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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 09 27 MN-NJ 1 bus to Blackwood NJ 1 bus to Chicago IL (Monday) spending the night at Holiday City OH ... written up a few days later. We get to the bus at about 7:30 AM. One of the buses pulls out before we get there, the other two are already gone. No issues with the bus so it was a 15 minute inspection with BB's help. Bus is full of fuel and it has a fuel gauge so no reason to stop after the first hour like I often do with these buses. 2nd stop of the day was Lyndon Station at the rest area. I knew I wanted to stop for fuel before leaving WI but I hadn't looked at the prices. Stopping in De Forest today is better than my planned stop in Janesville. BB is doing the leg work on some things, even without being with. 3rd stop is the TA in De Forest. It only takes half as much fuel as I think it should have, but I have already hung up the fuel side before being able to see the cash side. Fuel gauge shows full so I think I'm good. As long as I am stopped I get at Poppey's for lunch. 4th stop is just a quick stop. I have forgotten on all prior stops and at pick up to put up my I-Pass. Instead of two hours across IL, today it was five hours. Not much stop and go but a lot of 5-10 mph. (And I didn't stop at the first rest area, so that was part of what made it 5 hours) As we go through Chicago, I scope out a hotel for my return trip. Looks nice, lots of room, only two miles from the IN/IL border. When I get to the IN toll booth, it will not read my I-Pass. I have to take a ticket. Which means getting out of the bus and walking around to get a ticket. The buses do not have windows that are made for reaching out. But when I got to the IN exit toll booth, it read my I-pass. 5th stop is the oasis near Elkhart. I want to make it to Holiday City yet tonight. Long day but otherwise it will be a push to make it near the drop by tomorrow night. Originally I had planned on staying back an hour plus from the drop but now I know that the others have planes to catch yet in the AM so they will want to drop as soon as the drop will let them. 6th and final stop is the Quality Inn in Holiday City. Huge lot, huge hotel. The restaurant across the street closed just a few minutes before I got there but I had forgotten this hotel has it's own restaurant. At it is in full swing for a Friday night. Too loud for me. I order a bowl of French Onion and a cup of potato soup. Too much, I only ate half the onion soup. Load board US - 183 IA - 2/0 MN- 0 WI - 1 2024 09 28 MN-NJ 1 bus to Blackwood NJ 1 bus to Chicago IL (Monday) spending the night at West Deptford NJ ... written up a few days later. I haven't asked where cheap fuel is, but I know there is lots of truck stops at Perrrysburg so I plan on stopping there. It is only an hour down the road so not good for my break times but it is a known. When I go to get off the toll road at Perrysburg, it will not read my I-Pass again. This person just asks for my pass and hand types it in. I'm good to go. 1st stop is at the Flying J in Perrysburg. Quite for a Saturday AM so I can pull in backwards and get both fuel and DEF. At some point my thoughts had been on how accurate are these bus gauges. If I'm only getting 6 mpg on a 100 gallon tank I will be very near empty when I got here. And this AM the gauge had re-set itself to about 20%, last night it was still showing 93% shortly before shutdown. Between here and the first stop I put in 63 gallons. So I am getting closer to 9 mpg. 2nd stop was New Springfield at an Oasis. Don't remember what I got but it took 45 minutes. 3rd stop was for fueling and wash in Carlisle. First I fueled at a TA/Petro. I thought the wash was supposed to be in their lot but I couldn't see it so I had to look online. It is about a half mile from the truck stop. One truck in each bay at the wash, so no real wait. They tell me one bus was just there about a half hour ago. By the time I pay, there is another bus behind me in the wash. When I pull out, I am talking to BB before I leave and the other driver comes up and we talk briefly. We will talk again at the scale. Here I had started writing down road numbers. I got all the numbers down, but was just starting on the exits when I got interrupted. I never got back to the exit numbers. First issue was my freeway exited but the road kept going straight. I went straight. This was not a big issue as there were soon signs for the next freeway I needed. I was just adding a couple of miles. But once I was back on the freeway I wanted to be on, my highway numbers didn't match. So I took the first exit ... into a neighborhood. Now I am on city streets with cars parked on both sides, it's dark and there is two way traffic. And no way to get back on the freeway. Finally my street because a one-way, from the other way and I have to turn. I cross the freeway but the street merges with the street running parallel to the freeway on the other side going back where I came from. No sign saying no left turn/u-turn so I did one with a 40 foot bus ... and then I could get back on the freeway. Next exit was the correct one. I knew I had to cross a bridge and this was a bridge, there are not a lot of them when they have to build them this high. Found the next turn but didn't know where the truck stop was. Got off the freeway twice and ended up in residential area's. Trees here are right up to the road so can't tell what, if anything, is beyond the trees. Finally when I got near the truck stop there were actual signs and it was open so I could see what was along the highway. 4th stop was the TA for fuel and scale. We need to fill with DEF before delivery so I had to come through backwards again. Only one truck at the fuel pumps so that is not an issue. By the time I am at my pump the bus driver I have seen earlier is there to fuel. We talk briefly, he already has a hotel so not splitting a room with him tonight. When I'm done, I try to find my way out of the their lot and end up back at the fuel pumps. So I decide I should get food. A cold ham sandwich and a piece of pie. From here I am two miles to the hotel. 