 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
220728 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT (Friday) ... spending the night at home We had spent the last few days looking at local trips but nothing said 'do me' even though some of them would have worked. There and been a trip to Duluth, a trip from Bagley (but not at the same time.) And other trips under 500 miles. We could have taken a longer trip but this time the 1,000 mile trips seemed to pay the best. Now rental cars are not the issue, hotel prices are. Kalispell, Draper, Greer, NY, all had high priced hotels. We ended up going with Draper because the rental car was cheapest and we will just use points for our night closest to Cheyenne. Cheyenne is having their week long rodeo and our $100 hotel is now $560. And hotels for a 100 miles either side of Cheyenne are high so we will be using points somewhere for that hotel. We still have 300,000 points even after staying a couple of nights in Duluth on vacation right on the lake. There were four RV's going to Draper so I call in when they open at 8 AM. For some reason it keeps ringing without going to the automated recording so I ask BB to call in also. But by then it finally rang through, I get put on hold so others had gotten in before me but our trips were still there. This is the same trip as our last one except we have more time because we are leaving on a Friday and can't deliver until Monday. Plan is to do this trip and come back and I need to do my DOT physical when we get back. Then a week after that I have another appointment. Then it's state fair time and we already have tickets. So it might be Sept again before we get back out to CA for a bus. Load board (weekend) US - 114 IA - 25 MN - 7 Load board (Monday) US - 126 IA - 28 MN - 1 Load board (Tuesday) US - 144 IA - 28 MN - 4 Load board (Wednesday) US - 173 IA - 47 MN - 4 Load board (Thursday) US - 187 IA - 29 MN - 9 220729 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT ... spending the night at Lincoln NE We have three plus days to do what we did in 2-1/2 last trip so we are not in a huge rush this AM. We shoot for 7 AM but get out closer to 8 AM. We have been unpacked for a while so we have to remember all the stuff we take with us. Almost no slow down at the usual slow spots even though it is Friday AM rush hour. 1st stop is Northfield Flying J for gas. It is cheaper than closer to home but still $.40+ more than it will be in IA. (but we can't make it to IA and on 10 gallons it's not worth putting in just enough to get to IA. Before we get off the freeway in IA, I see the tops of some corn over the ditch bank that looks ready bad. Then the hill lowers and I realize this is a bean field with lots of volunteer corn. So now I'm thinking that this corn looks better than some of the actual corn fields. Still on the freeway we see what we think is a burnt out windmill. Very small at the top of the pole with a couple of long strands hanging almost strait down. I will try to get a picture on the way back if I think of it. BB saw online where one was hit by lightning and burnt out, could have been what happened here. As we are coming into town, BB gets a text message to call the main off. We pretty much know that that means. As soon as we are stopped, she does call. She needs to do a random drug test today. The closest place is closed on Fridays (?) so we will have to stop when we go through Des Moines. 2nd stop was the office to pick up our RV's. In and out in under an hour. No one in the yard picking up when we were there but there was someone in training. Looked at them a couple of times but didn't say anything to them. We have enough fuel to get to our first Loves where we get cheater fuel. I was going to be close but the range usually goes up. These RV's only have <> 50 miles on them so the range is not very accurate. This time I did not gain much. Warning light had been on for a while and I had less than a gallon left when I got there. 3rd stop is the Loves in Ellsworth for fuel and food. The person here does not know how to put both pumps on one receipt which is what we are trying to do now. Food was Hardee's. Both of us only ate half of our buns, we are trying to cut back on food and this place likes huge portions. For a while I wouldn't even eat here. Then I think their burgers were 1/3, 1/2 and 1#. I don't even need 1/4#. Even without half the bun it was still too much food. But good. While we are eating, BB pulls up the location of the clinic and I am looking at it upside down. She still wants me to lead instead of using the GPS so off we go. I do write down the address in case I need to look it up. We get off at the correct exit, but the cross street I thought we were going to take goes into a business. The next cross street is further from the freeway than I was thinking. At that point I should done some re-thinking. Instead I still took a right when I got to the correct street. A couple of blocks down it dead ends into a park. BB makes a U-turn and heads back from where we came. We should have taken a left where we turned. 