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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 12 28 MN-ND 1 Pickup to Watford ND spending the night at Fergus Falls MN Plan was to get going around noon so no rush this AM. Did eat breakfast early so we would be hungry before noon. Got a few loose ends done this AM including this months safety video. We need to watch one each month to qualify for the bonus. BB is pretty sure she will not get a bonus again this half. Almost no miles this month, won't work at all next month so we'd have to be doing back to back CA trips later this spring to get enough miles in. We did pull out before noon. Today I remembered to take AND send my pictures in at pickup. Forgot the send them in part on Thursday. My 1st stop was the Holiday station in Sauk Center, that was the halfway point to the border. BB calls as soon as I am on the road and wants me to stop at the next rest area. 2nd stop in the Alex rest area. She is ready to shut down at Fergus. She want's to go to the Walmart and shop before we need to eat. 3rd and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Fergus. As soon as we are checked in we go to Walmart. I should have ordered ahead. After we are done at Walmart we stop and get a sandwich at Jersey Mikes for me. Takes a while. Changes in this town. Burger King as closed, that I knew. That was one where I had stopped there on my half hour break while driving. My food still wasn't ready at the end of my half hour so I handed my receipt to someone as I walked out the door. And I was still doing reviews at the time and did my review. They had it removed. So I did another one and they left it. But since the last time we were here, two hotels lost their chain status. On the flip side, the El Loro is now open. It is a mid-west chain. We have eaten at a few including on in Clear Lake IA a few times. Load board - weekend US - 167 IA - 0 MN - 0 WI - 2 We made it past Alex so we have less than 500 miles tomorrow. I just learned that Google maps is now displaying Waze info. Found out because it showed a 'Sheriff waiting' one of the places we turn tomorrow ... 2024 12 29 MN-ND 1 Pickup to Watford ND spending the night at Watford ND Breakfast was good. Eggs, meat. They also had various kinds of good yogurt, sauce, Pop Tarts plus the usual. We are ready to pull out at 7:30, just as it is getting light. The parking lot did fill up over night. There had been only a couple of cars here last night. When I went past Casselton I noticed that the Country Kitchen there was closed. It had been attached to the Days Inn and we had eaten there when we stayed there. I keep thinking I am going to start a chart of some of the former major chains to see how they compare from one year to the next. This one in ND and one in Stuart IA have closed this year. As I left, BB stopped at fueled at the Cenex. 1st stop is in Valley City at the Loves for fuel ... that took a half hour plus. Not sure what the issue was but it acted like it was full of fuel the whole time. I had to run it at just a drizzle and still ran some on the ground. Nozzle when in the whole way, not sure if the larger nozzle would have fit ... and I put in enough here that this is my only fuel stop. I did see crossing ND that the Butler CAT locations are still selling Claas. So maybe it was just the MN/WI ones that cut ties with Claas ... just looked, even all the MN dealers did not cut ties with them. 2nd stop was for food at the StaMart in Bismark. It is now also a One9 but not much has changed. Not much for food on a Sunday. I got a breakfast sandwich. My other choices were chicken sticks or a slice of pizza. Not a whole lot for shelf food. No rollers for roller dogs. But the attached Marlins was packed. For some reason PilotFlying J does not list food at their non corp locations. We ended up sitting in the car as they have no inside seating. BB stopped at a truckstop in Dickenson, I stopped for a second at the now closed Sinclair gas station to text BB my location. 4th stop, I stopped somewhere in the Roosevelt National Park at an over look for a picture. I stopped at the south one, I should have stopped at the north one, it would have been a much better picture. 5th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Watford. We have stayed here before so I didn't look at a map this trip. I felt I should have gotten off at the 2nd exit but didn't want to drive past town if there was not a 2nd exit. So I got off on the first exit. As soon as I was on the side road, I could see the hotel a mile away, then I saw the feed mill next door so I knew it was the correct building. I just had to get there. No problem. By the time I had parked, BB pulled in. She had used her GPS and had no idea where it had taken her. After checking in, we went for a mile walk down and back on the sidewalk. Then I called the Outsiders to order food. Philly with onion rings. Good, but I think it was too greasy. I couldn't eat everything. And I am really thirsty, have been all day and this did not help. We are three miles from the drop. We have no other work yet so we may stop and see family in Bismarck before heading back. We really didn't want to try to make the 600+ miles back after dropping in the AM so it will be a two day trip. We'll see if we get anything else before BB needs to be off on Friday. 