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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220605 IA-NY 2 RV's to NY (maybe Tuesday) ... spending the night at home When we were out and about today, within an hour there were two different cars that passed me and came over on me when they were half way past me. Ours is a bright red car so it can't be that they couldn't see me. We ended up making reservations for a rental car today before we get our trips. No cost if we have to cancel. This trip is different than most. We are going to a 'celebration of life' on Sunday so we need to be in Vermont even if we drive a rental car the whole way. But there are plenty of RV trips so that is not an issue. I will also be checking to get a bus or some other trip back the direction of home. But we need to be home for another family function on the following Saturday. Then the following Friday and Saturday after that. Basically we have something going on 5 out of 6 weekends in a row so no long roadtrips. One of the firs trips we looked at for this week was going to NH. Both no-tows and both going to the same place. But it would be a few hundred miles on northeast state and county roads. Not a fan. Then we found that we would need three rental cars. We could get a local a few miles from our drop. We would use that to get a one-way 50 miles away. Then return the first rental car. Then drive the one-way to Burlington to get a 2nd, cheaper one-way that we would use for the weekend and until we get a trip home. The Syracuse rental is cheaper and it only takes one car, unless we can't find a trip home. Load board (Friday) US - 397 IA - 220/216 Load board (weekend) US - 378 IA - 212/208 220606 IA-NY 2 RV's to NY (Tuesday) ... spending the night at home 8 AM I call and we get two RV's to NY. BB will drop hers in Syracuse and then we will pick up a car. Cars are cheaper there than anywhere east of there. Mine will be dropped in Kingston, likely on Friday. Last trip I had forgotten my phone cord so I had to buy a new one on the road. Load board US - 392 IA - 203/198 Leaving out tomorrow AM from home, we should get as far as Walcott IA tomorrow night. 220607 IA-NY 2 RV's to NY ... spending the night at Ottawa IL This AM we are out of the house within an hour of when the alarm goes off. 1st stop is in Northfield at the Flying J for fuel. Their high sign said one price, their low sign said another price. We paid the higher price. 2nd stop was Wendy's in Medford for breakfast. Bacon croissant for each of us. 3rd stop was the shipper in Forest City. They are down under 300 RV's in the lot and it shows. A few people were moving RV's from one lot to the other, not sure the purpose of that. There is not enough room to get them all into one lot yet. No issues but it took us a full hour to do our inspection on these small RV's. I did notice that there is another new person in the office, they seem to be going through people pretty quickly, most of them we do not even find out their names before they are gone. On the way down to the shipper this AM I remembered that they are working on the road near Floyd were we stop for fuel. I said 'just in case, we should have a backup plan.' BB said they would never close it ... until she looked. The computer had all kinds of directions to get us there. So we had looked at the options and I had picked a route without really looking closer at all the options. When we get to the detour signs, some of the traffic is going past them which doesn't add up but we go the opposite way as the detour as planned. But what was not planned was that 'our' detour was a gravel road. ... and for 15 miles there were no blacktop side roads, only gravel. At one point I had lost BB on a two lane road but by the time I got stopped she was coming again. High road, only a couple of feet of shoulder. We do talk when we get to Osage ... which is on Hwy 9, which runs through Forest City. Our little detour added 30 miles to our trip ... and ran BB down to 'E' on fuel. She had to add a couple of gallons just to get back to Floyd. 4th stop is for BB's fuel at Casey's in Osage. 5th stop is at Love's in Floyd for fuel and food from Godfathers. As I am looking for a pump I can see the main road ... traffic is traveling in all the directions we need to go. After we fuel we both use our phones to run routes and ... the road isn't closed anymore. No detour. ??? That was fun :( 6th stop was at the Casey's in Centre Point for a break, it splits it more evenly than at the rest area near Cedar Rapids. 7th stop is the Loves in Davenport for fuel, $.10 cheaper than the posted at Flying J or Speedway. From here we decide where to stay. The Comfort Inn in Ottawa has gone down in price by $30 since we looked earlier today so that makes it within our range. Just before we get to our exit, there is a cop on the shoulder ... turns out he is just there to slow traffic down, traffic is at a stop under our bridge but we do not have to slow to get to the ramp. 8th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Ottawa. Food is from the Cracker Barrell next door. When we check in BB makes sure we are not sitting over the 'party' area like we were one of the last times. We are not, but they are here, a crew that has been here for the last year and a half. Likely the same people that were under our window before. The person at the desk said there have been two major accidents on I-80 west bound (we are heading east) today near here. When BB tries to run routes for tomorrow she has issues because now there is an accident east bound so the map won't put us on the freeway. Lots of transporters today but I am not counting. Load board US - 385 IA - 193/188 Tomorrow we plan on doing 500+ miles and getting into NY. Then we will be only a couple of hours from BB's drop for Thursday. 220608 IA-NY 2 RV's to NY ... spending the night at Hamburg NY Breakfast, eggs and sausage. Left out at 7:30. Someone had parked cross-ways in front of us so we would have had to back out instead of pull thru but he left just before us. Not much for traffic this AM. OK, there was traffic, just no major slow downs considering we went past Chicago. The most notable thing that leg was that when BB got to the first toll booth the arm would not go up, so she drove around it. That was the first location I had seen with an arm short enough to do that. We have I-passes and no one mans those lanes. 