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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220408 IA-MT 2 RV's heading to Bozeman MT (Saturday) ... spending the night at Albert Lea MN Delivered last night so today is an 'all car' travel day. We looked at lots of trips from lots of ways. There were some trips going to Canada that we would meet someone near the border on that would pay really good. But we had to meet up at noon on Monday, we could have done it if we had not taken the 2nd leg on this trip but we heard about the trip from two people with different stories. Today I called the terminal manager. Must be noon Monday, there will be no other trips like this. We had been told this would be an on going thing. Things change. We had also looked at Latham NY and Kalispell MT. Then at the last minute we switched to Bozeman MT. There is another storm coming in and we should be able to beat the storm and do a 2nd trip if we do the Bozeman. With Latham there would have been no 2nd leg and with Kalispell we would have made deliver and then had to follow the storm home ... and no 2nd leg. Load board US - 547 IA - 332/331 The plan is to deliver on Monday, be back in IA on Wednesday and do a 2nd, shorter trip before Easter. Then we will be off Easter, Tax Day and dentist day. Edwards IL Shell - called for work Davenport - fuel Waterloo Arbys Floyd BP Forest City - car and permits MSP Burnsville honey baked Albert lea Comfort Inn 220409 IA-MT 2 RV's heading to Bozeman MT ... spending the night at Rapid City SC Plan was to get going earlier so the alarm was set at 5:45 (I would have just skipped breakfast) So we were able to get out of the room at 7:15 but then there was frost on the car ... so we still ended up leaving at 7:30, our usual time. 1st stop is at the shipper - lots of drivers heading out today, I talked to a couple of them. One had one of the Salt Lake City ones, not sure it was the same one we were offered yesterday ... but it had no heat and no lights so the driver was getting switched to a different RV. The other driver was heading to CO will a rental RV, today we saw two new brands of rental RV's in the lot. No issues for us, small units so we are inspected and ready to go in under an hour. My range says I have enough fuel and BB thinks she will gain enough range to make it the 1st two hours before fueling. :) I have Sirius XM. I shut it off because I prefer the quite in the AM. Like most days, by about 10 AM I am awake enough to turn the radio on ... then at 10:15 the radio goes dead and a message appears 'You are on an unsubscribed channel.' If I had known that I would have listened as soon as I got in the RV. 2nd stop is for food and fuel in Worthington. Casey's was cheapest on fuel and so that we didn't have to drive to find food, we ate shelf food from Casey's. I had pizza and BB had a pre-made wrap. It was food. It was warm enough that we ate outside, sun was nice but where it was sunny it was windy. SD scale is closed today so good thing we got our permits yesterday, otherwise we would be making calls today to find out what to do. 3rd stop is in Mitchell for a rest break at the I-90 Travel Plaza, currently a Holiday station. At the first rest area past Mitchell, I see another RV heading our direction. And before we get to our next stop I see a city bus in transit. I did not see any markings. It was white with yellow above the windows. Not really a good reason to be on this stretch of road. If heading to MN it is a few miles closer to take the back roads from WY up to Rapid City but it doesn't save much on time. 4th stop is for fuel at the 'Coffee Cup' in Vivian for fuel. We pull in right behind a bus but by the time we were done fueling we did not see any extra people in the store. The bus had parked on the other side of the building so we didn't see them after we pulled to the pumps. Nice clean place, we have stopped at a couple of them. 5th stop is the DQ in Wall. Subway is the other choice. Wall Drug has food but they closed an hour before we got to town. BB had slowed down before we got to Wall because here 'winter wrap' is coming off. It is past rock chip season so we tore the rest of it off before we left. Mine didn't have any wrap on it ... maybe it was built last fall before they started putting on 'winter wrap?' 6th and final stop is the Sleep in in Rapid City. Almost another 12 hour day. They are starting to be the norm. We are hitting enough of a headwind that our mileage is going back down. BB has been shutting off her cruise at times because of the wind. This morning the forecast for wind by Vivian was going to be too high to drive, until an hour before we were to get there so we are watching the wind forecast at every stop. Load board US - 537 IA - 318/317 We did 523 miles today so we have just under 500 miles tomorrow. Tomorrow we will not have 45 minutes travel to get to our RV's or a 45 minute inspection but we will have to Port of Entry stops to add to our day. We hope to be in Bozeman tomorrow night so we can leave one RV at the hotel Monday AM while we pick up our rental car. 220410 IA-MT 2 RV's heading to Bozeman MT ... spending the night at Bozeman MT Breakfast? Hot food was biscuits and gravy so we settle for yogurt. Pulled out at 7:30 local. 