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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 03 16 MN-IN 1 refer truck to Berne IN (Monday) ... spending the night at home Slept in this AM. Forgot to call right at 7 AM local / 8 AM dispatch time. But I still got the trip. This is our best chance of getting out of town. There MAY have been work for the local company but those on play a small % of what the same trip would pay with the long haul carrier. We do enough to keep active with them. IF we head straight back with this trip, we won't make much either but we hope to find a second leg on the way back, or before we get back. We don't need to be back for the next two weeks, but I have said I would be available for the local carrier. BB did line up a car from Fort Wayne, from there she will follow me to the drop and then the car goes to South Bend. No car for coming home yet. Monday AM we will all the shipper. Paperwork says 24 hour notice. I'm guessing that is standard, not required. We will pick up the unit, BB will drive home and then walk to the main highway for me to pick her up. We are guessing, because we forgot to look, that the weight limit on our street is less than the truck weighs. Load board US - 128 IA -0- MN -12 WI -0- There are currently 6 trips in IN, none are over 500 miles and none are heading even in the direction of home. There is one in IN going to MI, but it doesn't get us any closer to home. 2024 03 18 MN-IN 1 refer truck to Berne IN ... spending the night at Schaumburg IL Up at six, calling the shipper at 7 AM ... and 8 AM ... and ... Paperwork says that we must call ahead or be turned away (?) Not sure if that is something that is on all their paperwork or this just this shipper. Sometime after 8 AM I do get a call back, just show up at the shop. We are rolling by 8:30. To the shipper by 9:15. There is only one person in the shop so he is easy to find. We walk out and he starts the truck. Doesn't start the first time but does the second time. I tell him I will do my check of the truck and then find him again. ... there is a ABS light on. Usually not a big deal but I need to call dispatch to make sure this customer will let me run with it this way. ... most of an hour later, I get the call back. They are OK for the truck to be run with the light on if I am OK to drive it. I am. AND before I get to their exit gate, the light goes off. An hour wasted. (plus the hour waiting for the shipper to call me back this AM) This is a busy place so I take the truck across the street to a quieter lot owned by the same shipper. There BB and I move our luggage into the back of the truck. It is a refer/box truck. It runs, but not too many places that do not have body damage. Good news is they left me a half a tank of fuel. There are two tanks for the truck, one looks to be a 75 gallon and the other about a 50 gallon. So that's about 60 gallons of free fuel, 40 gallons because I can't leave it on empty. BB leaves out and I finish doing my log and getting the truck ready. I swing past the house to pick up BB. We are leaving the car at home for this trip. Two scales today, both are open. We had to cross one but not the other. That should be it for this trip. 1st stop with the truck is for food in Menomonie at the Kwik Trip. It is noon, we are not going to need a half hour break today and I'm not worried about eating and dropping food in a 10 year old truck. There is junk everywhere. Nut shells, rags, chains, paper. 2nd stop was the rest area near Lyndon Station. BB spends the day watching the load board, nothing that works for us. One trip to CA from IN. And trips heading to the north-east. Pretty quiet for the end of the quarter. 3rd stop is for fuel at the TA in Janesville. By now I am down to 1/4 of a tank. No idea how much fuel I've used or should put in. I start with 30 gallons, and then bump it to 35 gallons just because. Before we leave the lot there, I call the drop to make sure there will be someone there tomorrow. Yes ... there will be. They are the Ford dealer. (Not sure why they are buying a very used truck 100's of miles away) He asks about the ABS light and makes sure I do not bring the truck in on fumes. No ... I usually drop them between 1/4 and 1/8. Then I call dispatch on a truck coming back to MN. They tell me whos truck it is and I don't have to ask any more questions. NOT likely to take it. IF that is still our only option tomorrow. I may call the drop to see which truck they are getting. Getting paid a couple of hundred to come home is better than paying a couple of hundred to come home. We lost two hours this AM but since then things have gone good. We didn't know if we were going to stop before Chicago or after. We did know that we were not going to stop in Chicago. When we pull out of Janesville we are talking about getting past Chicago and first stopping at the Oasis for my half hour brake. We were