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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 08 06 MN spending the night at home Up and ready. They did put a couple of lone trips out early in the AM. One was to NV but it was only one. Then at a little after 11 AM they did put out four, including a couple to FL, same coast. But nothing coming out of there and these two were not the good paying ones. Then between 3-4 they did put out another half dozen including two going to CA and close to each other and no tow ... but to LA. We are getting way to picky. But the choices are getting better. We didn't leave yesterday or this AM so now we will not have the extra day/days to get to the drop. And another less day to work. This AM it was my BP that was way down. Just checked and it has never been this low for me for the last 4+ years I've been taking and recording my numbers. BB's is down that low often but not me. Load board changed between 10 PM and 6 AM so I put down both numbers today. There are six trucks in KS coming back to WI that would work great if we were wanting to stay local. But this is getting to be one of the few chances to do a low trip this year so we are going to wait it out ... for now. Load board US - 208 --- 215 IA - 2/0 MN - 3 WI - 0 --- 1 2024 08 07 MN Long days ... we are still home. There were two RV's put on the load board early so I was hoping it was going to be a busy day. Then another three later in the AM. One of those was going to where we like in CA, but only one. Then there was nothing until after three in the afternoon. There were two RV's going to FL but they hardly pay when there is nothing coming back. And there was one local 10 mile move. But we wanted to keep watching the load board, good trips are gone in seconds and we didn't want to miss a trip for a 10 mile trip. Once the RV dispatchers had put out the late trips, I was going to call on that 10 mile trip with the plan on doing it tomorrow AM before anything is getting put on the load board. But by then the trip was gone. Someone of FB was asking if the price they were offered for a 4,000 mile trip to AK from TX was enough. The driver took out his costs and he expected to net more than we do per day. But there are a lot of drivers who were saying 'ask for more.' 4,000 miles is a long haul. And I would not do it unless I knew how the truck rode. Some day we may put our name on the list for taking an RV to AK. Those do not go on the load board. Load board US - 207 IA - 2/1 MN - 1 WI - 3 2024 08 08 MN 10 new RV trips all day, none with two to run together. Wasn't planning on sitting home all week. I'm going to wear out the clicker on my mouse at this rate, but not likely before the case breaks. This laptop is getting weak in the same place as the other one did and then in busted. I did get a call from local dispatch, they did not leave a message and I did not call them back. Most all day both of us had been on our electronics hitting refresh ever few minutes or seconds. Then we both go outside to pick tomatoes for a few minutes and that is when they put out the six. We are guessing it was only six. 9:25 - 3 9:30 - 2 9:35 - 1 9:45 - 0 2:30 - 6 2:35 - 4 2:40 - 2 2:45 - 1 3:30 - 2 3:55 - 1 4:45 - 0 Load board US - 228 IA - 1/0 MN - 0 WI - 3 2024 08 11 MN spending the night (and weekend) at home 11:00 - 4 11:05- 2 11:10 - 1 11:15 - 0 12:00 - 1 12:25 -2 12:30 - 1 3:45 - 2 3:50 - 1 3:55 - 0 That was it, seven the whole day. At 11, BB walks down the haul and asks if we want to go to Phoenix, there are two of them. I say sure and start dialing. 15 times. After a few times BB walks back and when I still haven't gotten through she calls and gets right in. But by then the trips are gone. I think I finally figured out the issue with my phone. Some people have more than one phone and I put them all under one name. And I can also set a main number. BUT, it seems that no matter what I set the main number to ... if someone calls me from a different number, the phone changes the last call to the new default number. AND ... if that personal number is busy, I get a busy signal. But if it is not busy ... it rolls to the main switchboard. The opposite way that my logic would have set it up. So I created a 2nd number for everything except the main number. Haven't had a reason to call since. There was a truck in Dodge Center going to Garner IA and then one on Garner coming back to Dodge Center. Nice round trip. Plan was to call Saturday AM if there wasn't any RV's left at 5 PM. But by Saturday AM we realized that it was the same truck coming back from Garner ... a week later. So no round trip. And then the Dodge Center one was gone so now we have nothing. Lots of screen time. But trips are gone in seconds so we are hoping two of us looking is better than one. Load board - Friday US - 177 IA - 2/0 MN - 2 WI - 0 Load board - Weekend US - 202 IA - 2/0 MN - 0 IA - 0 2024 08 12 MN ... spending the night at home. We were not at home most of the day so I did not do times on the RV releases. Sometime around 11, they released the first seven trips. Nothing we were going to call on. The next round was after 3 PM, another seven. This time two OR trips could have worked on a different day of the week. We would have likely delivered one on Friday and the other on Monday. Or if we really wanted to work we could split and be on our own for the last 2-3 hours. That was never even discussed. Then about a half hour later they put out two more RV's. Plan for today was to get down to Burnsville for some lab work around noon and head on from there if needed. It took longer than usual to get going this AM. BB was packing and re-packing all her healthy food. For as long as it was taking her she said she might not even have time to work if it always takes that long. After my lab work I got a sandwich from Honey Baked and BB ate her salad. This was kind of her trial run. See what works, how much she can pack, what stays cold and for how long. It was 80+ today sitting in the sun in our car so after a while we drove to the Ritter Farm Park and parked. No walking today, just re-fresh, re-fresh and re-fresh. But first we stopped and got our oil changed. That was it. They didn't check our lights or any of the other things that are usually done at these places. It was after 4 PM when we decided to head for home. We pretty much know about when they are going to put trips out on the load board. And looking at last years numbers, we didn't get into double digits for another week and a half. The next couple of days we can still head to the west coast but after that we will have to shorten our trips. We need to be back before Labor Day. Loadboard US - 175 IA - 2/0 MN - 0 WI - 1 |