2024 12 30 MN-ND 1 Pickup to Watford ND (delivered) spending the night at Fargo ND BB had been in great pain last night by the time she was ready for bed, we think it is from reaching for some clothing on the top shelf of the closet. But not sure why it has been getting worse, not better. It's been almost a week. Last night she waited until going to bed to take some pain meds so they would last all night, but they took a while to kick in. Tonight she hasn't been in as much pain but will take them a while before she goes to bed so she can get to sleep sooner. So no alarm this AM. There was nothing in the fridge in the breakfast area this AM so I had to knock loudly on the kitchen door to get the helps attention. They were sitting in the room watching something on their phone with the sound on full blast. No, there are no fridge items today, I didn't ask why. Yogurt was going to be my food of choice because I ate too much of something last night and didn't sleep real well. But instead I had a couple of bites of a very hard omelette and some bacon. Bacon was something I did not need after last night. I should have grabbed some of the good stuff from the day before. It did snow last night. About 10 cars in the lot last night. Now there is a thin coating of snow over the ice. Walk carefully. I had memorized the turns to the drop. BB's map had her going completely a different way. My Google maps had me taking a left where I knew there as a no left turn. So I went my way ... no trucks. But I'm under 26,000# so today I'm a pickup. 3 miles and I am at the drop. My map had me going to their shop area but that area is secured and card access only, no way to contact anyone. So I went back to the main office building. That was where my contact ended up being anyways. He did a quick walk around and we were done. 19 degrees with wind this AM. Not bad unless you aren't dressed for it. Before we left the lot we found out where we are going to meet family so we changed our route, half hour faster to go back the same route as we came rather than take the 'shorter route.' Half hour faster if the roads were good. Just enough snow to slushy and slick. We didn't get up to the speed limit for the first two hours of our trip back. Then we drove out of the snow and were finally able to go 75 mph. 1st stop was at the Cenex in Belfast for the rest room. 2nd stop was the Space Alien in Birsmarck to eat lunch. We'd never been to one before, I didn't know that it was also an arcade. Food was good, I guess. Too spicy for me, I had a Cuban. BB had a salad, first meal at a restaurant since we went to CA back in October. Our little grand daughter was being shy when we were ready to leave so her Dad took a picture of BB and I and then photo shopped in the grand daughter :) 3rd stop was at Eldridge/Jamestown rest area. 4th stop was at the Comfort Inn in Fargo. Another hotel was cheaper but we got a suite so we'd have a little more room. It was almost dark when we got here so we wouldn't have made it back to Fergus to the next hotel. Once we were checked in, I drove across the freeway to the Charlies inside the Petro. Good food but I'm not sure I got the extra cheese I pa $1.50 for. And if I had known, I might have gotten the meatloaf from the truckstop diner. We've been here a few times and didn't know they had a diner. They have the Charlies, a Popeyes, Papa Johns and CinniBuns. So lots of food, and lots of customers. And the Pilot / Flying J's are closing down their one fast food place ?? Load board US - 158 IA - 7/5 MN - 5 WI - 5 There is one RV trip that may work for us out of IA, not sure when it was put out but it is out there now. We've talked about heading strait to IA but that would be an extra hotel. More likely, IF we get it, we would go home tomorrow night. Leave out Weds AM and likely get to Dubuque. Then get to the drop early on Thursday to get home Thursday night. BB has an appointment 1st thing on Friday. We'll see. 2024 12 31 MN-ND 1 Pickup to Watford ND (delivered) spending the night at home By last night, the rental truck load board said they were done for the year so no work from them today. That was my best hope of getting work today. There had been an RV on the load board going to IL that we could have done. Either by heading straight to IA from here or by spending the night tonight at home. Either way we couldn't deliver until Thursday AM and then home. We talked about it right up to 8 AM when BB mentioned 'delays.' That is one of our guiding factors is to always leave one extra day between when we should be home and when we need to be home. If there were any delay's on this trip, we'd miss her Friday appointment and have to re-schedule all appointments for the whole month. ... not sure why we don't always think of those things sooner. So, no work, no rush. But we still got going close to usual. 8 AM instead of 7:30. Breakfast here was better. Western omelet's, pressed ham, potatoes, juice cups. 1st stop was the Pilot in Alex for fuel and break. The place is well kept but has a lot of open area. Plan had been for it to be a Flying J with a sit down restaurant but by the time it opened it was a Pilot with a Subway. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. It had been a ma-pa truckstop before but I don't remember what food was in it. 2nd stop was the grocery store before heading home. Once home I called local dispatch. No work right now so off the holiday and maybe through the weekend. Time to work on year end info and taxes. Load board - Tues/Weds US - 158 IA - 5/3 MN - 3 WI - 6 |