1st stop was across the freeway at the Flying J for fuel. Cheaper here than any place beyond here. While we were there another RV pulled in, likely the one we had seen yesterday. It is not from the 'our company' but is built on the same chassis. My fuel pump wouldn't work so I had to move which took time. So I didn't waste anymore time talking to anyone ... today. 2nd stop was the Port of Entry in Sundance. I get a park arrow and BB follows me even tho they had changed her arrow. (Kind of like following someone through a signal light ... just because it was green for the person ahead of you ??) 3rd stop was the Maverik in Gillette for fuel, we have been stopping another block down but there we have to use out-houses so today indoor plumbing wins. First pump I stop at the chip reader is out of order so we have to 'tap.' That doesn't work either so I have to move to another pump. The second will take my credit card but not my rewards card, lost out on $.24. BB is done and ready to roll by the time I am done fueling. SNOW - And this is not the incoming storm. The temps stay between 28 and 32 the next two hours. Some places the road is covered with slush but mostly just wet. One short stretch of snow covered. The variable speed limit were showing 55 mph instead of 80 mph so I am guessing things had been worse. 4th stop is the Arby's in Sheridan for food. 5th stop is in Sheridan for the Port of Entry. 6th stop is the Loves in Hardin for fuel. Again, cheaper than anywhere beyond. We guess as to how much we will need now that we are 100 <> miles from our drop. 7th stop is at the Town Pump/Pilot for more fuel. We guessed wrong. BB had thought she had put in way too much fuel at Hardin, now she is adding more. Before we are half way to Belgrade I loose her. I finally pull off at an exit when I have slowed and she does not catch up. She does catch up and she has slowed because she thinks she may not make it at 65 mph. Her RV is spending a lot of time tac'ing out at 4,000 RPMs, I don't know if I have hit 3,000 this whole trip. 8th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Belgrade. Food is the Mexican place next door. Since we were here last, there is now a Wendy's on the other side of the hotel. Too much food, hope I can sleep. Here we are 3 miles from the airport and that makes it 12 miles to the drop. I have a range of 31 miles. Not sure if I will add a few more ounces of fuel or not. Tomorrow we will head out at 10 AM heading home after our drop. It sounds like the storm will be right behind us so we will get as far as we can stay awake tomorrow. 220411 IA-MT 2 RV's heading to Bozeman MT (delivered) ... spending the night at Murdo SD After we went down for breakfast, I called the RV dispatch when they opened to see if we could request trips for Wednesday yet (usually it is 24 hours, this is 48 hrs) We could because it was an older trip. So we are taking two to AR, we had wanted two going to the same location but one of those was taken either late Saturday or sometime on Sunday. Do that broke a couple of our rules, one is do not commit to a trip more than six hours before we are going to leave ... and the other, starting recently, is reserve a car before we commit to a trip. We looked many times but had not reserved one. There are none, and the closer ones are $200-300 a day. After both of us working on it for a while we found that we could get a rental car to Memphis and then switch to a different brand from Memphis to home. Doing that will cost us a couple of hours and save us hundreds of dollars. Breakfast - It was a small area and was packed with workers. They were out of yogurt so I had to go find someone, they were out of juice according to someone else. And the person in charge was running as fast as they could to keep up. They had two trays of hot food, eggs, potato tots and bacon in one. Three more kinds of meat in the other. Bacon was good, just the right amount of crisp. When I checked out I saw the person taking care of things and told them how good the bacon was ... just the way I like it. (and it was free) At 8:30 local, we both head out in my RV to the airport. Luckily we had left our trucks sitting far enough from the buildings that they were in the sun so we did not have to scrape the windshields. 16 degrees this AM. 1st stop is the Holiday gas station. One gallon. My range was showing 31 miles and I have 12 to go to get to the final fuel station. Problem is that a lot of these units will not adjust the range if you don't add enough fuel to get the low fuel light to shut off. But I know for sure that I now have enough to get to the station. 