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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 230429 CA-IA 1 city bus to Des Moines IA ... spending the night at Cheyenne WY No issues today :) Breakfast is getting better here. During covid, breakfast was Ding Dongs and Ho Ho's. Short chat with the desk clerk when we checked out. They said during covid, they were down to 0, 1, 2, 3 people a night. Last night they only had four empty rooms. (My guess is it is about a 100 room hotel.) They also commented that it is in part because people are getting there tax refunds ... ? so they head to a casino town ? Weigh scale is closed so that saves us a few minutes or seconds. A little more water on the salt flats. People are still driving on the flats, others try to and then get stuck. Enough wind today that there were very few 'mirror' spots. Pretty for the few seconds I did see them. First stop of the day is in Tooele for fuel. I also text the shipper so that they know the shop did get us rolling on Friday and we have 200 miles behind us with no issues. When I went in to get my receipt, I had to wait for someone who was trying to get cash, but the computer said he had nothing to get. Glad we do not have to rely on that system. When we get to WY we have to cross the scale. I get the bypass but I ALWAYS go in and talk to them, so far. So I get in line to cross the actual scale and someone with a boat is having an issue. One of the officers is outside talking to them as the rest of us wait. Once I cross the scale, the first light says to park ... but the next light has an arrow to get back on the freeway. I park. When I walk in, I get someone new. I haven't seen them before and they ask questions that say they are new. I say I don't have what they are asking for and tell them what I do have. They repeat what they asked for the first time. Then someone else in the office brings them my scale weight, they look at it, ask if I want the copy and then say I am free to go. This time we were only 140# under. I don't remember being that close before, we must be putting on weight. Five miles down the road we stop at Arby's and again split a chicken salad sandwich. Nothing else this time. They have lots of snow in western WY. There are places where most of the ground is still covered. And it looks fresh, white. All the way across the state there is snow by the snow fence. In places the drifts are almost as high as the 20 foot high snow fences. We see a lot of prong horn deer today. And a few carcass of elk and other deer. We also see a few flocks of sheep, 100's in a flock. Next stop is in Green River for a rest break at the Loves. While we are there, I had more DEF. Still planning on keeping it almost full. No issues of any kind so far. Another rest stop at the TA in Rawlins, no one tries to get on the bus today. Most not be time for the Greyhound yet. Somewhere along here I noticed a semi pull out to pass me long before he needed to. Not an issue as there was no one else near us. But by the time he was starting to actually pass me, some other semi started driving down the center lane behind us, flashing his lights fast. If traffic is backing up when someone is trying to pass me, I will back off so they get past faster ... but if the driver is acting crazy ... Once the first semi is completely beside me, I can not longer see the second semi's lights. Then they start riding the left shoulder and throwing sand, gravel and dust in the air. Once both semi's are past me ... the one in the rush isn't really going more than a couple of mph faster than we were. Just didn't like to be blocked I guess. 400 miles from the last fuel stop and we are in Laramie. Now my mpg has gone from 5, to 8 to almost 10 with the nice tail wind we are having today. While we are here, we get food. Lasagna. We should have split one, instead we each got one. Good for shelf food but too much but we both ate all of ours. We had planned on staying here but the hotel in Cheyenne is cheaper and gets us another hour down the road. Then we decide to stay at the nicer hotel in Cheyenne which was the same price as the one in Laramie. Wind changes directions just before we get to Cheyenne. No tailwind for tomorrow. Not sure what happened but BB is not feeling well, she even had to sit while I checked in, then laid down as soon as we got to our room. After a few minutes she did come with me back to the bus to get the second load of luggage. That's when I noticed something dragging. Not sure what. I was able to get under far enough to get it to not drag. I see no purpose for what was dragging. Just a small piece of rubber. Load board US - 271 IA - 69/64 MN - 14 WI - 6 Tomorrow should be our usual, stop ever two hours and stop after 500 miles which will be Omaha. That will leave about three hours for Monday AM. Very likely that we will be delivered and home Monday night. 