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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230323 MN-IL 1 truck to Libertyville IL ... spending the night at Kenosha WI Alarm at 6 AM, we are both awake slightly before. No breakfast for now (we'll see how long that lasts) Leaving the house at 7:30 ... 1st stop is the office. I have the last two days paperwork to do so I start on that. Then start talking to a driver that was going to turn a 2nd 60 bus around, but it has mechanical issues. When I finally go to grab my paperwork I realize it is not there, they have forgotten about me. At some point I get their attention and get the keys so I can do my pre-trip. It won't start, I try everything I can think of and then call dispatch ... as soon as they answer, I realize my mistake. The person who parked it has left the truck in gear. But it is one of 'electronic assist' shifters and the screen was showing a large 'N.' (And a small 'r' that I missed before now) So no issues. Even with just two buses, I couldn't pull straight out. It is going to be fun when that third 60 footer comes down tonight. The boss is showing up for work as I am heading out of the office. We talk for a few minutes ... he says that this time when they ran an ad for a dispatcher, they had 10x as many inquires as usual. And it's only been three days. Same ad. ... he thinks they may have a return trip, we'll see. 2nd stop is the Kwik Trip just down the street. The shipper was supposed to have given us the truck full of fuel. They didn't. Later I see that it was supposed to be full of DEF also but that wasn't on all pages of the paperwork. Plan had been to stop in Hudson for fuel but this time I needed to fill right away. Today was BB's issue. Yesterday I forgot my power cord for my phone so we stopped home. Today BB forgot her phone so she stopped while I was still working on getting my truck ready. Then she fueled the car in Hudson. Yesterday when we came past Eau Claire it looked like they were ready to move the traffic lanes. And today they have been moved. So single lane traffic both ways for the next year or two (?) 3rd stop was the rest area near Black River Falls. BB is there. I try calling her but she doesn't pick up. She says that my calls don't ring through. Biggest excitement there was a truck that was parked with it's back up alarm going off. I call the drop, dispatch has just called them. They close at 2 PM so we will be there at 8-9 AM. 4th stop is the Culvers in DeForest. They have a few truck parking spots. We each get a single burger and I get some ice cream. I only eat half but BB is now carrying a cooler as it is our car, so I save the rest for later. 5th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Janesville. This truck has a crate tied on the back so I don't want to park at the edge of the parking lot. I also spend some time to tape cardboard over the pieces sticking out. From what I can see of the parts, I'm guessing there are $1,000's of parts in that box. I've taken lots of pictures of it so I can prove when it was last there. We go for a walk, we still have daylight. About three hours of daylight. Once back at the hotel, we drive to eat a couple of doors down. The Brat Place. Bar, store, restaurant. We split three taco's and a brat. Chips and cheese soup. Plus potato salad, red cabbage. Plenty of food. I found that relish, cheese soup and chips go together. Right as we are walking in to eat, dispatch calls. No work heading back, not work for the weekend so Monday we will be taking a trash truck to somewhere in IL. They said, I don't remember. The only thing they have to run over the weekend would be the last tanker I picked up, heading to OH. But I didn't want to go that far with our car. Load board US - 161 IA -0- MN - 3 WI - 13 We are about 30 miles from our drop. We looked at our drop for the 1st time in the hotel. We have picked up there before. I picked up a truck and it was loaded with dirt. They had to shovel it off before I would take it. It took them a couple of hours. Don't remember when it was, but I could look it up. Nothing good on the load board so we will be heading straight home. About six hours at car speeds. 230324 MN-IL 1 truck to Libertyville IL (delivered) 1 trash truck to Summit IL (Monday) ... spending the night at home ... no breakfast again. They had it, we didn't. I was glad to see that the box on the back of my truck was still there. I tore off the extra cardboard that I had put on last night. I had noticed a guy walking across the parking lots coming in my direction ... ... I'm expecting another beggar. He came over and introduced himself, first name. I just said hello as we shock hands. Then he starts asking me about my truck, but I don't have his answers. I just drive them. I don't know anything about how to operate it or in this case, even what it is used for. Finally we shake hands again and he continues his walk across the back