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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 2024 02 08 TX-TX 1 box truck to Lake Longview TX (delivered) ... spending the night at Alvarado TX Breakfast - yogurt. TX dispatch stopped taking calls last night by 4 PM so I guessed they would start again at 7 AM. Even before that we see trips dropping off the load board. I call at 7 AM, 7:05, 7:15 ... finally they call back. I do get the TX trip we wanted. And then I ask questions. When do you answer the phone? 7 AM - 4 PM. ... and for trips put on the load board after hours, drivers can EMAIL in their request and they will be honored in the order they came in. That explains that. But now we are two days too late to go to CA. There is no printer in the hotel office area, so I have to email the documents to the front desk and they can print them out. And we are ready to go. We pull out at 8:15 and are at the drop in about an hour. The address is 500 something so BB has me go past the first sign I see. Finally we are to the last gate and turn in. Someone walks out and says this is receiving. You want the main office around the building. So we head back. There is a door, but only a sign in computer. I call the number on my paperwork and leave messages with the two most likely options. At one point I am outside and see someone walking across the lot. I stop them and they check with their boss ... I have to sign in on the computer and wait. As I am signing in, someone else comes by and helps me to answer the questions as they don't seem to be what I am looking for. And they use their radio to leave messages on with the two people I have already left messages for. An hour after we get to the office, someone new walks past and says something ... to which I reply that I have been waiting an hour. They go back inside and within minutes someone else is there to talk to us. ... we are in the wrong place ... they have been in meetings. (I did get to meet my/our contact there. She gave me her direct number :) ) So back to the first gate that I wanted to go in ... the guard asks which truck I am picking up, gives me the shippers copy and where to find it. It is the last truck we look at. Both because it is the right one and it is the last one in the four rows of completed trucks. Other than the oil looking like mud, all is good. Low fuel light is on so I will be stopping at the first gas station. We take about a half hour to do the inspection. Not sure why, not much to check compared to an RV or bus. ... next time. There will be nothing to it. Now we know how. That was part of the reason for taking a short run. To find out how things work, what they pay and what they are. Pay is good. Our luggage would fit in this cab if it had to. Today the box was locked and I left it that way. Not sure where everything would go in the non-CDL trucks. A mile down the road is a Shell station with diesel pumps. I put in based on the 9.8 mpg that is showing on the dash. And then round it up. Non-stop for me. 175 miles. I have looked at a map and written down the turns. US-67 to I-20 is easy. Then once I get off of I-20 things do not look right. The ramp goes onto a frontage road, I don't remember that from the map. Then I was to go under the freeway and get back on the opposite frontage road to get to the drop. Hmmm. There is not frontage road. The first turn is the ramp back onto the freeway so I take the second turn. The turn and the cross streets look about right but the buildings do not. Then I go past a church where a service was just letting out. Funeral? 100's of cars. Another couple of blocks and I have to look at my address. Opps ... I forgot when I got off the freeway ... I was to go four miles before getting off of THAT four lane highway and crossing under it. Now I'm thinking my low fuel light is going to come on for the extra miles but it does not. Then I had seen my drops name on both sides of the road so I drive past first and have to come back. Right place. Only 15 minutes later than expected. (but that 15 minutes may have cost me ... ) No issues, everything gets signed. There is a truck in Houston that I call on. Someone else is on the other line committing to it. That is what it may have cost me. MAY because it was listed as a tractor. I would have called the shipper before I took the trip. If it was a tractor, I would have to pass. My guess is it was a tanker. Pay was great. But I never got a call back that the other driver passed on it so I guess it is gone. Plan had been to head home from the drop if there was no work yet. There is no work yet. But if we head straight home ... there are also no hotels. So we head back to Dallas, on the chance there will be more work after hours. Next stop is a few miles down the road at a TA for Wendy's. Easy to eat in the car. Then another 150 miles back to almost the shipper. No work was added after hours. Last night there was about 50 trips added after hours. Final stop is the Comfort Inn in Alvarado. We walk across the parking lot to the Waffle House. Load board US - 88 IA - 5 MN - 3 WI - 4 Not sure how long we have been out. If there is not work by 9 AM or so, we will be heading home and should be home sometime Saturday. Todays trip will be a little better than a wash. It paid a little more than the hotel plus the extra day of rental car. But we learned. The longer trips will pay. Better than heading to NC/SC area. 2024 02 09 TX-TX 1 box truck to Lake Longview TX (delivered) ... spending the night at Alvarado TX Bacon ... for breakfast. We are watching the load board at 7 AM waiting for