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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 10 15 IA-IA 1 RV to Altoona IA (Wednesday) spending the night at home We sat at home hitting re-fresh on the load board. RV dispatch was putting trips out today, mostly going to the south east and almost all with old order dates on them. Not sure the why of that. Finally mid-afternoon I see there is a RV to IA on the load board. I yell to BB who is in a different room. I thought we were going to grab as fast as we could but she has to see it for herself before she will call. She does call and does get it. We are going to Altoona tomorrow. 120 paid miles. But then she will have her trip in for the next 30 days. Load board US - 154 IA - 7/6 MN - 7 WI - 3 2024 10 16 IA-IA 1 RV to Altoona IA (delivered) spending the night at Story City No alarm needed. We hoped to be rolling by 7:30 and were backing out of the driveway by 7:32 ... and didn't have to come back. One stop for fuel and restroom on the way to the shipper. Loves in Albert Lea. My credit card worked but my rewards card did not. Twice. So I backed up to a different pump and tried again, I even tried hand keying the rewards number. Still didn't work so I finally clicked 'skip' and didn't get the discount. Then when BB came back to the car and I told her ... she said maybe the Loves card would have worked, but the Pilot one I was using would not ... :( Opps. We get to the shipper and they now have signs they are checking log books again. For some people, they did not want to look at BB's. No issues with her RV, it takes about 45 minutes for both of us to check it over. This one is not dirty, looks almost new. There is one RV sitting there that was wrapped for the winter, not sure if they are wrapping them already or this one is still from last year. There are a few RV's in the lot, most of them look like they are going to be hauled out. And there are lots of them being hauled in. We saw quite a few semi's with shells on them heading in the direction of the shipper. It looks like BB will have enough fuel to get to the drop but she still wants to make one stop. It's only 120 miles/two hours but we are not in a rush today (yet) We stop at the rest area in Dows. As we always do, we both walked around the RV and I took a picture because I forgot at the shipper. ... then BB calls and says her tire light is on. Again. Says one tire is at zero. So I get out to look at it and as we walk and look closely, we can see it is low. Then I kick it, it is really low. She calls dispatch and they suggest going across the street to the station and filling it. Before we do that, I had BB drive slowly forward while I had my head near the ground behind the tire. Just as she stops, I hear a click. So I have her move a little more ... a screw in the tire. Not something that re-filling the tire is going to help. At first we thought that we could drive the three miles to the closest shop. But we called the shop and no answer and I looked online and no shop. So we call Loves but they don't work on anything but large trucks. So we called another place ... They knew me by my phone number so I'm guessing I have used them before. The road service guy is gone to lunch so it will be most of an hour before he can get there. Plenty of time to go across the street to Arby's and get lunch. It used to be a BP with a Godfathers and a Arby's. Now it is a Casey's and the Godfathers is gone. So Arby's it was. Gyro. When the repair guy gets there he says almost nothing. It is obvious which tire it is and he gets to work. Glad I hadn't tried to just change the tire. Dispatch didn't ask us to and we didn't offer. There is a spare. This guy knew what to do and he had all the tools. Not all the tools in their shop, but air tools and an air jack. But when he tried to get the tire off the rim it wouldn't come so he used a big full sized hammer and damaged the rim :( Visible damage not structural. Almost $300, glad it wasn't the car tire, that would have been on us. Once he was done and gone, BB called the drop. Paperwork said they closed at 4 PM and that is when we were going to get there. Now they close at 5 PM so we have an hour to spare. The guy did put plenty of air in the tire. Only one other tire had close to that much air, but the tire message was gone so we were ready to go. While waiting at the rest area, we did see one driver from my local company with a dump truck. Just saw him as he was leaving so didn't talk to him. We were bucking a slight wind so BB was loosing range not gaining it. Low fuel light came on about 20 miles from the drop so it was close enough. She stopped at Kwik Star for the dealer fuel before dropping it. When inspecting, they did not say anything about the rim damage, it was something that they could easily shine off with the right tools. We are done, it is 4:40. We have no work but it would be closer to 10 PM by the time we got home. Monday there had been lots of work in the three state area, today almost nothing that works. By the time we get to Story City, BB is ready to stop. But she wants frozen veggies and this town does not have a grocery store. Strange town. They have hotels and fast food, but no grocery store and the two cafe's they had both closed recently. We tried Kwik Star, no frozen veggies and no shelf food that I wanted