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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 230530 CA-WI 1 bus to Beloit WI (delivered) 1 tanker to Eagan MN (Wednesday) ... spending the night at Elgin IL We pulled out at 7:30, still thinking that the drop closed at 7 PM based my paperwork. First stop was a rest area in Tiffin. BANG ! ! ! A pickup pulling a boat, blew their right front tire just as the tire was at my front bumper. Being the driver in a city bus means that tire blew less than six feet from where I was sitting. Glad my window was closed. Rubber and ??? was flying everywhere. And as soon as the tire blew, the driver hit the shoulder, my shoulder. Luckily I had locked the brakes when the tire blew and I was able to avoid hitting him. I guess I assumed that no one was right behind him as I then passed him before parking in front of him. The bus was OK and he had a phone to call for help. That's all I found out and then we were rolling again. Because we are running earlier than originally planned, BB had to change the rental reservations. No height restrictions at this airport except don't get too close to the building. Not sure if you could hit the overhang without being on the sidewalk or not, didn't try it. Scales open, they weighed me and let me go. Early in the AM BB was watching the wait times at the truck wash. It doesn't give time, but does say busier than usual, ect. At first it was saying 1/3 as busy as usual so we were hopeful. But by the time I dropped BB at the airport they were busy. And there was a line almost out to the street when I got there. But I went and put in DEF first. This TA has half their pumps selling BIO diesel. Which was nice for me, as no one today wanted BIO so I was able to pull in backwards to get my DEF. But their pumps would not process my card because I wouldn't say I wanted truck diesel. So after a few tries I had to go inside. Inside, and wait for a guy that was trying to get cash and the desk was having an issue. So that took a while. Then they finally got me turned on. Then when I went back inside, someone else was trying to pay with a card that had been shut off. After a while the desk clerk just handed me my receipt without me having to ask. Then ... I was in the long line for the wash. And it was slow. Don't know what the issue was if there was one. They had two wash bays open plus the washout bay. Then when the one line becomes two. I get in the line that the person ahead of me didn't get in. Wrong choice. By the time we get to the door, the truck that had been behind me was washed and gone before I got into the building. One of the trucks ahead of me got both a wash and a washout. Or the crew was just slow. Either way I was there for just about two hours. I had tried a few times to call the phone numbers on my paperwork but no answer so I finally looked up the location and called them. Glad I did, they are only open until 4 PM. It is going to be close. ... and my low fuel light came on when I stopped at the wash. The gauge had been over 1/4 when I got here ... and went back up again later. But when I tried to stick my tank it was down to an inch or two of fuel. So I'm not sure how the tank is shaped. As soon as I had pulled into the wash, BB had called. There is a truck in CGO going to MN. Interesting because this AM I had asked BB what would need to be on the load board to not head directly home tonight after I drop the bus ... and I had given CGO to MN as the example. :) I call and get the trip. Plan had been to fuel in WI where fuel was cheaper but I need to be able to get there. Here, the Road Ranger is the cheapest of the three so I fuel there. I start with 15 gallons. It shows five inches of fuel. I put in seven more gallons and it still shows five inches. I put in a second seven gallons and it now shows seven inches of fuel. I still have 45 miles to go so I put in a third seven gallons and leave. I get to the drop at 3:45, quick check in at the front door and then pull around and into a bay so they can look at the bus. This person didn't even know the bus was coming now. They just knew they were getting one this year and one next year. We made it. Next stop is Jason's Deli in Rockford. Too bad we couldn't have gotten a car in Rockford. We could have now switched it to a local and BB could have ridden with me. Now we will have the car for two days. Most likely would have anyways by the time we went through Forest City to get our car. I had called the shipper as soon as I got the trip. But forgot to ask what time they opened. I also called the drop but had to leave a voice message. The drop did call back and BB did answer. The drop closes at 5 PM so we have just over eight hours to get 36 miles. Six hours driving and two hours fueling, inspecting. No road delays, no slow traffic ... no two hour delays in Mauston like we have seen. :( 7:30 - Waukee IA - Sleep Inn - leave 10 AM - Tiffin IA - rest area Noon - Moline IL - PU rental car 1 PM - Rochelle IL - Blue Beacon - bus wash 4PM - Beloit IL - drop 5 PM - Rockford IL - Jason's Deli 6 PM - Elgin IL - Comfort Inn Loadboard US - 195 IA - 22 MN - 5 WI - 1 Tomorrow ? ... at some point we will be home for part of the weekend. 230531 IA-MN 1 tanker to Eagan MN (breakdown) 1 box truck to Plymouth MN ... spending the night at Cedar Falls IA Breakfast was OK, until BB found a hair in her eggs ... There are nice truck pumps at the Shell right across from the hotel and fuel is cheaper than with a discount at the truck stop so it will depend on how soon I need fuel. I hadn't asked what time they open ... 