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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 220524 CA-WI 2 RV's to Morgan Hill CA (delivered) 1 bus to Milwaukee WI ... spending the night at Rocklin CA Load board US - 482 IA - 245/238 (written two days later) Breakfast and then we were gone. We pull out at 8:15 thinking we had plenty of time. Very light traffic as we head out. We have decided to take I-5 even though it is 15 minutes further, we know that route. 1st stop is the Flying J in Lodi. It is our only planned stop. Even in this rural area there are homeless tents in the ditches next to the Flying J. The one person I see walking between tents looks like someone you'd see out shopping, not strung out on drugs or abandon. 2nd stop is a Chevron in Dublin. BB's mileage has been going up today, My RV started the day with an excess range of 90 miles this AM, by Lodi it was down to 50 miles, but Dublin it was down to 20 extra miles and we still have 50 miles to go and I was still loosing range. I put in 2-1/2 gallons expecting to get an increase in range of about 40 miles. I got an increase of 60. 3rd stop was in Morgan Hill to spot my RV in a parking lot. If I hadn't filled, I would have gotten here with 2 miles to spare ... or walked the last two miles. 4th stop is 10 miles down the road at the rental car place in Gilroy. Before we fuel, we drop the car in a no parking zone along the street near the drop. 5th stop is back at the gas station near where I staged my RV. 6th stop is at the drop, we get there with minutes to spare. I was expecting three people to come out and inspect. One person met us in the lot and did most of the inspection. A second person did join in the inspection later. These are small RV's and often take 15 minutes to inspect. Here it took an hour and 15 minutes to inspect. As soon as we are signed off, I call the bus dispatcher ... call back in 30 minutes. 7th stop was back next to the gas station at the In-n-Out. We eat inside and as soon as we are done we call the bus dispatch again. Milwaukee ... that from 'it doesn't look promising' a few days ago. The paperwork will be ready at 4 PM, we leave right away and get there at 4:30 and the paperwork is there. 8th stop is the shipper. We see one other driver in the bus next to us that is heading to Delaware but we do not talk to him. All checks out and we are off to drop off the rental car. This place is easier to pick BB up. I pull over in a bus stop and can see traffic for a mile behind me. Traffic is/isn't bad. It takes almost three hours to go 110 miles. When I shut the bus off an alarm goes off. I try various things and I don't find out why. We go back out later and try again, no solution. We will call tech support in the AM. There is one other transporter in the parking lot. Plus a few other large units. 8th stop is back at the Comfort in Rocklin. As I pull in, I hit the curb because the sun was in my eyes. I have hit this often before. More concerning is that when I was backing up into a parking spot, I looked at the branches for a few seconds and got within a few feet of a car. BB was back waving for me to stop, and I did, but for a second I had lost track of her and was watching the branch. No harm done, just a good shake. For food, we walk to the Taco Bell, lobby closed. We walk to Jack-in-the-Box, lobby closed. So back to Arby's, again. Someone else that had checked out the other two places follows us in. 220525 CA-WI 1 bus to Milwaukee WI ... spending the night at Elko NV Before we grab breakfast we take our first load of luggage down and start the bus, it still has an issue. Breakfast is an omelette and a link sausage. Apple juice is water and the OJ is sour. (I let the staff know) When we are back in our room I call the bus tech, I do it the way the paperwork says. Call this number ... who put me through to the guy I usually talk to anyway, but I get voicemail. I call back, the operator puts me through to someone else ... who puts me through to the guy I usually talk to anyway so I leave a message. It is just about a half hour later and the phone rings ... the bus dispatcher? But he's not calling about my bus, he has another bus that needs to be moved in route to my drop. But I tell him I am waiting on the shipper to call me back and I will call dispatch back when I hear. A few minutes later I do get a call from the tech. I am to run with it as is. It will be an annoyance but not a safety issue. We are free to go. I call for my permit now that I know we are not heading back to Livermore. When I call dispatch back he says he has the trip covered. Someone is sitting in that town right now. They will get it done today, I wouldn't get to it until Thursday or Friday. 1st stop is the rest area at Donners Pass. I have my permit before we get there and we are about 15 minutes later than the permit is for. Close enough. Inspection station at the CA-NV border is open, one truck being inspected and a whole lot of other officers more interested in something else. 2nd stop is the Pilot in Fernley for fuel and food. One pump opens as I am pulling in, but my card won't work. All other pumps are full so I need to get this one to work. I go inside and they say a new screen has been ordered (It would be nice if it said that on the pump) An RV has pulled in behind me and they wait until I am hanging up the fuel hose to move to a different pump (?) They do get pulled in before I can pull out. I thought I was going to park on the Wendy's end of the building but when I got there I found that all those parking spots were reserved. Lunch was a double stack ... and a Mango Pineapple smookie from DQ. But that was too much and I threw half of it away, not because it was bad but because it was too much to eat in a half hour. Too much brain freeze. 