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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230111 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC ... spending the night at Durham NC All went OK today ... except when BB tore the hose off the diesel pump :) 150 miles to the drop. Stage one RV, then pickup a rental car and deliver. Then look for work. Not as big a spread for breakfast as yesterday, but good. Actual over hard eggs and ham. Plus some juice. We are rolling by 7 AM central time. Not much for rush hour near Dayton. I'm guessing we should have looked at fuel prices better when we were planning today. Yesterday, the plan had been to stop in Dayton for fuel before driving another hour to the hotel. But because we stayed in Dayton, we decided to knock off an hour before fueling. That didn't take into account the price of fuel. 1st stop was at the Loves in Jefferson. Place is being worked on so very crowded. Not sure what they did at the fuel desk but it looks like they gave me a $.10 discount besides the one we get from our fuel company. Cost less so we'll keep it. 2nd stop was Loves in Rio Grande. BB said she was flashing her lights at me to stop at the rest area a couple of miles before Loves, but I was watching for her blinkers and didn't see any headlights flashing. 3rd stop was the Oasis in Beckley ... it will be closed for a year after this month. Sbaro's is the only thing left. Caribo, BK, Quiznos are already gone as are the pop machines. We were able to still get water and ice from the machine. Our I-pass would work for tolls, but they take so long to hit the bill that we pay cash here in WV. Three tolls. 4th stop ... we had hoped we would make it to Lambsburg but we haven't gained any range yet. So this is an added stop. If we had fueled this AM in Dayton, then at Rio, we would have paid less and not had this extra stop. We have been fueling, both at the same pump this trip to save on our fee's. So once I was done fueling, I hand the hose to BB who is on the other side of the fuel island ... POP ... the hose snaps off. No idea what she did. But because we were not running any fuel when it happened, we didn't loose any fuel. We just had to have a different pump started so BB could fuel. By the time we were done fueling and paying, there was someone out putting the hose back together. Not something I would try to do. 5th stop is Lambsburg ... but shouldn't have been. We top off because we have never had a range of over 300 miles after fueling this trip and it is 284 to the drop. So we should come in close ??? Nope, when we get to the hotel I have an extra range of over 70 miles, not 14 miles. It is going to be dark when we get to the hotel but BB has one picked out in Durham, because that is where we guessed we would be tonight. No other reason to have pushed it so far. 6th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Durham. BB wanted deli food but that would mean driving ... or walking across busy streets. Not a bad area, but lots of traffic, too much traffic to be crossing streets in the dark. People couldn't see us in the daylight yesterday walking. We ended up with Outback across the parking lot. To go. Load board US - 207 IA - 82/80 We were not really watching trips yet today. Tomorrow ? 230112 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC (delivered) ... spending the night at Durham NC Breakfast. BB had leftovers. I had eggs and leftover chicken. There was some kind of breaded meat but too big of cuts for me to try one. Alarm - we were both woken by the alarm this AM. My mind woke but my body kind of stayed in slo-mo for a long time today. Today was one of those showers that was hard to adjust, scalding hot or off. I think someone else down the hall must have finally quit using water and I was able to adjust mine. We are rolling by 8:30 AM local. BB needs to stop once as we have 150 miles to the drop. 1st stop is the rest area near Benson. That is the only one that shows up in our book but there is another one near Warsaw. When I go to do my logbook, I reach into my pocket for a pen. Opps ... I find the hotel room keys, I never checked out this AM. So I call the number I have but it goes into an automated message system. Once I do get someone, I have to make sure I am talking to a live, on site person. I ask them which restaurant is in their parking lot :) It is still well before check out time so no issue there, it just takes a few minutes and now I will have to print a receipt at home. 2nd stop if for final dealer fuel in Wilmington at an Exxon station. BB had worried that it might be a small station for big RV's but not an issue. There is room and no one else is there. Only issue is that BB's receipt prints out blank, but luckily she is in the habit of looking at them and was able to get a printed copy inside. From there, it is two blocks away. 3rd stop is Sam's Club parking lot. BB finds a spot where other box trucks are parked ... that works. From there BB hops in with me and we head back to the airport. I drop BB at the front door and then find a place to park. I end up parking in an out of the way round-about. I have an alarm going off again. This is the third time I have had to stop in the last 10 miles. The computer thinks the landing gear/stabilizers are dropping. Quick fix but annoying. And a major problem if they really are dropping and dragging. 4th stop is the drop. No place to park so they do the inspection in the driveway. Boss/owner is out shortly after they start looking at the RV. He is not a happy camper today. He wishes that 'Just once we'd get an RV that didn't have issues.' After BB gets to the lot, he is the person I have to ask about leaving before they sign for mine so we can get our other RV ... 