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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 220307 IA-SC 2 RV's heading to Greer SC (delivered) ... spending the night at Durham NC Pretty skimpy breakfast for a Comfort Inn. Yogurt and juice for both of us. We head out at 7 AM (8 local.) 1st stop is the Spinx for fuel. Once we fuel, BB parks her RV and gets in and rides with me. Then next 'stop' is the airport to drop off BB. I had looked online to make sure my RV was not too big, it hadn't looked like it online. There were two other routes to get out of there, one was full of maintenance trucks and the 2nd was coned off. But no issue, the cover over the walkway at the airport was higher than the canopies at the fuel stops. 2nd stop was the drop. It is only 8:30 and they do not start taking deliveries until 9 AM. One driver ahead of me and one unattended travel home. I walk over to the other RV and ask if they have contacted the office yet ... it turns out I was asking the inspector. He started early this AM :) It was taking the inspector about 30 minutes an RV so he was still working on the first one when BB got there. She had been delayed at the rental car place. As soon as they started inspecting mine, I walked back to the Spinx to pick up the rental car where BB had left it. It's hard at first not to walk too fast and later it is hard just to walk. We haven't walked on a regular basis since sometime last fall. No driver issues on either unit. The inspector had already signed my paperwork when I remembered that I had the 2nd set of keys in my pocket (Opps) Nothing new on the load board. We decided to head to Shelby to get an hour behind us before lunch. I'm watching closely for my exit but then think about something else for a minute and miss my exit. So we take the next exit, it likely added a mile or so to the trip. 3rd stop is the Firehouse Subs in Shelby. Good food. I get the Steak and Cheese plus potato soup. Too much food. Last time I got just the small and it was not enough, but the medium plus soup was too much. While we are eating, dispatch adds two pickups going to AR. I want to call but BB wants to check cars first. Kayak says Avis has cars, Avis says no. Then Kayak also says no. Then yes. It's not a good feeling when only one agent has cars in a large city. And the math does not work. When we drop in AR we still have two days to get home. Two days rental car, three nights hotel and we are likely to clear $100 for two people, each doing four days work. We d not call. Nothing else is added so we decide to head to Creedmore. Usually Creedmoor is added in the AM and Shelby in the PM, but no Creedmore yet. 4th stop is at the rest area near Concord. This time BB wanted a rest area one mile before the rest area instead of one mile after. 5th stop was the Comfort Inn in Durham. We sit in the car for a while before making a reservation. It gets to the point where this is as far back as we will get if we still pick up a truck today. We don't. We check in and keep checking the load board until 5 PM local. No Creedmoor trips today. Rare, but not unheard of. We need to have this car returned by 8:30 (local) tomorrow. So now we are going to have a 2nd day of rental car on this end. There aren't any good trips on the load board. There are still the two AR pickups. The AR/OK trip we were looking at yesterday were both gone early this AM. The best one is a non-CDL going back to WI. But there is no where close to drop a rental car and we have to take the back roads through the mountains where the freeways are 50 mph because of the curves. There is a truck going to OH but there is not a place to pick up a rental car for 100 miles and then it is still two days home. Temps were holding at 79 degrees for quite a while today. I didn't look, but I am guessing at home it was closer to the freezing mark. 6th stop is the Pomodoro Italian Kitchen across the street. We order online and split a lasagna. Last time we each had our own, plus a piece of carrot cake. BB did not feel well on the walk home that time. This time to get there we used the cross walk. The timer gives you 8 seconds to cross six lanes of traffic plus the median. We made it to the median. On the way back we j-walked. Because of the location of the lights it is just a matter of waiting a few minutes. Food was good, more than enough. We are not able to turn in our paperwork for this trip yet because we are waiting for our tolls from Louisville to show up so they can be submitted at the same time. We really do not have a plan for tomorrow. Other than wait for something better. Taking the trips that are listed now do not pay, neither does heading back empty. Now, not only will be have the two days home but we also will have two days rental before leaving. Load board US - 526 IA - 320/315 LOG 7:00 - Greenville SC - Comfort Inn - leave hotel 7:15 - Greer SC - Spinx - fuel 7:30 - GSP Airport - pick up car 7:30 - Greer SC - arrive at drop 9:00 - Greer SC - leave drop 11:00 - Shelby NC - Firehouse Subs 2:30 - Concord NC - rest area 4:30 - Durham NC - Comfort Inn 5:30 - Durham NC - Pomodoro Italian Kitchen 220308 NC 2 RV's heading to Greer SC (delivered) ... spending the night at Durham NC I am sick ))) no not really ((( But it doesn't feel good to still be sitting here knowing all our profit from our first trip is disappearing and the 2nd leg trips that do show up are very close to break even trips. By tomorrow, we would have been money head to have headed home when we dropped the RV's. Breakfast - Either biscuits or a muffin with turkey sausage, cheese and egg white, diet style. We went with the muffin and then only ate half the 'bun.' OJ was mostly water so I just had apple juice, I let the help know but didn't want to wait for them to change it. We needed to return the rental car by 8:30 so we left the hotel to do that, it was just a couple of miles away. Then we came back and to the hotel. We just needed to change it from a one-way to another one-way. At this point we have no way of knowing where we are going so we just need to have somewhere to drop it. We have never had a problem returning a one way rental as a local, but sometimes you can not change a local to a one-way. Back at the hotel we watch the load board. We get a later check out We checkout at noon to go get food at Chic-fil-A. No line, no wait. We sit in the parking lot and eat our food. After an hour we drive to a WalMart between the hotel and the shipper to get water. I used to get my pants at WalMart but now the only style of that brand they