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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 03 23 IL-MN ... spending the night at home Nothing major today. Finishing up paperwork, filing, getting ready for the next trip. Forecast is changing, so far how long the storm lasts has changed. We'll see how things are on Monday. Load board was busy today. End of month for somebody. Nationwide, the load board ended with 50 more trucks than Friday. Load board - weekend US - 192 IA - 2/1 MN - 4 WI - 9 2024 03 25 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Bloomington IL ... spending the night at Rockford IL No alarm, up before 7 AM. Call dispatch a little after 8 AM. Dispatch had not given my truck away so we are heading to Decatur ... no, they change that to Bloomington. About 50 miles shorter. They call again because it is not the style truck they originally said either. At first they said my paperwork would be ready by 10 AM (2 hours,) by the next call they said it would only take them 5 minutes. Not as busy as they had expected for a Monday AM. We were aiming for 10 AM so we were out of the house at 9:30. Heavy snow, lots of it. 6-8 inches. I didn't even try to shovel it. This is 'heart attack' snow. If we had been home all day, I might have worked on it 15 minutes at a time. Basically white water. Forecast is for 40 degrees and rain today so it should be gone shortly. I pick up my paperwork at the office, one driver out, one truck sitting, no shuttles running today ... and it is the last week of the quarter. Not sure how busy they are, but it doesn't look good. Sometime before we get to the shipper, BB looks at my paperwork and the route they have us going. Not the same as we have our stops planned for. I decide to go there route, better that way if something happens. At the shipper at 11:30. Eight sets of keys besides mine so they must be running tomorrow instead of today because of the forecast. Stacks of trucks being dropped, we had to park in a different spot. Truck was not too hard to find, we know the color and that it is a rear loader. We only found one, mine. No issues with inspection, we made it quick because it has started to rain here. My placards will not tape to the windows because of how wet it is so I have to stick / jam them in the edge of the windowns. One of the changes dispatch told me this AM was that it was not a front loader, so no need to get it weighed. That saves a few minutes. Shortly after I headed down the road, my water bottle jumped out of the cup holder. Then I see something while on the side of my truck and part of it blows away. I can't see out my mirrors real well because of they are foggy and have water on them. Plus the streaks of water on my window. I can see things, just not clearly. Then I realized they white I had seen was snow ... 10 miles down the road I see that one of my placards has fallen. Way down. So I need to stop and get out of my truck to get it. Lots of traffic so I have to wait for a break in the traffic. Where I had stopped, there were not exits and not much shoulder. Opening my door when a truck was going passed and I would be missing a door. Only see a few eagles today. Not much time to look around in the rain. At the scale, I have to cross and weigh. I'm the only person as far as I could see the scale who had to weigh. But they did not pull me in. BB stopped a couple of more times but I didn't stop until I got to Poynette near Portage. Rest area. BB is already there and we decide to run another two hours and get to Rockford tonight. My truck is governed at 60 mph so not setting any speed records. The truck is a cabover with two steering wheels. Not the worst ride. I feel the bumps but not as jolts and my head hasn't hit the roof yet. Last stop of the day is the Sleep Inn in Rockford. From there we drive to Jason's Deli and have the salad bar. I stopped when BB was done eating. Load board US - 140 IA -0- MN - 4 WI - 4 Less than three hours to the drop tomorrow AM. The closest truck right now is one back here in Janesville going to Omaha. IF that works and we have time, there is one in KS coming back to MN. But that would be a Good Friday drop so we would have to make sure that is OK before taking the truck. 2024 03 26 IA-NE 1 trash truck to Bloomington IL (delivered) 1 chassis to Janesville WI (delivered) 1 box truck to Omaha NE ... spending the night at Walcott IA Even before breakfast, I saw on FB that the bridge in MD had collapsed. One of the drivers I talk to on the phone (but haven't met yet) was in the area last night but had taken the tunnel this time instead. A few hours before this happened, he was in a hotel a few miles from there. I remember a few years ago I had gotten a call just after falling asleep. A driver I was supposed to have shared a few hotels with, (but didn't because of a break down) called me. He was a few car lengths from the bridge north of Seattle when it went down. He was wound. In that case he had to wait for all the traffic behind him to clear so he could make a u-turn on the freeway with