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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 220207 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Wilmington NC Breakfast - none. We didn't have to get up today so we didn't make it down for breakfast. We are still mostly on our own time zone. Early this AM, the local - here - dispatcher puts four 'tractor's' out of VA. They make wood chippers at that location so I call them. Someone else had keyed the orders in ... 2,900 miles from VA to OR. Nice run and we are only about hour hours away. BUT that would only be one of us driving for the next two plus weeks and we don't make any money that way. And IA is going be busy this month. We will either stay south or head back home. But home will back closer to -0- on Saturday when we get back. Friday it will be closer to freezing and also Sunday. We will see how things go. At 10:30 I went down to the front desk to check out and check back in. Last night we had gotten a suit using rewards points, tonight we are paying for a cheap room. But when I was checking out, I said I was there to switch rooms ... unless they they wanted to save on cleaning and leave us where we were. They left us in the suite. Shortly after, we head to the airport to pick up the rental car. It is five miles away, very small airport, drop BB off at the door and go back to the hotel and wait for BB. As I am sitting in the parking lot a lady walks up to the RV and I open the door instead of the window (?) She hands me a note and wants me to read it, I just throw it on the dash and keep listening to her. She was saying something about the guy she was with had taken her keys and wanted me to call the cops and report two people fighting in the parking. She was saying something about not being able to call them herself. I decided BB would be there soon and didn't want to get involved so I said 'no.' At that point she wanted her note back. I gave it to her and she walked over to a car. In a couple of minutes I saw her walking over to talk to some employees that were outside having a smoke. BB showed up so I am not sure what happened from there. (to me, she seemed like she was having an 'episode.') Time to eat - We head to a Jason's Deli about a mile away. We get it to go and head back to the hotel. Another nine trucks were added from NC, all going to PA. There are a couple of trucks coming out of PA within a couple of hours of the drop. But if we go north it will be to head back to IA. We spend most of the afternoon hitting re-fresh but nothing more is added. No non-CDL trucks today. Finally we had enough of sitting in the hotel and decided to go for a walk. I prefer not to walk city streets when we have a way out so we headed to the Carolina Beach State Park about 15 miles away. No charge to enter the park. We walked for an hour with no rain. By the time we left I had the wipers on again. On the way 'home' to our hotel we stop at McAlister's Deli. This AM I had a chicken salad sandwich and French onion soup. This PM I had a half a chicken salad sandwich and potato soup. Good food. Filling. We also split a chocolate chip cookie from each place. BB had salsa with her sandwich this AM so I ate the last of yesterdays chips and the salsa this afternoon (as if I needed more food) IA is almost back up to 150, it likely was for a while today. There are three RV's heading to LA, but it is too close to LA for BB. Mostly likely tomorrow we will deliver and then head north. At some point we will have to decide which trip to take. The trips that were added today were added before we would get to Creedmoor/the shipper. But often the trips are not added until late in the day, in that case we will be taking something that is already on our loadboard. Load board US - 398 IA - 147 220208 NC-IL 2 RV's to Wilmington NC (delivered) 1 tree truck to Romeoville IL ... spending the night at Wythville VA Breakfast - Breakfast ? We did not miss anything by not making it down yesterday. Today was potatoes and sausage, no eggs. No refrigerated items. (2nd hotel in a row?) So I grabbed a few juice cups and some cereal in a bowl. Three of the juice were OK, the other wasn't. At 8 AM we left with the 1st RV. I fueled about a mile from the drop and then we parked in a lot across the street. I'm guessing it was OK as a truck that pulled in ahead of us parked there and walked across to the dealer. I'm guessing he worked there and parked here. Then we drove back to get BB's RV, she stopped for fuel and I went and parked our rental car in the parking lot and drove the RV across the street. It was still a few minutes to 9 AM but they were already checking in a travel trailer and when I walked towards the building someone called out to me. They asked who I worked for, not the same company as them but he still offered us a ride back to IN to get our next RV :) We passed. BB got there by the time I was back out of the office. We got our stuff together and then sat in my RV and waited. It was chilly this AM. Within a few minutes they were ready to check our RV's. It seemed to take about 15 minutes per RV. When he brought me my paperwork back it was in a bag ??? So I looked at it closer. He was trying to give me his copies, mine were laying on his desk :) BB walked over and got our rental car so she could sit inside something warm. When she drove over to park she almost