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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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220629 MN-ND 1 trash truck to Williston ND ... spending the night at Jamestown ND 6 AM alarm. Breakfast was not bacon, so I had a small omelette and a yogurt. We did pull out a couple of minutes early, long day ahead. 1st stop is at the MN rest area near Glenville. 2nd stop is at the shipper. Only three keys in our lock box today so much easier to find. I thought my truck would be easier to find also, we rarely get rear load trucks anymore. But today there are a dozen of them, maybe a quarter of what is in the lot are rear loads. When I find my truck, I find my paperwork on the seat ... with a note on it from the shuttle driver :) No issues, am I missing something? When there are no issues an inspection only takes a few minutes and we are ready to roll. Biggest issue today was a slow down by Northfield, traffic narrows to one lane there. There are a few other places where traffic narrows but with less traffic. BB stops at the rest area near Northfield, I do not. 3rd stop is the outlet mall in Albertville, this time for Five Guys. I have beat BB there by 10 minutes. That and having to make two phone calls turns my 30 minute break to a 45 minute break. Burger was good, but messy. 4th stop was the Pilot in Alexandria for fuel. Valley City will be the halfway point and to get there I need a quarter tank of fuel ... 15 gallons. Today the timing is right, I see two buses coming down from Crookston. I blow my horn at the first one and wave but no response. The 2nd one I just wave at. If I would have thought of it I could have been flashing my high beams at them. I was expecting them, they were not expecting me. 5th stop is at Valley City at Loves. The low fuel light comes on as I come down the exit ramp. I put 55 gallons in a 60 gallon tank. Glad I did not run it to 'E,' there is not a station every mile out here. BB made an stop at the rest area near Valley City instead of Loves and gets to the hotel before I. 5th and final stop was the Quality Inn in Jamestown. There is lots of room to park here, the question is where. After once around the building, I park. Food is from the in house restaurant. Philly for me, Quesadilla for BB. Interesting news on FB today. Seems the RV company added a 2nd carrier a few months ago, we had not heard that from our company, but this person seemed to be involved in those early moves. Not sure how to ask about this ... Load board US - 236 IA - 100 MN - 18 We have about 330 miles to go tomorrow. I won't need a break as it is less than eight hours so we will see. As things are now, we will drop early afternoon and head home. One night in a hotel and then the rest of the way home. No other plans. 220630 MN-ND 1 trash truck to Williston ND (delivered) ... spending the night at Jamestown ND At breakfast there is yogurt, waffles, one type of fruit, juice. I grab one yogurt and then I guess I must have stared at someone ... "What? Is this your table" the person asked. 'No ... just wondering where you got that food' was my reply. ... this place has it's own breakfast area, but they use the kitchen of the restuarant to cook made to order breakfasts ... free. We waited. It cost us a few minutes but now I will be good until after I deliver. And it was good food. Good eggs, good bacon, even the hash browns were good. Before I pull out I call local dispatch for my check in call. I forget that this dispatcher starts before 8 AM so I leave my message with a real person. 1st stop is the Flying J in Mandan. Based on my mileage so far adding another 15 gallons should get me to the drop with 40 miles to spare. By the time I am done fueling BB is walking over to my truck. As we start talking, we comment on a truck sitting nearby that looks like it is a transporter ... the driver is walking with talking distance so I ask. He is a transporter, we chatted a few minutes. He picked up in Billings and is heading to Baltimore. When we part, he walks back to his truck :) The only reason he was walking past was to look at my truck. Something I would do. 2nd stop is the Cenex in Belfield for DEF. But they do not have DEF at the pump so I just pull ahead and go talk to BB who has changed her stops to match mine for the day. Before I pull out, local dispatch calls to see if I will be back on Friday. No, I will not. 3rd stop is the Sweet Crude in Grassy Butte. I did not look at the route and BB had said there was a truck stop between Belfield and WatFord City. (This was not it) The card reader would not accept my card so I left a card at the pump and came back out to fuel. I added another 10 gallons of fuel and then tried to add DEF. But that didn't work so I had to go back inside. Sorry, their pump is broken and they only have two and a half gallon jugs so I pass. Just before we get to Williston, we pass a TA Express. That is the truckstop that BB was talking about. By now I am only 10 miles or less from the drop and I am still OK on DEF and fuel. 4th stop is the drop. It is across the street from where my map pegged it, but I had also looked an aerial photo so I knew where the trucks were parked. I sign my paperwork and go inside. Someone there signs two pages but sends a mechanic out to sign the last one. This person looked the truck over and ran most of the controls, before they signed off. Then we sat in their parking lot and did our paperwork. And I called dispatch about more work, nothing. 