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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2023 08 13 MN ... spending the night at home Load board - 8/13 - Friday US - 118 IA -0- MN - 1 WI - 1 Load board - weekend US - 116 IA -0- MN - 1 WI - 1 2023 08 14 IA-WI 1 RVs to DeForest WI 1 RV to Ramsey MN (Tuesday) ... spending the night at Mauston WI We were not really planning on working today. We slept in until 7:30 instead of 6 AM, we weren't packed, BB finally looked at the load board at 8:30 ... not 8 AM and there was an RV to WI. She calls as she needs to get a run in before 30 days without driving passes. I guess the trip had been on the loadboard Friday also and they took it off for the weekend. She called, she got it. So ... we have to get ready for the day. Had we been ready we could have dropped same day. But this works. We get going a little after 10 AM, instead of 8 AM if we had been ready to work. An hour down the road and BB gets a phone call but lets it go to voicemail. It is a dispatcher in IN with an RV in WI for her. She doesn't want it but I do ... but I'm driving, so BB actually calls an unknown person to get me the trip. :) It is an hour from her drop and goes back to our home town. Round trip. We could have waited for something that paid better but this was a sure thing and then we are back home. One stop at a rest area because of all the road construction it is taking more than our 2-1/2 hours. Rest area, Owatonna. We still need to get off the freeway at Joice to avoid the road construction ... One driver ready to pull out when we get to the shipper. He's towing and if he's the one who's paperwork was laying in the office, he's going to MO. It is now mid-month and the end of the month is this shippers quarter and year end. We should have a big push. There is a row of the larger RV's sitting in their employee lot which is usually the 'pre-stage' before they move the quarter end ones to our lot. Not hard to find our RV when there is only a dozen to choose from and we have a clicker. It takes about a half hour to do the pre-trip. I mostly try to stay out of the way so I don't break BB's routine. Quarter tank of fuel to get us down the road. Next stop is the Loves in Albert Lea, when we pulled up I thought there was a food truck in their lot. Turn out to be the toilets. BB does the math and puts in 15 gallons of fuel. But there is a little wind and she soon finds she is going to have to be adding more. BB had packed a lunch as we had thought we were going to be home most of the week and gone shopping so we have food at home. I hadn't, so I grab a burger at Wendy's. Small one, as it is almost 3 PM. We did have breakfast this AM and then I finished off the last of the fair cheese curds before we left this AM. I stop at the Loves in St Charles for fuel for the car. Cheapest anywhere. When we go to leave there is a semi that's being very slow ahead of us and a pickup with a trailer that is chomping at the bit behind him. We get to the top of the ramp and the semi pulls into the left lane and the pickup is pumping black smoke and pulls to the left lane ... almost. He is quickly back in the right lane and a semi goes flying past us partly on the shoulder. That is why you are supposed to look BEFORE pulling into the travel lane, not as you are doing it. But as you are doing it is good too ... saved me from being part of a mulit-unit accident today. At one of these stops I had called my drop for tomorrow as I am to call 24 hours before delivery. I don't knat I am driving so all I can tell t hem is I will be there ... if all goes well. They are open until 4 PM. I'm guessing I will be there between 2-3.ow wh BB hadn't stopped at Loves so she gets to the next rest are before I do even as I am mostly going 70 mph and she is not. Too much road construction where we are both going the same speed. At the rest area we decide that we are not going to make it all the way tonight. It would be 8 PM and the hotel is $20 more than stopping earlier. Instead we stop at the Double Nickels in Camp Douglas. One of our new stops. Good food, too much so we save half for breakfast. All their daily specials are gone so they must have been good. The German restaurant across the street in Camp Douglas is now closed. It had closed during Covid but had been open again on our last trip through here. Now it is small shops inside the old building so not likely to come back again. Another 15 miles and we are at our hotel, the Quality Inn in Mauson. Once checked in we go for our mile plus walk. Later I remember that I need to print out tomorrows paperwork. The hotel computer screen is off, the computer is off, printer is off, printer is out of paper but I do finally get it printed. Shortly before we ate tonight, we drove past my pickup location for tomorrow. Didn't see an RV so I need to make sure and call in the AM before we get there. Load board US - 97 IA - 2 MN - 6 WI -0- 2023 08 15 IA-WI 1 RVs to DeForest WI (delivered) 1 RV to Ramsey MN (delivered) ... spending the night at home Alarm did go off. We both had leftovers so we never did go down for breakfast. Ready to roll at 7:30 as planned. BB in the lead, she only has enough range to get to the drop plus four miles so she puts in another two gallons. I followed until my low tire light started to flash. I pulled off at the next exit but by then it was only on but not flashing. I stopped on the shoulder of the ramp and looked at my tires, no issues, and when I got back in the car the light was all the way off. But ... this was one of those exits where I could not get right back on the freeway ... and the first cross streets were 'no U-turn.' Took a few minutes. Then another 10 miles down the road I get a phone call. Someone I had left a message with yesterday so again I pulled over and stopped. This took another few minutes. Even with those two stops I was pulling into BB's drop right behind her. This place has two buildings, sales and service. BB decided to stop at sales because it was the first building, before she could get out, someone came out on their golf cart and said she needed to go to service. We were here on time, and the inspection took less than an hour so we are on schedule. Only issue here is BB's tire had a nail in it (not our car) No idea when we picked it up and the tire was not going flat. While we were here I called the shipper and found out where my RV was. It took a few minutes but it is all fixed and paid for. About one hour from BB's drop and we are at my shipper. I get the keys, find out that the prior driver had hit something on the road and a tire had to be replaced. When we picked up the vehicle, BB took off the prior drivers placards ... from the outside of the RV. We never tape them on the outside of a new unit. All checks out good, we don't see where the tire did any extra damage but I take double the pictures as usual (After we have the placards off) I've got enough fuel to make it to the drop but I have to leave it with 1/4 tank. Prior driver was only getting 15 mpg so I will likely be short. The drop closes at 4 PM so I would like to be there at 3 PM. Even though everything is going as planned, I <> need to drive straight though to get to the drop when I want to. BB makes a couple of stops. One rest area and the other for food. I finally stop in Maplewood at a Speedway for fuel when I have one bar more than I need to drop it at. I don't want to wait until the low fuel light comes on as I have had to bring it past where the gauge needs to be to get the light to go back off. Or to even get the needle to move. I put in 2-1/2 gallons to get the last 39 miles. Road construction. I was making good time until i got to the last town before the drop. Anoka. They are taking out the stop lights and putting in over passes. Right now it is one lane each way and we are now at the beginning of rush hour. At the drop. I am there before BB. I drop my paperwork at the front desk and say I will be outside clearing out my things. By the time BB gets there, no one has started to look at the RV yet so I go back inside 'to see where I left my clipboard.' ??? Seems they weren't coming out because I hadn't told them I was done getting my things out ??? Oh ... when I was getting my things out, I noticed that where we had taken off a clacard that the finish was discolored so I took a picture of it. They did end up writing that up, along with damage from the tire that we hadn't noticed. I called dispatch and they said not to worry about either. Now there is a truck in WI coming back to St Cloud. Nothing to get us to that truck and if we hadn't taken this RV to Ramsey we would have been home before they put the St Cloud trip out. So no work. I did call local dispatch and they are having a slow week so no work there either. So that may be it for the week, but now we each have our trip in for the next 30 days. When we were in CA, there was work here for rental trucks. Now that we are here, there is rental trucks in CA. Trips paid good. Round trips do. But only for two days so it's not going to pay a whole lot of bills. Load board US - 90 IA - 1 MN - 4 WI - 2
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