4th stop was the drug test. Between the off freeway and wait it took us about 45 minutes. We have the time, it just means less time in the hotel tonight. We are heading into the weekend so make our reservations from here. As we pass the last rest area in IA there is an RV pulling out. And the same pickup with a motorcycle in the truck bed that was at the shipper this AM. Within a few miles they pass us and it is one of ours. 5th stop is the Loves in Omaha. Later tonight we are wondering why we stop there for fuel. We have plenty to get to the next fuel stop and every stop charges us a fee. We are guessing at one point the fuel was enough cheaper that it paid to fill early. This place does try, and is able to combine our fuel receipts. When I ask BB while we are fueling if she saw the RV at the rest area, she wondered if it was KD, someone who is very active on FaceBook. Her husband drives tow-away and I have been messaging her since the first of the year about driving. She had posted on the company group that she was hired on, but I'm not on the group anymore so I didn't know that. 7th stop is the Quality Inn in Lincoln. From there we call ahead for food at the Cracker Barrel. When we go to pick it up, we also buy a loto ticket for tonight for the billion dollar drawing. Back at the hotel I message KD and it was them we saw. They are staying in York tonight so that tomorrow they can make it to Rawlins where the hotels are cheaper. Loadboard US - 176 IA - 47 MN - 5 220730 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT ... spending the night at Laramie WY Breakfast is ... crowded. A lot of things at this Quality Inn scream Super 8 and this is one of them. Also the food. Only hot food was the gravy for biscuits and gravy. I was only planning on yogurt today and BB brought her 'lite food' from home. Yogurt was warm (?,) like the fridge was not turned on. But they only opened breakfast an hour ago so it should be OK. Looking at the fields where all the hail damage was there is a lot of corn that is still growing from the '1st crop.' Some of it now has been sprayed/killed off. Other fields are just letting it grow. Out of all those miles of fields I only saw one where it was replanted as corn and that corn is still a few feet shorter than the rows they left in the field. 1st stop is the rest area by Grand Island. 2nd stop is the Loves for fuel and food. As we are crossing the freeway bridge someone is flashing their headlights at me. It is KD and her husband from yesterday, just leaving. At Loves it is the same cashier that shut our pumps off last time because I gave her my expired :) drivers license, so I give them my current one. And when I check out they are able to combine the two pumps. We look at shelf food and Subway but decide on McD's. 25 minute wait for 'fast food.' The line/list was longer when we left than when we got there. 3rd stop is rest area near Sidney. BB makes reservations from here because there is little cell service at the Port of Entry. This time we parked next to the cars because down where we usually parked, the trucks had parked in the travel lane and I didn't think there was room for cars to get between us. But by the time we leave a pickup and trailer parked where we would have and we could get through. With about a foot to spare. 4th stop is the POE for our permits. No line. Quick in and out. We follow a officer out. They are doing a complete inspection on a truck next to us. Then was I am in gear there is a transporter RV pulls up next to me. It is our 'new' company. Their placards have both names on them. Right behind him is a cement mixer, they park in the same spot even though there are lots of places open, I assume they were running together. No major traffic in Cheyenne because of the big event. 5th and final stop was at the Sinclair in Laramie for Papa Johns. As I pull in I see KD and husband pulling in to a place down the street. We go in the store but there are no pizza's on the shelf. It is only 4 PM local, 5 PM for us. It will only take eight minutes so I order a pizza and we wait. 