parked where I was standing but didn't. At some point she saw the handicap sign that I was blocking. Opps. Somewhere during all this I noticed something we had not seen in the last 24 hours. Our rental car has expired plates on it. After thinking about it a bit, we decided to exchange it before we left town. That took about a half hour, the airport was almost on the way out of town and there wasn't much of a line. Just the routine of returning and getting the next one. Six months expired. All we know is we are heading in the direction of more work. Next stop is for food in Warsaw at the Cook Out. As we are about to walk in, someone said 'drive thru only.' So we got back in the car and did the drive thru. Burger and a malt for each of us. Burger was good with cheddar, bacon and grilled onions. Malt was not as bad as I remember but way to much of it. There malt menu is the size of the whole of their other menu so they should be good ... right? Opps, forgot to call when we were stopped. Rest area near Benson we stop and I call. Nothing better has been put on the load board so we are going to IL. We will be at the shipper in a little over an hour. At some point BB remembers the Fort Fischer Historical site. NOW that I remember. We have been here before but we still do not know when or why. At the shipper we find our truck, no issues so we are ready to head out. We are about a half hour later than expected because of stopping at the airport before leaving town. I look quickly at a map to see where to pick up BB at the rental car place. I've been there a couple of times before so mostly I need the exit number. She is already waiting for me when I get there so just a quick loop through the lot to pick her up. First fuel is at the TA in Mebane, right past the scale. This time I found it. (BB said the women's rest rooms are really clean here) Mmmm at some point BB looks at the map to see how far we will get tonight and how long it will take. Google is saying there is a delay on the usual route. By the time we get closer that route is closed, until further notice. Our detour will add another 20 miles to tonight's trip. Different route, new scenery. Final stop is in Wythville. First at the TA/Popeyes for food. The Stage Brush that we have eaten at before next door to the hotel closed when Covid hit and has never re-opened. Glad we saw that before we got to the hotel. Sleep Inn is the hotel for the night. Load board US - 442 IA - 163 LOG (central time) 7:00 - Leave Comfort Inn 7:15 - Wilmington NC - GoGas - fuel 7:30 - WIlmington NC - across the street from the drop 7:45 - Leave Comfort Inn - with 2nd RV 8:00 - Wilmington NC - at delivery 8:45 - Wilmington NC - leave delivery 9:00 - Wilmington NC - ILM airport - exchange cars 10:45 - Warsaw NC - Cook Out 11:15 - Benson NC - rest area 12:30 - Creedmoore NC - shipper 1:30 - Durham NC - Avis - return rental 2:00 - Meborn NC - Petro 4:15 - Lambsburg VA - rest area 5:15 - Wythville VA - TA/Popeyes 5:30 - Wythville VA - Sleep Inn 220209 NC-IL 1 tree truck to Romeoville IL ... spending the night at Lafayette IN Yesterday before we decided to take the trip to IL, there were two non-CDL pickups going to FL. Because there were two, the pay would be good but it would leave us 700 miles south in FL and we'd have to get back here. And we have pretty much decided we are heading back to IA and the RV's. Today there is a truck IN FL about an hour from where the two pickups were going, heading back to WI. Who knew? :( Today there is also a truck coming back to St Paul, so no dead heading on the delivery end ... but we are already committed and 200 miles down the road. We also see trips come and go from IA, we can not call until tomorrow for Friday work. Now there is so much stuff on the IA load board that it is moving slowly. So now we are not eager to grab anything, we'll keep watching for something better. BREAKFAST - Ham slices and eggs, and juice. Good juice we do not find most places. As we walk out of the hotel, I see another transporter about ready to leave so I ask where he is going. 'Council Bluffs, IA' I saw I have heard of it :) Then we talk for a bit. We pull out a little after 7:30 local. 1st stop is 15 miles down the road. Loves in Bastain. As we pull up we meet the driver we were talking to this AM in the parking lot. I 'should' have had enough fuel to get to Nitro where the cheap fuel is but with less than a 40 mile range, before going over the mountains. The difference in price is not worth it, we fuel here. 2nd stop is the rest area near Kimberly. 3rd stop is the Loves/Hardees in Rio Grande. Here we move our luggage to higher ground. The weather map says we could get rain. We do. about six drops on the windshield that I saw. But BB is watching the radar and just to the south of us they are getting dumped on. Oh, this truck is all locked up in the back with the customers stuff. (I busted one key trying to open the locks so we ditched that idea) So our choice was pile all the luggage in the front with us, to do that BB has to sit in the middle next to me. Or we throw our luggage in the back of the truck and move it to the locked cab overnight every night. That is what we did do. 4th stop is in Jeffersonville for fuel at the Loves. Short wait for me, it did take a half hour. But someone pulled up behind me, I pulled ahead and did other things and he was still blocking that pump without pulling ahead when we left. Other pumps had lines waiting. Just before we get to Indy traffic comes to a stop. Road construction signs. But that was not the issue, a semi had gone over the guard cable, into on-coming traffic, back over the guard cable and then to avoid the start of a concrete median he had driven into the creek/river. The stretcher was still sitting next to his truck so it likely had just happened. By the time we got past it the on coming traffic was backed up for miles. Then within the hour, just north of Indy, going through road construction (again) we could see a cop with it's lights on blocking one lane of on-coming traffic. That traffic was backed up for 10 miles. That could have set us back an hour or two those backups had been in our direction. 