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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220319 MN-WI 1 trash truck heading to Heartland WI (Sunday) 1 trash truck heading to Carol Stream IL (Monday-maybe) ... spending the night at home Actually those two trips were set up yesterday, I just did not list them in my header. 2 AM - WIDE AWAKE (I woke up because of 'old people's issues, but) once I was awake I was wide awake because of the reason I am doing this job. 20 years ago this morning at about 2 AM I got the phone call call ... "there has been an accident ..." It was my 19 year old son, he died on the scene in that accident. Six months later I walked away from a business I had started seven years before. Another six months later I switched temp jobs to this driving job. It was meant to be a temp job until I found a real one. At some point I quit looking for that real one. I also have a grand-baby at a major hospital trying to find out what is wrong (we know now, but we didn't last night. She will be OK) Today was a full off day. The only thing we did was go and pick up our rental car that we will use to 'chase' me for the week. Usually we just use our personal car but cars were cheap enough that we will try it for this week. Load board US - 610 IA - 377/374 374 would be the new high for the load board, in the five years I have been keeping track. The St Cloud trip is gone. And the 45 mile trip that we were going to match up with our bus (?) trip is also gone. ... 380 ... sometime late in the evening on a Saturday night IA dispatch added another six. Tomorrow we have about 350 miles to go to the hotel, then another 25 Monday morning. 220320 MN-WI 1 trash truck heading to Heartland WI 1 trash truck heading to Carol Stream IL (Monday-maybe) ... spending the night at Johnson Creek WI No alarm but up at the usual time. We pull out at 8:30. No stops before we get to the shipper this AM, it is a quiet Sunday morning drive. 1st stop is the shipper. Where the transporters usually park that leave their cars here, that area only has one car today, instead of dozens. No one else around so BB drives the car into the storage area and we look for my truck. Easy pickings today. We know the color, we know that it is CNG. We can see from the end of the row that there are only two. I pick the wrong one first. :) No issues with inspection. The ground looks/feels like it was really muddy real recently but today it is fine. When I turn my paperwork in, I look at the other paperwork. It looks like about a dozen trucks have been pulled out since Friday PM. At least one for the company I am driving for today. Four other sets of keys in our lock box. And I did notice that the truck next to mine in line is going to Carol Stream. Not sure if it was my second one or not. My instructions say that I am supposed to fuel before I scale the truck. But the place I am supposed to scale the truck is 30 miles before the first CNG fuel. And these are not canned instructions. Both the CNG info and the scale info are highlighted in yellow. 2nd - Kwik Trip for the scale. I am 4,000# underweight so I am good. And my fuel is on the very rear so a full tank of fuel on this truck will make the weight on the front tires less, not more. (I think) Just down the street from the Kwik Trip is a Baymont Hotel. There is one trash truck parked nose to the building right next to the front door. Back end was sticking way into the parking lot, no way anyone could have parked across the lot and anyone get between them. 3rd stop is another 30 miles down the road at another Kwik Trip for fuel. We also eat here. Shelf food. Rib sandwich. 250 miles in this thing is far enough. Most of the time it is an OK ride, it is just when we hit a bridge joint or rough road that it is an issue. Did not hit my head on the ceiling today so that is good. This truck is built different than most. It is a dual drive for no reason that I know of. And to open the right side door you need to first move the mirrors out of the way ... and then re-adjust them when you close the door, they do not 'snap' back into place. I decided not to carry anything I did not need today and I climbed over the center console in the cab so I did not have to open the door and adjust my mirrors. Not fun but it worked. 4th shop - Kwik Trip for fuel in Windsor just west of Madison. Not sure why the have the fuel stops so close together for us. We could have gotten all the way on the fuel that was in the truck and just stopped once. At the final one. We have to deliver all CNG trucks full of fuel. 5th stop - Kwik Trip in Lake Mills. Six gallons. BB does not stop here, she has headed straight to the hotel. She is at the hotel before I leave this fuel stop. She tells me not to go the way we talked about. There are 'no truck' signs. So I look at the street names and take the other route. As I am parking I notice that I am leaving huge black tire tracks in the parking lot. There is enough weight on this empty truck that it is leaving skid marks when I do a short turn. 6th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Johnson Creek, just 10 miles from the prior fuel stop. We look online at the Pine Cone Restaurant and then I call. 10 minutes it will be ready. As we are waiting in line the line is next to the bakery display. We end up with a lemon bar and a cookie. Both are bigger around than I can reach by touching my thumbs and longest fingers. (not complaining) Food was good. I got a chicken salad on white bread and BB had a tuna sandwich. And we each got coleslaw. It was the size of a cup of soup. We could have, should have split one. I did finish mine, BB did not. It is Sunday so no load board info. (actually they did at more) IA - 380/377 LOG 8:30 - Leave home 10:00 - Dodge Center MN - shipper 11:00 - Kasson MN - Kwik Trip - Scale 11:30 - Rochester MN - Kwik Trip - fuel/food 1:30 - West Salem WI - Kwik Trip - fuel 3:15 - Windsor WI - Kwik Trip - fuel 4:30 - Lake Mills WI - Kwik Trip - fuel 5:00 - Johnson Creek WI - Comfort Inn 5:30 - Johnson Creek WI - Pine Cone Restaurant Plan for tomorrow is drop by 9 AM and head back. By noon we will have to have an answer from dispatch about heading back to St Paul or heading back to Dodge Center.
