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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2023 10 06 VaCa VaCa - Vacation. The only work related thing we did this weekend was call about my I-pass. Thursday when we leave with the rental car I realize that my I-pass is not in my bag. We are going to be going within a few miles of the last customer I used it for so I call them and ask them to check. Pretty sure it is not there. I had all my things cleaned out of the truck and sitting on the parking lot before the inspection. And BB asked if I had each item when I got in the car. Friday the customer calls back and says they did not find the I-pass. We also have had the people at home check for it, they don't find it either. Four of our six days vacation are pretty much like work. Driving, stopping every two hours and staying at the same hotels. Load board (Thursday) IA -0- Load board (Friday) US - 127 IA - 2/0 MN - 5 WI - 3 Load board (weekend) US - 127 IA - 1/0 MN - 3 WI - 2 Load board (Monday) US - 120 IA - 3/2 MN - 6 WI - 10 2023 10 10 MN-MN ?1 trash truck to Minneapolis MN (Wednesday) ... spending the night at home We are still traveling back home from our weekend in Nashville. No plans to work until we see how these next two weeks of appointments play out. We stopped early last night as we were both tired. Vacationing can be tiring. We got going this AM at 8:30 instead of 7:30. Shortly after we got going, the rental dispatchers put out a short trip from Chippewa Falls back to MN. That would be a couple of added miles to pick up and an hour past our house to drop. But we are not really back in work mode so we decided we'd call the next time we stopped. We stopped for fuel in Peru at a Casey's because fuel was under $3. I call and it goes to voice mail. I get an auto reply saying to text them, so instead of calling a dispatcher who could help me now, I text. BB asks why ... An hour later we stop for food and I hadn't heard on the trip so I called the dispatcher back. They never really did say if they had seen my texts, but as we are talking they say that they just got a message that someone had gotten that trip. :( This has happed before with this dispatcher, but they were the original but I will likely be calling someone else first for a while on these trips. That was a nice one we lost. Another couple of hours down the road and we stop at a rest area and I call on a 10 mile trip from Roseville. It has been on the load board for a few days. One load board, the company keeps coming out with 'improved' versions of the load board and leaves the older ones available. For some reason this trip was not showing on the newer version of the load board. OK with me, it worked this time. We got the trip. It will take us a couple of hours. If we had gotten the other trip also this one would have only added a half hour to the day as it was on our way. As soon as we are home, BB walks down to our room and finds my I-pass. It had fallen out of my bag while packing/un-packing. Load board US - 135 IA - 1 MN - 3 WI - 7 Tomorrow we will return our vacation rental car early so we don't have to get up early on Thursday. We'll do that on our way to the trip and then we have other things to do on the way home so not too far out of route to do the trip. I know where both locations are so no need for a map. Roads are all still there. Depending on how things go on Thursday, we may work Friday or we may just take the weekend off before having to be around home again on Monday. 2023 10 11 MN-MN ?1 trash truck to Minneapolis MN (delivered) ... spending the night at home No alarm, home made breakfast. We drop off our vacation rental car on the way to my truck and stop at the drug store on the way home so not a wasted trip. Would have been nice to have had the WI to MN leg :) We get to the drop, the person I am sent to talk to can't do anything without a unit number. All I have is a VIN. Then the call someone else in the shop that might know ... and I commented 'Likely the right person will know all about it.' But that person doesn't come right away so I make calls to the drop and my dispatcher. My dispatcher just tells me the unit number is on the paperwork where the VIN should be. THEN the right person comes ... 'oh, yeah, that was the one that was towed in.' It looks like it wasn't in their system anymore because it was sold and removed. We were moving it from the selling location to the drop when it broke down but the drop hadn't signed for it yet so it was still the shippers issue. They offered to pull it up for me so I waited. Good thing I did as it was blocked in with other units. No issues during inspection. Haven't worked for a few days so I am out of my routine. Enough fuel to get me the five miles without the low fuel light coming on. Brings back memories. I used to work for a few years in the area when the shop and the drop are. Things change. No one had answered at the drop so I went to receiving door. The person who let me in was pushing a broom and that seemed to be his limit. So I headed to the front door to see if I would have better luck. Got to a side door and someone else let me in. Luckily someone who could sign was just walking past when I asked where to go. They looked out the door, saw the truck, signed, told me where to park the truck and where to drop the keys. I had dropped at this customer before but they used to be a mile or so away. A new truck last time with the carrier we dropped. This place is right up against the rail yards on Minneapolis so all the doors are locked. Nice place so far. A few feet away are some long abandon grain silos. This trip was a breakdown issue and the office seemed to be having issues with it. They told me that when I accepted the trip. Then when I called this AM to get dispatched, they put this short trip back on the load board and put me on a SC to MN trip. It took a while to get paid and I ended up being paid on a different trip number than my paperwork said but the money was still good so I'm good. The load board is active again. Yesterday they had put out 4 RV's to California but we can't go right now. Then two more later to the same location. Now today they are putting out more. At the end of the day there is still one to CA and one to OR. Right now we need to get through the next week to see if we are going anywhere. Load board US - 168 IA - 7/5 MN - 9 WI - 2 |