1st stop was the Rolling Prairie rest area in IN. When we left IN, BB with through a toll booth lane with a person in case there was an issue. No issue, BB even talked to the person and they said it shows what time she past the first toll booth ??? (not sure why the arm didn't raise) 2nd stop was for fuel and food at the Love's / Arbey's in Edon OH Not sure what was going on here, they were having a big 'rah - rah' event for Arbey's employees that was taking up 2/3rds of the eating area ... during the lunch hour? So we ate outside by our RV's. When we were fueling there was 'Amish looking' people at the back side of my fuel pump. Then one got in and drove the van away ... and I noticed that their clothes hanging in the back had designer names on them. I'm wondering if they were not Amish but 'actors' somewhere. 3rd stop was the rest area in Amherst OH just before Cleveland. From here I had to call my local dispatcher back, they had left a message. They wanted me to do a round trip to Chicago ... if I was in town. 4th stop was the rest area, welcome center in PA at West Springfield. During the later part of the day, we saw three deer in different places, each at the bottom of the ditch along the freeway. One of them had a 'Bambi' that looked like it was just learning to walk. I hope the plan was not to try to get it across the freeway, that would not end well. Lots of road construction but we still got a good look at the lake. Lake Erie, both in Cleveland and near East End PA. 5th stop was for food and fuel in Ripley NY at the Love's / Hardee's. Plan had been to stop back at Conneaut for food and fuel but BB looked closer today and saw that fuel here in Ripley was $.30 a gallon cheaper here. I am up to 17.3 mpg so that is helping. No weather/wind to cut into that number. Today I left my RV running while I fueled and when the fuel range got to my miles left, I put in one more gallon and stopped fueling. I was hoping to gain more range but I did not on the final leg for today. I'd rather pay $6 a gallon for what I need instead of leaving five gallons of $5 fuel. Just as we were turning in the drive to Loves, there was a CGO bus pulling out. We also met two Portland OR buses earlier today. Buses are moving. I was expecting to see more RV's around the Elkhart area but no more than any other place on the highway. 100's/1,000's in the manufactures lots. 6th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Hamburg NY. It is 8 PM when we get here and there is already one semi with trailer, two semi tractors only but some other pickups and trailers taking extra spaces so we decided we would fit into one space each. It can be done with these. Load board US - 372 IA - 192/188 Two hours to BB's drop tomorrow, then a half hour to the rental car. Then she will follow me for about three hours to my drop. Not likely that we will get to my drop before they close and we do not need to. 220609 IA-NY 1 RV to Syracuse NY (delivered) 1 RV to Kingston NY ... spending the night at Glenmont NY Breakfast, two egg patties and a sausage. And apple juice, the OJ was out. It has been raining overnight and will be again as soon as we get down the road. But as we are loading up all is dry. BB referred to this hotel as a Comfort Inn soon to be an EconoLodge but I do not remember why. (Usually the downgrade is to Quality Inn. 1st stop is an hour down the road at a Oasis near Scottsville. From there I head to a parking lot next door to BB's drop but she first heads to a Sunoco a couple of miles away. I still have enough fuel range to get to my drop so I am not adding any extra miles. When BB is back she stops at the lot first and puts the last of her stuff into my RV before driving to the drop. AFTER we are parked and they were inspecting they told us where to park next time. While I was waiting for BB at the lot I called the NY bus dispatcher to let her know I will be available next week. They are not in a huge rush today so I was there about an hour. BB was there a little less than that. No issues and we walk back to the 'lot.' It is a Comfort Inn surrounded by RV's in various lots. From there we drive a few miles to the rental car. 2nd stop, rental car lot. This time we get a car with less than 2,000 miles. In the same parking lot is a Jrecks Subs. But BB is hungry and she does not want to have to decide on an un-know food. So we go across the street to Burger King where we know the menu. When we leave here I start gaining some of my range back before it starts dropping again. I had planned on heading directly to the hotel without stopping but I get a call and they leave a message so I stop. Another 'robo call' from a company that leaves a message a couple of times a from a different number so that I can not block them. 3rd stop was the oasis at Oneida, I listened to that call and BB had a personal call to make. She was still on the phone when I was ready to go so I left planning to travel slower. Before we got to this oasis we passed a couple of slow moving drivers but none from here to the hotel. So I just set the cruise at 62 mph and hoped to gain some range. I didn't, I kept loosing range. BB catches up to me a mile before our exit. A mile or so off the toll road we are at the hotel. Comfort Inn in Glenmont. We had planned on getting closer to the drop but to save a couple of 10's we stayed closer to Albany. Cardona's Market is what we picked for food, BB did not want Sonic or the inhouse restaurant. Good pick. I didn't realize that my lasagna was going to have to be made for me. Everything else was being dished up for customers from under the glass. For the desserts, it was ... if you don't see it we don't have it. Lemon bars, 'we don't have it.' Chocolate mousse bars, 'we don't have them.' So we ordered carrot cake. While we waited for me food, we had samples of cheese. The caramelized onion cheese was the best of those we tried. Lots of good food. Little hole in the wall, been there since 1945. No place to park, lots of help, lots of customers. At the end of the day there was one bus on the load board going from NY to CGO. I doubt that one will still be there on Monday. But it means they do not have a hotel full of drivers waiting for buses. Load board US - 379 IA - 182/179 Tomorrow I will need to fuel, then one hour to the drop. After that we do not have a plan. Family plans for the weekend do not kick in until Saturday night. .. the trip continues from HERE |
