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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230123 IA-IL 1 RV to Rockford IL ... spending the night at Dyersville IA Neither of us got up until 7:30. Looked and there was nothing new from the east coast dispatchers. At 8 AM we called the RV dispatchers and got our trip to IL. We got put on hold so we knew there were people ahead of us on the phone that might be taking our trip. But we got it. Next call was to a 2nd dispatcher to book our return trip. "Sorry, that trip was picked up and delivered on Friday. I just haven't taken it off the load board yet." Thanks, I thought. And then said to this dispatcher "... there goes any profit I was going to make on my other trip." Combining the two trips is what was going to make it a marginal trip. Now it is hopefully a break even trip. Because we had just gotten up, it took us a while to get ready to go. Breakfast was last nights leftovers from I-Heart-Mac-and-Cheese. 1st stop is the drug store. I had called my meds in over the weekend but hadn't picked them up. They don't have them. That took a while. Digging through my bags I find my bag of meds I picked up a couple of weeks ago and forgot about. Opps. 2nd stop was a BP in Burnsville. We were going to need to stop soon for fuel and we still had BP gift cards. Non-stop from here to the shipper. Weather was good, below freezing. Only issue was there was a heavy frost last night and the wind was starting to blow it from the trees. Enough to cover the road in some places. On the woven (?) steel fence at the shipper, there was almost solid frost from the ground to the top of the fence in some places. 3rd stop was the shipper. We got there about noon, just like I told them. Found my RV and checked it out. One break light is not working. Most drivers would not know this as they have no way of checking their own breaks or backup lights. This took most of an hour waiting as they had just gone on lunch. Then the two working the yard truck today ?? I likely know more about how their company operates than they did and I have never set food on the manufacture side. The usual yard man would have fixed it it two minutes, then sent it back to the shop which took another hour. As long as we were just sitting there, we went into town to eat. Kwk Star/Trip for food. Nothing good, really, on the shelf. I ended up with a cold sandwich. None of the roller food, hot food or soup was to my liking today. Glad we didn't go anywhere for a sit down, that had been my thought. Because when we got back, we were only there a few minutes and my RV was back. The way the other drivers leaving were parked, there must have been a lot of people leaving out today. And a lot of drivers towing today. Glad I do not do that, even on a nice summer day. Way more time than I want to spend standing outside working on something that doesn't work. BB even went and got her scarf today to wrap around her neck while she was helping me check my lights. The terminal manager and our yard person were moving RV's so the shipper could plow the yard. Not a lot of RV's 'ready' right now. But hundreds being stockpiled various places that we can see. Including the camping area which usually isn't used in the winter. At 2 PM we are ready to pull out. On the way to the shipper we were doing the math and looking at hotels for the night. Our one hour delay changed all that. One hotel we have stayed at is now listed as 'closed.' The nicer one we have stayed at was was $25+ more than others in the area. One a little further down the road ... BB looked at reviews and someone said it smelled. That was enough to cross it off the list. She should know better than to look at the reviews. We have stayed at hotels many times, no problem. Then she reads the reviews and won't stay there anymore ?? 4th stop is the Loves in Floyd for fuel. BB does the math and says to put in 17 gallons. I put in 15 gallons. We aren't making much money on this trip, I don't want to leave half of it in the fuel tank. We are now a little over two hours until sunset so we make a reservation now. Somewhere before I fueled, I lost my cruise control. I restarted my RV a few times at the truckstop in hopes that it would reset. It didn't. But 50 miles down the road it did reset and now I have my cruise back. I likely would have made better mileage if I had had the cruise on. 5th and final stop is Dyersville at the Comfort Inn. Before the internet, there used to be a number of farm toy stores in this town and 30+ years ago, my kids and I stopped here ... and the Field of Dreams just outside of town. Some where in the mile between the exit and the hotel, my check engine light comes on. On longer trips, we know it will go off about 24 hours after it comes on. I have two hours to drive tomorrow. I had hoped that would not still be an issue on this RV. The others we have driven had been sitting for four months. This was a 'new' one. So now I will need to deal with that tomorrow. When checking into the hotel I ask if this town has any non-fast food. The next person in line behind me mentions the diners down town. So after we put our luggage in our room we head down town. I do remember <> where stuff was. All the toy stores are gone but not much else has changed. What they didn't tell us at the front desk was that those diners and a few other eateries are all closed on Monday's. :( We end up at Quiznos behind 10 other people and only one person making sandwiches. Before we get in though, we are trying to find a place to park and a few people are sitting there with their reverse lights on and