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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 2024 06 27 IA-IL 1 box truck to Sioux Falls SD (delivered) 1 RV to Rockford IL ... spending the night at Charles City MN This hotel usually has something different for breakfast meat other than 'little sizzler' type sausages. Today it was a different type of sausage but still something different. And this place is one of the only that has grape juice. From our room we are overlooking the truck stop parking lot but I have to get out on the highway to get to the pumps. I do the math and put in fuel to get to the drop with <> a quarter tank. We are not too many miles down the road when I see water. Lots of it. Looking later I see that they had gotten up to 11 inches in places with the biggest storm on Saturday. That was five days ago and there is still water sitting a whole lot of places. Near the MN Lake exit was one of the biggest 'ponds' I saw. I'm guessing there was about 100-160 acres of field underwater in one field. Part way across the field was a row of pines which were likely on the 40 line. They also had two tractors on the edge of the field pumping the water out. Not sure why. The damage has been done and I am not sure what they are going to do with the field once it is dry. Can't use my phone to take pictures while driving and I didn't have my camera available so now it is just a memory. First time for this for me. Portable Scales at the Jackson rest area. Later someone mentioned that it might have been 'training day' for the officers. Might have been as there were 10 squads and usually there are only 2-3 for something like this. No issue for me. I'm empty. For the semi drivers it seemed to be an issue. They had one officer just re-setting the cones to get the trucks to cross the scale at the right angle. Lots of water in lots of fields. Lots of places where we could see the high water mark. One place along the freeway that line was only a few inches from the pavement. Another place the debris was between the lanes so there the water had been over the highway. And there were still signs that some of the major roads were close both in MN and into IA. I did not get stopped at the scale so no idea what they would have said about my not needing a permit. But that is where my low fuel light came on, and I still had <> 20 miles to go. I thought about stopping sooner but didn't. I knew there was a truck stop right next to my drop. 2nd stop today (1st stop was for fuel next to the hotel) Cubby's in Sioux Falls. I had been at a quarter tank about 20 miles before the low fuel light came on and I am now down to 11 mpg so I planned on putting in four gallons. But the low fuel light was still on so I put in another gallon. The light was still on but the gauge was up so I stopped. By the time I had gotten my receipt the light had gone off. 3rd stop is next door at the drop. By now it was raining again. The person who was to sign was sitting talking to a regular customer so he was available right away. He did the complete inspection, ran the loading ramp, checked the lights. At some point I got talking the 'regular customer,' he also has this style truck and has the same cruise / radar issues. Nice chat but we were getting wet so I got going once the paperwork was signed. But nowhere to go. No work on the load board yet. I didn't call the local dispatcher because I had already said I was done for the week/month. 4th stop. BB found a little sandwich shop called Capriotti's Sandwich Shop. They are a chain, but not one with locations near where I live. Good food. We could have headed any direction but we headed home. Not the shortest way, because the main road that way was closed due to flooding. We headed back to Albert Lea so we'd be close to both Dodge Center and Forest City incase they had more work. 5th stop, a rest area somewhere. When we passed the MN Welcome center earlier, they also had temp scales set up. But when we got back to Jackson, those scales were gone for today. Sailing past the 'big pond,' I had asked BB to take a video. She does as good as I. She thinks she has the video running but she gets one picture of the trees when she 'starts' it and an second picture of the door when she 'ends' the video. And the phone camera was not getting the same picture as what we were seeing.. 6th stop - Back in Albert Lea we park at the Petro for about a half hour. I had just looked at the load board and set my notebook down and was reaching for my phone when BB says 'There's a Rockford.' She calls and gets the trip before I get my phone dialed. We have work. 7th stop, the shipper. This was the end of the day so they had already put the paperwork in the box. But I did take the time to talk to one dispatcher and show them the routing error for our Davis trip. Then later I was talking to the dispatcher who used to do the training. That ended last July, now everyone must go to IN or TX. 8th stop was the Loves in Floyd for fuel. Then across the street at the Wagon Wheel for food. Today the place is almost packed, it empties and re-fills while we are sitting there. Good food, good staff. When we walked out the person walking it was wearing a Loves shirt, from across the street. This food must be good. 9th and final stop, the Sleep Inn in Charles City. When we get there we hear an alarm. Before we get to the door, an <> 8 year old kid tells us it is the fire alarms going off. So we hesitate and someone walks out saying it is the fire alarm and there was a fire. It must have just happened because two kids were the only ones outside the building where we got there. Slowly people start to file out. Everyone has been out for a while when three cop cars pull up. They check it out and are back outside when the first fire truck pulls up. Ends up being two fire trucks and about 10 firemen. The only people we really talk to are the staff. The fire started in a light fixture in the guest laundry room and someone walking past seen it, but told the staff and they were the ones who put it out. The main thing we saw the fire department do was bring in huge fans to clear the air. I'm guessing they did some inspection also but we couldn't see that. Before we got let back into the building, there was more staff on site to help with the clean up. The stuff from the fire extinguisher got tracked all over the place. We are the last people on their list to check in for the day. We get to our room and it is cold and we are wet. 62 degrees. So we turn on the heat ... and our smoke alarm goes off. So I decide to walk down and let the staff know why there was another alarm going off, it was not the same fire restarting. By now we are zapped, it has been a long day. Load board US - 117 IA - 5 MN - 3 WI - 10 2024 06 28 IA-IL 1 RV to Rockford IL (delivered) ... spending the night at home Not sure why, but I was up a few times during the night. I felt like I was just laying there but then I would wake up from a dream so I knew I had been sleeping. Somehow was not tired today. BB ate part of her leftovers for breakfast, I had my leftovers plus some eggs. The same crew was working this AM as was doing the clean up last night. It was raining when we were ready to check out so I was going to wait with the luggage until BB pulled the RV up to the door. Then we remembered that all the luggage was going to go in the car. While I was waiting, I was talking to the front desk clerk who was out having a morning smoke. Not only was she in to help with the post fire clean up, she also had to come back in again because one of the doors had come off it's hinges (?) It's raining slightly when when we check out in the AM. But by a few miles down the road it is coming down in buckets. For a good part of the AM it was raining hard enough that that we ran at lower speeds, ran wipers on high and/or did not use the cruise control. 