 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
220202 IA-NC ... spending the night at home Called in when the office opened and took two. They are concerned that we watch the weather. We had talked about doing a shorter trip before heading to NC but now that is closer to reality it does not sound as exciting. At 8 AM it is still below zero here, heading to the 70's in Willmington Thursday and Friday. But dropping to 32 by Saturday night. We do not need four days to get to NC but we want those trips and we want to stay behind the storm. We will make it work. I had called in right at 8 AM this morning to be sure to get these two RV's. Those are the only two trips that came off the load board for hours. Then IA started adding trips so it was hard to keep track of if/when trips did get taken. Someone posted this on FB - WY looking at re-routing I-80. Not sure when I-80 opened in WY but the total highway has been open coast to coast since 1986. (And they are finally realizing it is a problem?) https://cowboystatedaily.com/2022/01/30/wydot-proposes-reroute-of-i-80-to-avoid-winter-closures/?fbclid=IwAR2WH5OHUI7kuwv2mIdMJy2RDABDJlzCyFhPxERb0sQ8WcCB47nSWg6kHLo Loadboard - Wednesday US - 373 IA - 150-149 Loadboard - Tuesday IA - 127/126 220203 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Cedar Rapids IA Breakfast - none :) We were still at home. Plan was to leave home 'about' 9:30, we left at 9:45. The temps are below -0- so it is a long john day. 1st stop today was in Owatonna at Jimmy John's for food and break. The DQ next door is now closed after a YouTube video appeared online a couple of days ago showing ?? an employee throwing someone's food out the door as they wanted to the door. No comments online yet of the reality of the story or how someone just 'happened' to be videoing that employee at that time. 2nd stop was in Forest City at the Kwik Star/Kwik Trip. Gas was cheaper back in Owatonna but with these temps we wanted the car left on full. Next was the RV shipper. We get our paperwork and get back in our car where it is warm. There are times that I do not look at the 'helpful hints' until after I deliver :) But today I did. CLOSED MONDAY. What? We are already taking four days to do a three day run because we were afraid someone else would get the trip. Now it is going to take five days to do a three day trip. Good thing both of us are driving and our first rental car is $50 a day. I go back in and check, they should have told us that when we took the truck, their computer should not have let them enter a delivery date of Monday. BB and I talk about it for a few minutes and decide to stay the course. We don't stand outside long or much but it still takes us an hour to do our inspection. The holes are not lined up right for BB to put her plate on the rear so I don't even try on mine. It is still around -0- with a wind. We have covers on the front of our RV's and BB's is loose already. So we flag down the yard person who comes with more tape, but it is so cold that it doesn't want to cooperate and we do not want to stand there. 3rd stop is for fuel at the Pilot in Clear Lake. Fuel is ten cents less 30 miles down the road but BB is down in the red by the time we get to Clear Lake, not a lot of free fuel this trip. No reason to push this trip but it's hard to shut down at 4 PM when there is still daylight left and no good reason to get off the road. We know the hotels in each town, we will decide at our next stop. 4th stop was the Flying J in Waterloo for a rest break. I guess we kind of had decided where we were not going to stop ... we are already past Cedar Falls, one of our thoughts of where to stop and where to eat. From here BB makes a reservation and we decide where to eat. 5th stop is Cedar Rapids, first for food at PepperJacks Grill. A Philly for me and a bureto for BB. Good but different. We get it to go, final stop is the Comfort Inn for the night. No food within walking distance so we plan ahead. Load board US - 427 IA - 137/136 Lots of terminals are closed because of the weather, which means less drivers are moving but things are still getting put on the loadboard. Not sure if it is correct but they put 40 cement mixers out of WI going to UT today. Usually they put 5-10 a day out. Not sure most shippers have room to store 40 until the order is ready to all ship at once. Pretty sure they were not all built yesterday. Our plan is to get another 300-400 miles tomorrow. We will be watching the weather, which should have moved on. But we will also be watching