3rd stop was the Pilot near Winnemucca for a restroom break and a lemonade. When we were heading west a couple of days ago we saw that the road was red in one area and I had assumed that someone just lost part of their load. But today we saw the same thing in the opposite direction. When we saw once exit that was just covered with what ever the non-crushed stuff is. It looks like cranberries but is light enough that sometimes it moves when a truck passes. Then we came to a spot where, whatever it is, is covering the top of the cement barrier and they are also sticking to the sides of the barrier. Nothing listed on the internet. If there hadn't been so much traffic we might have stopped for a closer look. 4th and final stop was the Holiday Inn in Elko. We usually stay at the Comfort Inn but I'm not sure I can get around the tight curves and they do not like us taking up more than one spot but ... ... someone has parked in my spot at the Holiday Inn, the lot is mostly full. But there are five spots together and with BB's help I am trying to back in when someone walks over. I was expecting them to say I would need to park on the street but instead they offered to ahve the car moved. It is one of the employee's. And when the employee came out the said 'thank you,' it gave them an excuse to leave work .. :) Not what I was expecting. And we were expecting to walk down the street to Wingers for food. but the hotel had soup and salad. Then another but, after we dropped our luggage in our room and went back down ... someone was taking the last half a bowl of soup. But I wanted some so we tipped the container and got another half bowl for BB and I to split. When we checked in we were told '... until it is gone.' But for some reason we stayed in the area instead of going back to our room (like the person behind us who got -0- soup) When we were done with our soup and salad they brought out more. So we had more soup and another two couples had soup and salad because there was more of both. This did help off set the tonight's hotel. It is over double what our room would have been if we had ran two more hours and made it to Wendover. But that would have been three nights in a row of almost midnight central time. Load board US - 527 IA - 271/264 400 miles to day and tomorrow instead of 500. And I am not in a rush so where traffic is light I am running at 55-60 instead of 65 mph. It should save a little bit of fuel. 220526 CA-WI 1 bus to Milwaukee WI ... spending the night at Rock Springs WY Little opps this AM. Wished BB 'Happy anniversary.' Only to find out it isn't, I'm off by a month and a couple of days. Breakfast was <> the usual, but the juice actually tasted like juice. Same person checked us out as checked us in. We do see that once in a while. No alarms on the bus this AM, not sure what got reset. Not too many miles down the road in the AM, I see puffs of smoke coming out from behind my left tire. I keep watching but that was all. Much later when I am doing my walk around the bus, I see there is an exhaust/vent pipe there. So whatever it was, was coming from something that was built for it. 1st stop is in West Wendover for DEF and a break. As we were coming into town we had to go around the truck that was cleaning the welcome statues arm pits. The Pilot was busy enough that I backed in to get my DEF. Somewhere we see a rolled car in the median, or maybe that was yesterday. 2nd stop was the TA in Tooele for food and their Taco Bell for food. I am not filling each stop as fuel will get cheaper each time we stop. I am not doing the math yet. 3rd stop is the Port of Entry in WY. I scale and then go inside to get my permit. They send me to the 'new guy' so he knows how to do it. Nothing painful, just took a little longer. Still running 55-60 mph except on the down hill. 4th and final stop was the Clarion in Rock Springs and food was from the in-house restaurant. I've been counting transporters 1 - trash truck - Tuesday 1 - delivery van - Weds 5 - RV's - Thurs AM 1 - RV - Thurs PM 2 - short buses 3 - cement trucks 3 - tractor stacks. 1 - vac truck ... all are no-tows so far. Load board US - 566 IA - 262/255 We did 400 miles again today. And will do about the same tomorrow. After that we can do 500 miles a day the last two days of the trip. 220527 CA-WI 1 bus to Milwaukee WI ... spending the night at Ogallala NE Breakfast ... made to order omelettes. Always good. Today there are two cooks and they are still not keeping up. Full house, not sure everyone stayed here last night. We saw one family walking across the parking lot that came in to eat. If we had been two minutes earlier we would have seen where they were coming from. Because we had to wait for food, we were running a few minutes later. Actually we wouldn't have had to wait, this place had plenty of food including sausage, bacon and potatoes. As we are leaving the hotel, I see someone in an RV that we had noticed earlier. So I stop and talk to them, they are from Vancouver, they work for the RV dealership who flies them to the manufacturer to pick them up. The person was polite but as soon as they were done with their paperwork they were ready to go. That little interruption was enough. I forgot to do a complete pre-trip ... and a few hours later I would remember that I forgot to go back in to check out. 1st stop is Rawlins at the TA for fuel. All pumps were full but I was near where the first one that cleared. Today I am able to get a full tank of fuel with only running a few bubbles over the top. Nice wind today, teens to twenties. Tail wind, it should help our mileage. 