1st stop was in a school parking lot in Waterloo to check the load board. 2nd stop was at Casey's in Manchester for the restroom. 3rd stop was in a hotel parking lot in Galena to check the load board 4th stop a truck stop in Stockton for RV fuel and the restroom. 5th stop was for final fuel for the RV. 6th stop was the RV drop. I walk the office to let them know we are here and the inspector walks out the door ahead of me. Two of them were in the RV before BB was done with her paperwork. We were in and out in under 15 minutes. The other RV that we had seen paperwork for last night and seen at the truckstop but didn't talk to ... shows up as we are walking out the door. It had rained most of our trip so I had not gotten any good pictures of the RV. So I get back out of the car before we leave. Problem was, BB got back out at the same time and all her paperwork got caught in the wind and blew out the door. Some of it just got wet from the rain but one sheet landed in a puddle. So all of the paperwork needed be laid out to dry across the dash. Still nothing on the load board. Our choices are to head in the direction of one of the shippers or head home. Instead we head to food. A buffet. 7th stop was the Golden Corral in Janesville. Our 'meal' was at 2 PM so likely the only time we will eat today. Fair crowd for a week day in the mid afternoon. Still no work so we head home. 10 minutes later than yesterday, dispatch puts out trips. But no pairs. All are but one are gone within minutes. An hour or so later dispatch puts out another batch of trips. Still no pairs. But some that could have been pairs if they had dumped them all at once. We were hopeful because Elkhart IN had been putting out RV's today so we were expecting a big dump. I think between the two batches there were 12 total. That should be the average day. At the end of the day there was one left and someone either took it or dispatch pulled it. We will watch, but there likely will not be anything loaded tomorrow. There had been one trash truck on the load board that would work for leaving Sunday but sometime after 5 PM that one was gone also. Now we have nothing for this weekend or for Monday and there is a holiday mid-week. It is going to be tough to earn a full weeks pay next week. 8th stop was in Poynette at the Loves for fuel. 9th stop was the rest area in Menomonie. 10th stop was home, most likely for the weekend. Load board US - 128 IA - 0 MN - 4 WI - 6 2024 06 30 MN No work so we sat the weekend out. Nice, no rain for once so spent time working in the garden. We did the math on some trucks going from WI-MI. If we used a rental car to get down to the shipper it would cost $366 one day, one way. The trip is going to pay in the $200-$300 range. When we are chasing with our personal car we are putting on as many miles a week as we should in a month. And we haven't had many longer trips where the car has set for a month to offset that. AFTER the close of business on Saturday, (and RV dispatch was not open Sat) they put out eight RV's. Two going to OH but both are the big class A units that BB does not want to drive. So nothing that works for us. We've done the math there is no money in any of them. None have the extra no-tow pay and none can be run together. On Sunday I dropped off my paperwork at the local dispatch. They had 13 sets of driver paperwork and only two trucks in the lot so I'm guessing they have everything covered. Sometimes there are tanker trucks that sit for a week waiting for drivers who can/will drive them but not today. Might not make our weekly income goal this week or this month either. So for, year to day we over our prior monthly goal. We did up it this year because of how much everything has gone up. We are not making that so far, but the bills are still getting paid. Load board - Weekend US - 177 IA - 8 MN - 5 WI - 6 2024 07 01 MN ... spending the night at home We were up and watching the load board by 7 AM when the east coast dispatchers start. Nothing on the main board but the rental board got updated early and there was one that would work for us so I called. I didn't call right away, we did the math first and we'd make OK money because we could drop our car at home on the way out of town. And it was going to an area that usually has trips and does right now. So I called, it doesn't go to voice mail, it just says no one is available. We used to call a different person but they are now listed as the 'terminal manager' not a dispatcher so today I did not call them. As soon as I hung up, I texted them which they prefer. 20 minutes later I have not heard anything so I call again. This time someone answers and they need to email a 3rd person to find out if the trip is still available. An hour and 10 minutes later I call again because I have not heard back. We are ready to walk out the door as soon as we print the paperwork ... They still haven't heard anything (or haven't tried.) Within a few minutes of the 3rd call I get a message that that trip had already been taken. :( That was our plan for the day for the last couple of hours. Now we need to look harder, I do call local dispatch but I get someone different and they say all trips are covered. BB has been crunching numbers all morning and nothing really pays. The RV's were mostly gone within minutes this AM, the trash trucks trips are all over 1,000 miles and the next closest trips would take us beyond our 500 mile limit for using our personal car and a rental car would cost more than the trip pays ... if we can get one. At noon, there are RV's on the load board. One could be done with an RV still on the board from the weekend. But they are going to Detroit and Toledo and BB doesn't like the logistics so we pass. Three more RV's show up near 3 PM but nothing that works. Sometime after 4 PM two RV's show up going to DE. Not a place we have been to before and now we are concerned about there being rental cars even if we have a reservation. We don't jump right away and by 5 PM one of them is gone. So we sit. 7 AM to 5 PM the two of us hitting refresh on the load board. Load board US - 130 IA - 2/1 MN - 3 WI - 4 Some of theses shippers and customers will be closed for a four day weekend so we are going to want to make phone calls before leaving anywhere.
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