'I heard people were driving around town in the RV's this AM.' Not sure if that was a wise crack or he was serious. I did do the math and yes, I did put on an extra 12 miles on their new RV. I also left a whole bunch of fuel in it that we should not have. We would have done OK by not stopping and topping off in Lambsburg. So we put in $50+ of fuel we did not need to. We do go and get BB's RV. It takes us 45 minutes to do a four mile round trip ... with stop lights. They are just parking mine when we get back and then start on BB's RV almost right away. No issues with hers. The issue with mine was the step would not extend when the door opened. Someone else was having that issue the day we picked up. Someone from the shipper brought a big hammer and it worked. I had tried mine to show the other driver how it worked, and my would not work from the outside but did when I opened it from the inside. After that I never paid any attention. Today they opened it from the outside and were not interested in seeing if it would work from the inside. It didn't work as intended so it is an issue they need to fix. As we are signing paperwork, the owner/boss comes and sits down with us and starts talking ... asks if we are going to the beach before we leave town. It is currently 75 degrees. But first we want to eat. Lots of places but one is close. 5th stop is McAllister's Deli. We eat outside. And watch the load board. There is work but nothing that we have to have. The CO trip is gone. Others come and go. Never saw this before, while we sat eating our food ... we saw Papa John's deliver a stack of pizza's ... to McAllister's. ??? When we are done eating, we decide to head back to Durham instead of going to the beach. Weather is good but not great. 6th stop is a few blocks away. BB has lost something and needs to buy a replacement. We also buy water. We are barely inside WalMart and I get a text message, I need to re-send my paperwork. Hmmm. I haven't sent any paperwork. 7th stop is the rest area near Benson again. By now it is late enough that it would be dark if we did pick something up in Creedmoor so we head to the hotel. 7th and final stop is a Comfort Inn in Durham. It is not the same one as last night, it is the one closest to Creedmoor if we decide to head that way in the AM. Once in the hotel, we do send in our paperwork. BB is paid within a few minutes and I am not paid by close of day. I do look online and it says my paperwork was in billing since 1:30 this afternoon. About four hours before I did actually send it. My guess is that is now they issue. The paperwork sent at 4:30 needs to be compared to the paperwork that was (NOT) sent at 1:30. ??? From there we order food from the Italian place across the street. Here we do walk over, in the dark, to get our food. We do the crosswalk thing walking over and someone doesn't even slow down for us. BB says she saw them coming and was trying to spook them but she sure spooked me. On the way back we jay walk. It is safer, we can see cars coming from further away and we don't expect anyone is going to stop. Food is good, great. We each only eat half our ours. Food is always good there. Load board US - 207 IA - 62/61 NC - 6 We've spent a lot of time doing math on trips. It looks like our best bet is likely to dead-head home and grab two more RV's. There isn't anything local here that we can deliver tomorrow so we'd have to wait until Monday ... or Tuesday if the drop is closed for the holiday. But there is nothing great out of IA either. There is work, but not the better paying no-tow trips. 230113 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC (delivered) ... spending the night at Cross Lanes WV No alarm. Up when we woke up. We did go down for breakfast. I got some bacon, BB got fruit (?) Then we are your left overs. Last night there were tornado's and storms in AL and GA. We didn't get the tornado's, but by the time we went to bed the rain was coming down sideways and people were waiting in their cars waiting for the weather to blow over so they could enter the hotel. We watch the load board. A trip to FL from a few miles away shows up. But, like the rest of the trips ... today is Friday, we'd get to delivery on Saturday and then have to wait until Monday, or Tuesday if they are closed Monday. And we end up getting one plus days pay for three days work. The math doesn't work. At one point I have the phone in my hand to dial to see if someone will take their truck over the weekend and BB reminds me that it is supposed to snow today in the higher elevations. After getting a late checkout, we finally decide to just head home without taking anything that is on the load board now. There was even an RV from somewhere close heading to IN, but we didn't know if they would take weekend delivery and at this point I'm not sure BB wanted to drive into the snow. And she wanted to keep the car, it was cheaper than getting a second car. ... and there wasn't anything from here going anywhere that made a good connection to anything else. Usually there is lots of stuff in IN, not today. There are tractors/chassis in TX coming back to MN, WI and SD but those are 1,400 miles away. There was one trip from VA that was 1,000+ miles but it was listed as a tractor so I didn't even call on it. If it had not been a tractor or from a different dispatcher we may have looked at it closer. We leave the hotel at noon local. Almost right away BB is asking about food. I had the 2nd half of my lasagna for breakfast and not an early breakfast. 