parking lots. Luckily BB and I had <> looked at a map this AM of the drop. We had been to this location before, but we came from the south. The street we want only has access from the south. So we need to take a different exit and streets. I write down the streets and have looked at a map. I'm good :) BUT, we both miss the cross street. The only street that doesn't have a green sign a block before the stop light is the one we need. AND at the stop light, it only lists the county road number instead of street name anywhere. I'm watching BB behind me to see if she puts on her blinker and she doesn't. BB turns at the next one, but I know she took the wrong street. Wrong street for me, but GPS is taking her in the route. Until it doesn't. The streets showing on the GPS are not there. They have gates because those streets/driveways are private property. As soon as BB turns, I pull over at the next wide spot. I look at my phone, luckily I still have the drop pegged so it doesn't take long. And I am across from a large park so there is a wide driveway. As soon as there is a break in the traffic I am able to make a U-turn with my truck without backing up. 1st stop - The drop in Libertyville. Last time I was here, the truck I was picking up was outside the fence so I never was on their property. This time I call my contact and it goes to voice mail. So I push the gate access button. I walked to talk to someone but the gate opens and no one responds to what I am saying to the speaker. I find a shipping/receiving door and someone is walking out. They direct me further down the row of buildings. When I get to the end where I should be. Again some one is walking out as I am getting out of the truck. But this guy knows nothing, other than who I may be looking for. He takes me in the building. This is a large construction business, all kinds of huge equipment all over the place. But in the building .... model A era vehicles. More than a few. No idea why, most likely the bosses hobby? The guy who walked me in, took me to a service counter area inside the middle of an adjacent truck shop in an attached building. Said have a donut, there were two huge trays of fancy donuts, and wait here. BB had gotten lost thanks to her GPS so she called once she arrived, I was talking to her when someone came up behind me to sign. At first he was just going to sign, then decided he should at least see the truck to make sure it was here before he signed for it. So we walked far enough so he could see it and there he signed for it. I shut the truck off and walked back to the exit. No trips that work on our load board. I call local dispatch and no work there either. We just confirm that I'm still good for the truck Monday. As we are heading back, GasBuddy, says that a Kwik Trip has gas for $2.99. I am almost ready to go down the exit when we can see the sign ... $3.29. Back on the freeway. It is cheaper ahead. 2nd stop was the Pilot in Oak Creek. Gas here and the Loves is $3.17. We thought we might get our $.03 discount at Pilot, but I guess if Loves can't offer their discounts it is likely that Pilot can't either. As we are leaving, we see that Loves gas is now $3.15. If we had been a minute or minutes later we could have saved $.20 :) BB watches the load board, but our plan is to only take a trip if we can get it delivered yet today or on Saturday. There is work if we were willing to go just anywhere. 3rd stop is Poynette at the rest area. 4th stop is Mauston ... Old Log Deli. Today they did not have any leftover lasagna. They had actually run out a 1 PM. So we just got enough food to eat today, now. We each had a 'c-salad' sandwich. Mine was chicken, BB's was crab. Looks like we are having another weekend with no work so we wanted to come up with something different to do. Visit family and walk in the state parks. Sometime in our past, we used to head out on Saturday and come back on Sunday and hit three or four parks over the weekend. Not sure where we might go, hopefully somewhere that has lost it's snow cover. One of the parks we looked at has a cave, but that doesn't open for a few weeks yet. I would think it would be a great place to walk in the winter ... out of the cold, snow and wind. :) 5th stop was the rest area in Menomonie. We've seen a few transporters the last few days. Lots of things moving but not any one type. Working local is good ... for a while. We are getting tired of I-94. Food in Mauston is good but too many trips down the same highway. And we have one more week for sure. Only because I have said we would. 6th and final stop is home. Later, my local dispatch calls to confirm details for our trip on Monday. I will pick up the paperwork this weekend before we head out. Load board US - 160 IA -0- MN - 4 WI - 3 We will likely stay somewhere close to Rochester Sunday night so we get an early start on Monday AM. We have lots of rewards points, so we will be using them this weekend. |