today. After I drop BB off at the Comfort Inn, I drive to a Mexican place in town to get food. We've eaten there before so we know the food is good. Today they get my order wrong, and then I have throat issues for the first time in years. And the food is too spicy this time. Next time it will be DQ. ... and to add to that, a second part of a tooth fell out tonight, another part had fallen out last night. We did take time to go out and look for the comet but couldn't see it where it should be. Load board US - 115 IA - 1 MN - 3 WI - 3 There are two trash trucks on the load board that could work but not my first choice. We'll see how things are in the AM. 2024 10 17 MN-MN 1 trash truck to Northfield MN (delivered) spending the night at home Nothing we really wanted on the load board so we had not set the alarm. But before 8 AM I am texting my MN dispatcher about a trip on the load board. It is gone. Now we have no reason to get going. There was a 2nd, longer run going to IL but it was gone shortly after 8 AM. To me it seems the trips going down I-90 in WI are a very rough ride. The one I had texted about was going to Des Moines. First it took the dispatcher an hour to get the IA trip off the load board, then within the next hour it was back on the load board and stayed there there rest of the AM. My guess is that the driver was having an issue with the carriers computer system. Good breakfast. Three kinds of meat, plus potatoes and scrambled eggs. Not sure if the eggs were real or just had enough cheese in them that they were good. Also they had cups of two kinds of fruit plus fresh fruit. 10 AM we finally get rolling. By 11:30 we were in Albert Lea stopping for fuel. And I wanted to call my local dispatch as soon as we were past Forest City. I call asking for work for Friday, they have one that needs to go to Northfield. Why not today? They agree I still have time so they send the paperwork to the shipper, usually we have to pick it up at the office. In less than an hour we are at the shipper. Paperwork is there, and only two other sets of keys. I was very tempted to see how many keys were in my long haul box but there was someone sitting in their office that could have been watching. Still should have done it, the lot is full. Easy to find my truck today. I know the colors and I only see four trucks that color and the first two are Battle trucks and mine is a Mack. My last check had a letter in it saying we are now supposed to take pictures of the dip sticks besides the outside, the doors and the seats. Dispatch had told me this truck had been going to Minot ND but they changed it. As I was looking at my paperwork I realized that one of the sheets still said Minot so I had to have them send a corrected copy. I'm going less that 50 miles but they still want me to scale it, but not fuel it first. It adds another 15 miles and over a half hour. It seemed like it took a long time today but it looks like it was only my usual half hour here. I scale the truck at Kasson and get the receipt, we are ready to go after I write down the back roads I'll be taking. Nooooo.... When I restart my truck, I have both a check engine light and a lightning bolt showing. Before I think about taking a picture. I shut the truck off and let BB know we have an issue. Her first thought is food, it is after noon so she gets out her salad while we wait. I do a re-start on the truck and get ready to call dispatch ... the lights go off ?? We are good to go, now. Only three turns, not roads I am used to even though it is less than two hours from my house. BB splits off at some point because her GPS says to. At the drop, I park on the street to take my pictures and get my things out of the windows. Forgot one the first time, saw it as I was taking pictures. The guys at the drop are glad to see a new truck. Three of them are looking at it, one does the inspection. No issues, we are signed and done for the day. No idea what this trip is going to pay, I rarely ask. BB ended up eating her salad as she drove, most of it today was finger food. I was going to stop at some place that was on the right hand side of the road. But not McD's. So we passed Culvers and Taco Bell. Then I saw a Jersey Mike's. But I did not see the sign that said opening in 6 days ... There was only one more food place heading out of town. DQ. And it is an old one on the wrong side of the highway. I was going to get my usual Oreo Blizzard but then I saw their seasonal special on the sign so I got that instead. Then only food here is hot dogs, so I got one of those. As we are walking out of the store, I'm eating my blizzard and it doesn't taste right. I don't really explain it to BB, I just walk back inside and ask what kind of blizzard they gave me ... the French Silk ... ... oh yeah ... that is what I ordered. Scary. Back roads from here home. Farmers are still working. Looks like overall they are about half done. I had called after I dropped my truck and there is still no work for tomorrow. There are two on the load board from WI to SD, not sure that BB wants to drive a truck though. Not even a small one. Load board US - 158 IA - 0 MN - 3 WI - 14 We have plans for Saturday night so we could head out Sunday if we find work tomorrow but it has to be a place we can pick up over the weekend.
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