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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 08 30 MN-MN Started the day with 45, dropped to 26 before they finally added four at 10:15. We were thinking that with it being the shippers quarter end that they would be dumping 100+ on the load board. 11:40 - they add another four, three of them are BC. We sat and hit refresh all day. Finally 3 PM I called and asked the head dispatcher if they would be working on Saturday or if we needed to commit to a trip yet today for next Tuesday. He had just been told that the shipper would be working late into the night tonight so he knew they would be open Saturday. (... three months in the fiscal quarter and the shipper has to wait until after the last hour to fill the lot) Then after 7 PM the dispatcher calls me back and says to wait until Tuesday AM. No idea what that means but we will wait. He has been know to spread out the trips instead of putting everything on the load board at once. Both to level load the office work and to get some of the slower moving trips moving quicker. Load board ))) I turned the paper in that I had written these numbers on ((( IA - 30/26 2024 08 31 MN-MN 1 dump truck to Lake Wenatchee WA (staged) 1 dump truck to Salt Lake City UT (staged) spending the night at home BB is up at 4 AM, I was somewhat awake before that. At 5 AM I get out of bed and shower and am ready to roll at 5:30. BB decides she wants the car today so she drives me to work. Not like the old days when we had four cars in our drive. I can see the other drivers paperwork when I pick mine up. There are 12 other drivers leaving before the doors open here on Tuesday. The shuttle van is ready to go, one driver is there, waiting on one. I let the last driver sit in the front. He ends up talking to the shuttle driver a little so it is not quite as it was on Wednesday. Sometime this trip I pull out my note pad and write down the final trip numbers from yesterday because I know I forgot to do that last night. I write them on a sheet I plan to keep ... but that was the one I turned in to the office later today. Opps. I've never been here with a shuttle on a weekend before so I do not know the routine. Shuttle driver goes to the mail box and one other driver and I follow. The third driver goes and starts inspecting his truck ... and the shuttle driver brings him is stuff. My 1st truck is a Pete. No issues other than it is on 'E.' Flat. I wanted to be able to fuel in Mankato at the truck stop but that is 10 miles and the closest station is only two miles. I go the two miles. 2nd stop is the BP in Lake Crystal. A little grocery store with one diesel pump. Another driver is already at the easy pump so I have to go past him and then turn around. There is a street at the other end of the pump but it goes into a neighborhood and I wasn't sure where. I got in the pump. About a foot between me and the USPS truck and six inches between me and the pump. And I pumped. $175 limit on my 1st card. $175 limit on my 2nd card and the tank still was not full. It would have been nice to be able to make it to the truckstop when I had to put in 100 gallons. And I got the slow pump. Both other trucks had fueled and left before I was done fueling. IF we were not doing a second trip today, I would have / could have just put in 20 gallons here and then filled it closer to the drop lot. Paperwork says we are supposed to drop full. One of three drivers stopped to top it off before parking it. 3rd stop was the office / drop lot in Lake Elmo. The other two drivers and the shuttle driver were still in their vehicles when I got there so we all were pretty close. There was a gal there picking up a Pasadena bus when I got there. She looked like a driver from my other company, but I asked her and she was not. We talked a little but I still needed to get parked and into the van to head out again so it was short. Not sure which ride it was, but I found out that we, this local carrier, is going up to Crookston for buses about twice a week again. And our contact is still the last guy that I dealt with years ago. He is still there. And right now we are getting buses for New Orleans, Pasadena and HI (The HI ones we only get to take as far as the dock, not to final delivery) Also found out that drivers are still getting tickets on Hwy 9 up by Crookston. The driver that got two is not longer with the company, but we don't know if that is the reason. That was where I got one of my last speeding tickets also. Lots of talk of other trips and breakdowns and drivers. This shuttle driver had been to Crookston yesterday for one bus. There was to be two but one was canceled before they left. The driver for that bus was the only driver who's been there longer than I. 85 year old Dave, still plugging along. On the 2nd trip down to the shipper, I sat in the front. I was talking to the other two some and then someone mentioned the State Fair ... ... that was the topic for the rest of the trip. The shuttle driver's father started working as a vendor back in the 30's at the State Fair. The shuttle driver grew up a few blocks from the fair, between the fair and the zoo. When in high school, he walked through the fair to get to school. He worked various jobs during the fair for over 40 years. His wife worked full time for the fair for 42 years (now retired) He went to school with the top man at the fair who just retired. His daughter still lives on the street he grew up on. So he knows the fair. Lots of stories. And when we started talking about different vendors, he was talking about them by name and when they started at the fair and if their kids or grandkids are now doing most of the work. Made for a quick trip back. 4th stop was back at the shipper. This should have gone quicker. It did not. My truck would not start. The shuttle driver is telling me different things to try and finally I said. 'You sit in the seat.' That has worked for me in the past when other drivers can't get things started. I tell them, but they still miss something. But I go on auto-pilot and get it started. And he did, got it started. There was a PTO button that had a light on because the PTO had been running when it was parked. That locked out the starter. I had tried all the switches on the up-fitters control panel, in this case all the switches and handles to run the dump truck. But hadn't looked at the main dash or just didn't realize that that light should not be on. But we got it going. This truck was not on 'E' so I headed to the truck stop. 5th stop is the Kwik Trip in Mankato. This truck was not on 'E' so I only put in 60 gallons. Thinking about it, who drives a truck 900 miles and is able to drop it on 'E' but the shipper still has enough fuel to move it around their lot ?? From here I call BB to pick me up in two hours. On the last truck, I could not go any faster than 65 mph with the foot feet. I realized a few miles from the drop that I could go faster by bumping up the cruise. On this one I can go over 65 mph ... if I want to listen to the alarm. And to get the alarm to go off, I need to drop to 64 mph and then I can again go 65 mph without the alarm going off. I drove 65 mph. 6th stop is back at the office. The office made sure to remind me to drop all paperwork before I left the lot. Usually I take it home and make copies and staple it in the correct / suggested order. Today I just sat in the truck and filled everything out and put it loose in their envelope. RV dispatch did put a bunch of trips on the load board this AM while the office was open, and then put a bunch more on the load board after the office was closed. None for CA, OR or NV. Where we want to go. We'll be calling in at 8 AM on Tuesday, but for now we have two days off. Load board US - 333 IA - 88/84 MN - 2 WI - 7
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