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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 230415 IA-OH 2 RV's to Dayton OH ... spending the night at Morton IL Pretty skimpy breakfast. I had two yogurts and a hard boiled egg. We are up at our usual time but don't leave the hotel until after 8 AM. 'Rumor has it' that this shipper is wholesaling close to 1,000 vans. They come in as Sprinter or ProMaster shells and the dealer builds their RV inside of them. BUT ... it sounds like they ordered to many/sales quickly died ... so now those models are too old to sell as 'new' RV's. And to go along with that rumor, today we saw three loads of the vans leaving in the few minutes we were at the shipper picking up our RVs. We did see one person bringing in an RV. Plus we saw one leaving as we were pulling into town and then two more drivers in the lot as we are leaving. BB leads today as she has less fuel. We don't stop in Clear Lake so she was doing OK then, but before we get to Floyd she has slowed down to conserve fuel. Zero bars left on her gauge and then the semi ahead of her is slow on the startup and she misses the green light. 24 gallon tank on BB's RV and she can only get in 17 gallons, and the gauge will not go up to full. But we both try putting in more and it is full to the top. It is too early to eat so we will make our next stop in Evansdale. Arby's. I try one of their monthly specials. A little hot for me, spicy. After I take a few more bites, BB and I switch and I eat her gyro. Next time I will try to get that sandwich with Arby's sauce or mayo. IA scale is open today, that is rare. I have to cross the scale, BB does not. Someone is being talked to by an officer, they are driving a paint stripper. So this one likely was ready the day we were in ND ... but this one they are moving themselves. They passed us a few miles down the road. By Davenport it is time to fuel again. There is one other RV in the lot when we leave, didn't see the driver and they were not from our company. From here we make our reservation for tonight. Morton at the Quality Inn is where we will spend the night. We are in early enough that BB decides to do laundry tonight instead of tomorrow morning, or the next. Once we get that set up we walk over to the Cracker Barrel to get our to-go order. 1st stop - the shipper in Forest City 2nd - Floyd Loves for fuel 3rd - Arby's in Evansdale 4th - Loves in Davenport for fuel 5th - Quality Inn / Cracker Barrel in Morton Load board (weekend) US - 199 IA - 2 MN - 7 WI - 22 Nothing has changed since yesterday. The 2nd leg we want to take also have 'limited availability' of cars to get out of. And at some point I want to get back and spend some time out in the field. That isn't likely to happen as long as there is still snow in the forecast. 230416 IA-OH 2 RV's to Dayton OH ... spending the night at Englewood OH Last night ... It rained, down poured. And hailed, small pea sized this time. Then later I went out to get my jacket and there was still a light show going on. By using my phones video, I was able to get a good picture of the lightning. This AM ... BB grabs our leftovers out of the fridge and realizes the fridge is not plugged in. So we have to throw away the half of the food we did not eat last night. 2nd time that I have not gotten to eat my spiced apples. We had made sure we saved food from last night because this place does not have much for food. But, this is the weekend and they do have eggs and sausage. But unlike the place last week that had five pounds of bacon sitting on the warmer, this place would only put out three pieces of each at a time. That was enough for us. It is almost 9 AM central when we finally get going. It is still raining a little and will be most of the day. As we get to the 2nd stop light, ding, ding, ding ... my landing gear is coming down again so I need to pull over and bring it back up. Only takes a few seconds. No traffic issues today, just lots of wind. Our first stop will be for fuel before the IL-IN border at Loves. We put in what fuel we think will get us there. I then put in another two gallons which should leave me on 'E' with the low fuel light on. The wind is enough that BB wants to stay on the freeway and not take our cross country shortcut. Instead we will get off the freeway for a few miles in the 'run down' area of town. Staying on the freeway adds another half hour or so because of the road construction. In this 'run down' area, there are very few name brand store fronts anymore. There used to be a four anchor mall, now completely empty. Most other stores are open, they have just taken on new names. So it is really not that 'run down' except for the mall. BB gets behind me on the city street and I don't see her again for maybe 20 minutes. I knew she had turned on her GPS at the