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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2023 09 17 WI-IA 1 pickup to Williamsburg IA (Monday) 1 pickup to Caledonia WI (Tuesday) ... spending the night in Appleton WI The plan had been to leave out Saturday at about 10:30 and stop at the OktoberFest for a couple of hours before heading in the direction of Appleton. Instead at 10:30 we were heading to the ER where we spent most of the day. All is good ... for now. We head out today, Sunday, at about 9:30 and stop in Chippewa Falls at Irving Park. I have a lot of pictures from there from the 1950's when my Dad's cousins lived in Eau Claire. Didn't time it but we spent about an hour there. Free park, a dozen or so zoo type animals. Lots of people having family type parties, we did not join them. The animals look pretty much the same as they did 70 years ago. Seeing those pictures is when I pretty much decided to stop taking pictures of animals. Another hour or so down the road we stop in Curtis at the Abbyland truckstop and have a buffet. Good food. Not a lot of choices but plenty to eat. Salad bar, fish/pork/chicken/beef plus sides. From there we did the rest in one shot. Clarion in Appleton was the cheapest today. There is a restaurant attached but it is early so we head out. We go to a cemetery in town to do some walking. We did find a couple of markers we were looking for but the office closes at 2 PM on Sundays so we didn't have locations on the others. Didn't have locations on any, but we were able to find a couple of them by our detective work. By the time we were done walking we headed to Schlotzsky's. They were supposed to be open until 7 PM but not today. Can't always go by the signs, sometimes it seems it is when the crew wants to go home. So we end up at Noodles and get it to go. They both were near the Fox River Mall. 'Looks' like it is still doing OK. Only the Sears (?) anchor store is empty. Map makes it look like most of the smaller stores are open. Load board US - 88 IA - 1/0 MN - 3 WI - 5 Pretty easy route for tomorrow. Very little freeway but almost all the rest on a US-151. We should be able to pickup, drop and be about halfway back before we shut down tomorrow night. Then the 2nd trip is only about 2 hours so we should get that delivered on Tuesday. Without any RV's to do, we have to find a new way to do things ... that may be just work less. 2023 09 18 WI-WI 1 pickup to Caledonia WI (delivered) 1 pickup to Williamsburg IA 1 dump truck to Topeka KS (Tuesday) ... spending the night in Madison WI Breakfast was supposed to be the typical 'buffet' or a limited made to order menu. When we got there, it was from the menu. And we were the only people in the restaurant the whole half hour we were there. Not making any money that way. The name of the restaurant was the Mad Apple. The hotel was a lot quieter than last night. Almost no one in the halls. Last night the pool area was loud and lots of people. This hotel is the old Holi-Dome style from the Holiday Inn's. Large open area in the middle of the hotel with a pool and seating area's. This one claims to be '100% all natural salt water.' Made to order breakfast takes longer and didn't start until 7 AM, so we didn't leave the hotel property until closer to 8 AM. Then just a few minutes to the shipper. I find someone sitting at their desk who had the truck keys in their office. A box full of keys and mine were not labeled. He guessed wrong the first time and brought the whole box out the 2nd time. No issues, over a half a tank of fuel so I'm good to go. Last Friday we had decided to take the truck going to IA first because it was the longer trip and we could deliver over the weekend. Then the shipper did not want us to pick up over the weekend so we didn't. But we didn't talk about which truck to pick up first until this AM. We had also hoped that someone would put out some new 'good' trips that would match to the 2nd, WI trip. This AM as we are in the shippers parking lot we decide to drop the WI truck first. Not sure it makes a whole lot of difference in the big picture. 120 miles later and I am at the drop, no stop, no fuel. The guy checking me in doesn't seem happy to see me, too big. But the truck says 10,000# and 'everything OVER 10,000# goes to a different lot. I'm under (at) that so he does let me in, but won't sign my paperwork, says they haven't done that for five years. I should have asked him how he knew that ... the people doing his job at the MN don't last 5 weeks. By the time I am parked, BB has arrived. She needs the restroom so we head out to the closest truckstop which is at the prior exit. Loves. Once we are back in the car we get my paperwork sent off and then head out. An hour and a half down the road and we stop at an Arby's for lunch, to go. Then as I am driving I get a call from my dispatcher ... why wasn't my paperwork signed? So I need to resend it after I write - 'refused to sign' next to the drop. I also had a picture of the label they put in the truck with the delivery time so I sent that with to show that they now had it in their system. Back at the shipper, my contact is