something good as TX did not put anything on the load board last night. It doesn't happen. They do put one truck from Fort Worth going to OKC on the load board. We talk about the plus and minus of doing a short one on Friday. The minus won out. We did not do it. IF, if everything had gone like clock work, it would have been an easy $$$ as we are going that way any way. BUT, the trip had an old date. My GUESS was that it was one from a couple of days ago that broke down. Hearing a lot of stories about drivers picking up at shops lately and the problem wasn't fixed. That could mean hours of delay, an extra hotel and an extra day on the car. We likely only had a few hours to play with and the drop would have been closed for the weekend. We kept watching the load board as we traveled. Nothing. We got <> past the point of no return, nothing. Anything beyond there would have to be the ideal trip for us to return. RV dispatch calls. BB puts it on speaker phone. They want to know if we are available. ... maybe. They have two going to Davenport that should be done today and need to be dropped on Monday. No problem ... then they say something about 1,400 miles. Whoa ... I have BB try to turn the speaker up. It is up. These two RV's need to leave TODAY to get to Davenport FLORIDA on Monday morning. That is a whole different story. No can do. We would have to be sitting there when the RV's are done and it would be another push, push, push like the RV's to Tamp. Thanks, but no thanks. ... and we are still <> 1,000 miles away. 1st stop is in Ardmore at the Loves for fuel. $2.45. And something to drink for both of us. 2nd stop was in Edmond OK at a Whataburger. 3rd stop is at the rest area / oasis near Belle Plaine KS. Loves truck stops have taken over the oasis. I think this is the first time I have stopped at one. This one was pretty much like a truck stop. This building was away from the main oasis building. At the other locations they are all one building. BB had wanted to get north of Kansas City tonight to avoid the morning rush hour. I reminded her that tonight's rush hour would likely be worse than tomorrow mornings rush hour. Tomorrow is Saturday :) ... IF we had gotten past KC, we might have stopped at Stroud's. But we didn't make it that far. 4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Olethe. After we check in, we go a mile down the street to Joe's BBQ. Not as good as the last time we were there. For me ... I was still stuffed from lunch so half mine went in the fridge. Today the temps were in the 70's. Tomorrow AM it will be just over freezing. So my food might keep this time. Almost at the end of the day, TX put a trip from Corsicana to MN on the load board. We are too far past it now ... but Wednesday we traveled through it. Yesterday we were still only two hours from it ... There was also a trip from near the bus drop back to FL today ... two days too late. And now after the close of day, TX dispatch puts out three short ones that we could have done in a couple of hours. IF they had been put out last night. But we are gone ... gone ... gone. RV dispatch has been putting out trips also. Most are still going quickly. The only pair so far is going to MD. We will pass. They did put out two to FL but not at the same time. Sometimes I can be a hypochondriac ... last night we we checked into the hotel, I noticed that the desk clerk coughed into their hand right before handing me my keys ... and that they could hardly talk. So today, I have a real deep cough ... ??? Haven't had one like this for months. Load board US - 88 IA - 5 MN - 2 WI - 4 We are still ready to go if something good shows up tomorrow, but that is rare for a Saturday. We plan on setting the alarm and be rolling my 7 AM. As long as we are heading home, I need to stop at the clinic (so far they let me do it on weekends also) and we need to re-order meds. And do laundry. And be ready to roll on Monday :) 2024 02 10 TX-TX 1 box truck to Lake Longview TX (delivered) ... spending the night at home Up before the alarm, rolling at our usual time <> 7:30. Pretty quiet, even for a Saturday AM. 1st stop is in Cameron at the Loves for fuel. $2.49 today. We were a few miles short of the next Loves for range. There is still a few spots of snow in the shade of the ditches in MO, IA and MN. Other than that it the snow is gone, most of the ice is gone. 2nd stop is McCallister's in West Des Moines. It was still early but after Des Moines, it is just the standard food at every exit. TX dispatch put another trip on the load board after I shut down last night. Going to Las Vegas. That trip and a few more were gone by noon. KS dispatch had put out trips too, but not to the midwest this time. 3rd stop was the Pilot in IA. Fuel is a little cheaper here than MN and we need one more rest stop before picking up our car. 4th stop is picking up our car. The shipper is working today, Saturday. That is good :) This is the end of their quarter. Knowing they are working to get stuff pushed out ... we will wait for good trips :) Now that we should have all of our tax info, BB wants a couple of days at home. So I may, may check on working local without BB on Monday. 5th stop for me was the lab. In and out in seconds/minutes. I was at the airport before BB called me. Picked her up as she walked across the traffic. We then stopped at Tinucci's before heading home. Load board US - 80 IA - 5 MN - 2 WI - 4 No work for tomorrow. This last trip was one of the good ones even without getting work out of TX. Covered the bills by working less than two weeks. (But we still need to catch up from Jan) |