230430 CA-IA 1 city bus to Des Moines IA ... spending the night at Omaha NE Long day yesterday, for us. 550 miles. Not sure what was going on last night. On both my two laptops that I carry with ... the mouse would not respond properly. When I was at the desk in the room. When I moved six feet away from the desk all was OK. But it took a while for me to move, not knowing why the computers were acting that way. Still do not. There was a loud humming at that time. It wasn't the elevator because that was not running all the time but was running later when the humming was gone and the mouse was OK at the desk. They had a good spread but it was a yogurt day. They also had bottled juice, they kind I carry with so I took one of those also. We leave at our usual time, but on local time. Our first stop is at the WalMart in Sidney. Six rows of semi's across the parking lot. In Walmart we find the personal product BB was looking for and then the Allen Wrenches she wanted. These also come with the start wrenches we want so this is good. Hope the WalMart wrenches are. 2nd stop was to eat in North Platte. We had looked at a couple of other places but ended up at the Loves and eating shelf food. Our other choices were McD's and Subway. Today the shelf food looked better. When we pulled off the freeway there was a large homeless man on the ditch bank. He seemed to have all his belongings wrapped in his quilt. He had been sitting there when we got there and by the time we left he was laying down. No snow here but the ground is not all that warm yet. Our only fuel today is at the TA in Alda. I could see an empty island from the highway but when we got there, there was a line at all islands. Took a half hour today. Price for cheap fuel I guess. Still getting good mileage even with a cross wind. Close to 40 mph so it is throwing me pretty good. At one point where the highway was three lanes wide, I noticed four cars in a row move to the far lane to pass me. They must have seen how I was all over the lane. We have seen a couple of rolled semi's in the last two days. Today they were going to try to flip the trailer upright in one piece. One place yesterday the contents were spread at least two truck lengths from the remains of the trailer. We do a quick stop at a rest area near Milford. 150 miles is too far to go in one shot. And <> 500 miles is enough to go in one day. There is really only one nicer hotel between Omaha and Des Moines and to make it to Des Moines it is another 140 miles. BB was able to get us a rental car. The cheapest she could find is actually one going to Mason City so we don't even need to drive it back to MN. Wish we'd find those when we are heading right back out. Final stop is the Comfort Inn in Omaha ... and it may be the final time. The first thing we see is a (?) homeless person sleeping next to their pool as we walk in. Then we seen all their elevators are out of service. We don't want to deal with finding another hotel so once we agree to two Queens instead of one King they get us down to the 3rd floor. Still, with a bus, we need to carry all of our stuff in every night. That was our workout. Then the in-house restaurant is closed today so we get to go next door for some more shelf food. Another chicken salad sandwich for me. We are in our room a few minutes and we get a knock on the door. They say they are from the front desk so I open. They say they have our luggage. But it isn't ours. Someone had left their luggage at the front desk. I'm guessing it was the couple who was checking in when we did. They didn't seem to be the kind who would carry their own luggage. 1st stop - WalMart in Sidney 2nd - Loves in North Platte food 3rd - TA in Alda for fuel 4th - rest area near Milford 5th - Comfort Inn in Omaha 6th - Casey's for food Tomorrow. Two and a half hours to the rental car place. Then less than five miles to the truckstop and wash. I should have enough fuel but will need to add DEF. Then another 10 miles are so to the drop. From there it is two hours to our car. 30 miles to return the rental and another 3 hours home. Should make it by tomorrow night. 230501 CA-IA 1 city bus to Des Moines IA (delivered) ... spending the night at Mason City IA Delivered ! ! No issues. Still no elevator. Walked the stairs for breakfast. Eggs, sausage, etc. Was going to suggest something to the desk clerk but their phone was ringing and I didn't want to spend any extra time. We are already a few minutes late, we both woke up to the alarm today and not right away. Not awake at 4-5 AM today. Usually there are trucks parked where we did but the only truck here now was not here overnight. Either just stopped in for the free breakfast or a place to park until their next delivery. When we pass an area with truck parking (no rest rooms) we see another bus heading to Des Moines. I honk. Then we stop at the rest area and I pour in the rest of the DEF while BB uses the rest rooms. Once I had DEF issues I never let the tank get below 3/4. Plan was to also call the drop but I forgot. Wind is still rocking the bus pretty good today. Shortly after coming out of the IA scale I catch up to a truck that is going slower than me and is (also) all over their lane. If I had been watching ahead, I might have slowed and paced the driver. Part of the reason he was having issues staying in his lane was he was keying something into his phone while trying to find the wind. ... and because I passed him, other trucks past him and the cop sitting in the median couldn't see him. $17,000 fine for commercial drivers using their phone. We get to the truckstop and wash near Des Moines and there is a line for the wash, as far as we can see. At least a dozen trucks wound around through the Flying J parking lot. I fill first. There is one pump island open so I quickly back in assuming that if I try to drive to come in backwards it will be full. Today I need both DEF and fuel and I forgot that I needed to fill fuel first. Every time I moved my bus a couple of feet, the truck waiting in the next lane was ready to jump into my lane :) I had thought I wouldn't need to add any more fuel but with the wind I ended up putting in another 14 