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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 06 24 MN-IL Dispatch had not called me over the weekend so I called them about 8:30 to I say I was available. Finally this afternoon they called back with a truck to Chicago. A trash truck. BB and I had talked about getting a rental car and staying out for two weeks but as of now we are going to take our car. We may regret that, but that is what we are doing. We can always park it at a rural airport either for cheap or free. Very little on the load board for our area. We'll keep watching when we stop tomorrow. Trip tomorrow is about 500 miles and the person who signs goes home at 3 PM. So we'd pretty much have to be leaving the shipper at 7 AM. We usually leave at 10 AM. Load board (weekend) US - 68 IA - 1/0 MN - 1 WI - 2 Load board (Monday) US - 78 IA - 1/0 MN -0- WI -0- 2024 06 25 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Summit IL 1 box truck to Sioux Falls SD (Wednesday) ... spending the night at Schaumburg IL Before we got going this AM, central dispatch put a tanker truck out of IL going to Phoenix. It would have been less than an hour from my drop but I really don't like committing to a second truck before I'm in my first one. This time the truck was gone in minutes. If it had still been there in two hours I might have called on it. We were even looking at where to drop our car and store it because we would not want to follow for over 1,000 miles. Tankers do pay good. And that shipper usually only does one a week so we missed it for this week. AM, almost rolling by 7:30, then realized we had been gone a few days each of the last two weeks so I grabbed a few more clothes. Earlier in the day yesterday we had been forecasted to get an inch plus of rain, then later it had dropped to almost nothing. Not sure if we did get anything. But as we drove south there was still lots of water sitting and lots of now dead crops. One place next to a creek there was about a 40 acre field that was all dark until it got to a little hill where the crop was green. Not sure if the water soaked area is all dead or just coated with mud and might come back. At the very least it will be stunted. 1st stop was the shipper. Their office person was checking the keys in each box so I decided to ask them a question I get asked. "Can drivers tow behind the trash trucks?" 'No.' So now I have it the next time anyone askes. There was one other driver looking for his truck, and then his suitcase there when we were looking for mine. As we left, he was heading back to the office with his suitcase. Didn't take the time to stop and ask him what the issue was or who he drove for. Last time mine was the second truck in the first row I looked at. Today BB and I walked the whole lot twice and didn't find my truck. Finally I walked over to the 4th row that has the partially built trucks to look at those. Today there happened to be two guys standing there and they asked if I had looked at the two done ones on the end of that row. I had not gotten that far, I had started on the other end. And that is where mine was. Blocked in by a flat bed loading a trash truck. BB tried to direct me to back out but there was not enough room. About that time one of the shipper employees saw our situation and called a forklift over to move some skids for me. Just three skids, that's all it took and I was able to move out. When I went to take the pictures of my truck I noticed that the local office had called me so I called them back. One of them wanted to know how close I was to Crookston. Hmmm, somehow they did not know I was doing a truck for them, from Dodge Center. Sure, now they want me for Crookston. The insides of both doors were dirty and I didn't call the office. Hope that does not become an issue. I did take pictures. 2nd stop was the Kwik Trip in Kasson to scale. I am 4,000# under today. Before I walk in to get my scale ticket, BB tells me there is a truck in WI going to SD. I now have my truck so I call and get it. It is not going to pay great, but it is work and keeps us in the mid-west. I've now looked and Sioux Falls is about 3 hours from Forest City, Dodge Center and Omaha and about 4 hours from Crookston. Tomorrow we can commit to the 3rd leg. We should be in the 2nd truck by about noon. More minor delays. I miss my turn in Rochester for fueling. My mind was somewhere else. So I had to take a u-turn and come back. 3rd stop was the Kwik Trip in Rochester for CNG fuel. Opps. I couldn't get the pump to work and finally two people from the store come out. I hadn't connected it right ... and I have done this 100's of times. Dozens of times at this very pump. Duh ... Not sure if I mentioned it before, but last time and still this time the locks on the dam all all the way open. High water. 4th stop is the BP / Double Nickels Deli in Camp Douglas. We both got the daily special, A BBQ brisket sandwich. Always good food here, and today the boss wasn't even here. BB and I do not stick together today or at least do not plan to. 5th stop for me is the Kwik Trip in De Forest for more CNG fuel. BB had stopped back at St Charles at the Loves for cheap gas and does not stop here. While I am there, the PA comes on to ask my carrier name and truck number. I tell them that I am already fueling. Then it happens again so I ask which pump they are talking to. I'm on pump six and they are trying to talk to pump four. Then they ask me to go hang up the hoses on pump four. By the time I get to pump four there is a driver talking on the PA to the store so I let it be and am back on the road. I don't notice her, but BB pulls on the road behind me at the Janesville rest area and follows me the last hour. The mirrors on this are not great. I can not see anything behind me unless I swing the truck. I can see both lanes beside me which is all I really need. And this time BB usually had one truck or car between us and I had no reason to be looking for her so I never did see her back there. 