 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
230103 MN ... spending the night at home We are still sitting home with Covid ... and because of a snow storm. Yesterday we made it out of the house and returned the rental car. We could have returned it early and saved some money but we were not up to it. Today BB did some laundry and I went out and shoveled snow. About five times, for 10 minutes each. We keep hoping tomorrow we will be 100% :) We are watching the load board and the 511 highway sites. WY did finally open up today. We had enough time to get to the west coast if we had left last week. Now the days are ticking past. But we are upright so we are on the right track. Load board US - 180 IA - 5/0 MN - 13 WI - 4 230105 MN Spending the night at home, still ... Saturday. Thursday. Local dispatch 1st called to see if I had turned in last weeks/years paperwork. Then they called to see if I could do a local trip today. Then they called a 3rd time to see if I could do a round trip to IN/OH. I finally told them I was not going anywhere, anytime soon. I did finally drive in and turn in my paperwork after hours (so no one would be touching it right away. Friday. We watched the load board most of the day. The last of the local trips disappeared but we are still not ready to commit. A couple of new trips were added and gone almost right away. Then sometime late afternoon, our IA terminal started adding trips. All with October dates, so they are the old ones that have been sitting for months. We could tell that some loads were being taken as trips were being added. Finally by about 8 PM they quit adding and the day ended with 110 trips. Saturday. We still are not ready to commit to anything. There had been six local RV trips plus lots of long ones. We watched the short ones go and enough of the longest ones. Load board ended today where it ended yesterday and lots of trips were taken. I'm guessing that at least 50 trips were taken. Not likely too many people will be calling in Monday AM. Too early to tell if we will. There are a few trips that will pay OK. We can get a rental car from most places home for about $100 a day. None of the remaining trips are 'no-tow' so that is $400 less four our trip, but BB hasn't worked for over a month and was even talking about doing a local pickup (vs RV) just to stay active. We most likely will head to NC if we can. There are trips to FL but then we have an extra day to get to where there might be work. Depends on the weather and if we just want to get warm. We have pretty much stayed in doors for about 10 days now, other than shoveling snow on the warmer days. We did finally take a 15 minute walk today. ... We do have someone living with us, they finally tested positive for Covid yesterday so now we have been 're-exposed' however that works these days. At some point I need to stop by the clinic on our way out of town. I might have to call and see how that should go before I get there. Load board (Wednesday) US - 204 IA - 6/0 MN - 16 WI - 6 Load board (Thursday) US - 163 IA - 2/0 MN - 8 WI - 10 Load board (Friday) US - 246 IA - 111/110 MN - 11 WI - 7 Load board (Saturday) US - 252 IA - 110/109 MN - 9 WI - 6 230109 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Davenport IA Not sure why, but I didn't sleep well. BB is up at 6 AM without an alarm, I am up shortly after. We decide not to leave until after we can call on trips at 8 AM. We both call a few times and BB gets through. They take down minimal info and say they will call us back. We are on the road by 8:15 and we are most of the way to our first stop when we finally get our call back. Even though it looked like about 50 trips were taken on Saturday, it looks like another 30 were taken Monday AM. ... oh, and the load board had dropped another 5 this AM from where it had been over the weekend, so someone was able to get trips before they opened today. By the end of the day the IA load board had dropped 45+ as there were a few new trips that were added today. 1st stop is my clinic. For the first time in 2+ years I had to answer yes to some of their questions. That seemed to confuse them. At first I thought they were just keeping a tally but then they started asking 50 questions. And going over them again to make sure they were in the computer correctly. ... and then, instead of having me wait in the waiting room, they escorted me to the end of a long hall to wait there. But then they got me in and out right away, before everyone else that was waiting. Nurse wasn't sure why I was sitting where I was so I guess it does not happen often ... that someone answers 'yes.' Good news though. Even with being sick for a week/10 days and not eating right my vitals are still right where they are supposed to be. I expected them to be off as I have been loosing weight again. Highway department was busy today. In one area they were using a dozer and the other they were using a 4-wheel drive tractor with a blade. The snow in some area's was 6-10 feet high along the road and they were leveling it out, pushing it as far as they could to the trees and fence. 