gone so I am dealing with someone else. They find the keys and sign but it is up to me to find my truck. It helps that it has a clicker/FOB. This truck is on 'E' and has damage. So I need to call dispatch about both. This shipper, or the customer for this shipper, will pay for the first 1/4 of fuel if we give them up on 'E.' This one is, it has a range of 36 miles. So I head to the closest fuel station. It is a Kwik Trip with no auto-diesel pumps. I have to fuel at the truck island and there are only two. I pull in behind one who hasn't started fueling yet. THEN after I am sitting there, he walks into get the pump started. A while later he comes back out and says he'll let me go first. The damage is not a big deal, I just need to take pictures and make a note on the Bill of Lading. What could have taken 15 minutes has taken us an hour. Less than an hour down the road I stop at a Loves to put in enough fuel to get to the drop. There is enough difference if price to make it worth the extra stop. Can't really tell what the mileage is yet. It says 7.7 mpg. I hope that it is twice that so I put in fuel based on 14 mpg. When I re-start the truck it says I have enough fuel to get to the drop ... plus five miles. When we stop sixty miles later, I have used one mile of that range so now I am almost 60 miles past my drop. Too much fuel, but it was a guess. We had hoped to get further tonight but things happen. And the next hotel is almost two hours past Madison so then we are looking at almost 7 PM and eating after that. We end up at a Sleep Inn in Madison. Shortly before we get to Madison, my local dispatcher leaves a message. Do I want to go to KS or PA. So as soon as we get to the hotel parking lot, BB and I talk and I call dispatch back. We haven't committed to our next OTR trip so we accept the one going to KS. Not sure which trip would have paid more, but we are keeping busy. I remember eating somewhere close to here so I look at a map and pick out a place that we may have eaten. This was not it. But BB looked online at it and it looked good. A little Italian deli and store. Mine was good, BB's was good too but she'd try somewhere else next time. Load board US - 91 IA - 1/0 MN - 3 WI - 3 There are still four of these Appleton trips left plus two vans just east of Appleton heading to Fort Wayne that would work. I'd rather be doing 5 day trips than one a day. But it pays. |
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2023 09 19 WI-IA 1 pickup to Williamsburg IA (delivered) 1 dump truck to Topeka KS ... spending the night in Owatonna MN Both awake before the alarm. I've been lucky, I've eaten Italian food a couple of times lately right before going to bed and no bad side effects. Breakfast today was a sandwich to nuke, and a small yogurt. It's raining. It's raining, there is road construction, it is rush hour ... the only thing that it is not is dark. Not sure what time we actually got going but it looks like I drove a full 15 miles in the first hour of the day. BB had her GPS on so it re-routed her at some point. As I am going through Dubuque, my local dispatch calls. So as soon as I get on the far side of town I pull off and call back. I had sent them a message this AM after seeing my paperwork that I may not be able to pick up today. They were just looking for a time-line. Before I get to the drop I stop and put in another gallon of fuel to make sure it stays above the 1/8th line. Then I find out later it should be between the 1/8th and 1/4 line. Next time. At the drop, the guy is eating his lunch, he signs at the table and doesn't want a copy. Inspection is done. My next call is to the next shipper. They are open until 7 PM, not 3 PM like it says on my paperwork. We will be pushing it, but we can still get the truck picked up today. We are still five hours away. All the Appleton trucks are gone of the board now so we may or may not have gotten another one if we had wanted. We stop about a half hour down the road at the Kwik Star in Brooklyn. Shelf food, rib sandwich. Plus a sample piece of carrot cake. They also had chicken sandwiches and chicken nuggets, sample size. BB always is watching the weather, even when it is clear. Today it was dumping earlier and now there is another band coming in. We are watching the frequent lighting strikes. Then the rain dumps. Narrow band but enough to slow traffic down. Once we get north of where the storm had gone through, farmers are combining. In places everything is either dried up or mature. Both beans and corn. I'm noticing a lot of Claas dealers, most look to be part of the Agco dealerships. We stop again at the rest area in Dows, we didn't think about combining our rest and fuel stops I guess. Then we stop again at the Pilot in Clear Lake for fuel. Two RV's are pulling out. I yell over to them. They are going to the next show, we had not signed up for that. This looks like the couple where the guy does everything except drive the 2nd RV. All inspection, fuel, everything but drive. We get to the shipper just after 5 PM. They hand me the keys but no paperwork. I call dispatch and they still pick up, the paperwork should be in the