5th stop was still in Williston, at a cemetery. It was between the drop and the highway into/out of town. No one was in the office and when I called the phone number on the door, no one could help me for an hour. So I ask one of the mowers who came to the office ... but the computer was not working and he could not find both sets of people, only one. So he took me to that stone ... thank you. As we are leaving, I decide to take one last photo of the cemetery sign so I pull out past the gate and onto the street. After I take the picture ... I take a u-turn right in the middle of the block ... right in front of a cop. So I turned down the next street and parked but the cop went past the street and stopped. And he stayed stopped, so I left to go get food. Next stop was the Culvers in Williston. Our plan, our thought had been to take US-2 from Williston to Grand Forks for a change of scenery and to be closer to the bus plant. But going that route we would either have to stop for the night in one hour or run until 8 PM. Dispatch didn't seem optimistic so we headed down to I-94. Even doing that we still had choices. There were a few other routes that we could take that would add a few minutes but be different. We choose one of those. Lots of interesting country. Lots of oil rigs, one place there was 20+ in one 'lot.' Lots of hills, not much trees. By the time we were getting to New Town, BB was looking for a restroom. The computer took us on the by-pass so we missed the town. But just east of town was something that was not on the map yet. A new building the size of a warehouse, a truck stop, with three fast food choices, a liquor store, groceries, clothing, farm supplies and at least two rest room areas. 5:30, well after dispatch is supposed to have closed. I get a call from the lead dispatcher wondering if I will be home on Friday ... Still no. 7th stop was Washburn for fuel at a Shell, all fuel in this area was the same but we get a discount at Shell. $.05 today, usually it is $.03. It all helps. Another half hour and we are in Bismarck. The only place we could agree on was Schlotzsky's, but IF the lights were all green we may make it before the close. If not, not likely. Our hotel was a mile before there so we went to the hotel. 8th and final stop was the Sleep Inn in Bismarck. We haven't been here before. We either stay at the Quality or Comfort across the street. It is now almost 8 PM and we have not eaten yet. BB is too tired to order on line or wait in line for food. So fast food it is, Wendy's is closest. I get chili and a lemonade. Load board US - 235 IA - 99/98 MN - 14 Heading home ... for now, unless things change. 220701 MN-ND 1 trash truck to Williston ND (delivered) ... spending the night at home No alarm, OK breakfast. We head out by 8 AM (instead of 7:30) 1st stop is just west of Jamestown at the rest area. It hasn't been two hours yet but it has been 100 miles ... and we are not ? in a rush. 2nd stop is in Fargo for Schlotzsky's. We did not get one last night but we did find one in Fargo, now we have been to both ND locations. We ordered to go. We are there just after 11 when they open so we are one of the first customers of the day. Still not fast service. It takes us about a half hour from freeway back to the freeway. I get a half an original and a small soup. Potato soup that I drink from the cup after I'm done with the sandwich. 3rd stop is Alexandria rest area, another 100 miles down the road. 4th stop is for fuel and the rest room in Arden Hills, we have enough fuel to get home but BB needs to stop. So we exit where the first fuel station is that we can see from the freeway. Road construction, one way only. It added about a half hour to our trip. 5th and final stop is home ... sort of. As soon as we get home I do the paperwork for the trips and then we bring them back to the office. Dispatchers are all gone but there are 11 trucks sitting in the lot ready to go. Not sure which one they wanted me for. BB has been watching the load board all day. We do not really want to be gone over the holiday because of the traffic and the prices. But family all has other plans so nothing planned at home either. Later in the day, dispatch added some more trips but nothing that changed our plans. We are not sure if we will try to call in tomorrow, if they are open. Or if we will just wait until Tuesday AM. On one of the trips picking up a car Thursday instead of Wednesday is $100 less. There are two trips, as of now, that we would do OK on. Out and back, that is pretty much all we will have time for. Next post ... new month. Load board US - 226 IA - 94/91 MN - 19 |