the road to make sure they are clear or we will shut down. Plan is to still get to Wilmington on Sunday and take Monday off as a re-start day. LOG 9:45 - Leave home 11:00 - Owatonna MN - Jimmy Johns 12:30 - Forest City IA - Kwik Star 12:35 - Forest City IA - shipper 2:00 - Clear Lake IA - Pilot 4:00 - Evansdale (Waterloo) IA - Flying J for rest break 5:00 - Cedar Rapids IA - PepperJacks Grill 5:15 - Cedar Rapids IA - Comfort Inn 220204 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Crawfordsville IN Both the eggs and sausage were stacked high this AM, not much else for choice. Later I looked out the window and there was us, one car and one truck. I'm guessing the car was the person at the front desk. So why so much food? We waited until closer to 9 AM to pull out this morning. We wanted it to be up to -0- before we left. We are driving gas units so no issues. 1st stop was the Flying J in Davenport for fuel. We don't need it yet but gas is $2.97 instead of the $3.30 it will be down the road. Somewhere around Champaign IL we start seeing trucks in the ditch. 2nd stop is the Steak and Shake in Morton. We were going to eat inside so I wanted something other than McD's or BK. There were a few people in the place but when we left there was only one person and we were over six feet from them. We both got their garlic burger. I ordered mine with no extra's and BB wanted pickles and a tomato. We have to use the kios to order and when the ticket printed out it had the pickle on one and the tomato on the other. The way the computer printed it was the way we got it. I told the person who have us our food what happened and later I could here them telling their manage about the error. Roads here are not plowed very well so we had to make a run for it every direction we went. There is a new Arby's across the street from the Steak and Shake. It used to be in a gas station down the street but last time we stayed at the Quality Inn next door they were building this one. Google doesn't have it even listed, just as well. Drive thru or carry out only today. More trucks in the ditches ... 3rd stop is Oakwood. Plan was to stop at Pilot where fuel was $3.33. But it was now $3.45 so I saw that Speedway was still $3.33 so I go that direction. Opps, but I pull into the Phillips 66, gas is $3.45. Then I look at the Speedway sign, it now also says $3.45. I try to go forward but can't. They haven't plowed. So I can back up. I stop and talk to BB. We decide to go across the freeway where the sign still says $3.33. Love's, we pull in and fuel before they have a chance to raise their prices. Roads are getting worse. We have gone from dry to wet to large patches of ice on the roads. Time to get off the road, any more slow downs and we will not get to Greenfield before dark. So we decide not to go to Greenfield. We will stop at Crawfordsville instead. Before we ate lunch I had counted 17 semi's in the ditch. After lunch, before fueling I had counted 16 more semi's in the ditch and three that had just been pulled out. I though it was going to be 17 this stretch too, but when I got closer I saw that it was one semi, split in the middle. Then the 45 miles after fueling we saw another 8 semi's in the ditch including one that looked like it had just gone in the ditch in the last few minutes. We are now about a day behind the storm so my guess is that a lot of trucks have already been pulled out of the ditches, this is just what is left. 4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Crawfordsville. Their lot has not been plowed. No one had parked in the handicapped spots so there is still a nice foot plus of snow. Other places there is more or less depending on how it drifted around the parked cars. We park it where it lands. When I was driving, I couldn't see the Quality Inn so I asked the desk clerk. At first they had no idea what I was talking about. Then I mentioned we used to eat there. 