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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 220801 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT (delivered) ... spending the night at Price UT We are only five miles from the drop and they do not open unit 9 AM so no reason to get up and going. Breakfast - eggs, bacon and juice. Bacon was so crisp that it would break when picking it up with the tongs, so it was dry enough that I could have eaten a whole lot more of it than I did. We are close enough to the drop that we leave one RV at the hotel and I drop BB off at the rental car place. Two people who did not normally work at that location, it must have confused them. When they were walking around the vehicle, BB pointed out some damage and they said it was in the computer ... and then asked BB how it happened ... "ah, I am picking this up, not dropping it off." 1st stop is fuel and this time I stop at Herman's Grocery instead of the suggested Maverick. Saves a mile and not nearly as congested. 2nd stop is the drop. There is a ling and people are parked on the street. Coming from my way there is about a half a shoulder so cars are having to wait to go around the parked RV's. So I go past and park in the on-coming shoulder where there is a full shoulder. By the time I get parked they are letting people in. As one of the, now, on coming vehicles turns into the lot I thought he was going to hit the concrete median with his tail swing. Another reason I'm glad I did not park there. I soon as I saw the inspector again and had a chance to talk to him I asked if I could leave and get the 2nd RV, we can. 3rd stop is back to the hotel to get BB's RV. 4th stop is back at the drop. I see all three of the people who had been ahead of me but only talk to one. It wasn't too long before traffic was backed up out onto the road again, including a delivery truck. The biggest back up was for service but everyone comes in the same gate. Then someone must have changed how things were done because after almost two hours of the service line not moving, a dozen RV's pulled ahead and were gone. When the inspector hands BB's paperwork back, she is missing one page. First we look for it, then he goes back to the office to look for it. Then I look for a spare copy and as BB is looking for a spare, she finds the original :) Not often that happens. The inspector was good about it and signed off 5th stop is In-n-Out Burger. There is one and we have delivered. We had talked about walking in the (mostly) vacant mall because it was getting hotter. Not 101 like yesterday but too hot to walk outside. And then BB found a place to drive, Big Cottonwood Canyon Scenic Drive. It takes us up to a winter ski area. Very scenic driving up but we didn't know where to stop until we were past places so we only stopped once going up. 6th stop - Brighton / Silver Lake Then when we got to the top it was 20 degree's cooler so we decided to walk around the lake. Just a little lake with a boardwalk most of the way, dirt the rest of the way. Then WOW, someone walking towards us said we would see moose ahead. I've never seen one in the wild before. And we did see them, we just stood and watched them for about 15 minutes as the eat. Mom and baby, a 2nd baby was somewhere near but we did not see it. I wanted a selfie with a moose so I clicked ... but I had set my selfie setting to a 10 second timer. And 1st time I clicked, but the time the 10 seconds were up the momma moose was walking across the path out of the weeds. On the 2nd click the baby walked across 10 seconds later when the camera went click. (No, I was not that lucky on the billion dollar loto this week) By now people had told us the general place of the bull moose. But when we got there, it was laying down and all we could see is the horns and the ears. I wanted to get a picture I missed of the lake so we started walking around the lake again and saw the game warden that had been near the moose while we were watching it. The 2nd twin is kind of a loner and the warden finally found it and 'chased' it closer to it's momma so us tourists wouldn't be in danger of getting between mamma and her baby. 7th stop - Cottonwood Heights. There is a park and ride with a restroom at the start of the incline. We had no idea what we would find in the next hour or two. We get off the freeway ... gasp ... We had stayed in Salt Lake waiting for work that never came. There were a couple of trucks in Grand Junction, one was going to KY and the other TX. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe one going to the midwest/great lakes? So we decided to head home via Grand Junction. And it is a couple of hours shorter, 4 hours instead of 6, to take US highways instead of the freeway. Some of it is four lane, passing lanes, etc the rest is two lane. 8th and final stop is Price at the Quality Inn. The room is about $40 less than the hotel in Green River another hour down the road. So tonight we go cheap. Food is across the street at The Tangerine Eatery. Really good food, but again, only a couple other customers in the hour we are there. Hope these places can make it. Load board US - 143 IA - 13 MN - 4 Today the Grand Junction trucks hit the board about 10 AM, that should be about the time we pass through there tomorrow. If we do not make any extra stops. EDITED: Before we got to Price we went over a summit and there were two cops on the side of the road. After we were past BB noticed a car on it's side, but I couldn't see it. And we saw two dead elk. The first was on the paved shoulder of the road, the 2nd was laying between two sets of railroad tracks. 220802 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT (delivered) ... spending the night at Sterling CO Very little food out for breakfast, not even enough for the dozen or so customers that were there (if they had all eaten) Usually the place puts out enough food to feed an army even if they have not guests. I guess pretty much every stay is the same - eggs, sausage and yogurt. No juice here, both choices came out as water. We decided to go for a walk this AM before it got too warm. The largest green spot on a map BB could find was the local cemetery. No family here but we still walked it. Mostly a barren landscape. Nothing growing for miles, just sand and rock. It is a little hazy so no crisp morning pictures. On our way down to Green River, there seemed to be more debris than normal along the highway and then some road work. BB was looking online later and saw there had been a flash flood there a month ago that had washed a car away. Wow. 1st stop is the Loves in Green River. Shortly AFTER we left Price this AM BB looks at fuel prices. Gas would have been $.60 cheaper in Price. We do have enough range, based on going mostly down hill ... to get to Grand Junction. But as long as we were stopped, I used up a gift card and put a gallon and a half of fuel in the tank. This Loves had more gas pumps than most, and right across the street was a 2nd Loves 'Car Stop,' no diesel pumps. And it was busy, but be a lot of tourists. I had thought it was 120 miles to fuel after Green River but it is only about half that. But going west there is a sign that it is '100 miles to next services.' By food time we would be in Grand Junction. 2nd stop is the McCallister's for food. We had thought of getting something to go, but we are still hopefully to get work from here, so this will buy us another half hour. Food was good, we got there at the right time, walked right up to order. Most of the time we were there there were over a dozen waiting in line to order. Just before we got here we saw the cheapest fuel so far, $4.25. But we were heading for food and we were in the wrong lane. On the way out of town we paid $4.27 at a Shell after discount. We saw a few places where people were White Water Rafting. A couple of places there were (?) 50 or so people rafting. Some day ?? 3rd stop was a rest area in Edwards. 4th stop was the TA in Wheat Ridge for the rest rooms. This car is getting great mileage, even at 75-80 mph. It looks like we will get about 500 miles a tankful, which will be over 40 mpg. Not bad for an SUV. Between yesterday and today there have been trucks out of Grand Junction going to KY, TX and OK. All of them are too far out of route to pay well and I need to get home for my DOT. Which is another issue. Dr changed my meds and I'm worse now than before and I have to get my DOT renewed shortly. 5th stop is the J & L Cafe in Sterling. BB read lots of reviews, they are number 1 in town. But she never looked to see that they are closed Tuesday and Wednesday. So we head to the #2 place in town (Village Inn is #3) The Grill at River City. I ordered a Philly, sorry no meat ... so no French Dip either. I ordered a Monte Cristo. I was full after eating one fourth of it. Way too much food. It was good. I took the rest to go, not sure when I will eat it. Load board US - 138 IA - 8 MN - 13 We did 500+ miles today and will likely do the same tomorrow. If we had pushed 600 each day we might have made it home tomorrow night. It looks like we will make it to Des Moines. The chances of getting work heading back are less by the mile and at some point not worth it. Not sure what is going on work wise. TX hasn't had any shipments for weeks and not IA has not had any new trips for a couple of days. 220803 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT (delivered) ... spending the night at Ames IA Breakfast - sausage and yogurt. They had more but I was still full from last night. Oh, no alarm clock