2nd stop was the airport to drop BB to get the rental car. This time I know where I am going. Last time I took a wrong turn and went through downtown Belgrade which took extra time. 3rd stop is for fuel at an Exxon. As I am ready to fuel I decide I should re-check my paperwork. Most of these small RV's get $20 of dealer fuel. This one gets $40, glad I looked. I did not look again this AM at my route, I rely on memory. Likely wouldn't have made much difference. The road I took by mistake was not here last time we were. I thought I could get to where I wanted to be by cutting through parking lots ... I ended up behind a strip mall that only had one lane and one entrance. I had to back out into the drive-thru for the local coffee shop ... as people are heading to work. 4th stop is parking my RV at a restaurant that will not open until this afternoon. Before I get my paperwork done, BB arrives. I hop in the rental and we head back to the hotel to pick up BB's RV. 5th stop is back at the hotel. 6th stop is back at the restaurant. 7th stop is two blocks away at the drop. I have been here before but forgot the routine. I wait in line at the wrong desk before being told where to go ... By that time BB is here. I followed a lot of travel trailers in but they all have MT plates on them. Turns out they are being moved from one dealer location to here so we are first in line. We do have to move once some of the travel trailers have moved. As soon as she is parked, BB walks the two blocks back to the car. At the dealer, they start checking BB's RV in first. We find out later it is because they had her paperwork ready and didn't have mine ready. But we are in and out in 45 minutes. We pull out about 4 minutes later than we had planned. It is sunny this AM but it still takes me a while to get used to 80 mph after driving the last two days at 65 mph or less. 8th stop is a rest area near Graycliff. We had planned on stopping in Billings ... 4B's maybe :) ... but the extra stop would cost time. And we will need to stop in Hardin for fuel as it is cheaper by quite a bit there. 9th stop is for food and fuel at the Loves in Hardin.BB ordered food from Hardies while I fueled. 10th stop is a rest area past Buffalo 11th stop is a Maverik in Rapid City for food and fuel. Fuel is cheap, I did not realize that Maverik had stations this far east. Food is usually good but their grill is already closed so it is shelf or roller food. I got a roller dog and BB got a shelf sandwich. It is food and it was fast. Also got a cookie. We have done a lot of talking about where to stay the night. We are wanting to push as far as we can. 12th stop is the Best Western in Murdo. It has been 12 hours and it will be dark shortly. Beyond here it was another hour before a name brand hotel. This is an old one story, park at the door hotel. We have stay here before, not sure how they maintain Best Western status but it is a nice place. Long day (after long day) Load board US - 527 IA - 331/329 8:30 - leave hotel 8:45 - fuel 9:00 - Airport 9:15 - Fuel 9:30 - break 10:15 - drop 12:30 - Graycliff RA 2:00 - Hardin Loves 4:00 - Buffalo 6:30 - RC 8:30 - Murdo 220412 IA-AR 2 RV's heading to AR (Wednesday) ... spending the night at Albert Lea MN We have been trying to stay ahead of the weather since we dropped yesterday. Actually we rushed this whole trip because we knew the snow was coming in behind us. That storm is dumping inches/feet of snow in MT, ND and northern MN. Because we were watching that storm today we also saw the storms growing in IA was we drove. When we got into Forest City it started to hail. I did a quick un-planned turn into Kwik Star/Trip to get under their canopy. We do not want hail damage on our rental car. While we were there we decided to fuel. Hail and rain were dumping down, even under the canopy because of the winds. I had to shield the receipt printer and the receipt still got wet and I got soaked. Only one other person came into the station while we were there. They parked under the canopy to remove one windshield wiper and leave the arm sticking in the air. As soon as the downpour past we headed to pick up our car. The rain had stopped so I went into the office to drop paperwork and talk to the manager about more pay. I had to wait in line and then he was NA. So we go and load our things from the rental into our car. By then the manger was out in the lot, so I waited for him again and this time did talk to him. That is all important because later we find out that we missed being where the semi's rolled over, roughly by the amount of extra unplanned time we spent in Forest City. Shortly after we get to the MN line we see a sign that says I-35 closed ahead. Later we see a 2nd sign giving the exit number it is closed at. BB stops and looks at her GPS and follows that route off the freeway. I do not stop and just follow my nose. I want to be off the freeway before everyone else gets off and I want to stay far enough away not to run into that traffic. I had