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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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.. the trip continues from HERE 2024 12 13 IA-AZ 2 RV's to Phoenix AZ spending the night at Winslow AZ Not sure what was/wasn't on my mind this AM. At one point before we left the hotel this AM BB said there was a Phoenix to TX on the load board. A little later she mentioned that it was a tanker. I heard her, but no more was said about the trip ... until noon, that is when it finally clicked that today is Friday and I could have committed to the trip to move it on Monday after we drop. Another 1,000 mile trip with just a local rental car. Kind of kicking myself now. This is a marginal trip and that would have made it a good one ... and being a tanker would have paid even more. Breakfast was eggs and yogurt, diet yogurt. No juice, machine broken, no other choices. Out of the hotel by 7 AM, just getting light. There is a big fire truck semi in the lot. Didn't see who made it, just who was moving it. 1st stop today was the TA in Moriarty. They have new concrete a couple of different places with lots of wires coming up. Might be new charging stations ? Or something else. At the Pilot in Jamestown where we often stop they are working on their charging station, it looks like these stations are going to take up about half their prior parking area. In most places we like to park with the cars, that is going to be harder to do now. 2nd stop of the day was Grants. Loves for fuel and then Godfathers for lunch. The fuel pumps were full and a tanker was there filling them so even less area to move around. The couple of units next to us looked like the people had fueled and then gone in to do whatever. But there is really not a good area to park here. We ended up pulling around back and parking with the big rigs. They had Hawaiian pizza today so that made it easy for me. Took the whole hour. 3rd stop was the rest area in Lupton AZ. No cell service so we could not make a reservation. Scale closed, that is rare for this one. We did see three city buses near the end of our day. Saw the first one as I was looking at a truckstop instead of the road so I only know it was blue. Got a better look at the next two, one was partially orange with only one word on it. The third one was a GoCentroBus which I looked up and it is going to Syracuse NY. News article says they are getting 83 of them. 4th and final stop is the Clarion in Winslow. After checking in, first we go for a walk, then go to the store. Once it is closer to meal time, I walk next door to the Asian restaurant and get food. I wanted sweet and sour chicken, but the least they serve is two kinds of meat. I suppose I could have gotten two sweet and sour but my second one was sesame chicken. Got back to the hotel and found they hadn't put in the sweet and sour sauce so I had to walk back to the place. Now there was a line. But good food, better than anything else the last few days. Yesterday ... we had followed an over sized load for a ways in KS. It was a single garage on a flat bed. When we to to road construction I was right behind him. Oncoming traffic was light so he was swinging in and out of the barrels. On that stretch they had them on both sides of our lane but luckily staggered. When we came out of the construction we passed him and forgot about him. Coming into Guymon, we meet him ??? Not sure where he turned around but there was road construction through town, one lane in one area. Another area the lanes were so narrow that BB and I were tight to the curb and it looked like our mirrors were missing the on coming traffic by about a foot. Load board US - 117 IA - 0 MN - 12 WI - 0 Tomorrow plan is to get to Phoenix before 2 PM, we have 200 miles to go. The only places to stop after Flagstaff are rest areas. Not much for towns or gas. ... we were down to 9+ mpg today with the headwind. Not going to make much on the fuel. 2024 12 14 IA-AZ 2 RV's to Phoenix AZ spending the night at Phoenix AZ No rush to get going. This place does not have a lot for breakfast but enough. We pull out at 9 AM local. Before we get to Flagstaff, there are two (?) semi's in the on coming ditch still smoking. No fire trucks but traffic for miles so I'm guessing the fire is mostly out. And I really can't tell how many trucks it is so the fire is not just starting. I had told BB that our mileage should double going down the hill from Flagstaff to Phoenix. It didn't on these. Mileage actually got up to 15 mpg going up the hill to Flagstaff. At some point it did get to 20 mpg going down but not for long. 1st and only stop was the Loves in Mayer for fuel and food. We each put in a few gallons so we could safely get to Phoenix. Ended up with ranges over 100 miles instead of around 50 miles, so the mileage got better after that. I had plenty of food left over from last night so for breakfast I ate leftovers and brought my yogurt and hard boiled egg with for lunch. Then decided to get a couple of sliders from Arby's besides. One would have been enough. Not sure what they are doing before Phoenix on 17, it looks like they are putting a concrete median down the center of the road. And it looks like they are also working on the on coming lanes so it doesn't look like they will be combining the two directions. Traffic was heavy enough that I lost BB a few times but she had caught up again for the last couple of miles. 