this AM so we slept in. Walk - Before we headed out of town we went for a walk. At a grave yard. No one here we knew up it was a green spot on the map with paved trails/roads. We did a half hour walk. The temps were already up in the 80's. We did see that there were trails along the river, but they were not all paved and the paved ones didn't show up on the areal photo. There also was a history area but not big enough to do much walking, just a half dozen buildings close together. Heading east, before we get to Ogallala there used to be a rest area. Today we finally see that the new building is going to be a rest area. But I haven't been able to find where the old one was. Today I saw why. It has been completely removed, building, pavement and trees and re-seeded into pasture and the fence moved. ... without a trace. 1st stop is Walmart in Ogallala for fuel. Cheapest fuel so far, we knew there were fuel stops between the hotel and here so we didn't worry when the low fuel light came on before we got there. 2nd stop is Lexington BK (because I missed Cozad) BB can stop anywhere she wants today and she choose Burger King. I eat the other 3/4ths of my sandwich from last night. Last night I must have still been stuffed from noon as it didn't seem like that much food today. Still good. It is almost sickening to see all the corn across CO and NE that is just knee high and fried. Even noticed one place where the open pasture on one side of the road was green and on the other side of the highway was burnt brown. 3rd stop was ShoeMakers in Lincoln for rest room and snack, I got some juice and BB got a candy bar. There was an RV in the lot when we drove in but we hadn't parked by it and it drove out just ahead of us. 4th stop was Cenex in Underwood for cheap fuel. Not sure why we hadn't fueled at Shoemakers. I'm guessing because we still had over 100 miles range and it wasn't until we crossed the NE-IA border that I did the math. We were not going to make it to Des Moines. We originally had a range of 500+ which would have got us well north of Des Moines. There is cheap gas right when I mention it, but by then we are in the express lanes and can't exit for the next five miles. By then BB is able to find this place online. Gas is $.60 cheaper here than the exit on either side. 5th stop was Adair RA to call ... long call. Another branch of our family is having a 're-union' in a few weeks. The hotel's we usually stay at are $200-300 a night for the weekend of the reunion. So we found one place we could use rewards points, IF we had enough. If we stay at that chain tonight, we will have enough. So that is how we picked tonight's hotel. But their online reservation system is still down, it was also down two weeks ago when we stay at this chain. So I had to call and I got a person with a huge accent and an attitude. I came very close to hanging up on them a few times. What could have been done with one more key stroke on the computer took a 15+ minute phone call. That would not have been a good time to take my blood pressure. 6th stop was B'Bop for food in Ankeny. It is right next to the Culvers in Ankeny. It was the first thing I thought of that was 'different,' something we haven't eaten in the last week and can't get near our house. I didn't even remember the name of it. I had a burger, BB had a chicken sandwich. Both were good, but not too unique. 7th and final stop was AmericInn in Ames. We did look at a lot of the Choice hotels first and they were all about this price, a little less for the ones we no longer stay at. This parking lot is almost full when we get there. One down side is that this chain is mostly two stories so a hotel is rare. We get a suite so plenty of room for the short time we are there. After 8 PM again when we shut down. Next door is an old Happy Chef, then it was a Mexican place for a while, then a Copper (something,) that name still showed up on our WiFi at the hotel. Now it is a Flip'N Jacks Pancake House & Eatery. Sounds good. Load board US - 151 IA - 35/33 MN - 3 220804 IA-UT 2 RV's to Draper UT (delivered) ... spending the night at home Free breakfast so no Flip'N Jacks from next door. Eggs and lots of bacon, and juice. No alarm this AM so we sleep in. Nothing really new for today's leg. 1st stop is to pick up our RV. Talked to one driver who walked past. Now he is doing local, short trips. Recently he had been doing round trips to TX. RV down and a chassis back to Dodge Center. 30 miles deadhead on one end and 100 miles deadhead on the other end. Sounded like he used to tow but had a couple of tow cars get damaged. The lot is starting to fill up with RV's again. End of the quarter is coming up the end of the months so likely the RV count will likely back be in the 100's. Load board US - 133 IA - 33/30 MN - 3 |