also talking about that because we are trying to cut down on our $50 meals. Today's lunch was $10 so that helps. Food at the Oasis but be $10-20. Food next to the hotel would be close to $50. Then we re-did the math and realized that it would after 7 PM when we got past Chicago. And for no reason. We do not have work lined up and the shipper is open late. We decide to stay on this side of Chicago. We talk about other food nearby but it can be a paid with a big truck to get in and out of fast food places in the cities. We decide to split something of the big buck menu. Final stop is the Comfort Inn in Schaumburg. Food will be next door from the WildFire. We did see that the Days Inn a couple of blocks away is now a Best Western so we may try that another time. They have a Wendy's on one side of their lot and an IHOP on the other side. Here, we have a WildFire and then a place even more expensive next to it. We get a burger. BB gets veggies instead of fries. And I get a side of soup. PLUS, we splurge and get a piece of Key Lime pie. Not cheap. We did not have pie on pie day (3.14) or on my BDay so we had it today. ALL food was good. Worth the extra. Load board US - 225 IA -0- MN - 17 WI - 3 2024 03 19 MN-IN 1 refer truck to Berne IN (delivered) ... spending the night at Elkhart IN Alarm this AM ... Breakfast at 7 AM. This hotel requires that we eat in their breakfast area, we can not take food to our room. Breakfast for me was Banana-strawberry yogurt. The ABS light is on again this AM but goes out before we get to the street. Chicago traffic is not bad, but lots of road construction to slow some of us down. Hard to find anyone to follow who is even going less than 10 over the speed limit in construction zones, most seem to be doing 15-30 over the posted. (did have a truck once with radar that confirmed how fast others were going through construction zones in Chicago) No issues or points of interest. 1st stop is at the Pilot in Valparaiso for the rest room. Small station, five fuel island and 10 parking spots. 2nd stop was the Pilot in Fort Wayne. This one was not planned but my fuel gauge was now dropping to the 1/8th mark when I started out. Long tank on the one with the gauge. I think I would have been OK but put in 10 gallons to make sure. The truck ahead of me never moved so I was able to back out to get out of there. We have been here enough that I know the way to the airport from here. No signs saying the clearance at the airport but I am under 13'6" so I should be good and I was. Narrow lanes but not too crowded. Drop BB off and then go to the cell phone lot to wait. Once we move our stuff, we have to go back past the front of the airport to get out of there. All one way streets. I hadn't looked real close at the map so I was surprised how far it was on the cross street before we got on the US hwy to head to the drop. But I knew roughly how far it was from the airport to the drop. Lots of Amish near Berne. Like the bought a huge farm and then split it into 20 acre lots for them and other family members. Most were not working farms. Just a house and barn for the horses. I also noticed churches today. Near home, both the Church of God and Mennonites seemed to have small / simple churches. Here in IN the churches are as big as the mega churches with their campuses. Found the drop, found someone to sign. Different guy than the one I talked to on the phone. This guy just asked if there was any issues, then said I could wait inside while he parked the truck. No other chit-chat. While we are still sitting at the drop, same dispatcher calls and wants help on a couple of trucks in IN going to MI. I called on one of them earlier today, it didn't pay. So he asks what it will take for me to move them. $$$ I tell him I am going to grab something to eat and call him back. (It's close to 2 PM local) We go to a family restaurant in town. Lasagna :) was one of the specials of the day. I ate it all in one sitting. ... and we did the math, and re-did the math. I look at the load board again, the trips are still there. BB finally asks if we even want to do it. Neither of us does. So I call the dispatcher and say no, without asking for more money. Just no. We head back to Elkhart as that is where the most work usually is. But not today. I had eaten a huge lunch, so we decide to just get something quick and small from Culvers. I order a malt, BB orders food ... then I order a soup. I should not have. I was so full when eating that it took forever to finish. That should have been my clue to stop. Spent the night at the Comfort Inn in Elkhart. Not sure why the Sleep in was less than $50 but we didn't want to find out. The Comfort Inn is where we have usually stayed in this town. Load board US - 189 IA - 1/0 MN - 15 WI - 2 No worked lined up for tomorrow. If nothing tomorrow AM, we may head home by 11 AM so we are home for the night. ... the trip continues HERE |