gallons to get it to delivery level. Right after I got into the wash line, one trucker tried to cut between the trucks in the parking lot and got 'stuck.' He was still there when I moved enough that I couldn't see him any more. Then two trucks tried meeting at the corner just ahead of where I was and they were locked there until the wash line moved enough that one of them could move. Then the other one was so close to parked trucks that they needed twice the room to pull ahead. Not sure what was going on to start with, it was taking forever between times when the line would move. Finally BB started timing our moves and then it was down to 5-7 minutes a truck. This place had only one of two bays open today. After half way through our wait, I told BB that they were going to open up the other bay right when we got to the door. Not quite. We were a couple of trucks back from our turn when the doors opened ... because a pumper truck was cleaning the sludge from the bay ... and by the time my bus was washed, they were done pumping/cleaning and those trucks were gone. Not sure when they were going to open the bay, but it was now ready, just as we were done. Other excitement, for me. The waiting line was up against the fence for a truck dealership. I noticed that one of the the trucks had a transporter plate in the back window. I asked online who moved trucks for that brand and tried calling the driveaway carrier dispatch. No one picked up so I finally emailed from a junk account. Turns out the carrier had gotten back to me within the hour wanting me to ship them their plate. :) But I didn't see the email until I got to the hotel tonight. (Not sure the dealer would have given me the plate, some guy off the street) But now the carrier knows where their plate is ... ah, a good deed for the day. Two hour wait at the wash, this is going to change our plans. We are only a few miles from the rental car place. Ah, BB does not like this brand. Too many questions, too hard sell on the extra's. ... and she looked at the fuel gauge wrong and talked herself out of a 1/4 tank of fuel. The drop is fenced so we meet at Fleet Farm to move our luggage to the rental car. I've been this way once before so I <> have the route memorized. But partway there I remember last time I had an issue getting in. So I stop and look at a map and then remember there is a different way in. This way in has a speaker to talk to security. The other gate is activated by the buses, once they are in service. Security lets me in but I have to call my contact to find out where to park. I ask which door, they are numbered, and he says next to the parts department, not listed. :( I guess right. After a few minutes someone comes out to inspect my bus. They ask no questions so I tell no lies. We are to take off the protective plastic the shipper puts on the bus so I ask where to throw the plastic away. They tell me which door and inside that door ... is the bus we passed this AM. I had called my contact from the wash line this AM to find out which paperwork was correct as I had two different addresses. Neither, they were both wrong. But already two hours before I dropped, the other driver had dropped ... but we never seen them at the fuel station ... or the wash ... Hmmmm Done. Delivered. No issues. I call about field work but no one picks up. We head in the direction of our car, then make a big u-turn so we can eat at McAlister's Deli. Not quite as good food this time but still good. Maybe cause it is 3 PM and we are eating our noon meal. Sometime within the hour I get a call back. No field work until Thursday or later so we do not 'need' to head home. But by now there is no work left that can be done in just two days. We also do the math and because of the extra time at the wash (and eating) we now would not get home until 10 PM. We just made enough in the last 10 days that we don't need to work again this month so we decide to get a hotel ... soon. But by now we are out of Des Moines and past Story City so the next hotels are in the Mason City/Clear Lake area. We decide to get our car tonight but not return the rental until in the morning when the office is open. Boss is still in the office in Forest City when we pick up our car. Not sure if that means more work? There are still a few 100 RV's that seem complete that have not been moved to our lot yet and this is quarter end. Quality Inn in Mason City wins out. $50 cheaper than the Best Western in Clear Lake and we are still getting $50 back for every two stays. Lots of semi's at the Best Western. Maybe too windy for them? Passed one semi that was all over his lane. Then he tried to keep up with me ... up to 75 mph ... his left tires are out on the shoulder with his steer tires on the center line. 75 mph ... this cars cruise does not work, not sure why. Must have been yesterday a truck passed me ... plop, plop, plop. Flat rear tire. Today I saw smoke coming from an oncoming truck. Rear brake was smoking. I could see it a 1/4 mile away, not sure how the driver can't see it. At the Quality Inn we walk across the highway to the Culvers. We split a burger. We must be getting old. The 'don't walk' light comes on before we are halfway across the street. Load board US - 263 IA - 64/60 MN - 13 WI - 16 Only one trip total on the rental list and that one is in Virginia. Where are the Bagley's when we can do them? We need to get the rental car back by noon, 1 PM tomorrow. We will likely stay in the area until then in case there is a short trip that works for us. |
