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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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221024 DOT ... spending the night at home Today was BB's DOT physical. She passed so we can drive until mine expires in about a year. Every year we wonder what it might be this year that trips us up and if we are going to pass. While she was doing that I drove to the MN DMV and got a copy of my driving record. Here we need to do that at a state office. This is the 2nd time at this location that I have been lucky. Since Covid there has been a young person as the 'door keeper,' making sure everyone has their stuff in order before they can enter. With these minor requests, he just walks in and does them for me instead of me waiting in line for an hour. There are a few nice young people in service, even at the DMV. I also had time to drop off my paperwork from last weeks work. It needs to be in by Monday of the following week. So I drove through the parking lot. Only five drivers have their cars parked there. More often there are 10-20 cars. And there were only 2 trucks waiting to be moved, semi tractors. No buses, no dump or trash trucks. Once BB pasted her test, we headed to the local DMV to have her info entered into the state system. BB didn't get a good feeling from the person that they actually knew what they were doing so we will be watching to make sure it gets updated. We have the rest of the week before we can head out. If/when one of us does fail the annual test, that is going to be a huge life style change. And most likely it will be without notice. One day we will be driving, then a test, and we are looking for something else to do with our lives. When we were out today we also voted. Early voting. As we hope to be gone by this weekend. No line while we were there but it sounds like it is quite steady with people coming. Our county has thee place people can vote. Otherwise we would vote in our city, less than a mile from our house. Load board US - 195 IA - 20 MN - 5 WI - 7 There are two short trips out of MN that we would have done if we were working local today. 221027 MN-MN 2 PU's to Shakopee MN (delivered) ... spending the night at home BB had her final appointment of the week this AM and at first we were not going to call on any trips until she was back home from that. But she got done at home what she wanted to before she left so we did call for work at 8:30. Dispatcher told us he was going to be gone in the AM but we didn't think we'd be ready to go until about noon. But, if he had sent us the paperwork in the early AM I would have gone with BB to her appt and we could have left from there. Didn't happen. BB was done at 11 AM. Finally at 11:30 I try to call but the line is busy so I text. And wait. By 12:30 we finally have a digital copy and need to print the paperwork. By 12:45 we are ready to go. The trips are close and short, that is why we decided to do them. We are to the shipper in a half hour. But before we leave, I call the shipper. It will be a 'blind' pickup, as in picking up the unit. They are at a hotel and I will not see anyone there. 1st stop is the Hyatt. The two pickups are parked away from everything else so they are easy to find. Numbers all match. No answer when I try to call dispatch so I head out. Dispatch calls back but by then I am driving. Not going to stop for him this time. 2nd stop is the drop in Shakopee. Nothing knew, I know the routine. Once I drop I call dispatch and again no one. But they need to release me from the trip so when they call this time, BB picks up and puts them on speaker phone. 3rd stop is back at the Hyatt for the second pickup. This time when I called dispatch they answered and wanted to know if I would do two more trips from western MN. I said I wouldn't commit to them now. 4th stop is back at the drop in Shakopee. BB and I talk for a while before I try to call dispatch. At that point we have decided to take the two western MN trips and try to get them both dropped tomorrow so we don't have an extra hotel. But no answer again so we start heading west. A few miles down the road BB needs to stop to use the restroom and I need to call to get released from my last trip and commit to the next two. 5th stop is the Kwik Trip in Chaska. Dispatch answers. But by now it is too late to lock in the western MN trips ... so I don't mention it. When BB gets back in the car we talk again. We decide to head in the direction of IA. So we back track past the drop, that cost us over a half hour. As we are driving we are running through all the what if's. By heading this way we have three options. 1 - There is still an hour left and IA may put more trips out. They have put out very little today. 2 - There is a trash truck in Dodge Center that we have been watching. It would pay better than the rental pickups. 3 - There is a rental truck in IA coming back to Shakopee. Then I ask BB to look to see where the trash truck is going. She tells me, all of their trucks right now are AutoCar's, the ones that are beating me to pieces. That option is off the list. At that point BB says she is hungry. We are just about to the Burnsville exit so we pull off to eat. 6th stop - the clinic. I almost forgot I needed to have lab work done before heading out for the month. They would not have been happy. Right as I park, IA dispatch does put work out and I call on one. It is short but would pay better than anything here. I call. It is gone in the time BB processes if it is worth it. When I'm done here we drive a block away and get food from Honey Baked. By now we have ruled out all three options. We head home. 7th and final stop is home. Load board (Tueday) US - 207 IA - 17 MN - 1 WI - 4 Load board (Wednesday) US - 190 IA - 18 MN - 1 WI - 2 Load board (Thursday) US - 168 IA - 10 MN - 2 WI - 0 We have spent a lot of time talking tonight. We still don't know what we will do. We could do three rental trucks. Or one, or two. Or we could take two RV's to NY and leave out Saturday. But doing so would delay us heading west ... if ... if there is work heading west. Do we take what there is? Do we work to keep busy? Moving pickups don't pay a lot but neither does sitting home and today was the first we have worked in a week.
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