220321 MN-IL 1 trash truck heading to Carol Stream IL ... spending the night at De Forest WI After I delivered, I called in for my next trip. I got the Carol Stream, plus there is one in a shop less than an hour from the drop also going to the drop. Tonight we had ordered online for food but they hadn't started on the order when I got there. It was close to 8 PM when we ate tonight Forgot to grab my fuel receipt off the pump after it printed today for truck fuel, now I need to come up with one before I will get paid for the fuel with this company. Load board US - 615 IA - 390/389 We hope to deliver the 1st one by noon tomorrow, and the 2nd one by 3 PM. Then from there it is 5-1/2 hours home, so hopefully deliver before 3 PM and we might make it home. I will try to get something other than a trash truck for my next trip. (the below is written five days later) We pull out of our hotel at the usual 7:30. It is about 30 minutes to the drop with four turns so easy to remember. 1st stop is the drop in Hartland - After talking to a couple of different people I get the correct person. He has only been with the company a couple of months and this may be his first inspection. I ask him a few questions but he isn't able to answer most of them. I do ask him about the dual drive, he has no idea but asks a shop guy who also has no idea. But the shop guy does get in and run the controls. The guy does this from the right side, which means he does have to move the right mirrors to get into the truck. He also lifts the tail gate to make sure there is not anything in the truck. (1st time for that on a garbage truck) On this one the ram is all the way forward and the truck was still 4,000# under legal weight so I am not sure why we are weighing all trucks and not just those with issues. As soon as we are signed off we drive a mile to a still closed Culvers to do our paperwork and make a phone call. What ever other options dispatch was looking at fell through so I am going back to Carol Stream. Back as in I was just down this same road I will be taking. 2nd stop is at a rest area near Lyndon Station. 3rd stop is for fuel and food at a Loves in St Charles MN. We are in a rush so shelf food it is. I get a roller chicken stick and BB gets a salad. 4th stop is back at Dodge Center to pick up my next truck. No issues again today. 5th stop is the Kwik Trip in Kasson for fuel and scale. This truck is a diesel so I do top it off before scaling. By the time I am done fueling BB is at the pump talking to me. I remember to hang up the pump hose and request a receipt. It will be hours later that I remember that I forgot to grab that receipt. Then I scale the truck. This one is much closer to being overweight but I am legal. This one does not have cruise, but it is governed at 65 mph so I can just stand on it all the time. Today is a Mack cabover, it is a much better ride than this mornings truck. 5th stop is at the Mauston Kwik Trip for a rest break. Plan was to fuel here at the Pilot but I do not need fuel yet and may not. It is now after 5 PM and the truck has a check engine light on. So I call dispatch to get cleared to keep driving. With this truck it has not been an issue in the past. 6th stop is the Comfort Inn in DeForest. There is still daylight but it has been 11 hours since we left the hotel this AM. I call the DeForest Family Restaurant to see what their soup of the day is, nothing I am interested in and the person who answered the phone does not stay on the line. Then we order on-line. When I go to pick up the order they check on it, it has 'just come in,' so I will need to wait. There is only one waitress so things are moving a little slow, three cooks and one waitress. A few minutes later the waitress brings up my salad. I had already told her once that we had not ordered a salad. So she sets it aside until the correct person walks in. Then she comes up to me and asks me about my soup, I have not ordered a side. No, I do not want a side (but did she recognize my voice from the phone earlier?) The food is fresh. That is what I did ... as we were walking out of the hotel room to get food, the door would not lock/latch behind us. So BB stayed in the room and I gave the room key to the front desk clerk. The desk clerk went up to look at the door lock and gave us a new room, BB was almost done moving stuff when I got back to the hotel. Another late night eating. LOG 7:30 - Johnson Creek WI - Comfort Inn - leave hotel 8:30 - Hartland WI - customer/drop truck 10:30 - Lyndon Station WI - rest area 12:30 - St Charles MN - Loves - food and fuel 1:30 - Dodge Center MN - shipper 2:30 - Kasson MN - Kwik Trip - fuel/scale 5:15 - Mauston WI - Kwik Trip - rest stop 6:15 - DeForest WI - Comfort Inn 7:00 - DeForest WI - DeForest Family Restaurant 220322 MN-IL 1 trash truck heading to Carol Stream IL (breakdown) 1 trash truck heading to Carol Stream IL (delivered) 1 tanker heading to Bridgeton MO (Wednesday) ... spending the night at Black River Falls WI Breakfast - Very vocal man was in charge of the breakfast area, diligent in cleaning every table after each use. I had a small sausage, some eggs, yogurt and juice ... and the guy asked us if that was all we were going to eat today. Before heading out, I called the Kwik Trip to see if they could send me a copy of my missing receipt. They could, and did, within a few questions. But they could only fax or snail mail it. I had it faxed to the office. Plan was for me to stop for fuel in Janesville. But I did not see any 'services ahead' signs and don't know the highway numbers so I missed the exit. This area has a mile plus long entrance / exit lane that runs parallel to the freeway and I missed it. Before we get to Beloit one lane is closed. There had been a fire, they are now cleaning up the trailer with a boom and a skid loader. Four fire trucks are still on the scene as are dozens of other vehicles. 