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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220402 IA-NC 2 RV's heading to North Carolina (Sunday) ... spending the night at home We talked last night, we talked this AM. The weather is to 'iffy' to head to CA. No cars out of MT. Less work in the northeast and if I call that dispatcher they will want me to wait for a bus and we want to keep moving. Also another driver contacted me this AM, the company is finally going to try to have drivers bring RV's to the border and someone else will take them across. But I'm not sure how long before we have to make a commitment. The problem I have with committing to doing a trip some time in the future is then we are limiting ourselves on what we can take between now and then. My local company has been doing that forever. Drivers that can't cross the border stage the trucks at an oversized lot, usually at an airport, then another driver just keeps moving those trucks until they run out of work. We call at 8 AM and get right in but I can hear the phone ringing in the background. They also tell me about the Canadian runs, right now there is a group of 17 that are going to be run that way. They do not all need to be run that way but enough need to be to make it worth the person on the other ends time. We are going to NC. Two different locations because that is what there was, where there was a car. By the end of the day there were two going to the same place but we had already committed. We could have left today but I spent most of the day getting my paperwork in order so I can get paid for the last two weeks. The 2nd week paid much better than the first, twice our daily goal instead of half our daily goal. Plan is to leave Sunday AM, drop BB's RV in Selma on Tuesday and pick up a rental car and drop my RV in Wilmington NC on Wednesday. If there is not anything coming back from NC we are heading home. We have the car reserved. It was about 3 this afternoon when I finally got my paperwork done. We did get our rental car back before it was due. Load board US - 610 IA - 347/339 .220403 IA-NC 2 RV's heading to North Carolina ... spending the night at Morton IL No breakfast at this place today :) We pull out close to 7:30. We could have left yesterday but I didn't set any records getting my paperwork done so we just decided to wait. 1st stop is in Owattona for fuel at Fleet Farm, still the cheapest but not as big of spread today. WOW. We have not been here for a couple of weeks. The 'overflow' lot is still as full as it has ever been. Likely another 200 RV's besides the 350 that are on the loadboard. All waiting for drivers. 2nd stop is the lot in Forest City. No one else is getting ready to pull out and we are there for 45 minutes. Where drivers, like us, park their cars is also about as empty as we have seen it except for over a holiday. We both get red RV's. No issues to deal with, no cold to deal with. The RV part has not changed on these but it is a new style of RAM chassis. There are the first ones we have seen that are keyless. They also are the first with active SiriusXM. And a new digital readout on the dash ... that defaults to metric every time you switch screens. 3rd stop is the Loves in Floyd. We each got a half a tank of fuel that the shipper no longer (?) bills us for. While we are there we have Subway. Total stop is a half hour. It is nice not to have any wind or weather to worry about. This evening BB is looking at the weather for WY and they are expected to have winds up to 85 mph this week ... and if we would have gone that way we would have to sit and wait it out. 4th stop was Casey's in Center Point for a break. 5th stop is the Loves in Davenport for fuel. Earlier today Flying J had been cheapest online but Loves is cheaper now. And the place is packed. I finally get to a pump that is premium only :( so I have to get back in line somewhere else. And because I did not notice it until after I swiped my card, my card is declined the second time. Then when I am done fueling I am waiting for my receipt, and waiting, and waiting. Finally I get my receipt and error codes on the screen. But I am done, now it is someone else's problem. 6th and final stop is the 'new' Comfort Inn in Morton. The building has been here a long time but it has just become a Comfort Inn. And a plus for us was there was an attached restaurant ... which we find out is closed on Sundays. The building is still nice, looks to have been a first class place. But the parking lot is really falling apart. No issues with the room, we also have a 2nd door to the outside. It has been a while since we have had one of those. Once in, BB orders online from Cracker Barrell across the street. In a few minutes we walk over to get our food. Tomorrow - we have our stops planned. We plan to get at least to Cross Lanes, which will be 500 miles. Hopefully we can get to Beckley which is another hour past Cross Lanes. There is only three major towns in WV on this freeway that have hotels so we can not be picky. That will leave us about six hours to get to BB's drop on Tuesday. We do not have to deliver until Wednesday but they accept RV's later than most and it looks like we will have the time. LOG 7:45 - Leave home 9:15 - Owattona MN Fleet Farm - fuel 10:15 - Forest City IA - pick up 12:00 - Floyd IA - Loves fuel 12:15 - Floyd IA - Loves / Subway 2:15 - Center Point IA - rest break 4:00 - Davenport IA - Loves - fuel 6:00 - Morton IL - Comfort Inn 6:45 - Morton IL - Cracker Barrell 220404 IA-NC 2 RV's heading to North Carolina (Selma and Wilmington) ... spending the night at Beckley WV We have breakfast and then head out at our usual time. I do ask the desk clerk what hotel this used to be ... Park Inn by Radisson. 