2nd and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Phoenix. It is a little after 1 PM and they do not have any rooms ready yet. So we park and walk next door to the Travers Inn where the rental car agent is. Car is ready and our hotel calls while we are there, now they have a room ready. We did go for a walk, twice around the hotel parking lot and a ways down the street. Lots of homeless milling around. They look like the most they would do to anyone is ask for money, which none of them have done so far. Lot's of food around but the same stuff we can get anywhere. Finally found a sandwich shop 10 miles away that looked unique. 10 miles but 20 minutes. I nuked my food after I got back to the hotel. BB has decided she does not like PHX traffic. 'Stay in the center 4 lanes.' :) Besides the sandwich I also got two sides because the looked small. Too much food. Off day tomorrow. Load board US - 114 IA - 3 MN - 11 WI - 0 2024 12 15 IA-AZ 2 RV's to Phoenix AZ spending the night at Phoenix AZ Slept in, for us. Down for breakfast at 6:30, BB has already been up for three hours. I forgot to get yogurt, but that's OK, it was diet yogurt. By 10 AM local, we headed to the Apache Wash Trail Head in north Phoenix to hike. We hiked about two miles on a flat paved path. There are many other paths but we stuck to the easy one. I'm guessing there were 50-100 cars in the parking area but we only saw a few people. Our next stop was the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona a few miles away. Here I took pictures of the graves of about a dozen people who are in my family tree. All grave markers at this location are flat and no grass. There are also columbarium's here. After a few walks, BB decided to sit it out and eat her lunch. From here the plan was to visit one more cemetery in Mesa and then go to the look out at South Mountain Park and Preserve. On the way we stopped at Capriotti's. We've eaten at a few before. I have a receipt that shows I ordered the smallest but it looks like they gave me a large. Good sandwich, good bread. After eating we made it to the Mesa City Cemetery. I did not have the grave location of my one family member there and their office was closed. But we were able to find the grave of Waylon Jennings. Looking around there was more 'stuff' on some of the other graves than on his. I most use Find-a-Grave for my research and they did not have a location listed for my family member ... so we left. When we first looked at the cemetery website it said there was no marker. Not going to look if there is no marker. Later I looked again on line and I was able to find the grave location and a map. Then I looked again at Find-a-Grave and they do have a marker showing, so there is one. Next time I guess. By now BB was done. So we headed back to the hotel but first stopped at Walmart. On a weekend. A week before Christmas. We were in and out as fast as we could. BB had mentioned maybe going down to the lookout after going to the hotel but once she was in, she was in. The lookout is supposed to have good views of both sunsets and sunrises. But another time. I did go later to get myself a sandwich, this one wasn't quite as far away as last night. Philly Steaks & Burgers Co, it was good. And something I can't get in every town. I had looked for frozen custard locations but it was either our local brand or back on the other side of town. I'll try somewhere on the way home. When I came back from getting my sandwich, I saw there were two other transporters in the parking lot. One of them also drivers for a MN company, they are moving a boom truck. IF .. the drop opens tomorrow at 8 AM, if are first with one of them and can get the 2nd one in by 9 AM, then we can be to the airport by 10 and have this rental car returned by 11 and leaving town. If we are out of town by noon, we should be able to be in Gallup Monday night, Liberal Tuesday night, Des Moines Wednesday night and home Thursday. ... or dispatch could put the tanker to TX back out there and we will be rushing to get home by Saturday AM. ... the trip continues HERE |