mis-guessed where the crash was, I thought it was north of Faribault and it was actually south of Faribault. So when I got to a road that I knew went into Faribault, I kept off that road and went straight. First I see tin strewn across a field. Then I realize it must have just happened, as I have to drive across wires on the road. The tin was the roof of a shed, the owners are just out looking at it as I drive by. Then I see a truck in the road ahead and another pulling up. As I slow I realize they are parked so it will be hard to get around them ... then I see it ... there is a highline post lying across the road. I would either have to drive over the post or through the steep ditch. This is one of the cross country high voltage lines. And it was a corner post so the wires are lying on the ground with just one post gone. Before I get back to the freeway I see lots of downed trees, more downed wires across the road, etc. On the route BB took she noticed a power pole that was broke off at the base and wondered why it had not been fixed. Then she realized there was a whole row of broken posts and videoed some of it. We did not know right away that the crashes on I-35 were actually trucks blown over because of the high winds. Two hours later when we came through that area again the last truck was just being cleared. I had gotten way off route on the back roads. We should have been to the airport about 3:30. BB got there at 4:00 and I got there at 4:15 (not too bad for following my nose instead of a map) 7th stop - Burnsville Smash Burger. Honey Baked is closed for sandwiches because of Easter. We did drive past Honey Baked, because of habit, and there was no line. Smash Burger was good but not as drippy as usual. But they did know how to make what I wanted. It had been north bound I-35 that was closed because of eight rolled semi's. I-35 south bound and been limited to one lane because only one semi had rolled going that direction. So we knew there would be a back up. I decided to stay in the left lane for as long as I could until we got near the crash. Even had one trucker yelling out the window to me and the other drivers that were passing. As luck would have it, it looked like my merge would be in front of him. There were only about three cars between me and the highway truck that was blocking our lane ... And then people started moving from the right lane to our lane, the truck blocking the lane was gone. Both lanes started to move. We followed the rolled truck on the hook until they exited at the next exit. They had gotten the road cleared in a half hour less than estimated. 8th stop - Owatonna - Culvers - BB needed a treat. I was already stuffed but ordered anyways. I ordered a blueberry mixer and after I took a scoop I realized it was a raspberry. Oh well, we were already gone and I did not need two. 9th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Albert Lea. :) BB had made a reservation for here ... but for Friday night, not tonight. Opps. No issue, they are not full. As we sit in the hotel we are watching the Weather Channel as they are covering the tornado warnings for Mason City, Clear Lake, Garner and Forest City. (Right where we had hoped to be tonight, to get a jump on our trip tomorrow) Load board US - 557 IA - 317/316 (342 by 8 AM) Tomorrow we plan on getting to the lot about 8 AM when they open. We SHOULD be able to get close to BB's drop by tomorrow night. Her drop is 550 miles so because having to do our inspections we may not make it all the way. BB had thought she had found a different rental car for this trip earlier today, and then she realized it was the right city but wrong state ... BACK TO THIS AM Breakfast - we grabbed 'to go' food. I have an empty juice bottle so I grab juice from the hotel and transfer it before we start moving. We are checked out by 7 AM today trying to stay ahead of the weather. 1st stop is a Shell station for fuel in Mitchell. I had hoped for Worthington MN, then Sioux Falls but we are bucking a head wind today and our MPG is dropping fast. We have head winds going both ways this trip and it has not helped our mileage. Our pay statements come in the email. BB has been shorted so she needs to take care of it so she starts by emailing. It goes quickly and she has to email a couple of people but has it all taken care of within the hour. 2nd stop is at the Burger King in Worthington. We/BB had wanted Jimmy Johns but they would not open for another 15 minutes and we want to keep moving. Worthington has the last fast food of any choice before we get off the freeway. On some trips in the past we have come home from MT via ND. The storm we are trying to avoid is forecast to dump 12-24 inches of snow in Minot ... in the middle of April. Glad we are avoiding it. Most of the rest is covered above ... Lots of RV's pulling out today, but we want to get our rental car dropped so we do not talk to any of them.
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