'Oh, Wings. I used to work there.' (And they didn't know it was attached to a hotel?) It's been gone a couple of years. Doesn't seem that long since we ate there. It was a chain so maybe we will find another location. When we try to find food, the only thing close is BK, Subway and Cracker Barrel. And their website says Cracker Barrel is closed. We look at a lot of places in town but can't find anything we want. So I finally call Cracker Barrel, they are open. But BB tries to order online but can not because it is closed ... so I call back and order via the phone. The usual. BB has fish. I have meatloaf. We drive to pick it up. Too much snow and too cold to walk. It's only a couple of blocks across a field. We do it in the summer but not today. Load board US - 401 IA - 141 NC - 20 We have our plans made for tomorrow. We will not be taking any shortcuts that take us off the freeway. Most likely we will be stopping in Beckley at 400 miles for the day. I did call the drop today and they are closed on Monday's. So no chance of dropping early. We will have a rental car and likely will do something. LOG 8:45 - Leave Comfort Inn in Cedar Rapids IA 10:15 - Davenport IA - Flying J 12:15 - Morton IL - Steak and Shake 2:45 - Oakwood IL - Loves 3:45 - Crawfordsville IL - Comfort Inn 5:00 - Crawfordsville IL - Cracker Barrel 220205 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Princeton WV Breakfast today was ... yogurt. We pull out at 7:30 central time. The sun is up and shining on our windows but there is still frost on them. But the frost was thin enough that it was gone by the time we were done with our inspection, paperwork and checking out. No trucks in the ditch today. Either the weather had not been as bad here or they now have had enough time to remove them. Going around Indy today I got behind an oversized load. Part of the time the pilot car was blocking a second lane but most of the time not. Did see one pickup pass the pilot car on the shoulder, and then it was stuck behind three other cars. Also two semi's passed the load at the same time. The oversized was in the center lane at the time and doing over the speed limit. The truck that was passing on the left thought it was going to use the merge lane to get past him but ran out of room. He couldn't have been more than a couple of feet ahead of the wide part when it he had to pull completely back in his lane. 1st stop is the rest are near Greenfield IN 2nd stop was in Dayton at the Loves, one exit past where we normally turn. We talked about going to BK next door but couldn't tell if it was open. Only one car in the lot and the sign said 'hiring.' 1st we had fueled and by the time we had parked we could hear someone at their drivethru ordering. Not sure if they were open for indoor seating. It is warmer today. It might have been 10 degrees above zero at noon. Loves had a Hardees so that was lunch. 3rd stop was the rest area near Rio Grande west of Gallipolis OH. 4th stop was the rest area near Kimberly WV Today I had my toll pass on my clip board. I had it pressed against the window but it wouldn't read it at the toll booth so they toll taker said hold it higher. That worked. So the next to toll booths I just waved the toll pass around until it read it. From the Kimberly rest area we decided on stopping in Princeton tonight. It would still be daylight when we got there. The only plus side for pushing is we would have all of the tolls behind us (and we will be 30 miles further south) 5th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in Princeton. Lots of signs in this hotel reminding people when 'quiet time' is. I'm thinking it has been an issue. As we walked down the hall we noticed big signs on some of the doors with the list of who gets which room, also lots of high school age kids going from one room to the other. But so far so good, all is quiet. Food tonight was from Dolly's Diner. It has the layout of a Waffle House but tonight had many times the staff of a Waffle House, and it was packed. Glad we walked, not sure where I would have parked. It was about a five minute walk. The food didn't get too cold before we got back. BB had a breakfast wrap, I had a chicken salad sandwich. Good food. Loadboard US - 387 IA - 132 We have less than 400 miles for tomorrow. We could do our last fuel fill here but gas is cheaper down the road so we may do the math so we don't leave too much fuel. If we filled here we would arrive tomorrow on 'E' which is not the best plan. Likely four stops tomorrow, we already have our hotel reserved for the next two nights. It should be 50 degrees when we get to Wilmington tomorrow. It will be below freezing in the AM. Then a high on Monday of 50 degrees. So it might not be a nice day to just hang out on the beach. LOG 7:30 - Leave Comfort Inn - Crawfordsville IN 9:15 - Greenfield IN - rest area 10:45 - Dayton OH - Loves - fuel 11:00 - Dayton OH - Hardees (inside Loves) 1:30 - Rio Grande OH - rest area 3:15 - Kimberly WV - rest area 4:45 - Princeton WV - Sleep Inn 5:45 - Princeton WV - Dolly's Diner 220206 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Wilmington NC Breakfast - This is a 100+ room hotel