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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 2024 03 03 IA-UT 2 RV's to Drapper UT ... spending the night at Waukee IA (Des Moines) Up and out of the room before 7 AM. We grab breakfast to-go. A hard boiled egg, two bacon patties, grape juice. BB has to fuel before dropping the rental so I take the time to fuel also. Pilot in Northfield is the cheapest fuel today in MN. $3.10. I get to the airport and circle twice before BB calls me. Today a street sweeper was working the loading/unloading area so any cars that were just sitting were being chased away. They don't seem to be doing much of that anymore, telling people to move on. Non-stop trip back to IA. Trying to decide how the day is going to go. When we get to the shipper, we decide to just how far we can get. We see and talk to one driver. He is going to the same place we are. He's picking up today but is only going as far as his house. Then he will leave tomorrow and get to the drop the same day we do. When I get out of my RV after moving it, the wind is very brisk. I notice some large leaves blowing across the parking lot in formation ... then I realize they were the wad of napkins that had been in my pocket. They were long gone by then, I didn't chase them down. Still lots of RV's. I counted 50 waiting to be hauled out. My guess is another 100 waiting to be driven out. We have some fuel but it is now time to eat. So we head to Kwik Star and first fuel and then eat there. Because of the wind, we have decided to take US-69 instead of the freeway. That way we can drive 55 mph instead of 65 mph. When we left the truck stop, the winds were 30+ with gusts to 48 mph. We could have shut down and would have with different RV's. But there doesn't seem to be much on these that the wind will hurt. It is more an issue of the poor fuel mileage we are going to get. We stop first near Garner to see if we are going further than 10 miles today. We are. Then we stop again less than an hour later. We will keep going. Then we stop at a Casey's in Gilbert for the restroom and some liquids. That is when we decide that we are only goings as far as Des Moines. Our fuel mileage is taking a beating and we already have lost enough time that we won't make it to Drapper on Tuesday night. BB looks at the GPS and we will take the next left ... that is what the GPS says. But I look at the gravel road and say, no way. Two miles later we are on a paved and marked road to the freeway. Once on the freeway, we got up to 65 mph ... for a minute. After that it was 55 - 60 mph the rest of the way. My 'wind assist' only kicked on once. Bennigan's. We eat at the one attached to the Best Western in Clear Lake. I finally looked them up today. They currently have 9 US locations and three of those are in IA. (They also have some oversea's locations) Wiki doesn't say how many locations they had at their peak, but in 2008 when they filed for bankruptcy, they still had 288 locations. Final stop is the Comfort Inn in Waukee. Food is next door from HyVee's Smokin' Cafe. Laundry here is free and we were off the road early so BB got us set for the next week. The wraps on the RV's were already coming loose because of the wind and a poor install job so I spent some time re-taping them. Donner's Pass has now been shut down for a couple of days, after first requiring chains. There are drivers in Reno and the other side waiting it out. If it drags on much longer, we will be taking the longer route via Las Vegas if we head to Livermore after Drapper. Tomorrow. We should have less wind and at some point a slight tail wind. We just did this route so planning is easy. We should make it to Sydney for the night. 2024 03 04 IA-UT 2 RV's to Drapper UT ... spending the night at Sidney NE Breakfast, just yogurt and a hard boiled egg for me today. This morning ... "Oh, you are going to shave this AM" ... as she grabs the razor and walks away and packs it up. ... I had to explain to her what she said, and what she did ... It is raining when we do our inspections, but pretty much done by the time I come back out after getting my receipt. We are heading out on time. We had really bad fuel mileage yesterday so we decided to add a stop that we normally we wouldn't do. Loves in Shelby. We are good on fuel, we are gaining range again. 2nd stop was the Loves in Omaha for fuel. I didn't keep track of fuel mileage for the first tankful. 3rd stop was in Grand Island for food at Arby's. BB gave me some of her 'candied bacon,' plus I had a french dip and cheese sticks. Too much. Birds - today we did see sand cranes. 1,000's of them, no I did not count them. I counted 10 and guessed how may 100 would be and then took a guess. From mile marker 290 down to 277. They do flock together, in most places if there was 1 there was 1,000+. A couple of places there were also some in the air. They do not fly or circle like geese. There were also some in pastures. In pastures they were not as close together as they were in corn fields or in the water. Also saw what I will call white geese. Only on one sand pit and pond. They looked like the moth's when they die on the water. Thick. 