carry are 'fat pants,' the stretchy ones that fall off if I put anything in my pockets. So I tried a different brand, a brand that I did not used to like but maybe it is now the better brand. We sit in the WalMart parking lot for another hour. Finally we head down the freeway another couple of miles to find a park to walk at. The park was nice enough but it seemed like we went through five miles of trailer homes to get to it. We walked for a half an hour. Then we watched the load board again. Finally after 5 PM the local dispatcher finally puts out 1 pickup order from back in Shelby. There has been nothing new from where we are in two days. There have been a few other trucks added by other dispatcher but nothing great, nothing good. Most of the trips would end up costing us money if there are any hick-ups and break even if everything goes well. So instead we decide to stay and burn more money on another nights hotel. We try calling to order food but it goes directly to a full mailbox. So we stop and order direct. The place is across the street from the hotel but we are already in the car so we drive. El Corral, a Mexican place. We order and have our food within five minutes. It takes longer than that to drive back across the street because we can't take a left turn into the parking lot. Back at the same Comfort Inn we were at this AM. Different room, different floor. While we were waiting for our food, our local/home dispatcher called to see if we could leave tomorrow for TX. Sorry, we have been stuck here waiting for work. (no making either of us any money) El Corral was good, we each ate about half of our food. We changed our car reservation online this time so we don't need to leave the hotel to do it. But we will need to leave town by tomorrow noon if we are going to delivery and be back home by the weekend. Not sure yet what our back up plan is. I got a strange email this afternoon. I childhood friend of one of my parents that I haven't talked to in years emailed and said they needed a favor ... Not sure I will email them back, my guess is they have been hacked. Load board US - 551 IA - 327/322 220309 NC 2 RV's heading to Greer SC (delivered) ... spending the night at Richmond IN We have given up, we are deadheading home. But this AM ... We finished our leftovers from last night, even split in two it was still too much food. Nothing was showing up on the load board so at 9 AM I finally call the local dispatcher here. The shippers are working this week, just nothing so far. But we need to get moving to make it back by Friday night so I call on the non-CDL truck going to WI. I do not get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the dispatcher. Then when I ask about it they say it is at someone's house and I would have to call to set up a time to pick it up. Nope. I passed on it right there. Nothing else works so we are heading home ... and we will likely net about -0- for this weeks work. But we did eat and sleep indoors :) BB is able to make all the needed changes to the rental car online so we are good to go. Down side is that we had rented the car at 8 AM and now it is closer to 11 AM before we are leaving town. Three hours gone on the rental car and now we need to make about 600-700 miles a day to get it returned in two days. We wouldn't worry about it if we had made some money, but ... 1st stop is at a WalMart in King. Time for a restroom break and the gas station at the last exit was too far off the freeway and the rest area is still 20 miles ahead. The trees here are turning red from the little buds that are pushing out. A few trees are in full bloom as are some flowers. 2nd stop is at a Pilot for the Arbey's in Wytheville. A bus was just getting ready to leave and the manager inside was on the phone with someone about people walking off with food that was not theirs. People - I had pulled out to pass and then back in when they sped up. Then I pulled out again when they slowed down. There was one car a ways behind me but they were not gaining fast ... at the time. Then next thing I know they are right on my bumper. I can not see any headlights, as soon as they can get between us they did ... and drove beside me with their window rolled down. I never look over until they pass and that is when I seen their window going up. At the rate of speed they were following me, and then left me ... I MAY have slowed them down for 15 seconds. But that was enough to get them annoyed. I did see that at one of the truck stops in NE we have stopped at that two truck drivers that had been yelling at each other on the CB stopped and fired shots before being arrested. Lots of loose cannons out here. Not sure what I was, or wasn't thinking. We had our I-Pass up but I didn't get in the correct lane at the toll booths so I had to wait in line. Then next two I did correctly. 3rd stop was at the Loves in Rio Grande for fuel at the Loves. BB had miss guessed how far it was and now it was almost an emergency stop. The new road, US-35, does not have anything along it yet. Not even any brush to run out into. Somewhere along here BB says 'you do not want to hear this ...' and didn't tell me then. Some hours later she did tell me. Six hours after we left the hotel, there were three pickups from near our drop that would go right past our house and drop 30 miles away from it. $$$ flush ... but by then it was too late to go back, pick them up and still make Friday delivery. 4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Richmond. It is after dark. We still have 800 miles to go to get home tomorrow. It may not happen. Before we go to the hotel we stop at Wendy's first. We both get chili, I also get a small chicken sandwich. This last trip I started a new FaceBook group. At first only 2 people joined. Then since last night it has jumped to 78 members. I wasn't looking forward to being a moderator again but now I am. And in an un-related turn of events, after being very active in our company FaceBook group, I deleted myself tonight. Load board US - 556 WI - 341/334 We have talked a lot about different trips that we could take leaving Friday. Between rental cars and weather nothing looks good. A trip that showed up when we were sitting waiting for these RV's last week ... they were going to SC. Rental cars out of that town today are $1,454 a DAY. The oldest trips on the load board are going to Kalispell MT, rental cars out of there are $300 a day PLUS $.25 a mile ... so over $250 on top of the $900 for a three day rental. We need to get cars for about $100 a day to make money. |
