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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220620 MN-MN 1 vac truck to Hopkins MN (delivered) 1 mixer to Fargo ND (Tuesday) 1 roll-off to Lake Elmo MN (Wednesday) ... spending the night at home Dispatch had asked what time I wanted to come in so I said 9 AM. That puts us behind the traffic and any rush at the office. The place last night does not serve breakfast so we went without today. 1st stop is the office in Lake Elmo. No drivers in the office, just the three dispatchers and I only waved at two of those, the 3rd one gave me my paperwork. My truck is a 'vac' truck, a new one being used as a demo. Took my pictures and checked it out. It has the hoses on a reel on the front so I couldn't lift the hood, but this one has a small door on the hood so I could check the oil. First one I have seen like that. 38 miles to the drop. I take the route that keeps me on the four lane until the last mile, it likely added another mile. I need to deliver this one with a 1/8th of a tank. When I picked the truck up it was at 1/4 so I thought no issue. But it was almost on an 1/8th when I dropped it but no low fuel light on yet. 2nd stop was the drop. Been here many times so I knew where to go and how to phrase things. 1st guy didn't understand what I had but someone else overheard us and jumped up to do the inspection. Inspection was a walk around. Then he told me where to park it. After I am parked, I am taking pictures when a sales person comes out to look at it. After asking a couple of questions he makes a comment that the truck was supposed to have been there 'first thing this AM.' When I start to say anything he says it's too late to change things now. No idea if there was a customer to look at it or ... BB is waiting outside the fence. I hop in and drive to a close parking lot to call dispatch. I'm hoping for more work today. It goes to voicemail so we head home. We have a new Mexican place close to our house where a Subway used to be so we try that today. Good food. Hope the last. I give dispatch another hour before I call again. This time someone else picks up. The one I had been talking to went home sick. So two hours work for us today. After another couple of hours dispatch calls back wanting me to go to AR. It is over my 500 miles but they say they can pay good. But BB and I do the math and IF everything goes well, we can be back Thursday night. No. We have things planned for Friday so we want to be back Wednesday night and do local like today if there is work. (Right now there is a driver in CGO that was doing a 'quick side trip home' from MLW before heading back to do more buses. My point is that 'quick trip' has her broke down at a truck stop in CGO for the last three days. My last bus may have been also if they hadn't found a tow.) As soon as I called back and told dispatch no, they had a round trip to Fargo for tomorrow. A lot of driving for BB tomorrow for the little I will be in the car ... The AR trip would have worked if we had gotten going this AM. Oh well, someone else will make the big bucks on that one. The Fargo trip is close to 700 miles, but it doesn't look like they added any extra for a hotel. No big money maker like last quarter end ... because we are limited on time. Car is past due for an oil change so we went to a Rapid. Sign says they close at 7 PM and we were the last car and pulled out at 7:01. But we did not want to put another 500 miles on our car that was already due for a change. Then we went and grabbed my paperwork so in the AM we can just head to Dodge Center. Looks like two other drivers are heading down at 6 AM. I told them I would find my own ride ... (and it won't be at 6 AM) Today the temp held at 99 for a few hours so I did not get out in my garden or yard. Could but I'm not up for pushing the boundaries this year. There had been a forecast for a thunderstorm this evening but that didn't happen so I don't think it will be cooling down as much either. The temp was another reason that I did not push harder to get work for today. Load board - Weekend US - 360 IA - 149/146 MN - 15 Load board - Monday US - 345 IA - 161/155 MN - 3 |
