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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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211217 MN-MN 1 truck in New Brighton, 1 truck in Bloomington both to Lake Elmo MN (delivered) ... spending the night at home 9 AM this morning we get a call from the local dispatch about two local trucks. One will not be ready until mid-afternoon so that leaves us time to get our planned items done first. One of those things to do was stop at the bank. The person ahead of us was trying to make a withdrawal without their check book or any form if ID. (I don't leave my yard without ID) Quiet day at the office, I only saw one person. 1st truck is in New Brighton, I've known where the place is forever but don't think I have ever been there. When I got there I first told the people what kind of truck and part of the VIN. That didn't help. So I told them it was going to a dairy ... then they knew what I was talking about. There are similar to the ones we used to move on a daily basis when I first started. Fuel shows at 3/8 but the carrier now wants us to fill and the closest fuel station so I will. All goes well with the inspection, the truck is behind a fence so BB doesn't drive in to help. Next stop is a mile and a half away at the Holiday station. I put 29.5 gallons in a tank that held 30 gallons. The gauge isn't working. I wouldn't have made it to any other stations. Good thing I followed directions or I would have been on the side of the road until roadside service got there and likely would have had to pay for that for not following directions. Whew. Back at the office / lot I park the truck and drop the keys. And I see the dispatcher that has been giving me some longer runs. She asks how I feel about St Louis or Chicago. I say I like Fargo and Sioux Falls better. But now both dispatchers know that I am available next week.
2nd truck is in Bloomington. I've picked up here a few times so I know the routine. The truck shows a yellow icon on the dash but the person signing me out shows me it is just one of the options that can be scrolled past looking for other info :) Before I leave the lot I call dispatch. (I assume that I will not get two trucks in a row without a working fuel gauge) The two closest gas stations are small and congested, this truck is 30 feet long and needs 40 acres to turn around. Dispatch OK's me getting to a truckstop to fuel, they are about 10 miles away. When I leave I get kind of close to a power pole, on the other side of the road. This truck does not make short turns. It is a railroad truck and I don't know if that makes any difference or not. But some trucks do not turn as short as others. Fuel stop is the Kwik Trip in South Saint Paul. There also is a ma-pa truckstop but this one is newer and cleaner. 70+ gallons of fuel in this one. I added anti-gel to both trucks. It is not a warm day and I wasn't told how long these trucks will sit. Back at the lot. Easy money but not much of it. I think I've gotten paid more when the company was providing the shuttle. Dispatch was on the phone so I didn't ask about it. A few weeks ago I made about 3x as much working local for the same company for close to the same amount of hours. Load board Thursday US - 288 IA - 66/58 MN - 1 WI - 9 Load board Friday US - 291 WI - 55/46 MN - 1 WI - 10 IN - 22 Local dispatch is open tomorrow to give us our yearly updates for driving. So I will likely take care of that tomorrow. Then we'll see what happens. The auction dispatcher has one 200 mile trip but I'd like to get one long, for me, trip in with the local company. The local company has a half dozen non-CDL trucks in the lot again today. They were to be done with those before Dec 1. I will ask to see where these are going now.
211218 MN Today didn't go quite as planned. It was supposed to be a day to relax. Pretty much when I got up I realized our furnace was blowing cold air. Usually when I stand in front of the sink and the furnace fan is blowing my feet get so hot I have to move them. Today it was cold air. But the house temp was where it should be so it took a while and a couple of degrees before we called anyone ... on a Saturday. An hour later we had to call the answering center back as no one had returned our calls. Anyhow, that started at 8 AM and by 8 PM when had a new furnace. Ours was almost 20 years old and the first part we needed was 20% of the cost of a new furnace. Sometime this AM I get a call from the local dispatcher, someone is trying to take one of the trucks I picked up yesterday and they have an issue. The horn goes off when they put it in gear, it hadn't happened to me yesterday so I was of no help. A half hour later my brain finally kicks in. The horn. We don't move many of those trucks anymore but we used to ... and if the doors were not shut the horn would go off. So I called dispatch back. The driver was still there and a service truck was on the way. "No, I was standing there when the horn was going off, the doors were shut." (I said, re-check them) A while later I get a call back from the dispatcher. "Thank you, the driver had not shut the passenger door tight." :) :) :) There was finally a big enough time break near 1 PM that I went to the local office and got my 2022 items from our local dispatcher. I also lined up work for Monday. We also have to do some personal running on Monday but we should have time for both. While I was at the office I also picked up my Christmas gift, now I need to find it and look at it. ... and I found out that there are buses going to Moline IL soon, those work good for us if we are in town. And the company is till getting the little trucks from Fargo going to Elkhart IN. Elkhart is a long way to chase but if there was an RV coming back to MN it would work out for a solo trip. BB has NO interest in hiring on. Any time, any where, ever again. Load board US - 279 (down 12) IA - 51/45 (down 4/1) MN -0- WI - 10 |