6th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Schaumburg. We then order online from the Fire something next door. The good thing is that it is next door and there is nothing else within walking distance. The bad thing is that my Philly is $25 (instead of $8 like it is some places) Everything else on the menu is just as high so I just got soup. After lunch today that is all I need tonight. We did look at other hotels but this is our 'go to' place to stop. Always room to park my truck and a nice area with lots of food a few blocks away as it is near a big indoor shopping mall. We are still an hour away from the drop and I need to fuel again so I'm guessing two hours to the drop. Quite a few off freeway streets but I <> have them in my mind already and already have them written down. Last week when I dropped in Independence KS there were not anymore trucks. Today there are two going up to NE. Omaha and Kearny. We haven't done the math yet to see if they would pay from SD. Driving eight hours to get a five hour trip that gets you further from home usually is not good math. Load board US - 102 IA - 1 MN - 1 WI -0- Wednesday - If we are out of the hotel by 8 AM, I should be fueled and dropped by 10 AM and to the next shipper by 12 noon. From there we should be able to get to Albert Lea by 6 PM. Again, a place we know and it works for us. It is nice to stay different places but it is also nice to have a 'go-to' where I know the truck is going to fit. Thursday - it is another three hours from Albert Lea to Sioux Falls for the AM so we should be able to pick up yet the same day if there is anything. 2024 06 26 IL-SD 1 box truck to Sioux Falls SD ... spending the night at Albert Lea MN To bed early last night, up early this morning. A couple of times last night our neighbors got quite loud and also had their TV quite loud. But by the end of the evening all was quiet. This hotel will not let us take food back to our room so that threw our schedule a little bit, but we were still ready to go a few minutes early. Chicago traffic. BB was not even going to try and follow me, she was going to skip my fuel stop and go direct to the drop. When I get off the freeway for my stop, I notice a construction guy holding a STOP sign and waving a flag. Cars just kept going past him, my plan was to stop and tell him he had his sign facing the wrong direction. But ... the car ahead of me did stop ... so that one of the construction trucks could pull out. He was trying to get people to stop but no one cares. 1st stop was for CNG in McCook. Found it based on my directions. 2nd stop was the drop. By the time I took my pictures and was packing up my things, someone was out to inspect the truck. So we were done at the drop before 9 AM. So that should put us an hour ahead for today. This carrier now has us taking pictures both at pick up and at delivery. I did that, and sent them to the email listed on my paperwork ... then I get a message from the owner to send them to a different email. So I had to check my paperwork again. I had done it correct, I guess they have changed where they want them to go since I left yesterday. 3rd stop was the Belvidere rest area or Oasis. It's been over two hours since we left the hotel. Lots of stops and today I will list each one as a stop, even in the same town. 4th stop was the shipper. Yesterday when I called, they said there was a chance that the truck was not by the office so if I am taking an Uber, hold it. Today when I mentioned that there was ' a chance,' they said that chance was 100%. 5th stop was the Kwik Trip for fuel and food. Fuel is $.70 a gallon cheaper than the Oasis we were just at. Not much of a food selection at this Kwik Trip, so both BB and I got a burger. Good enough. We had not heard anything about it, but as we drove to the next stop we noticed a few trees down. The first yard I thought they were just clearing them before the took the building down. Then we noticed lots of tree tops gone, and roof and siding damage. Then BB looked it up. F-2 tornado here on Saturday. For as little as we could see done it could have been yesterday. 6th stop was the storage lot in Janesville. We did a double check of the truck to make sure there was not any storm damage. We didn't find any and we didn't see any debris. I checked on the way out and the lot was about a mile from the path of the storm. Good news, kind of. Often these trucks are on or near 'E.' Today I have a third of a tank of fuel and the truck has over 1,000 miles on it so it should be getting better mileage. I am hopeful that I'll be getting 15 mph. Cheapest fuel is here in town so I do the math of what I need, minus what I have and that is what I'll put in. 7th stop was the TA in Janesville. I originally had thought I might get 20 mpg, then when I saw the truck was getting 11.5 mpg I hoped I could get it up to 15 mpg. But I couldn't get in that much fuel. 8th stop was the rest area in Dresbech, the MN welcome center on I-90. It had been three hours since I fueled and ... I remembered I needed to order a SD permit. First I call the permit company and they say that if I am dropping in SD, I don't need a SD permit. So I call SD. They say I don't need a permit if I am going less than 20 miles into SD. I'm guessing I will get stopped at the scale tomorrow and get told something else. BB caught up to me again by the time I stopped here. And she was going to be done driving when we got to Albert Lea. At first early today we had though Albert Lea because of our time estimate and the hotel prices. But when we checked, Albert Lea hotels were more today than the other locations which doesn't happen often. And with all the stops we made in Janesville, we lost any time we had gained. 9th stop was the Comfort Inn in Albert Lea. 10th stop was the Mine Again for food. BB was hungry two hours ago so was really hungry by now. And here it took an hour or more to get our food. They were not staffed for the amount of customers. Not sure if someone was just disorganized or it really was busy for a Wednesday night. Food was good. Sometime we will have to stop just for pie. Too full for pie today. We noticed golf courses and other area's that had been under water. All black, dark. We haven't had rain to clean the grass off again. Load board US - 117 IA - 1 MN - 5 WI - 3 We have not found a good trip for after we drop yet. There still is one trash truck that will work but I try not to do more than one a week. And there are trucks in KS coming back to Omaha but the deadhead to paid miles doesn't make it worth it unless we do all three and BB doesn't want to follow that far. So as of now we have about three hours to the drop and another three hours back to Albert Lea. We'll be watching the load board to see what works and what trips are gone. ... the trip continues HERE |