and it has about 10 small tables in the breakfast area. Very crowded, not much food. No yogurt of refrigerated items. All sandwiches must be requested at the front desk. I got a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from the desk and one Pop-Tart from the breakfast area. For the hotel being full of kids, the only time we heard anything was last night when some of them lined up in the hall outside of our room to race down the hall. They were trying to decide what to do when they got to the doorway part way down the hall. Last night we also had a dog across the hall backing for a little bit. BB opened our door and when it barked she would yell 'Shhh,' it would stop and then bark again. But after a few times it was quiet and that was the last we heard of it. When we checked out I saw there was another $1.50 safe fee on my bill. That took more than a few minutes to get taken off. This is the 3rd time recently. The other two times I did not take the time to have it taken off. We can go for months without seeing a fee and then back to back nights. Corporate says there is nothing they can do about it, it is the local hotels. We left the hotel about a half hour later than usual. Partly because we were in no rush and partly because I get started on something on the computer and loose track of time. 1st stop - Wythville - Flying J. Plan had been to stop at the Speedway next door but gas was $.10 more today than what it showed on the computer. When I looked at the Circle K sign it had the cheaper price when I was coming up the ramp but then I watched it go up the $.10. Again? We just missed it? So we go to Flying J and while I fueling there I see that the Circle K sign is going back and forth between the cash and credit price. About the only excitement for the day was when we were going through Winston-Salem. There was a guy driving about 30 mph on the freeway without his hazards on. No accident while we were there. 2nd stop was the TA/Popeyes for lunch in Whitsett. Never been here before, didn't know where to park so we parked in the car spots along the edge. It is 40 degrees but that is still too cold for BB to eat outside ? We ordered and got our food. I was wondering what they did to our order to make the price so high. When our actual order was correct I looked at the receipt. They had charged me $2.99 for a cup ... of water. Same price as pop. And it is listed as 'water' so it wasn't something the person did, it is how they have the computer set up. I was going to go back and complain but there was always a line. Not worth the wait. 3rd stop is the rest area near Benson - BB made reservations last night for the hotel so no need to do that today. 4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Wilmington. Easy to find. Just stay in the I-40 until it turns into a city street and then it was on the left after a few stop lights. Five miles back to the rental car, three miles forward to the drop on Tuesday. If we would have fueled in Princeton near the hotel, our fuel range should have brought us in to Wilmington on -0-. Instead we went 40 miles down the road to Wythville and filled so we should have had a safe 40 miles range when we got to Wilmington. Nope, better mileage so we got to Wilmington with a range of over 100 miles. Two units that is over 5 gallons too much, $15+ left in the tank. There is a bar next door that opens at 4 PM but when we get there at four the place is still empty. When we go for a walk later there is still only one car and an OPEN sign. While walking we see a Mexican place and BB would rather have that than bar food so we order there. It is kind of like a Subway that the food is all made in front of you as you go down the line. I had a enchiladas and when I saw how small it was I also ordered two tacos. We ate in our room. This place is another 100+ room hotel, this one has five floors and a huge parking lot. Maybe 10 cars and a few trucks? Pretty quite. We spend hours ??? before we shut off the lights talking about what our plans are. First it is stay south of the snow line. But it is month end in IA and there is already over 100 on the load board. It will likely be up over 200 before month end. We still do not have a plan. But we do know that most places we are looking at, the cars are cheap again. LOG 7:00 - Left Sleep Inn Princeton WV 8:00 - Wythville VA - Flying J - fuel 11:00 - Whitseth NC - TA/Popeyes 1:00 - Benson NC - rest area 3:00 - Wilmington NC - Comfort Inn 5:00 - Wilmington NC - Islands Fresh Mex .. the trip continues HERE
|