1st stop is in Rural Hall at the Stake n Shake. Closed. Permanently. Cookout was our 2nd choice, but this location was drive thru only and BB needed a restroom. So we end up at Arby's. We order inside but get our food to go. I had their burger. Good, but way too much food. 2nd stop was in Wythville at a Pilot for gas. Gas was cheaper across the freeway if we wanted to pay with cash. From here I called work settlements again. This time I got someone who cared. After looking at my paperwork they saw that there was not a name or address on my fuel receipt. So I needed to hand write that info and re-send. BB's receipt had been blank so she had to get a reprinted one inside that must have had all that info on it. That took a few extra minutes of non-driving. The temps were still in the 40's but we did see a few flakes before we stopped for fuel. After we fueled it was sometimes snowing enough that I shut the cruise control off. ... and we ran out of washer fluid again. Did on the last rental car also. 3rd stop was not planned but we needed washer fluid. So we stop at the Morton rest area near Burnwell. No washer fluid. But they did have signs that any cars left at the fuel pumps without someone fueling or in the car would be towed. No parking at the pump and walking to McDonalds I guess. Not here. 4th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in Cross Lanes. We had talked about going to the Golden Corral but I had eaten way too much burger. And BB thinks our immune system is not ready yet. I'm thinking it is the best time, we just had the virus, we should be good. Not sure I mentioned this before, but the Golden Corral in Romeoville IL near Rax has the 'buffet' painted over. I've been watching and that is the only location I have seen like that. Must be a local thing. Our other options for food were Honey Baked, until I reminded BB that she likes her fresh veggies from Cracker Barrel. First we stop at Sheetz and get washer fluid. M-Th, this place has 'Social Hour.' I think that is when we've had soup and salad. But today is Friday so we only get popcorn. I wanted something small from Cracker Barrel, but I couldn't get their menu to work so I just went with what I knew and only ate part of it. Depending on what is for breakfast, breakfast may be leftovers again. Load board US - 174 IA - 51/50 We are still looking at the IA load board. We may pick something but nothing is 'gotta have it.' Some trips west, not enough time. Some trips east/north east, too much snow. Anything else is short. We'll do the math in the AM. We could have driven further last night and gotten going four hours earlier this AM, now we are likely going to be paying for an extra day on the car. Unless we do 700-800 miles tomorrow. It wood have been nice to have stayed in the 70 degree weather area ... ... NC never did put out any new trips today. What was new there today was not from the local dispatcher. 230114 IA-NC 2 RV's to Wilmington NC (delivered) 2 RV's to North Canton OH (Sunday) ... spending the night at North Liberty IA Way to much food yesterday. Even with only eating part of my meal last night. I woke up around 3 AM and slept even worse after that. Today was going to be a yogurt day, but this place also had fried apples for breakfast so I did have a few of those to go with my yogurt. Everything/everyone was going slower this AM so instead of leaving earlier, we ended up leaving late which doesn't help at the other end of the day. When I go in to check out of the hotel, their computer is still down so no receipt this AM. And that is why I had to 'hot spot' my phone to use my computer at this hotel. BB and I talk a lot about trips, we finally settle on doing a short WI trip on Sunday/Monday and we will then stay local after that. At 8 AM central BB calls, as I am driving. The first time she gets voicemail so she calls back. The one trip we wanted is gone. 50 trips on the loadboard and the only one we want is taken right at 8 AM before we can get through. And that is the only trip that comes off the loadboard in the 1st hour. Then a 2nd trip is gone, in all, 9 trips are taken today. Finally about 10 AM we agree to take two North Canton RV's and call dispatch. We should be able to pick them up on Sunday and drop them on Tuesday. From the drop we still have another week before we need to be home again. 1st stop was in Xenia at a Walmart for fuel, restroom and the above phone call. Earlier in the day BB had said she wouldn't need to stop until IN ... but those are the kind of answers she gives when she is not really paying attention. :) That would have been 4 hours between restroom stops. 2nd stop is in Greenfield for food at Stake n Shake, this one is open. ... Opps, this time I can't see out of my left eye ... but that is because I get sauce from my sandwich all over my glasses. This happened before I started driving so I was kind of, able to get them wiped off before we left the parking lot. From here, the GPS had us on the side roads for about six miles to avoid something that was happening on on the freeway. Today we take the shortcut through Indy. It runs right past a huge indoor mall that now is either empty or almost empty. Other than that most of the nearby businesses are in good repair and occupied. Lots of the buildings have new owners but are open for business. Most of the name brand businesses that used to be here are gone. 3rd stop was the rest area in Oakwood 4th stop was the rest area in Gilson 5th stop was for fuel in Davenport. Plan was to fuel at Flying J because we get a bigger discount but at this station the pumps run very very slow. We decided that time was more important. We fuel at the Speedway instead. First we still have $10 gift card left, then I get a $.03 discount with my rewards card so almost as good as Flying J. When we decided to fuel in Davenport we did not have enough fuel range to get to the state line, but as the trip went on we gained mileage and still had a range of 25 miles when we got to Davenport. Fuel was up to $.50 less here so it was worth the push. We are supposed to have this car back by 11 AM or pay for an extra day. It is going to be a push, but we also do not like driving too far after dark so we will get up early instead. 6th and final stop of the night is the Comfort Inn in North Liberty. But first we stop at Arby's and go through the drive thru. Alarm is set for 5 AM central, we are still on east coast time I guess ... .. the trip continues HERE |
