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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230310 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Pittsfield IL (Monday) ... spending the night at home We've been mostly gone for the a few weeks so we stayed close to home the last couple of days. We also had someone coming to work on the house that 'may be able to come Thursday, but more likely Friday.' If they had come Thursday we may have worked Friday, but they didn't come until Friday afternoon. By then there wasn't time to get work for that day ... and by now the 'good' short trips are gone. Also the forecast has been for snow. Not a lot, but I have been out shoveling a few inches at a time. Just about noon, the local dispatch calls looking for me/us to work next week. They have a choice of three. I ask what they are and any will work, so I let them pick where we are going. Shortly after I find we are going to Pittsfield IL. Nice and close to Taylor MO where they have trucks coming out of, but we need to be back on Wednesday first thing so this is an out and back trip. If we are in town, we have people we could meet up with on Saturday but we'll see on that one. With nothing major to do, I have been updating my website. I thought I was keeping it current every year shortly after the new year. Not even close, some pages I've looked at haven't been updated for 10+ years. And a lot has changed in that time. Load board (Thursday) US - 233 IA - 20/18 MN - 8 WI - 10 Load board (Friday) US - 199 IA - 7 MN - 7 WI - 8 230311 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Pittsfield IL (Monday) ... spending the night at home Local dispatch has not had a problem keeping me busy the last few times I have been available, but we do like to keep an eye on the load board just in case. I keep in contact with one driver who drives the buses out of CA and last time they sat for a week before getting a trip. This time I saw they were commenting about 'other work,' so I'm guessing no work again. It doesn't make it nearly as attractive to head that way for us. Taxes are paid, pay a little in on one and get a little back on the other. Load board (weekend) US - 184 IA - 5 MN - 7 WI - 8 SD - 2 IA - 1 to Canada and the other 4 are to Grand Junction CO. Usually the RV's do not dry up this quickly after the quarter end. Glad we have other trips we can do. MN - 4 of the trips are within 300 miles so those would work if they are still there. SD - has one that is going to WI so if anything shows up heading that way it would be a good 2nd leg. 230313 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Pittsfield IL (failed) ... spending the night at home ?? Home ?? Yes, three issues in the first 120 miles and I ended up leaving it at a repair shop. Breakfast ... was last nights leftovers. We pull out at 7:30 as planned. 6:30 if your body still hasn't switched to daylight savings time. 1st stop is the clinic. I get in right away and it goes something like this. THEM: Name and birth date please. ME: (I spell my last name, say my first name and give the the day, month and year) THEM: It's almost your birthday. ME: No THEM: (something else about my birthday) ME: No At this point they are almost freaking out. So I say when my birthday comes, I will be 65, so no. ... I had just given them them my day, month and year. I didn't expect them to react like to something that I saw as a joke. Guess not everyone shares my sense of humor. Before all this happened, I have a few seconds between checking in and being called in so I was going to look at my phone. I did look at it ... the screen was green and then changed to green lines and wouldn't open. Back to last night. We had driven to the local dispatch office to pick up paperwork and then drove to pick up food. While waiting for food, my phone locked up. Nothing I did got a response. By the time we got home it was working again so I did a forced shut down. So it was having issues last night also. Today we followed a U-haul truck for a ways ... all over the road, I wasn't going to pass them. Finally they pulled to the shoulder and we did pass them. Then they pass us again and they still can't stay in their lane. West of Dodge Center there is an ethanol plant a quarter mile or so from the highway. In that area, the road was the most icy we saw anywhere. And I remember a few months ago heading past that same area. The snow was the heaviest we saw anywhere that day. I'm thinking all that heat and heat and moisture has something to do with it. 2nd stop was the shipper in Dodge Center. Found my keys. Found my truck. Usually I have a routine for looking for my truck, because of the deep snow, I looked elsewhere first. Had I stuck to my routine, it would have been the fourth truck I looked at. Check Engine light is on so I have to go to the shop, they clear it and I am good to go. 3rd stop is to top off the fuel and scale the truck at the Kwik Trip. It is overweight by about 300#. I might be OK, but we decide to do it right and head back to the shipper and have them make a correction. 4th stop is back at the shipper. I find someone right away to adjust the weight so I am in and out in a few minutes. 5th stop is back at the Kwik Trip to re-weigh. This time I am legal. My weight has dropped 1,400#. Last time I did this my weight only dropped by a couple of hundred pounds. ... when I was here the first time, BB got a free sample sandwich. I was focusing on other things then and didn't get one. But when I get back a half hour later and things are going good and I'm not so work focused, the sandwiches are gone. Somewhere on the two lane, a semi pulls out in front of me. Not close, but close enough that they are not up to speed when I get to them so I pass them ... they are either texting or dialing their phone ... 6th stop is the Kwik Star/Trip in New Hampton for food. We both get a rib sandwich. As long as we are stopped, I do my afternoon check in call with dispatch and line up work for Thursday. They had two main choices they offered me, Bismarck and IL, I took the IL because it was shorter and because BB said there is yet another storm coming in. We have plans for Saturday so we don't want to get hung up anywhere. 7th stop ... road side. My check engine light has come back on so I stop and call into dispatch. I am told to take a picture and keep going. Seems the shipper can run a diagnostics on the truck while I am moving. I didn't know that. Coming into Waterloo, I see that I have another warning light on and now also a message. But there is no shoulder here in town so I keep going until I get to a strip mall, I pull in and call. Dispatch starts telling me about my first issue and the problems they are having trying to decide what to do about it. Once I get a word in edgewise, I tell them that I now have two more issues ... and I can't wait with the truck. Any delay will make me miss my Wednesday appointment. The closest shop is five miles back or 80 miles foreword. With this many issues, I head the the closest shop. I also find out that these issues are a 'known' for this batch of trucks. Once I tell them what it is, they hardly ask me anymore questions ... take it to the shop. That was my 8th stop. 9th stop is the shop. They can't look at it until at least tomorrow so I am leaving it. Actually the shop was told I was leaving it before I got there. I missed that part. So I call dispatch again. Lots of phone calls today. Also found out they do not have any other short work for me today or tomorrow. BB has been watching out other load board and what was there that was short is now gone so home it is. 10th stop is back at the Kwik Star in New Hampton for the restroom. 11th stop is the Culvers in Rochester for food to go. 12th stop is home. Almost 12 hours. This was going to be a really good paying two day run. Now with the breakdown it will be so-so for today and nothing for tomorrow. Load board US - 172 IA - 4 (all Grand Jct CO) MN - 11 WI - 6 Four of the MN trips I would do, they are under 400 miles but no time to knock them off in one day. Last Monday we were looking for work out of the South East. Today there were four buses going from GA to CA, 2,200 miles. And two trucks from NC coming back to Des Moines IA. |