'Jim?" a lady walks up to me. It is KD, she walked across the street of find us and invite us over. We declined, we had already ordered food. It would have been interesting, maybe our paths will cross again. Once we have our food we head to the hotel, the Comfort Inn. It is $200 tonight so we use rewards points. We could have pushed on to Rawlins but that would be a long day. Maybe if we hadn't lost the hour yesterday for the drug test. Loadboard US - 158 IA - 34 MN - 5 From here we have 400 miles to go. One more fuel fill and then add a couple of gallons in Green River. The closest Choice hotels near Draper do not get raving reviews so we are looking at maybe the Best Western tomorrow night. 220731 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT ... spending the night at Sandy UT Breakfast - eggs, sausage and juice. Even though we are in a later time zone, we still pull out late. We pull out at 8:45 and head across the freeway to the Loves for fuel. I get a receipt for our hotel room even though we used rewards points. The hotel got paid less than half of what we would have paid cash for that same room. The parking lot was full and people with trailers were parked on the street. When we get over by Loves there is a Best Western and there they are parked on the street also and that is a much busier street with all the truck traffic. 1st stop - Loves. Busy, we do not find pumps next to each other until after we are parked. We top them off and this may be our last fuel stop ... if our range is at 440 like earlier on the trip. But it isn't so we will likely stop again. 2nd stop is the Flying J in Rawlins for a rest break. When I walk in a stall, the toilet paper falls from somewhere, I'm guessing it was hung on the back of the door ... when I left, I let the staff know and they headed that way while I was still talking to them. Last trip we fueled in Green River but we are still doing OK on fuel. My range goes up and down about 30 miles between stops. We are not going to fuel so we stop in Rock Springs instead of the Loves and Carl Jr's. Something different. 3rd stop was at Quizno's in Rock Springs. We park in the 'no truck parking' area with all the trucks. We are there at 12 noon and we and a demo/promo bus driver are the only two customers the whole hour. With a staff of three inside. And we are both out of towners. Some where today I hit a dust devil, without the dust. It was throwing so little debris that I couldn't tell where it was. I hit it, it rocked be hard enough to set off the wind assist in the RV. BB's wind assist did not go off but she was holding on with both hands. 4th stop was the rest area in Evanston. The white buffalo were close enough that I hopefully got some good pictures. They were busy eating and rarely looked up. Busy place today, a dozen or so travel trailers using the trailer dump on-site. Rare scale closing at the UT scale. Closed for us because the trucks were backed up to the highway. 20 some trucks. Somewhere down the incline I saw another elk on the highway. We didn't stop at the UT rest area this time but KD posted that they did ... and were told by staff that the new grounds crew used some type of weed killer that also killed off all the ground squires that people used to watch. Opps. 5th stop this trip was the Sinclair in Park City. We both add two gallons of fuel. I had a range of 74 miles and 40 miles to go. I was within my 30 mile range that I like to have but I guess I wasn't feeling 'lucky' today. BB had a range of about 90 miles, she almost always gets better mileage and makes more money on the fuel. 6th and final stop was the Best Western in Sandy, it is less than 10 miles from the drop. We looked at the Choice hotels in the area but not so good reviews. Not sure how often we still look at reviews but we did this time. Today was the last day of the Choice promo so now we are back to normal rewards points for the next few months until their next promotion. It was 3 PM local when we get here so we have plenty of time to look at food choices. Lots of places in this area are closed on Sunday. We are a block from a huge mall with a food court, but the mall is down to just JCPenny's and a few minor stores. BB doesn't want to go inside a mall and after watching a local mall go downhill I prefer to stay away from 'dying' malls. But they did have about a dozen food places so it can't be totally dead, including a Charely's. (AFTER we get food from somewhere else, I look online at the reviews. Newly updated mall, very nice) We end up going to Santorini's Greek Grill, I get a gyro and BB gets a bowl. A lot like our local Dino's. Not sure if we will hang around for a while to watch for work or head back home right away. We can drop at 9 AM so we should be done before noon. I need to make a list of places we can deliver on Saturday's. This is one of those. We could have left town Wednesday AM and delivered Saturday. But I always find stuff to do when I am not working. .. the trip continues HERE |