1st stop is the rest area near Covington IN Roads are clear, weather is good so we take the two lane bypass to get north of Indy and come around that way. 2nd stop is in Greenfield, first for fuel at the Murphy/WalMart. Then we go next door to Panda but no-lobby service, drive thru only. So we leave our RV's there and walk to the Popeye's next door. 3rd stop is the Loves in Jeffersonville for a rest break 4th stop is the Loves in Rio Grande for fuel. At the first toll booth BB's I-Pass did not work. On that one we had gone through a 'manned' booth because the line was shorter. And when she took the I-Pass down to show the person, the gate opened ?? Really nothing major today. No fires or accidents, no bad drivers, now bad weather. Clear sailing. 5th and final stop is in Beckley at the Clarion. But first we stop at Wendy's for to go food. Long day, 11 hours, 550 miles. No heat in our first room tonight so we had to move. One more thing to cut into our already short day. Load board US - 618 IA - 327/319 NC - 38 NC has two trips heading to West Palm Beach :) But that is the wrong direction for staying on RV's. And cars would not be cheap during spring break. The most logical one would be to Fort Wayne IN and today (doubt it will stay) there is an RV in in coming back to Garfield MN. 300 miles to BB's drop. We should get that done tomorrow. My drop should be first thing on Wednesday, that is when we have the rental car for. 220406 VA-IL (Due to computer issues, this was not written up the day it happened. It was written up six weeks later, based on the stops that were logged) Breakfast ? - Unknown 1st stop was the airport where I dropped BB to pick up the rental car. I did wait at the parking lot until she texted that she had a car. 2nd stop was the gas station for final dealer fuel. It was easier to take a right out of the station on a side street so that is what I did and then worked my way back to the main street where I could take a right where it was less congested. 3rd stop was the drop. I know where it is but I missed it so I had to go through another businesses parking lot to get back to the drop. This place wanted to check the generator but we and he did not know where it was. Or if it was. But he found a sales person who knew where it was and now we know which pipe is the exhaust pipe for the generator. 4th stop was the rest area near Benson. Still no 'must have' work so we are still waiting. 5th stop was a Cook Out in Graham 6th stop was the rest area / welcome center in Lambsburg VA. It was likely from here that I called to get work. We were now past all of the other shippers and this trip was still on the load board. From there it is about 100 miles to the shipper. It's been a while since we have been to a new shipper, we have pretty much settled into the same shippers over and over again. 7th stop - Daleville. First stop was Sheetz for the restroom. Then the shipper. The address was close and then we followed someone into the lot. There are 100's of trucks in different lots and we are not sure if we are at the correct one. But the 1st truck in line is mine :) so that saved us a whole lot of time. The whole time we were there we could not see buildings from anywhere in the lot, not sure if there was a place to drop paperwork or not. There was not any place close to drop a rental car so we had decided to just keep the one car for the whole trip. It also may have been that we couldn't find a 2nd car in IL. That was the case last time. I think that time we had picked one up in OH? IN maybe, but before IL. Truck is close enough to being on fumes that we stop again at Sheetz, this time for fuel. Busy, as it is the end of the work day but the pump I needed opened up and I put in enough fuel to get to the next Loves. 8th stop is another hour down the road at the Loves in Max Meadows for fuel. From there it is less than 15 minutes to the hotel. 9th and final stop is at the Sleep Inn in Wythville. From there we would have driven a few blocks away and picked up food from the TA. The Sagebrush restaurant that used to share the parking lot with the Sleep Inn closed during Covid and never re-opened. The TA has Popeyes, Subway and a Taco Bell. My guess is we got food at the Taco Bell. Load board - anyone's guess 220407 VA-IL Computer issues yesterday 13 hour day today ... Deadheading back to MN Friday after our drop, no work lined up yet for the weekend. Load board US - 645 IA - 373/369 (Due to computer issues, this was not written up the day it happened. It was written up six weeks later, based on the stops that were logged) 1st stop for BB was the rest area / oasis at Morton WV 2nd stop would have been for Rio Grande at the Loves for fuel 3rd stop was for food and fuel at the Loves in Jeffersonville. 15 minutes to fuel and 15 minutes for Hardees makes for my half hour break. 4th stop is a second BB only stop at the rest area in Greenville IN 5th stop is at Pilot in Crawfordsville for fuel and to decide if we were going to drop tonight. From there I call the drop and they give me the how to to get past the gate and where to park the truck. 6th stop is a me only stop for fuel at the Pilot in Decatur. I had miss guessed on how much I would need. 7th stop is the drop in Riverton. The obvious way to get in doesn't work. After I re-watched his video I realized I was at the wrong area of the entry. 8th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Lincoln. It was a few miles further than Springfield but Springfield would have been miles the wrong direction. Either BB wasn't hungry or she had stopped somewhere else. By now it was raining and I drove to Wendy's for food. The first place I stopped had been closed and to get out of Wendy's was a challenge because of the road work and one way streets. I ended up going through a few parking lots, it was fun in the rain.
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