5 AM right now ... so we got there at 7:45 in case they opened before 8 AM. They did. All looked good, even a 1/4 tank of fuel instead of having the low fuel light on. We check as much as we can before starting the truck and that is when I see it ... An ABS type warning light. I'd be OK running with it but I need the OK to do that. Instead they want ME to take it to the shop. The shop can look at the code right away and if it isn't an issue, they can clear it and I'm on my way. We did look to see where truckstops were in case I wanted to add fuel or DEF. I had thought I would add DEF but still no warning light by the time I got off the toll road. Then a few blocks down the city street and the DEF warning comes on. By that time I am driving slow enough that the De-Rate doesn't effect me. There are a couple of stations with diesel but I don't see them until I am too close to get in the correct lane. We hadn't seen them online when we were looking. I get to the shop and they have a gate, I need to call to get in. And then they can't open the gate I am at, I need to back out onto a city street and go to a different gate. And BB is calling wondering where I am, she is at the truckstop where I said I was going. LIGHTBULB I have BB get me a small jug of DEF as long as she is there. Trying to get into this place was a mess. One lane and it was being used and blocked. So I had to wait. Once I got parked and talked to someone, they came out right away and looked at the truck, ran the codes. It has issues that can not be cleared. I will need to leave the truck. BB is ready to head home and I doubt the shipper wants to pay down time until the shop gets around to looking at it. So I get released from the trip. I do go and pour in the DEF before I leave. Both the DEF and ABS can do a De-Rate and this gets rid of the DEF doing it. Now there is a truck in IA going back to MN. I call and get it. We can now return the rental car to the place we picked it up at. It is about 10 miles from the shipper. About an hour down the road and BB needs a restroom and we could use food. So we stop at the Oasis. As I am walking looking for the men's room I watch someone walk in a different door. Not sure why, but I watched him come in the sliding doors and then just fall flat on his face. By then I was only a few steps from him so I started talking to him and he was replying so I didn't panic. I was more noticing that no one else paid any attention to the man laying face down in the entry to the Oasis. When I saw he was bleeding a little I went and got him some napkins from the food counter. That person was standing right there watching and saying and doing nothing. Not sure why, but I didn't think of getting a chair for him. I guess he had said enough to me that I realized he would be OK as soon as he recovered. Within a few minutes a woman came in the door and said she was his sister. She thanked me and said everything was OK. (Like it happens to him) As I walked away, one other person did ask if he was OK. I just said that his sister was with him now and she knows what to do. By the time I got out of the restroom the man was sitting on a chair and by the time we got our food he was walking un-assisted to the restroom. His sister thanked me again and mentioned how people should never help someone up who has fallen. If they can't get up on their own, let 911 handle it. We get Sbarro's. Mine was one slice of chicken, bacon and ranch. Thin crust, it was really good. Most of the time we get Sbarro's it is just because it is something different ... this time it was really good. 15 minutes down the road we stop again at Loves. BB couldn't wait that long and the food choice was better at the Oasis. But Loves is the easy place to get my paperwork for my next truck printed. Before we get there I get a phone call, I call back. It is my drop for the truck in the shop. I had planned on calling him but he called me first. Sorry, no truck today. From here I call the next shipper ... he would head out to start the truck right away. They have had an issue with it starting. This is starting to sound like not such a good idea. Another hour and we are there. The truck is sitting, still running. Not sure why but they have it locked, running, sitting in there parking lot in an industrial area. Locked? It is a 'box truck' but not really. It's a rag top, curtain side they call it. No easy way for us to open it so everything goes inside. It took a little work, more work because it is a stick shift so there is less floor space. But we got it all in, and a place for BB to sit so we will drop the car. Because there was a change done by a local person, we lost our discount. It ended up being the same price as if we had dropped it near home. But this way we have a few hundred less miles of fuel and don't have to spend four extra hours coming back to get our car. Ohhhhhhh. I've been working. And a lot of the hours driving to trucks has counted as working. So I am up against my 70 hours. IF we had kept the first truck, I would have had about one extra hour to get that one dropped today. But now the only issue is that I had to be off the road by 5 PM instead of our usual 6-7 PM. We were off with a half hour to spare. It was another hour to the next Choice hotel so we shut down in Cedar Falls. And here we walk next door to the Kwik Star gourmet cafe to get shelf food. Slim pickings. We end up with chicken tenders, some juice and an ice cream bar. Too much grease. 90+ degrees outside so no hour walk tonight. 