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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 2023 08 04 CA 2 RVs to 1,000 Oaks CA (delivered) ... spending the night at West Valley City UT Up at 4:30 (?) local ... 6:30 home time. So we shouldn't have much problem re-adjusting when we do get home. Breakfast was left overs. Still good. Mine did have a couple of small pieces of tin foil in it :( After we were up a bit, we were looking at the load board and there was a truck from Salt Lake City to Appleton WI. I called and was told I was the 3rd person in line. The first person was still checking on things. I never heard back so one of the first two drivers got it. Nothing else good on the load board today. BB looked every few minutes. We pull out about 6:30 local, after finding out that we can park trucks over by the Days Inn, both hotels are owned by the same company. They have a nice large truck lot. I did park there once 10+ years ago. Almost no slow down this AM even in <> morning rush hour traffic. First stop is the Donner's Pass rest area. Snow is finally gone Gas gets cheaper as we head east. By Fernley we need fuel so we stop at Loves. Could have only put in enough to get to the next cheap fuel but that all takes time. Our third stop is the Port O Subs in Winnemucca for lunch to go. Fourth stop is only another hour down the road but it has the cheapest fuel until we get to WY ... and we don't have enough fuel to get there. It's a Shell in Battle Mountain. Cheap gas, cheap diesel but I'm not sure how 'fresh' their diesel is so I haven't stopped there for that. We are off on our stops today, next stop is Wells at the Flying J for the rest room. Then we had planned on stopping at the rest area near Aragonite NV but it was closed. Nothing else close so we keep going. Sometime today, BB and I were talking about how far we were going to drive today. I had said Salt Lake City as the furthest. BB didn't want to go that far so she was going to look up the hotel prices and see how much we would save by staying in Wendover. :) :) We often pay about $75 in Wendover. $240 for the same room tonight. We don't often stay at the Best Western but they their rooms were $320. Some bonneville salt flats event this weekend. We could have stayed in Elko but we would have been to the hotel by 1:30. Our usual hotel in Tooele was $150 tonight, we ended up finding one for about $100 with OK (?) reviews. Before going to the hotel, we stop at a In-n-Out Burger place a few blocks from the hotel. A zoo. We find a place to park in a nearby customer and walk. ?? The place is not crowded inside, we got an inside table for the first time in months. Within a few minutes the drive thru line was no longer on the the street. Timing. We eat at the restaurant and then head to the Sleep Inn. All's good. No issues. Watched the load board all day today. Tomorrow dispatch is only there until noon. Nothing interesting so it would have to be something new. Not sure what is going on with me. When I get out of this car after a couple of hours it is like me trying to stand up after sitting in the garden two hours. I move like an old man. This is the first time I remember driving bothering me like this. As of now, we will likely be in Cheyenee or Sidney tomorrow/Sat night. Then Des Moines Sunday night and home some time on Monday. Unless there is work on Monday, we still have the rental car until Wednesday. If no work, I may get my DOT taken care of early in the week next week to have it done. Load board US - 79 IA -0- MN - 4 WI - 1 2023 08 05 CA 2 RVs to 1,000 Oaks CA (delivered) ... spending the night at North Platte NE Up at 5:30, breakfast and then rolling by 7:30 local. I had noticed that a sign on the front door said that the gravel lot is closed for truck parking. So I asked about it when I checked out. I was told the city had shut the lot down because it was no paved (?) The hotel hopes to have it paved within a month or two. Reviews on this place were not great but we didn't have any issues. Close to the main route, a little cheaper than Tooele. And this place has a shuttle. They also have times listed when the shuttle runs to the local truck repair dealers :) By the time we are pulling out, our central dispatch has put a trip from CA to FL on the load board. They always look good, and we might have done it if we were still in CA. But the one truck trips never pay that well and we would just have ended up in FL a few days later, still almost 2,000 miles from home and no richer. Sun was just coming up when we headed out so lots of time where the sun was right in my eyes. Be alert. First stop was the Shell in Evanston for fuel. Pumps wouldn't work so I had to pay inside. When they asked how much I wanted the pump turned on for I said "20." So they turned it on for $20 not 20 gallons. $20 did not fill the tank and this was (almost) the cheapest fuel we will find this trip. I did not go back in. When we have a car and don't need fuel, we stop at the rest area across the the freeway. Today the buffalo, including the two while buffalo, were right up against the fence against the parking lot. I would have had to travel 10 miles to make a u-turn to go see them. I didn't want to see them that bad. Sometime early this AM, the mileage dropped from 48.6 to 48.5. Still not bad for running through the mountains and other times at 80 mph. Next stop is in Green River because that is also cheap fuel. I top the tank off at Loves. I didn't see the 'big dig' anywhere today. BB and I were busy talking and she was not looking for it and I was driving 80 mph so not taking my eyes off the road for very long. Talking about money. We are both getting close to retirement and life happens. Looking at all the 'what if's.' But most likely we did not talk about the one that will actually happen. No chance to fall asleep during that conversation. Not sure if I'm getting sick or lifted the wrong way but I am really feeling the pain of being old the last two days. Harder to get out of the car, moving much slower, zapped. Somehow I need to pass my DOT in a few days which includes being able to move ... Wamsutter is getting a new truckstop. It is a One9. All of the other One9 stations I know of were the low end Pilot/Flying J's that didn't draw enough customers or where the rest of the station is under a different name. (not Pilot/Flying J) This is the first location that I have seen as a new One9. Interesting to me. We