a bus. Bacon ... and good yogurt for breakfast. As we are leaving the hotel, so are another couple of transporters heading to Watertown SD, each with a chassis. Just asked where they were off to, no long conversation. I hadn't been paying attention yesterday I guess. When I got in this AM, my fuel gauge was on 1/4. So first stop will be the first truck stop. Loves in Monroe Center for fuel. From there I call on two trips that are on the load board, something to think about for the next couple of hours. Saw quite a few transporters today. And lots of rain. Had the wipers on most of the day at some speed. One place a truck had not gotten all the way off the road. I think he was straddling the shoulder line, BB thinks the tires were just over. Either way all traffic was going to have to get in the left lane to get past him. Accident waiting to happen. 2nd stop was the drop. They saw me coming and as soon as I parked, they had me pull around inside so they could check it over. Quick check by someone. I was talking to another shop person. This truck was to have been here in January ... 2023. They had gone with the Mack, because they could get it two years sooner than a Peterbilt. Or so they were told at the time. Today there is a five year lead time on trucks from this shipper ... (didn't know that) As soon as my paperwork is signed, I call dispatch back and get our next truck. Nothing better has showed up, so we are going to Omaha. There is also a truck near the next shipper going two miles. So I call the dispatcher that has that, no answer. No answer again. So off we go. That dispatcher calls back, yes, it is a real order. Two miles. It is at the shop and needs to get to the customer. So we take than one also. Best pay ever ... per mile. Third stop is the Loves in Rachelle. BB is hungry and we need to use the restroom and get paperwork printed. Today shelf food looks better than another Hardee's. BB and I split a wrap. 4th stop is the dealer in Janesville. They hand me the keys and sign that I took it. They don't want copies of anything. I did ask 'body damage or mechanical.' It was mechanical so I don't need to look too close at the body. Two miles ... no mud flaps. I risk it. Most of the trip BB will be behind me. It is raining still or again so BB does a quick check of all the lights for me ... while I sit inside. At the drop / shipper I first get my paperwork for the next trip and then they tell me where to park to get this truck checked in. The person doing the check-ins was already doing another truck so I didn't have to wait for someone to find time to come out. And they only do a few minute check in. Pretty much the same thing BB and I do when we pick up. Headlights, highs, 4 ways, left, right. Then the rear tail lights, 4 ways, left signal, right, backup and breaks. Wipers and horn. Then he got in the drivers seat to check the windshield and the dash to make sure no -0- warning lights are on. That's his job. My pick up is a few miles from the shipper. We've been to this lot before. We drive all the way around the lot twice ... before we see our truck. Opps. A little time lost. Next stop is the closest Kwik Trip for fuel. The truck says it has gotten 10 mpg over the last 1,600 miles. And it has fuel in it. I don't want to over fill, so I only put in 30 gallons. But today we have a head wind and I am getting closer to 5 mpg. Not likely to make much money of the fuel this trip. And this customer wants copies of all our fuel receipts so they know how much we are spending and how much we are pocketing. We are now running about a half hour behind my guess. Next stop was the rest area in Davenport to decide where we were going to stay. It is already 6 PM so we decide Walcott. Final stop is the Comfort Inn in Walcott. Only one other car so far tonight so I am able to back into one of the hotel spots instead of parking with the big rigs. We eat next door at Grandma's. Training someone new in tonight. BB's spoon was dirty (they come wrapped in the napkin so likely not their issue) After we ordered, the new person came back to ask if I wanted my soup with my meal or before. Ahhh ... I ordered two soups. She had written down baked potato instead of baked potato soup. And I didn't realize, didn't think about it until I got the bill. I had asked for a cup, two cups of soup. I had gotten two bowls of soup. No wonder I was full. I won't get their onion soup again. It was just onion soup. No bread or cheese in it. Potato soup was good. Both the lasagna and meatloaf sounded good but I wasn't in the mood for that much food tonight. Load board US - 220 IA - 2 MN - 9 WI - 4 Hopefully deliver by early afternoon and head to KS for AM pickup on Thursday. We looked at other options. There is an RV going to IN but that is further to deadhead home. It is something BB would have done but because of the weekend we couldn't do a next leg. There are trips that otherwise could work. Also there are other trips out of KS but not to MN yet. ... the trip continues HERE
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