on the load board right now so the others must be just waiting to get picked up. It doesn't take long to find our RV when there are this few RV's in the lot. I pull around and as usual one of the first things I do is put up my plate and placards. Then BB helps me with my lights and later asks if I have checked my wipers. Opps. Out of routine by only picking up one RV. Wipers work but not the washer. Fluid is full so we let dispatch know we have an issue. But it is lunch time so we have to wait for someone to show up. This person is a newer gal, we've seen her as a ride-along for quite a while but this is the first time we have seen her solo. She checks a few things and then calls for back up. From the time we contacted dispatch until we were told the RV had to go back to the shop was about two hours. We aren't going anywhere. The shop is backed up and we were not given an estimate of when it might be ready. More than likely the RV will just be put back on the load board when if is ready again. Going in and out of the office we had seen a new person getting trained. Then we saw them find their RV and pull it around and park closer to the building, but not in the 'inspection area.' After a while I went over and talked to him a few timers. He ran for a few months for the company we quit. Ran hard. Then they refused to give him a trip that he could see on their load board and he got stranded in Seattle. Flew home and hasn't heard from the company since. So he is not new to driveaway and also he has a brother that works for Bennett. He should do OK. We also heard that it is not just the parts shortage that is slowing things down, there are also re-calls on two of the three brands of chassis they put the RV's on. And those units all need to be fixed before they can go on the load board. But we are hopeful for more work so we head to lunch and watch the load board 3rd stop is still in Forest City at the Borderline Pizza for tacos. We sat in the car there and ate with the AC running. Once we were done eating we headed to the local park where there was shade. I called long haul dispatch a few times to see if the RV was ready, they had told me earlier that the shipper closes at 3:30 so that was my last call for the day. No RV so we are heading home. While I am sitting there my local dispatcher calls from MN to ask if I can test drive a truck that has been repaired. Nope, not today. There are a few RV's on the load board but nothing under 600 miles. Right now we are trying to stay closer to home for the next few months. 4th stop is for fuel at the Kwik Star/Trip in Forest City. As we are heading home we talk about maybe staying closer to IA in a hotel in case there is work. But we usually have to be out of the hotel by noon so that would be another day of sitting in the car for a few hours hitting refresh. We decided to head home. We will get home early enough that I can water my garden ... and do some weeding. 5th stop is for a treat, I am trying not to eat a lot of treats this next month before my DOT Dr visit, but I just won't eat anything else. Culvers in Owatonna. Blueberry malt for me, Peach something for BB was the scoop of the day. 6th and final stop was home. Nothing accomplished. Load board US - 118 IA - 16 MN - 10 WI - 2 210722 IA-IL 1 RV heading to Winnebago IL ... spending the night at East Dubuque IL No wakeup alarm today. After doing our morning walk I went out and worked in the garden. At about 10 AM BB came out and told me that there were 5 pickups near us going to KS that I should look at. As I'm looking at the MN trips I click over to the IA trips, my RV is back on the load board. I call and get it. Then I call on the MN trips, good paying but not available until Monday. I don't like to plan that far in advance. We are rolling within a half hour, we never unpacked. 1st stop is at the Burger King in Northwood for lunch. 2nd stop is at the shipper in Forest City. Same RV, it has been fixed. It only takes a half hour today to do the inspection and we are ready. The shipper is having a big rally at the park and lots of RV's everywhere. 3rd stop is at the Pilot in Clear Lake. I put in 11 gallons, yesterdays guess was 10 gallons but I opted for some 'insurance' fuel. After I fuel I am still 75 miles range short of my drop. 4th stop is at the Flying J in Evensdale/Waterloo for a restbreak. 5th and final stop is at the Quality Inn in East Dubuque. There is a supper club next door and I had thought we might eat there ... until we got to the hotel and looked at the menu. It would have cost us $50+ to eat. Instead we got in the car and drove back to Dubuque and picked up food at the Chik fil A. So far I have picked up 100 miles range. I now have 25 more miles than I need to get to the drop. And half of the next 90 miles are at 55 mph. I should be OK. Load board US - 132 IA - 17 MN - 6 WI - 4 There is still a truck in Madison going back to WI that I may call on. And one of the MN to KS trucks are still there for Monday. Not sure what we will do yet. 210723 IA-IL 1 RV heading to Winnebago IL (delivered) ... spending the night at home This hotel only has breakfast on weekends, they said something about a bag but we didn't ask in the AM. Looks like there were about a dozen customers last night, in a hotel that holds closer to 200? When I leave this AM I have a range of 25 miles beyond my drop. With the speed limit mostly at 55 or less I hope that that range will go up. For most of the next 82 miles my range stay up between 15 and 25 over. Finally when the range stopped showing I was at 35 over with 5 miles to the fuel station. I made it, but next time I will put in one more gallon. 1st stop is the Road Ranger in Winnebago for final fuel. 2nd stop is a few miles down the road at the drop. Different person this time doing the inspection. It took about a half hour. Before leaving I called OH dispatch about the truck in Madison. BB drove so I could take the phone call when the dispatcher called back. I had asked if I could do a Saturday delivery, that was my only question. An hour later the dispatcher still hadn't called back so I called them. They had assigned me to the trip ??? After digging through their paperwork they found my answer. No weekend or after hours drop. But I could pick up on Saturday ... So they took me off the trip. Later I found out that they had emailed me the paperwork but it had ended up in the junk folder. I guess I will need to watch that dispatcher and word things even more carefully. 3rd stop was at the Kwik trip in Burlington. That is where I started making calls again. I also made a call for personal reasons so I could cross that one off my list. Then I called on getting a DOT appointment. And I was put on hold. 4th stop was the Wendy's in Madison. I finally hung up the phone. I will try calling a different location later in the day. From here I drove the next hour or so while I ate. 5th stop was at the rest area near Lyndon Station so my wife could drive again. The 2nd place I called for a DOT appointment didn't have a hold option. I had to leave a message and they called me back a couple of hours later. But I now have an appointment. I have also been calling my local dispatch but no return call so I am guessing that either they are not in today or there is no work. There had been a run to WI for Monday that would have worked with the Madison trip but someone grabbed it quickly. And there is still a trip to IN with a 2nd trip coming back to MN but that would mean two nights gone. 6th stop is at the rest area near Black River Falls for another driver switch. When the clinic calls back I am driving so BB puts them on speaker phone. Now there is a trip to Nebraska. That one is the shortest. Later we decide that we will wait until Monday to call if it is still there. We could have called today and left Sunday but we are still having a lot of 'if's' in our lives. Load board US - 112 IA - 15 MN - 5 WI - 8 Out of the 15 out of IA, 13 are RV's and only one of those is a towable. |