4th stop was for fuel in North Platte at Loves. By now I had gotten paid again so there will be no usage fee on my fuel card. I have been paid for my last RV trip. I had called this AM from the first fuel stop but was put on hold until we were ready to go. So that is one call I will not need to make. But I do call the bus dispatcher from here. He says to call back tomorrow. This time I do not want to head there unless we know there will be work. Depending on which way we go it will be 700-900 miles away from home. Last I heard, Donner's Pass was open to cars with chains. No trucks yet. 5th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Sidney. We did have enough daylight to get to Cheyenne but this is our 500 miles. We walk across the freeway to a Mexican place for food. Chip dip is too spicy for either of us. I get a cheese dip for my meal instead of a red or green sauce. Load board US - 163 IA - 31/28 MN - 1 WI - 4 Most likely Evanston tomorrow night. That will leave an hour and a half in the AM and they do not open until 9 AM. We will likely get going early to beat the winds. Winds are supposed to be 40+ if we get a late start. 2024 03 05 IA-UT 2 RV's to Drapper UT ... spending the night at Coalville UT Bad night, ate too much food last night. Up at 5 AM, breakfast a 6 AM. Yogurt for me. Sun is already up when we are rolling at 6:30, days are getting longer. 1st stop is the Port of Entry for our permits. Busy today. As we were leaving, another driver from our company pulled up next to us. I noticed that his placard was upside down so I mentioned it to him. Didn't sound like he cared. He was on his way to Bend OR. The weather is not 'hang on' bad, just some wind and some wet spots. Some could be icy but we didn't hit those. 2nd stop is Laramie at Loves for fuel. This will be our last fill. I put in three gallons less than BB, that should have told me somegothing ... like mine wasn't full. But it had kicked off and was foaming. There is another new hotel going up by the Pilot in Laramie. No name on it yet. Likely a Marriott. Somewhere today we saw some deer (?) at the bottom of the ramp. If I had seen them seconds sooner, I would have exited. They were not moving, they looked too big to be deer and the wrong color to be elk. About a half dozen of them. 3rd stop was Rawlins at the TA Country Pride. We had time for a sit down so we took it. Boy did we ever. There was one other table of people when we got there and it took us over a half hour to get our not so great food. Then the person that came in just before we got our food, had their food right after us. Not sure what the hold up was, they didn't say. We will likely not be back. There seemed to be three people waiting on tables and two cooks ... ? Missed the big dig again today. It is now way off the road and we can only see the top of the boom for a few seconds. 4th stop is Cruel Jacks on Rock Springs for a restroom break. It's faster than getting in and out of anywhere else in the area. Cummins in Rock Springs is now closed. The Baymont hotel is now the Blue Breeze. Things are changing. The Perkins back in Lincoln NE is now a used car dealer. And the former Bonanza buffet in Des Moines which became a car dealer is now being re-built again ... I looked up Bonanza / Ponderosa, they were merged at some point. In 1989 there were 700 Ponderosa's ... last year they were down to three still open. We are bucking a head wind almost all day so the range we thought we'd get based on the headwind on Sunday didn't happen. It was worse. Filling in Laramie we thought we'd make to to the drop. But coming into Evanston, I had less than a 50 mile range with 100+ miles to go. 5th stop is for fuel at the Flying J in Evanston. More changes, the Subway is gone so now there is only shelf food. We have time and daylight to get to Draper but decide to stop in Coalville. It's a few miles past Evanston and today the hotel is cheaper than either Draper or Evanston. But no food close. 6th and final stop is the Best Western in Coalville. Once we are checked in, I call the bus dispatcher who has a very vague answer and says call again tomorrow. So ... I guess we will start heading west even without knowing we will have work. Not what we wanted. Last time we were here I think it was a holiday weekend and almost everything was closed. Today we have choices so we go to the 'Drive-In.' Looks like a former DQ. Food was OK ... and timely. Better than Subway. We have to drive to get to food and when I started my RV, a warning light came on. So now we need to deal with that in the AM and most likely drop it a shop instead of the dealer. So that may take an extra hour before we can get out of town. The dealer was already closed so I am not sure which dealer I can drop it at. Load board US - 168 IA - 23/20 MN -0- WI - 9 Plan is to start making calls at 7 AM local. Then leave my RV near the rental car place and take the car and BB's RV to the drop. IF the drop will take mine, we will go back and get it. If they will not, we will drop it at the dealer after BB's unit is inspected. ... and then head west. Not much work out west on the load board. No other options if we do not get a bus. ... But Donner's Pass did open this AM so that will save us three plus hours getting back to CA. ... the trip continues HERE |