2nd stop is usually Laramie. But we are not hungry so we push on a few more miles to the rest area. There we have a piece of fruit and a cookie each. I had a tangerine and then another ... but the 2nd one lacked flavor so I split it and threw it to the prairie dogs. BB had thrown them an apple core, which they liked but it was too big to carrier. The tangerine slices fit in the mouth and off they go. When we had stopped here the alarms were going off again ??? While we are stopped I call the drop, they have more questions that usual. I also found out they are not open on Monday so no reason to push it. Then I call my local dispatcher and said I am NA for the safety meeting but will work M-W the last two weeks of the month. This person says they are busy with trash trucks ... I didn't them them that my other company is offering a bonus for doing back to back out of the same location. Third call is to the hotel to check out and have them send me a receipt. Just a few miles after we pull back on the highway, BB tells me one of the escape hatches is flapping in the wind. So I pull off at the next exit and get it re-latched. Actually it was in the open position, not latched. Luckily it was the front hatch, not the rear, it is much easier to get at. 3rd stop was going to be the rest area west of Sidney but it is gone, even the building is gone. But it looks like they are going to re-do it? Maybe? They are also re-doing the road in this section. Before we get there, I have traveled over 200 miles and the fuel gauge is still on full. (by the time we shut down for the night, we have traveled over 300 miles and it has just barely moved) So it is likely not working. 4th stop ends up being the Loves in Sidney instead. 5th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Ogallala. Opps, as I do my walk around my bus I see a scratch, or a scuff. I may be to the point where I do not back my bus without someone standing back there ... or the scuff could have been there when I picked it up. Once we are checked in we call to the local Italian place and walk the few blocks to pick up our food. A place we used to eat at, the Urban Farmer, seems to be closed. No cars, no Google location, no Trip Reviews. Back at the room, BB dumps hers upside down before she is done eating. I offer her some of mine but she has had enough, I should have quit at the same time ... too much Italian. Too much Mexican last night. I did not sleep well, also had very detailed dreams. but wasn't sleepy today. We got to the hotel with 30 minutes to spare. I am out of hours for the day. Tomorrow I will have enough hours to run 9 hours instead of the 8 hours I have had the last few days. This AM I saw 5-2 transporters :) 1 - RV 1 - Semi tractor (single) 1 - Stack of semi tractors 1 - Delivery van 1 - boom truck 2 - short buses This PM I saw 5-2-1-1-1 5 - RV's' 2 - Semi stacks 1 - trash truck 1 - Cement truck 1 - Boom truck Load board US - 518 IA - 239/233 It is a holiday weekend, we have made a reservation for tomorrow night in Des Moines. I haven't stayed there with a bus before but it looks bigger than our usual stop ... we will see. There is an RV going to Milwaukee, we have talked about taking one if there is one. And a rental car home is $70 so that price is right. Plan is to deliver on Tuesday, we should be able to get home Tuesday night if we head straight home. That leaves W-Th-F to work having an insurance appointment on Saturday followed by a graduation. Then we have S-M to work before we need to be heading to VT for a 'celebration of life.' Plan is to get RV's heading to VT and then getting a bus from NY back to CGO. BUT ... we have to get one almost right away because we need to be back in MN The following weekend we have a re-union. And then a week later another family event. After that we do have two weeks before a family vacation. So some time to work but not much for long trips after we get home from this one. 220528 CA-WI 1 bus to Milwaukee WI ... spending the night at West Des Moines IA No made to order omelettes here. Eggs, sausage, juice ... the usual. This building has a north, west and south wing. The north wing has not been used since this chain took over. It is now in quite bad repair. I would not be surprised to either see that wing gone ... or the hotel down graded soon. We pull out at about 8:30 / 7:30 local. 1st stop is in Cozad at the rest area. The older rest area's in NE have room for less than 10 trucks so I park with the cars :) 2nd stop is the Petro for fuel and food. But first I 'stick the tank.' My fuel gauge still shows 3/4 after 600 miles, this is about as far as I usually push it. Sticking the tank shows I still have a 1/2 a tank of fuel. So I should be able to get another 600 miles on this fuel and I only have 750 to go. No reason to fill the tank and leave 45 gallons in the tank at $5 a gallon. $225 that I don't have to leave in the tank. Some of the truck stops have a 'fuel building' besides the main truck stop, BB looked at the food in there and decided she'd like to try some of the hot food. Stuffed cabbage. I asked for the chicken, they picked out eight legs and then wanted to know what I wanted for sides ... nothing, I said, that is too much chicken as it is. So instead they gave me a smaller order ... five pieces with no sides. 3rd stop was the Loves in Shelby for a break ... and some DEF. 4th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in West Des Moines. We had made reservations because it was the cheapest hotel of the ones we stay at and almost out of rooms. Tonight the lot is almost empty and there are lots of rooms, not sure what happened. BB had wanted to walk to Quiznos and I was going to get something from Steak and Shake. At some point she decided that a steak burger sounded better. And a shake. This AM I saw 2-6-7 transporters 2 - semi stacks 6 - RV's 1 - delivery van 1 - delivery van 1 - box truck (small) 1 1 - 1 - tree truck 1 - city bus Early PM I saw 9-9-5-1 transporters 9 - semi stacks 9 - RV's 1 - box truck - clean harbors 1 - box truck (small) 1 - tree truck 1 - cement truck 1 - city bus 1 - semi tractor with a toad Late PM I saw 3-5-4-1 transporters 3 - semi stacks 5 - RV's 2 - Delivery vans 1 - Tow truck 1 - Box truck (small) 1 - RV with a toad (this is partially a mind test ... it is not going so well :) ) Load board US - 503 IA - 231/225 .. the trip continues HERE |