5th and final stop. Best Western in Paulsboro or near. Lots of room to park. Once in my room I realize this is a dry sandwich. So I talk to the front desk and they look through the breakfast supplies and find me some mayo. As I was parking the bus, the other drivers have called me to tell me about the hotel they found. Half the price and two of them are splitting the room, the other got a solo room. $80 there and I am paying twice that. Interesting conversation. I didn't realize I had met these drivers before but they knew who I was. I thought I was talking to someone from the office for a few minutes. They have our drop set up for 8:30 AM and it is less than 10 minutes away. Load board US - 185 IA - 2/0 MN - 1 WI - 1 2024 09 29 NY-IL 1 bus to Blackwood NJ (delivered) 1 bus to Chicago IL (Monday) spending the night at Plattsburg NY Slept all night, but it was likely a light sleep. Finally got up to go to the bathroom at a few minutes before 6 AM and went back to bed ... thinking the alarm was for 7 AM. A couple of minutes later the alarm was going off and I was back up. Running solo I likely could still be out of the room within a half hour or less of when I wake up. Today I have given myself an hour. I get ready and go down for breakfast. There are signs ... all breakfast must be eaten ... HERE! So I shovel my real eggs and some potatoes in and sneak the yogurt out in my pocket. I've looked at Google maps and the maps dispatch has sent with and there are only three turns this AM to get to the drop ... I get to the drop address and the gate is still locked so I go around the other side of the building with the bus. That side is locked also so I have to back down the street to get turned around. Still no one else here. Then I can see that a car has pulled in from the other side so I am guessing they will open the gate shortly, but they don't. ... then I get a phone call ... 'Am I almost there?' ??? I am HERE, but here is not were I am supposed to be. If I had looked up the drops name, I would have seen the address was 14 instead of 15 and Google and PC Miler both peg the two addresses a half mile away from each other. I'm guessing the lead driver of the other three pegged in the name, not the address and that is how they got there. They were all inside signing off when I got there. Someone had come back out to their bus so they told me what paperwork I needed, didn't need. I was just brining it all in instead of leaving most of it in the bus. It was the manager that we were dealing with today. This was not a vacant lot being rented for storage, this was a M-F 8 bay bus shop. We got signed off and out of there in 10 minutes. Someone took it on themselves to call an Uber and we all rode together to the airport. $20 each. One of the drivers was telling us how they had been in MI and called for a LIFT driver for $95. Then looked at UBER and saw they only charged $35. So they canceled the Lift. But after a long wait, no Uber driver replied so they re-ordered the Lift which was there in minutes. Turns out there is only one Uber driver in town and they are also the only Lift driver. So they just wait for people to give up on Uber and order the Lift :) The driver dropped us all off at the same place, I paid up and we said our good-byes. I had no idea where I was going so I just followed my nose and kept walking. I had to get upstairs before I saw a sign that said 'incoming flights/baggage.' Then there was not a sign for rental cars expect over the exit doors. One of the shuttle vans showed up within minutes and as I tried to enter the driver says ... 'sorry, no backpacks ...' ??? :) Guess he's bored with his job. I was expecting to be on the preferred list but was not. Sounds like rental car accounts are per person, not family. So because I am not the one renting cars every week, I am not in their system. So they had to enter it all manually and they were having issues with that. They even called for back-up to come from somewhere. Luckily I was the only one waiting. The car they gave me was the closest to the office ... Now I'm back in my comfort zone ... I've looked at a map and know which freeways to take to get to my hotel. Step one ... get on and off I-95 alive ... I had not written down how many miles I would be on each freeway and in places here the exit numbers are sequential, not based on mile markers. But I do know that my first turn is on I-80 and that is up by NYC so as long as I am in NJ, I'm not there yet. Lots of bridges, can't always tell if they are over water or just over something else. Six lanes going each direction in NJ for quite a ways, for some reason they have them split into three's. And instead of merging between the three's, there is a ramp off of each section. I finally stopped at an Oasis near Sloatsburg. I hadn't wanted to stop until I was away from NYC ... And this one has a Shake Shack. I've seen them around and wanted to stop. BUT. I was disappointed. I was hoping with a name like that they would have 25 flavors of shakes. They have five. As long as I was here I ordered one. And I only ordered a shake thinking I could get that right away. Nope, they do the orders in order. I had to wait for the people who had ordered burgers and fries. Their shakes are really good, but I was slurping up the last of it when I realized that I didn't know if they had given me a vanilla one or the strawberry I had ordered. It was not red and there were no seeds. Another few hours and I was an hour from my hotel. I stopped and read messages and called BB. When I got into Plattsburg, I first went to the shipper so I could start to remember where things were. Lots of buses, but I could not see mine. Lots of buses heading to FL, not sure when they will be going now. Both because of the hurricane and because of a possible port strike, those buses are going to PR. I need to eat. So I look up deli but they are all closed. Then I see 5 Guys across from my hotel so I turn there. Then I see a CGO bus at the Days Inn. I drive passed it, but no driver. Then I decide that the soup from Panera was pretty good so I end up there instead. It took me a while to order on their self kiosk. It kept defaulting things I did not want the back button didn't take be back to where I had been. But I still was able to do it faster than the person at the register. They were still working on their original customer when I was done. Across the street and I am at the hotel. It does have a Perkins attached but not for me tonight. Rental car does not open until 9 AM tomorrow so I will not be getting an early start. Then I need to taxi to the shipper so it will be closer to noon by the time I get rolling. If I can make it to Erie tomorrow, then it is only about 400 miles Tuesday to get near Chicago and get the wash done before the hotel. I do have a likely hotel picked out near Chicago. ... the trip continues HERE |