5th stop was Centerville for a rest stop. 6th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Lafayette. Bad job of snow plowing. Trucks are parking where they land. Very different hotel layout, not sure what it might have been before a Comfort Inn. We decide to walk past five places to eat to get to a Steak and Shake. At first it looks like drive thru only but they are allowing take out. Good thing as it was about a mile walk, on the street because of the snow. And it was cold. Load board US - 474 IA - 182 We have not decided what we are going to do for our next trip. We are getting a car from near my drop, then we will get our car in IA. By that time it will likely be dark so we will get a hotel and drop the rental at the airport in the AM. And be ready to head out by after noon on Friday. LOG 6:30 - Wytheville VA - leave Comfort Inn 7:00 - Bastain VA - Loves - fuel 8:45 - Kimberly WV - rest area 10:15 - Rio Grande OH - Loves/Hardees 12:15 - Jeffersonville OH - Loves - fuel 2:15 - Centerville IN - rest area 4:30 - Lafayette IN - Comfort Inn 5:30 - Lafayette IN - Steak and Shake 220210 NC-IL 1 tree truck to Romeoville IL (delivered) 2 RV's, 1 RV to Greer SC, 1 RV to Myrtle Beach SC ... spending the night at Albert Lea MN Rare day that BB share her dream from last night ... she was pregnant. The dream might have something to do with us just finding out we are going to be great-grandparents for the first time. And having a grand-niece being born yesterday. Breakfast - I don't remember. We leave the hotel at 7:30 local, most of the other trucks are gone. 1st stop is in Hebron at the Pilot for fuel. I do the math and put in an extra gallon. We sail through Chicago before 9 AM without hardly slowing down. Also we were not getting run off the road. A rare good day in Chicago traffic. 2nd stop is the airport in Romeoville. Not sure where the terminal is, the rental cars were in one of the sheds. The parking lot there was smaller than some McDonalds parking lots. But it was almost empty so there was room enough for me to turn around and park with a truck. No one else was coming or going so we switched our luggage to the rental car. From there it is another six miles on city streets. Still working on the roads, we had hoped they would be done by now. 3rd stop as the drop. I pull around back and the doors are all still snowed in so I call my contact. Park it on the end of the building and bring the keys and paperwork in. They signed in the office, never looked at the truck to even see if it was really there. I had hoped to get a RAX for lunch today. We are 10 miles from the closest one, right down the main street we are on. But ... they will not open for another half hour. We are done at the drop at 10 AM. So we head home. 4th stop is for food in Peru at a Jimmy Johns. 5th stop is in Davenport at the Pilot for fuel. Still $2.99 Not much for news as we traveled. 6th stop is at the Flying J in Waterloo for a rest break. 7th stop - Loves in Walcott - Gas is $2.99. We guess at how much gas we will need. 8th stop is the shipping lot in Forest City to pick up our personal car. It is 4:30. Dispatch entered a few new trips around noon and then nothing until we were with 20 miles of Forest City. Cell service was bad so the loadboard wasn't displaying quickly. We kept waiting for something better. Once we were in the parking lot be watched the board. We wouldn't be able to watch it while each of us was driving a car. Finally we decided on two SC trips. They had been added within the hour and we had time to do the math. We call when it seems that they seem to have stopped entering orders. We get the trips. We have a plan. 8th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Albert Lea. After we check in we order food online from the Main Street. We hadn't looked to see where it was. It is in the Quality Inn. We have stayed there before but then it was closed because of lack of help. BB just had a sandwich. I had a sandwich, and onion rings. When I picked up the order they asked what the 2nd order (BB) wanted for a side. She didn't, so I picked ham soup. Too much food. I didn't eat it all. Load board US - 477 IA - 191 LOG 6:30 - Leave Comfort Inn in Lafayette IN 7:45 - Hebron IN - Pilot 9:15 - Romeoville IL - Lewis airport - pick up rental car 9:45 - Romeoville IL - drop truck 11:30 - Peru IL - Jimmy Johns 1:00 - Davenport IA - Flying J - fuel 3:00 - Waterloo IA - Flying J - rest break 3:30 - Floyd IA - Loves - fuel 4:30 - Forest City IA - shipper 6:00 - Albert Lea MN - Comfort Inn 7:00 - Albert Lea MN - Main Street - food |