last stop and this street merges back onto the freeway at the other end so not much issue of getting lost. Stopped maybe, but not lost. Instead of the 20 mile fuel range at the drop I was expecting to have, I should have about a 100 mile range ... $$$ We had picked Steak n Shake for food. We parked at the Home Depot across the street because I was not sure how much parking they would have. They did have plenty of room but by then we were already parked. Another good 'garlic burger.' No malt. Short day. Next stop is the hotel. The Comfort Inn near Dayton. BB is hungry so we walk across the parking lot to the Waffle House. Good breakfast compared to hotel food. Someone behind us was getting steak and eggs. Somehow steak from a Waffle House does not appeal to me. After we talk for an hour back at the hotel about our plans after dropping tomorrow, we go for a short walk, not quite a mile this time. Before we shut down for the night, we hear someone backing in out in the parking lot. He has a trash truck. I had to go out and see him as I thought he might be a former co-driver that now moves that brand. He wasn't, but it turns out he also lives in MN. I stood out there too long talking to him without a jacket. Like I thought that not wearing a jacket would limit my time out there ??? 1st stop - Fuel in Oakwood IL 2nd - Steak-n-Shake in Greenfield 3rd - Comfort Inn/Waffle House in Englewood/Dayton As of now ... We have decided not to take trucks to DC. There is not enough money in the trip. As seems to happen on these trips, we weigh the cost of heading straight back vs moving trucks which slow us down and then we have to pay extra for rental cars and hotels. We usually head straight home. But there is not any RV's so back to trash trucks. Plan is to move a trash truck near Dayton about 50 miles if the pay is worth it. Then we MAY also move an RV from IN to WI. We can only get a rental car from Dayton for 3+ days. No one or two day moves. At one point we had planned on using a local Dayton rental to drive to Cinci to get a one way. Then we could have had a one or two day rental. That would have worked if we were going to move the DC trips. But now we have work we can do that make the three day rental pay. ... and it would cost the same to get three rentals between trucks if we went that route, so instead one car, a little more fuel and a lot less hassle. 230417 OH-OH 2 RV's to Dayton OH (delivered) 1 trash truck to Fairfield OH (delivered) 1 RV to Ramsey MN (Tuesday) ... spending the night at Fort Wayne OH The transporter I was talking to last night is leaving about the time we are getting up. Breakfast last night at the Waffle House was better than this AM's breakfast. Eggs and bacon. Bacon was in circles instead of slices. And I don't think it was supposed to be, but it was cold. And it chewed like jerky. ??? We took everything out of our room when we left in the AM. We took my RV and I dropped BB at the airport. After I dropped her, I found a place to pull over and text our MN dispatcher about a trip for today. Then I head to the shipper, stopping to add 'dealer fuel' right before the drop. Then we have decided to park my in a strip mall so both RV's are closer to the drop when the drop opens. BB gets there as soon as I am parked. ... not sure how she knew ... but BB asked how much fuel I put in. Our carrier pays for this final dealer fuel. It was a class C RV so I put in $40. Nope, the $40 only applies to the gas Class C RV's so likely I just gave the dealer an extra $20 in fuel. And I had over guessed on our last fill so I had already put in $15 more than I should have. Even with those two opps, we still pocketed some fuel money. Sometime about now, the MN dispatcher calls back. I get the trip from OH to OH. This works out because now we can stop back at the hotel and ... and we haven't checked out yet. But we can print our paperwork for my next trip. Or not. All printers are down at the hotel so we can't even get a receipt. But we did stop and use our room one more time for the bathroom before we checked out. I head back to the drop and drop our rental car at the dealer, then walk across the street to a church parking lot for BB to pick me up and take me back to my RV a few blocks away. That way we both pull in at the same time with our rental car already there. No one ahead of us and soon after we get there, they pull both RV's into the shop to inspect them. Someone else from our company pulls in a little later and has to wait. We don't talk to them as it is raining and neither of us is waiting inside. Not sure how new this is, but starting at the mall where we parked my RV is where the overhead lines start for electric buses/trollies. Saw one bus today but it was not using them, and those lines don't show on Google maps. Our next stop is the Loves in Dayton