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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 220921 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Chillicothe IL ... spending the night at North Liberty IA Breakfast, 'fried' eggs, and bacon. We leave the hotel by 7:30, but like all days it is later than that by the time we leave the lot. 1st stop is the shipper in Dodge Center. I have a copy of my paperwork on my phone so I know the truck number and stop by and get the keys before looking for my truck. Find my truck and am inspecting it when I realize that my paperwork is not in the truck. So I call dispatch, this time the driver dropped it with the onsite office (That we aren't supposed to talk to) So I go to the office just as they are hanging up the phone with my office ... wondering why they have paperwork. A couple of scratches on the doors that I have to have looked at before I leave. All this takes a few extra minutes. And because it is a front end loader, I will need to have it scaled. But they didn't tell me that in my paperwork. And now that I am looking at my paperwork, I see that the drop closes at 4:30. If I had looked at that last night we could have gotten going earlier today. We will have to see how the day goes. 2nd stop is Kasson to scale the truck. First I need to top it off with fuel, I add another seven gallons. And some wiper fluid, it was completely empty. This truck is only under weight by 200#, lucky I'm not as heavy as some drivers. 3rd stop is the Arby's in Evansdale for food. After I park, I realize that I am in a 'Days Inn Parking Only, All others will be towed' area. My truck is still there when I am done eating but not likely to do that again. It looks like we can get to the drop ... right at 4:30. I call the drop and they are willing to wait or meet me later. I just need to call 20 minutes out. Whew ... 4th stop was going to be the Pilot in Walcott. But when I got to the rest area 10 miles before that I pulled in. It would be a faster in and out than getting off at any exit. It's half way between the prior stop and the drop. It doesn't look like I will need fuel, but. It is about 2 PM when we are here so I call in for my afternoon check in. Dispatch would like me/us to go to MI next. I say no, it is over our 500 mile range and if something happens, anything, we likely would not make Friday delivery and have to sit for the weekend. At this point we want to be off or only doing metro on Monday and nothing on Tuesday. When we go past the Walcott exit, I am glad we didn't stop here. Traffic is backed up almost to the freeway on the exit ramp. Still road construction everywhere. Makes it hard to average 65 mph when the truck only does 65 mph. After going past the Loves in Knoxville, the last truckstop I will pass ... I start doing the math on my fuel level. It is dropping faster on the bottom half than it did on the top half. I will need to add fuel, but there is nothing ... finally the last exit before I leave the freeway ... 5th stop is the Shell station at Edwards. We have stopped here before because their gas was cheap but I did not remember they had diesel pumps. Here I had to go in and leave my credit card before fueling, not something I like to do. But, when I come back in to pay, the fuel clerk is telling someone that they had a $300 drive-off today. So I understand them sticking to the rules ... today. Before I leave the station, I call the drop. Computer shows I am 25 minutes away and it is 4 PM. 6th stop is the drop ... 4:29. My contact is standing outside along with others. They are glad to see the new truck, their first of many. They haven't done the inspection routine so I help them with that and forget to take my parting pictures. It sounds like they, their parent company, is getting new trucks from anywhere they can. Any make of truck, any make of body. I found the place OK, BB was following here GPS and called me just as I pulled in. She was lost ... following the GPS. We were in and out in 15 minutes. Then we moved outside the gate and did our paperwork. When we left we took a Google route instead of my carrier route. Glad I didn't take this with a truck. Narrower roads and way too many turns to remember. We think we have time to get to Cedar Rapids by dark so that is where we start to look at hotels. 'Our' hotel there is over $100 tonight. We find one a few miles short of there for $70. Then we look for food, just the usual fast foods until the Quad Cities, we settle on McCallisters which is getting to be a usual for us. 7th stop McCallisters in Moline. 8th stop is Speedway in Davenport. We get there with about 30 miles range left. Price is the same here as Loves across the street but sometimes, like today, I get $.03 off with my rewards card. 9th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in North Liberty. Our 1st room smelled so bad that we didn't even set our stuff down. Smelled like a basement that hadn't been opened for 10 years. The next room was a lot better. But still they are not good. It is like they are turning on the heat for the first time in six months and not cleaning the heaters first. Just letting whatever burn off. Load board US - 169 IA - 2 MN - 19 WI - 6 No for lined up for tomorrow. There are two WI trips for my local haul company that will work if my local company does not have anything for us. We have already moved three trucks for them and we don't want, I don't want to sit and wait for work. We will be doing enough sitting, or at least not working, in the next 10 days. .. the trip continues from HERE |