I am trying stay out of their way, all of them at one time. Load board US - 135 IA - 12 WI - 8 MN - 7 Nothing close to us under 500 miles so we will likely be heading straight home as soon as we drop the RV off at the drop or the shop. As of right now, I have a range of 118 and actual mileage to the drop is 115. I'm hoping to gain more range but with that few miles left I likely won't gain enough. We have done this route enough that I know there are fuel stops along the road that I can get into and most of them sell diesel. I only would need to add a gallon or two. 230124 IA-IL 1 RV to Rockford IL (broke down) ... spending the night at home BB was up before the alarm so we were able to get rolling at 7 AM, before sunrise. But first we walked down for breakfast, I had eggs, bacon and yogurt. Frost this AM but no new issues. This AM there was a lot of fog, some of it heavy so driving into the sun was not much of an issue. Going through Dubuque, I was able to see there the Quality Inn was that we may be staying at one of these times. Also looked for and saw that there was not any signage for the one that used to be in East Dubuque. That one sits six stories up and back from the highway so there is no way to see the building it's self. Well that is a surprise, BB had looked in detail to see if anything was in the former East Dubuque hotel and couldn't find anything. But she uses Apple. As I am writing this, I look up Hirschbach and see that the East Debuque hotel is now the 'Tesla MedBed Center - World's First Energy Wellness Hotel.' As we pasted Hirschbach trucking, I could see about two doze people standing around a truck in the middle of their lot. I'm guessing it was 'new driver training' day. 1st was was in Galena at the Casey's to call dispatch. BB fueled. Normally we are not to take any unit to the drop with any warning/dash lights on. But because we know that on all other units, the light will go out in 24 hours, I am told to call and ask. Nope. Any warning lights, no delivery. And it turns out that the dealer 20 miles away does not work on truck chassis. So I can either take it to Madison or Davenport. My choice is Madison as I will be another hour and a half closer to home by the time I drop. When I call dispatch back, they tell me to 'park it next to the others,' when I get to the dealer. There are already two sitting there waiting to be worked on. It looks like BB was closer to right on guessing how much fuel I needed. I was watching very close the whole morning. As long as I was going 65 mph I was not gaining any range. Finally when I slowed to 55 mph because of two lane traffic I did gain another 10+ miles of range. So I was good :) The low fuel light was on and it was flashing at me but I made it to the truckstop under my own power with <> 5-15 range left. Not where I like it with a diesel. Also we never know where 'E' is compared to when the unit stops running. I don't want to leave it on fumes when I drop at the shop, so I put in enough fuel to get to the shop, plus enough that the low fuel light will not be on. I also do not take the shortest route to the shop. The shortest route is 60 miles of random cow path roads. It is 85 miles via the freeway. When I have something other than a car, I am not willing to follow Google's car mapping. The roads aren't always wide enough to have center lines and if a car fits under a bridge, that is the suggest route. 2nd stop is the shop in Madison. And I do park it next to another one. This place does not just have someone who will walk out and clear the code. It is nice at the dealers who will do it that way. On the way here, I had to got through a scale so BB got ahead of me and pulled off at an exit and while she waited, she looked at her phone. 90 new messages in the last half hour. :) No problem. Some family is planning a vacation in October and they started without her. No work that works on the load board and BB doesn't want me to call my other company to see if they have anything so we head home. We are now four hours from home and will be home before dark. BB does watch the load board until we get home, nothing. 3rd stop is the Log Cabin Deli in Mauston. BB was eating her leftovers when I was dropping my RV at the shop in Madison so she wasn't going to be hungry. We did the math and Mauston was only an hour down the road and we should be there by 1 PM. It's the only unique place I could think of on this route. I ended up with my usual chicken salad sandwich and BB also got a sandwich, she ate half of it now and half for supper. 4th stop was for fuel at the Loves in Menomonie. While fueling, I got to watch some guy do his prayers on the sidewalk in front of the building. It is well below freezing and he is out there with no jacket, no shoes, kneeling on the cold concrete. He was there when I got there, there when we left. Sometime in the last hour of the day, after that east coast dispatcher is usually gone ... they put out a bunch of trucks. One was 50 miles from where we dropped, coming back to within 50 miles of our house. Timing. This trip solo paid about half of what our goal is and we never would have taken it as a stand alone trip. But we thought we had a trip, when that fell through, we thought we would get a trip, so we stuck with it. Paid better than sitting home. So we are way down this month on the income ... next month. Load board US - 166 IA - 28 WI - 4 MN - 5 PTR - 5 230126 MN Load board - Wednesday IA - 25 Load board - Thursday US - 184 IA - 17 MN - 6 Load board - Friday US - 131 IA - 0 MN - 1 WI - 11 PTR - 2 Load board - Sunday US - 119 IA - 0 MN - 1 WI - 9 |