8 AM - Elgin IL - PU at shipper 9 AM - Elmhurst IL - Drop at shop 11 AM - DeKalb IL - Sbarro - eat 11:30 - Dixon IL - Loves - print doc 1 PM - Bettendorft IA - PU at shipper 2 PM - Moline IL - PU BB at airport 4:30 - Cedar Falls IA - Comfort Inn Loadboard US - 212 IA - 14/13 MN - 6 WI - 7 There are two MN trips to CGO ... if they are still there next week we might take one in hopes the tanker is ready to come back to MN by then :) Tomorrow ... we should be able to swing past and get our car and be to the drop a little after noon. And then home for the week and weekend. 230601 IA-MN 1 box truck to Plymouth MN (delivered) ... spending the night at home Up and had our usual breakfast. All the trucks that were here last night are gone, we are the sleepy heads. Yesterday the shifter popped out of gear a couple of times and we thought maybe it was because one of the suitcases was pushing against it too hard. So I re-arranged things this AM, not sure if it did any good but the truck did stay in gear. And we are able to get all of our stuff inside of a day cab. Trash trucks do not have that much room and sometimes mixers only have one seat so we have to be aware ... Most of the time I can be pretty quite and smooth on the gears, some times it just doesn't happen. Pretty rare that I get a stick shift. Two hours to Forest City, a few stop lights that I had to stop for. We have been watching how many pickups the local dealer has here in Forest City. When there was snow, they had them over by the park. Now they are crammed together in their lot, and a lot next to them ... and a lot south of town. Not sure how many 100. Pre-Covid this dealer would have about a couple of dozen total. Maybe I will have to ask, it's a small town, everyone knows everything about every ones business. At Forest City, the load board says there are five RV's available. There are maybe 50 in the lot. Not sure why. There are also another 25 or so in the employee lot that are staged for something. We are in and out in a few minutes. Easier to take stuff out than make it fit in. I have plenty of fuel but don't want to leave it on 'E' when I am getting hundreds of dollars in fuel money. So I decide to add a few gallons to keep it above 1/4. Ellendale Casey's. They do take our discount card but not at the pump. I have to fuel first and then go inside and pay. I had planned on only putting in 10 gallons but the gauge didn't move so I put in 12. It still didn't move but that was enough. They guy ahead of me still hasn't moved so I back out and go and park. I park behind a transporter moving a mixer. Stopped and talked a minute. He's new, heading to TX. Looked like he had three huge suitcases. Inside they can not get my fuel card to work. They tried, two of them. Every trick they knew. This is the first time it has been an issue so I don't know if I should be worried about it or not. They could not even key in the card number, it has to be swiped. I thought I was only getting a few cents discount so I decided to pay with my personal card. Turns out it was closer to $1 a gallon discount. It would have paid to make it work. I also could have called BB as we were running pretty close. She had stopped for fuel and hadn't passed me before I got off to fuel. 20 miles down the road I realize I have lost my placard off my door. I only stopped two places today. Forest City and Casey's for fuel. I had these made up personally and now this is the 2nd one I have lost. I will need to get more so I have a spare. I get to the drop with way more fuel than I planned. I could have added five gallons and been good. The guy who signs, without looking at it, is kind of at a loss. Tells me a few times that his boss just quit (?) and this person doesn't really know what is going on. He signs and I am free to go. It is past noon and there is food close but instead we head up to Brooklyn Park and Sweet Taste of Italy. There used to be one closer to us but it closed on a whim ... as did Quackers who was the next name on the place. No advance notice, just a sign on the door. Anyways great food. While we are there BB is looking at the weather and a storm just pops up out of no where, it passes over us in a few minutes. Dumps good for a while but is done by the time we are ready to leave. While we are there, I call both Forest City and Casey's in case anyone has seen my placards. When I call Forest City ... I say I want two no-tows to California :) ... then say they like to call me when I can't work, this time I am calling them when they have not work :) I find out that the shipper is on a plant shut down for the holiday week. So no work today or tomorrow for sure. Maybe Monday. I also call corp because I was shorted on my last bus pay. They see the error on their end and I'm paid in full in a few minutes. Once we get home we get the paperwork from the last two trips sent in. On the truck that went to the shop, only two I-pass tolls showed up for the truck but a half dozen for the car. But we can't wait forever for them to show up and most times if it doesn't show up within the hour it never shows up. Ever. A freebie. Off for a couple of days. I may call local dispatch tomorrow about work for next week. The more I do during the month the less guilty I feel not working month end for them. MN load board does have one IA trip and three CGO trips. I'd like to get down to CGO in case the tanker gets ready on Monday or Tuesday. It was going to be 'worked on today or tomorrow' ... which is what they told me yesterday. But I haven't seen in on the load board again and tankers don't usually move very fast. 7:30 - Leave Cedar Falls IA 10 AM - Forest City IA - Picked up car 11 AM - Ellendale MN - fueled 12:30 - Plymouth MN - dropped truck 1 PM - Brooklyn Park MN - Sweet Taste of Italy - eat Load board US - 215 IA - 2/0 MN - 13 WI - 7
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