1st stop is the Flying J in South Beloit. It looks packed, for a second I thought that I would be waiting in line on the street not able to get in. Then I realized that trucks had been parked everywhere overnight and there were only 1-2 trucks in each line for fuel. From here I called dispatch back about the check engine light that was on on this truck. I am to take this truck to the same shop as truck #2 is at and leave it. Change of plans. That means I need to take back roads from here to the drop. I write down the main roads and other details. ... weight limits ... low bridges ... 'no trucks' I ended up taking a greatly different route than I set out to take. I also got cross a scale along a country road. I stopped a few times to 're-route' my trip. But eventually I found road names I had written down and found the drop. BB was there ahead of me, she had not been at the Flying J and had taken a different route and didn't have to worry about restrictions. 2nd stop was the dealer in Grayslake. I pulled out my 2nd truck so I had a place to park my 1st truck. I had BB look at my 2nd truck and take pictures because it looked to me to be really scratched up. BB thought so to ... at first. Then she wiped off the scratches, it was just streaks of mud. I knew I would be traveling the road from here but the plan was to be doing it in a car after we dropped my first truck. So I had not looked at the directions. Again I wrote down the main roads. But I didn't get them in the correct order (?) and had one 'right' that should have been a 'left.' I did a couple of u-turns and then I had written down 'exit 28' off of I-290. But the exits started at one and I knew I only had four more miles to go. As I-355 splits off of I-290 I see where exit 28 will be. But it was too late to adjust and I-355 is a toll road and my route said no tolls. It is a long way on I-290 before the first exit. I get off at the first exit and pull off at the first place I can. I am in luck. I am at the intersection of a road that goes a few blocks south of my drop instead of coming in a few blocks from the north. But now I have burnt off extra fuel so I stop at a place with truck islands in the city. Those are hard to find. BB texts and asks where I am ... I don't really know. 3rd stop is Thorton's for fuel 4th stop is the drop. BB had gotten here before me and was facing the street so she could see me. She had looked down and then saw 'me' coming in ... or so she thought. So she waved a big wave, and the guy waved back, with a confused look on his face :) I was there a couple of trucks later. Another clean inspection. It is now after 1 PM, we head for food. 5th stop is Jimmy Johns in Roselle about 10 minutes from the drop. From here we do my paperwork and I call dispatch. I call the bus dispatcher. The bus I tried to pick up is still not ready, so she puts me through to the person who is doing the IN trips. But he has one for MO instead. We decide to take it. He starts asking questions and I soon tell him ... 'talk to the other dispatchers on how <> you deal with me.' (I do my own travel, I don't think any other driver does anymore) 6th stop was the welcome center in WI near Beloit 7th stop was the Fleet Farm in Windsor for fuel. BB had stopped here this AM also, cheapest fuel we have found. Mileage is less today but still good. We are almost saving the price of the rental because of the mileage of this car over our personal car. 8th stop is Culvers in Tomah because BB wanted their flavor of the day. 9th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Black River Falls. If we wanted to be cheap would could have made it home. But it has been an 11 hour day already and we are working again tomorrow. When we get in the hotel is when we realize that our food order was wrong. We never looked. BB had ordered soup and I had ordered chili. There was on chili. So I drove across the freeway and got my chili from the Culver's here. Right next to the Culvers is a Burger King. Lot was empty so I drove up to the door. 'New hours - 11 AM - 7 PM' It was six and it was all locked up. Load board US - 584 IA - 361/359 Tomorrow we plan on getting most of the way to St Louis with a tanker. We will deliver Thursday AM. But that will get us back too late to deliver anything else for this company this week so we MAY switch to the other company if they have work. Then leave out again with the local company over the weekend for one more trip before heading out on a long trip again. LOG 7:30 - DeForest WI - Comfort Inn - leave hotel 9:00 - South Beloit IL - Flying J - fuel 11:00 - Grayslake IL - CIT Mack - drop/pickup trucks 12:45 - Lombard IL - Quik Trip - fuel 1:00 - Carol Stream IL - drop 1:30 - Roselle IL - Jimmy John's - eat 3:00 - Beloit WI - rest area 5:00 - Tomah WI - Culvers - food 5:30 - Black River Falls - Comfort Inn 5:45 - Black River Falls - Culvers - food
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