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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2023 06 08 MN Work amounted to driving to the office to turn in my paperwork from yesterdays trips. I had told them yesterday that I could be available Thursday and or Friday but they didn't mention anything, and I didn't ask again. I had a few reasons to go to the office, drop my paperwork, find my phone and check the truck. Phone was right on the seat, but I had to get the keys from the office to get in. And last night I realized I had not checked the backup alarm on the truck and that was why it was in the shop that I picked it up from. So today I started the truck and checked the alarm. It does work once the parking break is released and you are moving. Good news. Bad news ... now the check engine light is on. Boss was just getting to work so I talked to him in the parking lot. Various topics. Two being driving electric buses and what is going on in AL. He hasn't paid any attention because he has plenty of work as is. He thinks the reason he isn't getting many buses out of Crookston is because they are working on electric buses which the flatbed. I also let dispatch know about the check engine light. But didn't stick around to see if they wanted it to go to a shop. Other than that we watched the load board for our OTR company. By the end of the day there are no RV's. But there are four trash trucks that are within my range. Those are not my first choice so we'll wait until Saturday AM or Monday to commit to those. We'd wait until Monday if that dispatch was a little more on top of it ... or they don't work Saturday. Loadboard US - 142 IA - 0 MN - 5 WI - 3 2023 06 11 MN Loadboard (Friday) US - 115 IA - 1/0 MN - 3 WI - 1 Loadboard (weekend) US - 109 IA - 1/0 MN - 2 WI - 1 Loadboard (Monday) US - 87 IA -0- MN - 3 WI -0- Saturday - I did call central (main) dispatch. There was a trip out of Davenport to Davenport. I thought it was wrong so I called them. It was correct, instead of listing two trips they had the round trip listed as one trip. IF I was in the area, might have been a good trip. Sunday - I drove through the local storage yard. One drivers car, instead of the usual dozen or two. Of the four trucks that were there on Wednesday, two were still there. Plus three trash trucks, likely out of Cedar Falls IA. I had thought of calling local dispatch on Monday AM but nothing (yet) that I want to move. Monday - Refresh, refresh, refresh. Repeat as needed, or until everyone goes home. IA did put out four trips all day but none going where it would pay for us to move them. And then they were gone. Nothing good out of the rental dispatcher all day. MN only put one trip out at the end of the day. Going to north of DUL but not until Wednesday. Not ready to commit that far out yet. Maybe tomorrow we will call local dispatch. I spent some time working on my old phone, still trying to get data transferred. Spent about an hour ... and $30 at Verizon and then another bit of time at the repair shop next door. No one could get the data to transfer. Guess I better start keying data back in. 2023 06 13 IA-MO 1 RV to St Louis MO ... spending the night at North Liberty IA Wanting to work, but not bad enough to do a trash truck ... yet. MN added a few this AM before the start of dispatching. A few are within my range for driving those but hoping for something better. Then WI puts a dozen trucks out, some coming back to MN and IA but my guess is they won't pay much. But put the two together and we might do OK. Finally, after 11 AM IA puts out four RV's, they are gone within minutes. But we get one. Going to St Louis. It is under our 500 mile chase limit but we have a 150 miles to get to the RV so not really under our limit. But it will pay more than sitting home. BB wants to wait until tomorrow, I'm ready to go. We have been sitting for almost a week. ... I guess I could have watered the garden in the AM ... too late now. We do leave almost right away. Chances of them putting anything out that will match to what we have AND that we get it is very slim. As far as we know, that is all they put out today. Yesterday it was 3-4 they put out all day also. We left before lunch so we stop at Honey Baked in Burnsville and took it to go. Get to Forest City a little after 2 PM. Surprising there are actually two other drivers getting ready to leave also. Maybe they are putting more out than we realize but it just goes so fast that we don't see it. With it being a small RV and two of us checking it over it only takes a few minutes. All is good and we are ready to roll. I have a quarter tank of fuel so I chance it. Range says 40 miles and we have 55 miles to cheap fuel. The fuel gauge drops to one bar with three miles to go to the station. Gas is under $3 here so I fill up my tank. I have another 400 miles to go and think the chances of getting 20 mpg are slim ... I have a range of 316 when I pull out of the station. 120 miles later, I have a range of 360+. I am getting over 20 mpg and will likely be leaving over that quarter of a tank of fuel. But I will still be putting $$ in my pocket, just not as much. I need to start keeping track of fuel mileage, but every RV is different, even with the same name on the side the inside is different. Two hours from fuel will be Pepper Jax in Cedar Rapids. It's always worth the stop. Could have split a sandwich. Our options were stay in town, drive another half hour where the hotel is $30 cheaper or drive another hour and a half to Mount Pleasant. We go for the close cheap hotel. It will leave us five hours for tomorrow but the drop doesn't close until 4 PM so we should be good. Once we check in, we go for a short walk. It's warm and neither of us have walked for a week. I go out in the garden a couple of times a day but different mussels. Loadboard US - 119 IA - 1/0 MN - 4 WI - 12 Nothing on the loadboard in MO or IL. There are trucks in Janesville WI going to MN and IA and we go right through Janesville heading home from MO. And there are still two trucks in MN going to IL and one MN going to north of DUL. Today is Tuesday, we will drop tomorrow and MAYBE get to WI by tomorrow night. If we pickup in WI in the AM, it is another six hours to MN and then I would like to pick up the next truck yet Thursday PM. If not, I really don't like trying to make it to CGO in one day up against the weekend. There is also a rental truck in MN going to KS. We could check to see if we could pick that up over the weekend. Or we get another weekend off. Moving just one RV is at the low end of the trips we take, if we head home without more work ... this is the kind of trips where we would have to work all 30 days to pay the bills. ... the trip continues HERE
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