truck. It was. Whoever dropped it must have gotten the keys, put the paperwork in and given the keys back. The shipper did say that four other drivers picked up this AM. There are still more trucks to PA here, plus one each for KS and IL. I call dispatch back again when I see the paperwork. It says my truck needs to be washed ... that likely seals that I will NOT be making delivery tomorrow. And my paperwork says my delivery is in Fontana ... California. Dispatch does ask if we want to bring a truck from here back to the office when we come back. Not likely, we usually don't come right back. And I would rather take another one out. Lots nicer than trash trucks to drive. Inspection goes quick and we decide to drive a few miles yet tonight. Truck is on 'E' so I fuel at the Shell a block away. 10 gallons. Then we head to the Quality Inn in Owatonna about 45 miles away. That will be late enough. Once we check in, we drive to Jimmy Johns and get our sandwiches and back to the hotel. Load board US - 111 IA - 1/0 MN - 5 WI - 3 Tomorrow. Six hours to the wash, one hour to the drop. Nine hours from us leaving the hotel until the drop closes. Wrong place, wrong time. There are 4 trucks in IL going to CA and there are 10 trucks in CO coming back to MN. The CO trucks are 800 miles from this drop so doesn't exactly pay. Not with the chase car. 2023 09 20 MN-KS 1 dump truck to Topeka KS ... spending the night in Lawrence KS Breakfast here is so-so. It is not the reason we stay here. Pulling out of the hotel before has always been with the car, and we can't take a left onto the street so I go up and make a big u-turn by cutting through the Fleet Farm parking lot. Didn't want to do that this AM so BB looked and there is a round-about one street down, so that is what I did this AM. Last night when we were leaving the hotel, I hadn't hugged the stop sign close enough I guess. Someone started to come up on my right side ... even though right is the only way we can go. I have enough fuel to get to Albert Lea for sure and if I still feel safe, I will keep going to Clear Lake. Clear Lake it is. Low fuel light comes on as I am pulling up to the pump. We had debated how much to put in ... 30 gallons was our high number and then I decided to put in 35. At 10 mpg, this plus the 10 gallons last night should get us close to the drop. It didn't. While I am in Clear Lake, I call my drop. 4 PM is close time, no later. Before I get to Eagleville MO, I am down below the 1/4 mark on the gauge so I pull in to fuel at Loves. All islands are full. I finally pick one where I can at least see the guy is fueling, and putting DEF in and washing his windows (? and his truck) The trucks on either side of me are not fueling at any time I am there, once I am done fueling, I notice the driver to the right of me is in his cab ... eating his sandwich ... with a line of trucks behind him. Never did see anyone in the truck to the left of me. I put in another 30 gallons. It seems I am getting closer to 7.5 mpg. And I am almost on 'E' for DEF. While I am there I grab a roller-bite to eat before I get going again. BB texts me that she has left. She saw me parked in the lot when she got here and thought I was in getting food. No, I was waiting for an opening to fuel. So BB pulls off at one of the next exits to let me get ahead of her again. No traffic issues. The ride is not too rough, I have more head room and the seat is a better ride. I get to the wash without directions. I know it is near the Flying J but I can not see it from the freeway ... or the side street, only when I get on the second side street do I see it. It was the only direction I couldn't see from the freeway. There are six trucks ahead of me with two bays open. BB pulls in seconds behind me. They spend plenty of time doing the wash, I just want the receipt. If there had been no-one at the wash, we might have made delivery today. It took an hour at the wash and likely at least a half hour out of route to and from the wash. We get to the hotel at 4 PM, the drop is another half hour down the road. The GPS and maps had a lot of ways to get out of the truck wash. They didn't make sense so we did our own. The wash is just off Front St so we just stayed on that a few miles until we got to the freeway. Easy. A few blocks down the street and BB is honking at me and waving for me to pull over. One of the chains to hold the dump gate open (or closed) is swinging. She didn't realize it, but I have re-anchored them at every stop. But now we are where traffic is closer together so it could hit something now. I re-anchor it again. Leaving KC, I notice some branches on the freeway. Someone else who was jumping from one lane to the other did not see them and hit one of the larger ones so that it flung at BB's car. When we got to the hotel, BB looked the car over good but can not find any damage. Toll roads are a pain now that there are not people to take the cash anymore. I can't reach the machine from the car or truck so I have to half get out of my unit to pay. Loves ... the truck stop ... is taking over the oasis on both the KS and OK turnpikes. Interesting. After we are in the