were going to eat at Laramie at a Deli but BB was hungry by the time we got to Rawlins. Lots of options but we stopped at Flying J as they have the best shelf food ... sometimes. After looking at everything a few times, BB got a burrito and I got fried chicken. To go. Next stop was the two pump, one person town of Buford. Gas was $3.49. THIS is the cheapest we will pay. We topped the tank off and got an ice cream sandwich. Loves ... Sidney ... rest room break. We should have looked at hotels sooner. As we are pulling out of the Loves, BB is telling me that the hotel here is half the price of the ones down the road. Sounds like last night. And again it is only early afternoon ... and staying here may add another nights hotel ... so ... Once we hit NE, the speed limit is 75 max. Once we get to IA and MN it will be 70 max. Less than 100 miles into NE and my mpg is already going up. Maybe we'll be getting over 50 mph once we drop to 70 mph. Today we saw a half dozen UPS vans in transit. A few RV's, a few other things. We looked but did not see the Duluth bus as we drove through Cheyenne. Not sure which dealer it was at. Getting in and out of the car was better today but still feeling old ... Nothing to report road wise. No crashes, no slow downs. no crazy drivers. Lots of sun and a few clouds. We end up staying at a newer Comfort Inn in North Platte, partly because it was <> the same price as the Quality Inn in Ogallala that we usually stay at. The Quality Inn is usually about $75 which is about the right price for that hotel. The back wing of the hotel is abandon and falling into ruin. The attached restaurant hasn't been open for years. But tonight price was double. The Comfort Inn is a much nicer, and newer, maybe five years old, hotel. Once we check in we drive across the street to Capones for to go food. When the food was ready, they handed it to us and I had to remind them that we had not paid for it yet. I got a French Dip. It was just meat, no onions or cheese. BB got a salad that was more than she could eat. Load board US - 76 IA -0- MN - 3 WI - 1 2023 08 06 CA 2 RVs to 1,000 Oaks CA (delivered) ... spending the night at Ankeny IA After two long hard days, I think we burnt our selves out. Neither of us have any get up and go this AM. We did get out for a walk, we were going to walk on paths we saw on the aerial photos. Those paths turned out to be only short pieces in a golf course. So we turned around and then came up to the golf course again in a different spot but it said 'no trespassing' so we turned around again. We did get our half hour walk in. As we came back, we stopped and got ourselves breakfast. I tried to pick up the last little pieces of bacon from the tray but they broke into even smaller pieces. Then they came and dumped more on the tray so I did get my bacon. Water eggs (as I call them) but they do. Rolling by 10 (?) First stop is for fuel in Adel at a Shell. New Shell promo. Get $.15 discount after filling twice ... (filling is 10+ gallons) All we have is a 10 gallon tank so this won't work with this car. BB was hungry but I wasn't so she got a pop and we kept going ... until she was starved. Then we stopped at a McAllister's in Lincoln. I had a half sandwich and soup, and two cookies. As I didn't have any cookies yesterday on National Chocolate Chip Cookie day. One more stop at a rest area near Adair. Then a Sleep Inn in Ankeny for the night. Later, we walk in the rain across the street to Out Back for our food to go. More soup for me. Now that we have slowed to 70 mph, I was getting 51+ mpg on the last leg from Adair to here. We could have done all 700 miles home tonight but it would have meant getting going at 6:30 again today and one more long day. Hopefully I will not be as sore with a couple of shorter days. As of right now, I will not be calling for my DOT appointment tomorrow as I likely can not do all the touch your toes things they want us to do ... 2023 08 07 CA 2 RVs to 1,000 Oaks CA (delivered) ... spending the night at home Slept in a little late again today. BB wanted to get a walk in again before breakfast. I wasn't too worried about it ... once I get home I will be out mowing or working in the garden half the day so I get my movements in. Not really sore anymore, just slow moving. As we are heading out the door for our walk, we see the sign again we saw last night. "Power will be shut off at 9 AM." It was now 8 AM ... so it ended up being a short walk, a quick breakfast and wash up and out the door. Breakfast was a crisp egg and cheese omelet and a mild sausage. Good, but the sausage still had enough grease that one was enough. Williams Flying J was our stop for fuel. Gift card still not working. This is the lowest price fuel we will see today and it was halfway to Forest City. At Forest City BB used the rest room and I started moving things to our car. Saw one driver heading out. To FL. It was a trip that had just been put on the load board within the hour. The driver must have been sitting there. Only said a few words to him and we were gone. I stop in Albert Lea at Loves for fuel. Gift card doesn't work here either. (BB stops at the Holiday next to the airport so the car is delivered on full.) On I-35 there were miles of single lane traffic due to road construction. Lots of it at 10 mph ... that was because someone had rolled a cement truck. Looked like it was one of the ones from the road construction that got too close to the edge of the road. I don't think the one truck they had was going to lift it, not if it was loaded with cement. That added another 15-30 minutes to our trip. Did see a few trash trucks in transport heading south. There is still one going to WI that would work for me. Nothing out of IA works, nothing on the rental list works. May need to call my local dispatcher if I want to work. If. By the time I pull in to the cemetery, BB is calling me. She must have been just enough ahead of me that the slowdown didn't slow her down as much as it did me. She warned me that there was a lot of traffic at the airport and there was. Actually saw two police officers trying to keep traffic moving. But people were just loading and un-loading all the way out to the 4th lane of traffic. Horns meant nothing to them. They were doing what they were doing ... right there. We stopped for food at Davanni's before heading home. Tomorrow ... maybe ... I will call to set up my DOT. Load board US - 89 IA - 1 MN - 3 WI - 2 |