2nd stop is for gas. Gas was under $3 and we wanted to leave the car close to full of fuel. 3rd stop is at the shipper. Lots of people coming and going but no wait. BB had planned ahead on cleaned her license plate and placard before we left this AM. I had to clean mine there, it's time for our new stuff for 2023. The weather has warmed from 5 degrees to 35 degrees so it was not too bad doing our pre-trip. A few people wanted to talk today, I guess I did not, so BB did most of them talking to them. It took us a hour to do our pre-trips. About normal. One guy that had asked me a few questions, asked me why his steps would not come out when he opened that door. I didn't know. I looked at mine, looked at his. No answer. Later, after I parked the car, I met the local yard man that does the repairs ... he looked at me and said 'Sometimes you just need to use brute force.' As he is carrying his 10# hammer. He was walking back from the other guys RV where the step was stuck. Nope, not something I am going to do. That is his job. 4th stop is in Floyd for fuel and food. We both had enough fuel to get that 50 miles down the road. During that stretch we met a lot of new RV's heading back to the shipper, not sure where or what is being done to them but they are moving them. This trip we are going to fuel at one pump to save one $1.25 fee each fuel stop. Food is GodFather's. We split one burnt personal sized pizza. 5th stop is the Casey's in Center Point for the rest rooms. From here we make our reservation for the night. Davenport will be as far as we get. 6th and final stops are in Davenport. First at the Loves for fuel and then inside to Arbey's for food. Then across the highway to the Comfort Inn for the night. BB takes a walk, I am kind of zapped. I did OK during the day other than getting the chills that I couldn't seem to shake. Load board US - 216 IA - 65/63 NC - 4 There were trips that looked good early today. Two trucks from NC back to Fort Wayne, then briefly there were five trucks from Fort Wayne back to NC. We'll see what works. The trips out of IA are not likely to be there when we get back ... if we come back. 230110 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Dayton OH BB is up by 5:30. Neither of us slept great last night. Breakfast was good, scrambled eggs, cheese and meat. The brand of yogurt I grabbed was not as good. Not a brand I am used to. Day didn't start out great, I forgot to un-latch the door before trying to leave. Nothing major, just a sign that I was not on top of things this AM. As we are waiting at the first traffic light this AM, the on-coming traffic has two left turn lanes, but on of the semi's doesn't see it that way ... traffic in the 'extra' lane has to park on the shoulder as he takes up both lanes. We are under the 16,000# scale limit so we don't have to stop at either IL scale today, both are open. No other scales have been open so far. 1st stop is Congorville at a rest area. 2nd stop is at a Loves in Oakwood for fuel and food. Food being Hardee's. I get chicken sticks, something smaller than a sandwich today. In the past we, we have taken different routes around or through Indy. Today we take the southern route ... ... not good ... ... on the beltway ... I loose the bottom 3/4ths of my sight in my right eye. My first thought is this is the end of my driving days. Then I am hopeful. :) Maybe when my sight comes back, the sight I lost a few years ago in that eye will come back also. No such luck. My eyes do clear within about five minutes, but my prior eye sight loss did not come back. ... yes, it does cause me to think as it is happening, but I remember it happening as far back as in high school. Now I suppose it is time to start writing things like this down. A health log of sorts. Back to work related things. BB had her check engine light come on just before we stopped in Oakwood. Mine came on just after we got back on the road after leaving Oakwood. So now we both have lights on. We can not deliver with any warning lights on but often they go off after 24 hours, we will see if that is the case this time. 3rd stop is a rest area just past Greenfield. Our plan had been to make it to Gallipolis or Chillicothe or Jefferson City. When we looked this AM there were not many rooms left, now when we look there are not any rooms left at the hotels we stay at. Which is why we keep looking throughout the day. If we hadn't looked now, we would have back tracked from our next stop back to this hotel. This way it is just a short day. 4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Dayton. A Clarion across the freeway is $10 but this is where we have always stayed. One other car in the lot when we get there, two cars by the time we grab food. Hotel is half the price of what rooms were down the road when there were still rooms. This place has a Waffle House and a McD's in th parking lot but we walked to Panara a block down the street. Someone almost took us out, even though we had walk light ... guess they were in a bigger rush than we. I guess I am getting better, but most of the day I kept my jackets on and had the heat set at 85 degrees so likely not feeling great. Load board US - 213 IA - 86 NC - 7 We shut down early today so we will not get to Wilmington tomorrow. Hopefully Durham, that is 500 miles. But that means we need to find a place to stash one of the RV's. If we had gotten to Wilmington we would have just left one RV at the hotel. Did get a call and email from local dispatch, I need to remember to let them know as soon as I grab a trip for this company so they don't keep calling. There are still trips from NC that would work for us, and new trips from IA if we do head back. We will keep watching everything. .. the trip continues from HERE |