a few miles away. There had been a Burger King across the street from the Loves and neither of us can remember if it was open last time we were here or getting ready to open. Today it is closed and for sale. ??? We stop here to get my paperwork printed for my next trip and for food. We both get shelve food instead of Hardee's. For whatever reason, BB hadn't really looked at this next trip. It starts 40 miles from our drop and is a 60 mile trip. Even if we were going to switch rental cars, it still would have been right on our route. Next stop is in Greenville to pick up a new trash truck that is going in for repairs, it failed the 'further inspection' from the customer. So there is a local shop that will rework it instead of sending it all the way back to MN. Great pay on this short trip. Shipper just signs the paperwork I have and hands me the keys. Both the shipper and the drop are just off the same US highway so easy ... or almost. 80+ a few days ago and today we have snow again. Even this close to KY in mid April. Not the stay on the ground piles like MN and WI got but this was sticking to the ground for a while. The rest of the time it is just cold cold rain. I had written down the details of this trip as there were more than three turns. But I didn't catch that there was a 4A and a 4B. So when I got to 4, I turned. Then when I see a street name that I should not be seeing yet I knew I had issues. Then BB starts calling. Nope, even if there is a one in a million chance of getting caught, I'm not going to risk getting a $17,000 fine for being on my phone while driving. As soon as I can I pull over and call BB, then look at a map. 4A and 4 B run parallel so not a big lost. Luckily I had remembered that street name. It wasn't even one we were turning on, it was the street before I was supposed to turn so that I would know I was turning left at the next light. Drop was easy, the guy really didn't want another truck to work on but it's not up to him to refuse it. He looked at it from a distance and checked every box OK. Plans have changed. This AM there was a truck in IN going to WI we had as a backup plan/thought. But now there is one from there going all the way back to MN. More miles and more in route. We call, we get it. Plan and reservations had been to pick up a local car in Dayton to use for today and then go to Cincinnati to pick up a one day rental to Fort Wayne when we though we would do the two trucks to DC but they didn't pay enough. Then we were going to change the Cinci rental to home as it was a little cheaper and we could change it again this afternoon before we picked it up if we needed to. Finally BB decided to just get a three day rental for more money so we didn't spend as much time switching cars. Now that we are heading past home, we decided to still keep the rental as planned. An extra $100 for the car plus fuel but we reserved it for three days and we aren't sure what they will charge us for not keeping it three days. We call and get the MN trip. Too late to pick up today so we will get most of the way to the shipper yet tonight. Quick stop at the first rest area we see. Then a longer stop for food before we leave the freeway. Arby's. I try their brisket again. Not sure this time. Everything was cold and it seemed to be the wrong sandwich. BUT we did get two free cookies because we had to wait so long (and we were their only customer and they were fully staffed) ??? Mostly back roads from there to Fort Wayne. As we got off the freeway, there was a big pile of ??? It looked like one of the industrial greenhouses that had collapsed. Comfort Inn in Fort Wayne for the night. 1st 'stop' - dropping BB at the airport to pick up rental car 2nd - Fuel at Sunoco 3rd - Stage RV at shopping center 4th - Pick up BB's RV from hotel 5th - Stage rental car at drop. 6th - Pick up my RV from shopping center 7th - drop RV's in Dayton 8th - pick up paperwork and food at Loves in Dayton 9th - pick up trash truck in Greenville 10th - drop trash truck in Fairfield 11th - rest area near Middleton 12th - Arby's in Sidney for food 13th - Comfort Inn in Fort Wayne Load board US - 185 IA - 8 MN - 9 WI - 28 We have less than two hours to the next shipper, then about eight hours to home. One of these trips we need to get a new I-pass but for some reason the bad one got left in our personal car. Not sure where, I didn't see it when we took our stuff out to put in the RV's. IF we make good time, we will be home tomorrow night. Then drop the RV on Wednesday AM. From there we still will have enough time to go get our personal car in IA and return this one. There were good trips earlier today near our house but they are gone. Not sure what will be there for Thurs, Fri ... weekend ... .. the trip continues from HERE
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