hotel, we find three deli's. This is a college town so lots of fast food places. We end up at Jason's. Chicken salad and chicken pot pie. Load board US - 113 IA - 1 MN - 4 WI - 3 All the great trips from last night are gone. CO-MN, IL-CA. We are not sure what we will do yet. There is a KC to STL that would work but it doesn't get us closer to home and there is no work at home. BB did see two trips out of IA on one of her stops. We are 500+ miles from home. 2023 09 21 MN-KS 1 dump truck to Topeka KS (delivered) ... spending the night at home This didn't happen this AM but a couple of mornings ago ... I was unplugging my phone charger in the hotel room and dropped the charger on my phone ... prongs down. So now my smart phone has a shattered screen. Today. Breakfast was out of eggs, but other than that it was OK. We are ready to roll at 7:30. We have decided to do the toll route even though it is a pain at the toll booths. I have to open the door to get my ticket, but when we leave the toll road there is a REAL PERSON to take my ticket. $2. Easy half hour route today with only a half dozen turns. I do turn once where I shouldn't have as I never looked at the drop location. But I corrected it at the next turn so we just went around the long side of the block instead of the short side. The person who gets to sign is outside on his phone so no real waiting. He is ready by the time I get my things out and I only got a couple of pictures taken. Somehow ... the other truck got here last night. It was still at the shipper Tuesday night but somehow was '3 hours ahead of you' yesterday. The math doesn't work and we spent lots of time trying to figure it out. I'm cleared and ready to go. Of the two best trips on the load board this AM, one was a tractor so I didn't ask about it. The other said it was a box truck but I called and dispatch referred to it as a tractor. And it only paid half as much as we were willing to do it for. IF we decided we wanted to do it. So no. So when there was nothing new on the load board, I called local dispatch that I did this truck for. They have one in Omaha ... but as we talk, they realize they do not have enough info on it, they are waiting on something and say it is a 'no' for today. We chance it and go via Omaha just in case things change. It is 30 miles further and is a route we have only been on once or twice. Via the back roads of KS and NE. We stop once at a Casey's to use the restroom as there are not rest area's. Then we stop in Council Bluffs at McAllister's for food. Food was good, but the help? There was one 'boss' (?) that was wondering around with a clipboard while there was a line of people waiting to be served. Someone else was sitting in their office. When our food came up, it was on plates and the server tried to find who it was for. They didn't hear me when I tried to get there attention. When the server told the person at the register that they couldn't find the table ... the register person said "It's not that hard" and grabbed out food and went around the tables again. ... FINALLY I got their attention. Took a few extra minutes. Should have gotten fuel in NE where it was cheaper. When I realized we would not make Des Moines, BB looked at fuel prices and the cheapest was going to be the Loves at the next exit. So we stop again within a half hour. The Avoca Flying J location now was flashing WENDY's on their screen. I looked on two websites and they have not been updated. It used to be Taco John and American Pie and sometimes a Maid Rite but that was never listed anywhere. Some days open, some days not. It is still listed as being open on the Maid Rite web site. We stop again at the rest area on I-35 by Ankeny and then again by Owatonna. We did see four RV's on the load board today at different times. Nothing short enough that it would work for us. There was a local rental truck move that would have worked if we were in town. And there had been two trash trucks going to IA that would have worked, but were gone before we jumped. Once it got to be later afternoon, BB just wanted to keep heading home. But that doesn't stop her from looking at the load board every few mintues. When we go through road construction by Faribault, there is a car on the side of the road with it's left mirror missing and the side window broken. Either they sideswiped someone or it was road rage. If the mirror is what broke their window, then they did the hitting. Otherwise the mirror would have broken forward. We stop before we get home at the grocery store for the basics and then at Zupas for food. And then home. Load board US - 92 IA - 1 MN - 1 WI - 5 We were out five days so we don't need to work tomorrow. If someone calls, or something really short shows up on the load board we might work. Otherwise we will try to leave out again on Sunday or Monday. Next week is the week I commit to the local carrier, last week of every quarter. Then the following week we have two days before we head to Nashville. Originally we had hoped to get a pair of RV's heading that way. Not very likely with as slow as it has been now. |
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